Hello Fellow Educators,

Welcome to podcast #18. We have been talking about the integration of our Christian and Biblical worldview into every subject we teach. Unfortunately I was unable to pull off the interview last week so we will have to wait a week or two for this. I also 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.

Last week we spoke about the essential aspects necessary for every worldview. We talked about how every worldview perspective is shaped by essential assumptions or presuppositions. These presuppositions are the basic articles of faith for a person’s beliefs. For example, an atheist must believe in certain ideas that cannot be proven, such as: there is no God and only what we can perceive in the natural realm is all that really exists. Neither of these ideas can be proven thus they are presumed to be true. A new age Buddhist makes the assumption that God is everything and that the physical realm doesn’t have any true reality. It is with these and a few other basic presumptions that both these worldviews inform the lifestyle and behavior of the atheist or Buddhist and it is what makes them so different.

The five philosophical categories I presented last week are:

• Ontology – defined as one’s beliefs in the nature of reality.

• Theology – one’s beliefs in a God, gods, no god, a pantheistic force or an unknowable god.

• Epistemology – one’s beliefs in what is truth, the authority of one’s knowledge.

• Anthropology – one’s beliefs regarding the nature of man.

• Cosmology – the big story or meta-narrative of the universe. How we got here and what is our purpose.

Keep in mind that with all five of these categories we must make basic assumptions that cannot be proven by any scientific means. It is these assumptions that give us the philosophical framework that we construct our ideas about our world with. If there is no God then we will believe in a universe that somehow creates itself. As an atheist thinks about how man came to be then he will interpret discoveries without the creative hand of God involved, thus coming up with theories like evolution. Worldview presumptions inform how we interpret any discovery. I look at the amazing complexity of the DNA molecule in every living cell and conclude that God has programmed everything to serve a specific purpose. The atheistic naturalist looks at the same molecule and concludes that there is no need to for God because life has evolved with DNA to construct the activity of the cell. Thus the true debate has to take place at the basic level of our assumptions and the argument should be decided by whose presuppositions are the most consistent with reality, the way the world works and who we really are.

In a conversation last week someone commented that this is important for high school and university levels of education but it doesn’t really apply to primary grades. In my response I tried to muster as much gentleness that I could find when I replied, “You are absolutely wrong here and you are not getting the point!” She thought I was suggesting that we teach these philosophical concepts to Grade ones. Obviously, epistemology is not a vocab word for the primary student, although I’ve met one or two who could spell it. That is not to say that we are not constantly teaching an epistemology to our Grade one children when we teach science. On the contrary, every time we teach these young minds that we know why and how a magnet works and the differences of friction, we are teaching an epistemology. When we teach them that the Bible gives us the answers to how the world came into existence we are teaching an epistemology. Every time we tell a kindergarten student they are special and God loves them we are teaching both theology and anthropology. I would go as far as to suggest that at the primary level far more worldview is advanced into the minds of our children than at any other level of education.

As we begin the process of integrating Christian worldview into our ideas and subjects we cannot forget that we the teacher and parent have been affected by the worldviews in which we have been taught both explicitly and implicitly from our earliest years. Here is an excerpt from my paper “All Truth is God’s Truth” that speaks directly to this issue (you can get a copy of this paper on the website www.thechristianeducator.org).

Worldview is always at the center of what we know and teach. It is the framework, the paradigms, in which we approach our understanding of reality. Every discipline, subject and skill we teach has been affected by the various worldviews around us. Because we find ourselves in a pluralistic culture we must always navigate our way through any topic with the Christian worldview at the helm. This requires us to first and foremost know how the Christian perspective integrates into the topic. This is found through the aforementioned process of embracing scripture led by the Holy Spirit. It will also require the broader shaping of Christian doctrine so that both the big picture and the specifics of the subject are accurately understood within the context of a Christian framework.

Obviously, much of what we teach has been inculcated with many of the pluralistic viewpoints of a fallen and misled culture (II Cor. 4:4, Eph. 2:1-3, I John 5:19). We must be on guard in our own thinking that we do not possess these perspectives about the subjects to which we teach. Our own minds have at one time experienced the alienation from God and we must redeem our minds from the fashionable, worldly way of thinking (“at war with God in your minds” Col. 1:21 BBE; “Do not conform to the fashion of this world;” Rom. 12:2, Twentieth Century Version). Our minds must undergo a “spiritual revolution;”  a literal overthrow of the ideologies that have governed our perspectives. Once our own thinking has been “sanctified”  we are able to present the things we teach from the Christian Worldview.

Biblical Integration involves the important task of unraveling those worldviews that have invaded the subjects to which we want to bring our students. Such erroneous perspectives as naturalism, dualism, secular humanism, relativism, existentialism and the many other “isms” that have invaded our culture’s collective belief systems have to be rooted out and exposed in the various disciplines we teach. It is not enough to teach the Christian worldview; we must prepare our students for the deluge of “anti-christ”  thinking that they will encounter the minute they step from the classroom, church and home.

The Christian worldview is more than a mental framework or philosophy it is also where we teach from. It affects what we teach, where we teach, who we teach and how we teach. John Van Dyk is helpful in his explanation of worldviews in the classroom, “Now remember, your worldview is not limited to sweeping generalities about God and humankind, or to a set of theological truths. As a teacher, your worldview controls what you believe not only about the big picture, but also about subject matter, about children, and about the purposes of your efforts in the class-room.”  Often our pedagogical training reflects ideologies that are contrary to our faith and employs methods of teaching and thinking that are based in faulty worldviews such as behaviorism, perennialism, progressivism and essentialism.  We cannot just possess a Christian perspective of a given subject; our pedagogy must also reflect our worldview in order to teach in a fully biblically integrated manner.

An excellent way to illustrate worldview thinking is in the four philosophies of education I just mentioned:

• Behaviorism, commonly associated with B.F. Skinner, is derived from the belief that free will is an illusion. According to a pure behaviorist, human beings are shaped entirely by their external environment. Alter a person's environment, and you will alter his or her thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Provide positive reinforcement whenever students perform a desired behavior, and soon they will learn to perform the behavior on their own.

• Perennialism, commonly associated with Mortimer Adler, is the theory that teaching should entirely occupy itself with passing on the past wisdom of the ages. Perennialism assumes if something has endured the test of time then it is worth teaching. Of course this would mean that Greek mythology is a reasonable foundation for understanding theology.

• Progressivism, commonly associated with John Dewey, is the belief that we will construct our best understanding of reality as we relate to and evolve within our world. Education is merely a means to facilitate progressive change. There are no hard and fast truths that our children need to learn.

• Essentialism, commonly associated with William Bagley, is grounded in a conservative philosophy that accepts the social, political, and economic structure of society. It contends that schools should not try to radically reshape society. Rather, essentialists argue, schools should transmit the traditional moral values and intellectual knowledge that students need to become citizens. This is at the core of most public school systems including ours here in British Columbia. The goal is to teach our children to become good citizens that will continue to contribute to the economy and our democratic system.

As you can see even our educational philosophy and training is shaped by worldview. Let’s go ahead now and define the essentials of a Christian worldview.

Charles Colson’s definition of all worldviews helps us understand the three aspects of the Christian viewpoint: “…every worldview can be analyzed by the way it answers three basic questions: Where did we come from, and who are we (creation)? What has gone wrong with the world (fall)? And can we fix it (redemption)? These three questions form a grid that we can use to break down the inner logic of every belief system of philosophy that we encounter, from the textbooks in our classrooms to the unspoken philosophy that shapes the message we hear on Oprah.”  These great themes are found in all worldview perspectives though they may be called by a different name.

These three superintending principles must govern every aspect of our understanding of the world as we know it and present it to our students:

God is the creator and origin of all things and thus he gives all things purpose and intention.

• God created the universe as we know it: Gen. 1-3, John 1:1-3

• God created all things good: Gen. 1:31

• God created man in His image thus distinguishing man from all other aspects of creation: Gen. 1:26-28

• God gave mankind the authority over all else in the created universe as a stewardship: Gen 1:26, 2:15

• God created all things to follow its order of kind: Gen. 1:11-12, 21-22

Mankind fell through sin and rebellion from relationship with God and caused spiritual death to enter into himself and thus into all of creation.

• The nature of man’s rebellion was one of choice, Gen 2:17

• Spiritual death first entered man thus causing physical death and corruption of all of man’s stewardship (creation). Gen. 2:17, 3:1-8, 5:3

• All of Adam’s offspring have been affected by his decision and have likewise entered into his rebellion. Rom. 3:23, 5:12

Christ came into the world in order to restore what mankind lost in the Gar-den of Eden.

• He came to deliver us from our sin and the spiritual forces of the devil to which we were held bondage; Rom. 5:6-8, I John 3:8

• He came to restore spiritual life and redeem us from the fall of Adam and the effects of our own sin; John 10:10, I John 2:1-2, 5:10-12

• He gives us a new regenerated spirit and brings us into union with Himself through which all of God’s inheritance is restored to us. II Cor. 5:17, I Cor. 6:17, Eph. 1:3

• He restores our relationship to God as our spiritual Father and brings us into His covenant family. II Cor. 5:19, Gal. 3:26-28, Eph. 2:19

• We will one day see this salvation extend itself into our bodies when Christ returns again to this world. Phil 3:20-21, I Cor. 15, I Thes. 4:14-18.

• He will either judge or destroy that which was affected by the fall or he will redeem and restore it. II Thes. 1:5-10, Rev. 20-22, II Peter 3:4-18

These themes must inculcate every “truth” we bring forth in the classroom. This does not mean every class need be a Bible study but rather an integration of these three superintending principles:

• Everything we teach about was first created by God with an original intention specified by God. In order for our students to understand the true nature of a subject they must see it in the light of God’s original intention.

• Everything we teach about has been affected directly or indirectly by the fall of man. In order for our students to understand the flaws, degradation, sinfulness and corruption in a particular subject they must see it in its past and present fallen state.

• Everything we teach has been or will be affected directly or indirectly by the redemption provided in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Students must see the redemptive aspects of the subject matter as it applies to their own experience as Christians and how it must undergo its own redemptive process.

There are many more aspects and principles involved in a Christian Worldview and one may argue that there are other ways of classifying the essentials of worldview.  Nevertheless these three concepts permeate all truth and all the various disciplines of study. As one fellow put it, “the reason I believe the Bible is because it is the most consistent with everything I can see and know.”

We would love to hear from you and I deeply value your comments. 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.

Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.