Hello fellow educators, 

Welcome to podcast #15. It is convention week for those of us involved in the Home Education movement. We hope to have over 800 people gather at our facilities here in Kelowna and participate in the Christian Home Educators Convention. I hope to get some good interviews for our podcast. Thank you for your many comments about our last two podcasts and the issue of Consumerism. It generated a lot of good decision and we will need to get Professor Rauser back some time soon.  I want to remind you that we are still sending out free copies of my book, Disciplining this Generation for a Digital World, to anyone that sends us an email. I will have the details at the end of the podcast.

In today’s podcast I want to begin a series on what it means to teach with a Christian Worldview. I will be reading from sections of my paper entitled “All Truth is God’s Truth.” It can be found in the articles section at www.thechristianeducator.org.

In recent years the phrase “Christian worldview” has become very popular in our circles and this can make the phrase somewhat of a cliché thus robbing it of any substantial meaning. Nevertheless it conveys one of the most important concepts for us as Christian Educators. Whenever I start this discussion I experience a flashback to a performance over ten years ago by the then popular Christian rock group; Audio Adrenaline. They played and recorded a song called “Our World View.” The song, surprisingly, gives an essential definition for this phrase. Here is most of the song. Pay particular attention to the second verse as they give very specific doctrinal elements that are key to Christian world. Keep in mind that quality is a bit compromised for the sake of the podcast:

Audio Only

It is our task as Christian Educators to present God’s world and all of its principles, disciplines and applications to our students as succinctly and biblically as is possible in our limited understanding. This means that we are to figuratively “go into all the world…” (Matt. 28:19) and take our disciples with us as we try to understand it through the means God has given using the tools of “special revelation” and “general revelation.” Now Special Revelation is defined as the means of knowing and understanding truth that God has given to specific individuals and with specific conditions, i.e. the Scriptures are considered special revelation because they were first given to a chosen few under specific conditions (II Peter 1:20-21). The scriptures themselves are available to all but require an adherence to its beliefs and teachings to understand its principles and truths within the context of life together with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Another words, you don’t get the Bible unless you know the author and He is there to help you understand what He meant. General Revelation, on the other hand, is defined as God revealing eternal truths through that which is available to all men everywhere through the faculty of our senses combined with reason. It is what we see all around us which leads us to the ultimate conclusion that there is a Creator and His truth is demonstrated in Creation.

Therefore Christian worldview goes beyond just teaching the Bible. We can know truth outside of the Bible as the Psalmist of Scripture sang:  “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge.“ Psalms 19:1-2

J.P Moreland, noted Christian scholar and philosopher, explains the difficult nature of integration; “To be engaged in the task of integration is to embark on a journey that is at once exciting and difficult. Integration is no easy task and it is a life-long project that should occur within an individual believer’s life and among the various members of the Christian community working together. Part of the difficulty of this journey is due not only to the massive amount of information and vast array of studies that need to be consulted, but also the fact that there are many different aspects of and attitudes toward integration itself.”

Our journey must take us into any discipline that renders creation or the creature in a truthful light. This will take us through the great discoveries of science and mathematics, the language arts and humanities, the fine arts and craftsman’s skills; the theoretical and practical aspects of learning. And we are to do this always in the light of our Christian worldview coming out of the Scriptures as revealed to us through the Holy Spirit and sound orthodoxy.

At the risk of being overly theoretical I want to further define this as a process of synthesizing Truth to Life. I am leaning on the intellectual strength of my listeners as I try to make this point but I believe you are up to the task and I will do my best.

The process of Biblical Integration is really a synthesizing of our Christian Worldview into everything around us, although this may be a misnomer because in all aspects of reality there is no need for synthesis. Truth and reality are synonymous. There is no need to integrate a singular, unified reality. We must be careful not to slip into the subtle error of dualism even in the process of integration.

Dualism is defined here as the separation of the “secular” from the “sacred” or the “spiritual” from the “natural.” When we see our disciplines apart from the Biblical aspect of truth and then somehow trying to synchronize or harmonize the two separate truths is in fact a subtle form of dualistic thinking. In reality the Bible’s truth and the truth within any discipline is already one, for truth itself is unitary.

Noted Christian philosopher William Hasker is helpful here, “There is a single reality, all of which is created by God and under his dominion, and all of which we as his children and image-bearers must seek to understand…And yet there is ample justification for speaking of ‘integration.’ First of all, though there is a unity of truth there is nevertheless a diversity in our ways of knowing that makes the unity of truth a difficult and demanding achievement for us humans…So as a matter of fact we as human knowers are confronted by diverse and apparently unconnected bodies of knowledge achieved through different means; it is precisely and only by ‘integrating’ such diverse bodies of knowledge that the vision of a unity of truth is gained.”  This “diversity in our ways of knowing” is easily seen in how we know theology through Biblical studies and philosophy contrasted how we can know chemistry through experimentation and empirical investigation. 

Biblical Integration is further necessary for us to bring together the various disciplines. The Christian Worldview places all things within the proper context of life itself giving everything its reason for existence and thus becomes the integrating force of all truth. Without it we see a fragmented approach to life without any singular purpose to different realms of study. The physicist has little to do with the artist, the fitness teacher sees little use for the philosophy teacher; but when theology breathes purpose and meaning into all aspects of life relevance is seen in the most sublime disciplines of creation and human thought.

Therefore, Biblical Integration is a synthesis of thought and understanding not an integration of reality itself. Hasker continues: “Integration is concerned with integral relationships between faith and knowledge, the relationships which inherently exist between the content of the faith and the subject-matter of this or that discipline; such connections do not have to be invented or manufactured. But they do need to be ascertained and developed; unless this is done faith and knowledge may appear to be, and for practical purposes may be in fact, alien and unrelated to each other.”

Let me see if I can illustrate this idea of synthesizing Biblical truth into everyday reality. Let’s take a tree: If I look at a tree as a carpenter, I see it in the light of what I can build from this tree. I see the tree as material for something else. If I look at the tree as a biologist then I see it as a part of an ecosystem. I may want to quantify its size and relation to its environment. When we bring to our understanding the purpose and creation of the tree we inform and enhance the other discipline’s ideas of the tree. The carpenter still sees it as building material but now he sees the tree as God’s gift for his profession. It affects his behavior as well. He probably will think differently about the conservation of the forest. The biologist still sees the tree in its scientific classification but now he sees it part of the grand design of God’s ecosystem. When studying the specifics he is informed by the Creator and His design.

As we carefully define what Biblical Integration is it seems to be necessary to define what it is not. This phrase is often misunderstood as a www.google.com search will reveal. The internet search renders a number of spurious ideas as well as boiler-plate creedal statements made in various Christian educational institutions. Here are some of the common misconceptions made about integration and the Bible: 

• Integration is using the Bible metaphorically. The teacher will take a concept from the Bible to illustrate a particular topic such as: the triangle is like the Trinity or Noah had to bring the animals two by two into the arc so let’s practice our times-tables. This can happen in the reverse by using subject matter to explain the Bible such as two plus two is always four, and God is always the same, you can depend on Him. In these examples there is no integral relationship between the issues being taught.
• Integration is using the Bible to show a relevant correlation between life and the Scriptures. The teacher is trying to make both their topic and the Bible relevant by using one to inspire the other. Example: teaching the Bible as literature because the Bible uses language in many different ways, poetry, narrative, instructive, prose, etc. and thus it teaches us that we must use language the same way. Again this is done in reverse. When using modern day examples of war to teach the art of warfare as it is found in Biblical times. Often we try to correlate history to Bible events and timelines. In these examples there is obvious correlation but there is no integral or foundational meaning being applied from the scriptures to the particular subjects.
• Integration is creating a Christian Environment for learning. This is where a school will emphasize that it integrates a Christian lifestyle both in its staff and clientele. An example of this is we only hire Christian teachers or we only accept students that go to a particular type of church and profess their Christian faith. In this example we see an external emphasis on the nature of teaching that may lack the internal necessities for true Biblical Integration. Often application is emphasized in this environment such as service projects or missions trips. But the deeper Christian issues embedded in subjects themselves, the curriculum, the learning outcomes and teaching methods might not ever be addressed.
• Integration is including Bible as a core subject in our school. This is the school whose overall scope teaches what is considered neutral disciplines like math and reading using standardized learning outcomes but adds Bible classes to the curriculum. It may go as far as to exclude anti–Christian ideologies such as evolution or same sex marriage. The problem here is that there is no such thing as “neutral disciplines.” This approach lends itself to a dualistic approach towards life. It still leaves the disciplines and subjects taught in the school without an integrated foundational perspective. 

The above four misconception are all valid aspects of the Christian School. There is nothing wrong with drawing illustrations and metaphors from scripture and life or developing relevant correlation between the Bible and life. In fact, these are often good teaching tools to be used to help promote both Biblical literacy and relevance with our students. Certainly who we hire and the environment we cultivate must be Christian through and through. Nevertheless this does not mean that concentrated efforts are being made towards good Biblical Integration. I am a big proponent of teaching the Bible as its own subject because of its central importance to all of life. But this must not be a substitute for the scholarship that has to be done in every discipline and subject in our schools. These ideas are all part of what makes a Christian School Christian but they should not be confused with true Biblical Integration.

Next week we will talk about worldview in a more general sense and how it directly relates to the Scriptures.

We would love to hear from you and I deeply value your comments. If you are an Itunes user please take the time to go onto the podcaster page and write a review. If you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address.