Education: Foundations – The Law of God and Public Policy

Education: Foundations
The Law of God and Public Policy

God’s Word is the foundation for all education.

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, that your days may be long.” Deuteronomy 6:1, 2

The full flourishing of Israel as a nation, and of each member of the people of God, depended on their hearing, learning, and doing all the commandments of the Lord. By learning and keeping the Law of God, the people of Israel would astonish, attract, and bless the nations and the world (cf. Deut. 4:6-8; Mic. 4:1-8), and we must believe that this holy and righteous and good Law still has power to bless the world today (Rom. 7:12).

The Law of God was to provide the foundation for all learning and all of life in ancient Israel. It would serve as the acorn to the oak of all subsequent revelation from God. As God taught the Law to Moses and Moses taught it to the people of his generation, so the fathers of Israel were to teach their sons, and their sons their own sons, in perpetuity (cf. Ps. 78:1-8). In every household and every community of the land, therefore, instruction in God’s Law would provide the basis for a just society in which love for God and neighbor were the defining norms of social praxis.

We note here that education is more than instruction. Instruction is the transmittal of information from one who knows to one who does not, together with help in understanding the information as to its content and intent. But education goes beyond mere instruction to demonstrating true learning in life. The heads of Israel’s households were to teach God’s Law, not just so that all would “know” the Law, but so that they would “do” it. Obedience to the Word of God is the path to the blessings of God’s Covenant. The children of Israel would show that they had learned the commandments of God as they lived them in lives of justice, evidenced by increasing love for God and their neighbors.

This commitment to the Law and Word of God as foundational to the education of the young was everywhere practiced throughout the pre-revolutionary period in colonial America. It was unthinkable in the colonies that young people should be submitted to any instruction for any period of time without being taught the commandments and statutes of God, including the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Parents insisted on it, and colonial and local statutes required it.

Since the middle of the previous century, assailed by specious invocations of “the separation of Church and State,” educational policy in America has increasingly denied a place to God, His commandments, and His Word in the public school curriculum. Generations of American children have grown up in a “disenchanted” world (Charles Taylor), a world in which God, spiritual things, and the Law of God are deemed to be irrelevant if not a nuisance. The present crisis of morality and economics is only the most visible consequence of that policy.

American education is in a shambles because American educational policy has moved away from the fixed foundations of God’s truth and become mired in the shifting sands and unreliable tides of relativism, pragmatism, consumerism, and utilitarianism. The quest for holiness, expressed as love for God and neighbors, has been replaced by indoctrination for personal autonomy, economic security, and material happiness. Only a return to educational policy more firmly rooted in the fixed standards of God’s Law will return stability, dignity, and fruitfulness to what has become an educational house of cards.

The way back to such a foundation will not be easy. We do not expect the advocates of the secular worldview to make ready room for the Law of God in this or any of the agenda of public policy decision-making. We must be prepared to fight for every inch of ground we would gain, speaking the truth in love and serving our neighbors in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

However, Christians who seek a just and good society, who pray for the shalom of their communities and nation and are committed to working for its welfare (Jer. 29:7; 1 Tim. 2:1-8), must also take up the cause of educational policy reform without apology, without fear, and without mincing words.

We must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, and we must work hard to show how public policies based in the Law of God—whether or not we demonstrate this grounding—chart the course of wisdom, common sense, human dignity, and societal and cultural flourishing.

So as we begin this brief discussion of the teaching of God’s Law concerning the education of our children, let us not shy away from the challenges, just because they seem so daunting. Let us, rather, persevere on task, making the most of every opportunity to fulfill our callings as salt, light, and leaven to our broken and hurting world.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and study the question for yourself.

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.