Welcome to podcast #19. We are talking about the central task to discipleship-based Christian education; the integration of our faith into everything we teach. 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.

I am podcasting this week from my hotel in Moscow, Russia. We have come here to work with a school to develop an online Christian curriculum in the Russian language that will support both the establishment of Christian schools across this vast country and home school educators. We are looking for prayer and financial support to make this happen. I am at awe of how this nation has changed so quickly. The first day we were here a peaceful transfer of power took place between Vladimir Puton to Dmitri Medvedev. This is only the second time this country has made this type of democratic change. The first time I came to Russia was in 1990 just before the Soviet Union was dissolved. We came to a country with bread lines, 20% unemployment, full of suspicion and fear, struggling to unfetter the chains of communism. Today the streets are jam packed with every variety of shiny new cars, grocery stores that rival our Superstores, malls with pricey European goods. When we came 18 years ago we handed out thousands of Bibles to mobs of spiritually hungry people. Two days ago we spent an hour in a Russian bookstore that mimicked Coles in the mall where they could by all kinds of religious book including multiple translations of the Bible. The Church is experiencing amazing freedom as well. Both the Russian Orthodox and the Protestant Churches are experiencing revival. Putin and his wife attended Easter services and participated in prayer something that hasn’t happened with a Russian leader since the time of the Czars.

I report all this to say that I am more committed to the cause of Christian Education than ever before. When I meet with pastors and leaders they are desperate to provide a meaningful answer to the dilemma they face every day they send their children to public school. They can see how this is one of the biggest challenges they encounter in passing on their faith to their children and are addressing the same challenges we have in the west. Their school systems are maintaining their secularist approach switching humanism for communism. It continues to be a place where Christian worldview is misunderstood and misrepresented. I believe we can help with real answers in supporting both the home education and Christian school movements by using our unique tools of online education. I return home this week but we will keep working with our Russian counterparts to help facilitate their vision for discipleship based Christian Education.

Last week we defined the central aspects of Christian Worldview in three main catagories:

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

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

3. Christ came into the world as God’s sin substitute that through his death and resurrection God would restore what mankind lost in the Garden of Eden.

Of course whole schools are dedicated to these points of theology and must be understood carefully from the Bible. In order to even begin the task of Biblical integration we have to understand the Bible and how it applies to our Christian faith. The Christian teacher has to develop their worldview from the pages of scripture before they can ever begin the process of integration

I remember my early days as a believer and my hunger to understand what salvation truly meant. I devoured books on redemption and searched to know who I was in Christ. One of the most important books I read over and over was by the somewhat controversial author E.W. Keynon entitled, “The Father and His Family.” This book helped give me the big picture, seeing Christianity from the original place of Adam and Eve in creation and then contrasting this noble state to the depths of depravity in their sin and fall into spiritual death. From there I saw the entrance of the Saviour and his revelation of who God was and what we lost in the fall. Finally, I saw the relevance of the cross through his substitution for our sinfulness, his death and resurrection to life. I saw that his death was my death and his resurrection to new life was my resurrection to new life. This quest for truth inspired my first book written 22 years ago entitled “The Mystery of the 3 Days and Nights,” a study of the spiritual side of the redemptive work of Christ. I also attended Bible College at this time which helped to solidify the truths I was seeing in the scriptures but the real transformation within me came from my times of contemplating and reading about these astounding spiritual themes. I would spend hours meditating on such scriptures as 2 Cor. 5: 17 “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation…” or 1 Cor. 1:30 “But of God are you in Christ Jesus who is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” I would study out the details in order to find the pathways of truth. It was a very special time in my life when the Holy Spirit was embedding these truths in my view of everything.

Every Christian educator has to point to a place in their experience where something similar has happened to them. It may not have happened quite like my experience but there has to be a foundation of truth built into the heart and life. It becomes the well-spring from which all of our teaching comes forth. Here is the real difference between the Christian educator and the public school teacher. The Christian has a sure foundation from which he can bring forth truth from both his worldview and experience.

Let me quote Colson, Charles; in his Erasamus Lecture held at the Institute for Religion in Public Life: “We must understand that the great battle going on in the world today is not the culture war. Rather, it is a cosmic struggle over first principles… At root are competing answers to the question of how we understand reality itself.”

The Christian educator does not find himself in some isolated vacuum that exists apart from the viewpoints of the culture around him. More often than not the we are trained in our particular disciplines in Universities that have long since left their Christian roots. Often we select textbooks that do not originate from a Christian perspective. We are strongly influenced by our government-mandated learning outcomes that we must legally meet in order to have an equal certification with the public system. As one student who had transferred into our school from a public high school pointed out, “You guys teach more about evolution here at Heritage than at my old public school. You just teach it differently.”

Our task does not stop at just teaching everything from the Christian perspective we must also prepare students for the worldviews they will encounter outside the classroom, church and home. Particularly in high school, we must prepare our students for their inevitable encounter and confrontation with anti-Christ worldviews.

The teacher must continually evaluate prevailing worldviews within the subjects being taught, the curriculum and textbooks being used, the cultural bias and their student’s preconceptions. What form the integration between the scriptures and the subject takes will be determined by the perspectives and worldviews that are inherent within the subject. The following are the three main approaches to integrating two seemingly separate disciplines of learning. These three divisions were made by educator and philosopher, William Hasker in the his paper entitled, Faith-Learning Integration: An Overview. This essay brought a great deal of clarity to my thinking on the subject.

The first approach is what I call Presuppositional Integration. Hasker called this Compatibilist strategy: “the integrity of both faith and discipline are in large measure presupposed and the scholar’s task is one of showing how shared assumptions and concerns can be profitably linked.”

This form of integration occurs when the Biblical perspective and the subject matter being taught both have the same, compatible presuppositions or the Bible itself creates the presuppositions in the specific discipline. A good example of this is found in mathematics. God does not change and He has created the universe to be consistent within His patterns and designs that can be mathematically understood and explained. When studying mathematics the learner must employ logic that is consistent and unchanging. These presuppositions align themselves between the discipline and the Biblical, Christian worldview. Another more specific example within the subject of literature would be a study of William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies. The presuppositions in this literary classic are compatible with the Christian truth of the “falleness” of mankind.

Most of our teaching in the Christian School or home school environment will take on this presuppositional approach because, as Christian teachers, we will want to teach our disciplines from perspectives that reflect our worldview. Nevertheless we cannot ignore the need for good scholarly work in this task of showing the aspects of Biblical Integration. We can no longer assume that everybody sees things this way. In fact, the culture around us is becoming more antagonistic to clear Christian perspectives on life’s most basic suppositions. It is the duty of the educator to first firmly understand the Biblical perspective on what she teaches and then carefully outline those concepts to her students. Students need to have more than the presuppositions; they need to understand where these came from and how they are conceptualized. Thus every educator in the home or campus school becomes a Bible teacher presenting the Scriptures as the foundation for the presuppositions within the subject being taught.

The second approach is what I call Complementary Integration.  Hasker uses the phrase Transformational - “…Transformationist strategy as when the scholar finds the relationship between his faith and his discipline to be somewhat problematic. He does for sure find some basic validity and integrity in the discipline but he also finds the discipline to be lacking insights and perspectives which are vital to the Christian….”

This type of Biblical Integration takes place when aspects of the discipline and the Christian worldview complement each other but may not be directly related. Hasker uses the word transformational, in that, the Biblical perspective will transform many of the basic ideas of the subject while still keeping in tact many of its integral concepts. A good example of this process could be found in the teaching of biology. Many aspects of biology are complementary to the Biblical view of understanding a species or a category of living things. Genesis 1:11-12, 24-25 teaches that all living things produce after their own kind, and nature itself bears this out creating a complementary view from both perspectives. Nevertheless modern ideas of evolution and natural selection must be addressed in this particular discipline and in fact create non-complimentary perspectives. A transformation of the discipline from an evolutionary worldview to that of a Christian worldview of all living things must be undertaken by the teacher. The teacher can still use many of the classifications, systems and interspecies relationships within the discipline once the presuppositions are corrected and explained.

Another way complementary integration takes place is when a particular study casts light on the discipline that is not part of the Biblical explanation such as calculus or an applied skill like woodworking. The discipline is complemented by the existing presuppositions in the Christian worldview but it does not have direct and specific references from the Scriptures. This is often when people will argue that a particular discipline is said to be neutral or that worldview does not affect the concepts or skills being taught. It may be true that Christians or non-Christians apply the same methods in calculus or woodworking. Nevertheless the larger questions of why these methods work and the purpose for the disciplines themselves will never be answered without understanding the “God behind the numbers” and the tree being fashioned for man’s purposes.

The third approach is what I call Direct Interaction Integration. Hasker calls this Reconstuctionist “…Reconstructionist strategy is when a fundamental tension exists between the assumptions and claims of a secular discipline and the Christian.”

Here is when the teacher must undertake the discipline of apologetics. The area of study is in direct conflict with the Biblical, Christian worldview and the teacher must reconstruct most of what is commonly taught within the disciple in order to maintain a Christian perspective. An obvious example of this would be in the subjects that emphasize evolutionary theory and naturalism. In teaching the sciences in particular the discipline must often undergo a complete reconstruction of thought and theory because evolutionary presuppositions lurk behind many of the ideas and conclusions being offered our students.

The Christian teacher must do three things when engaging and reconstructing contrary disciplines:

1. The presuppositional foundations within the topic must be carefully discovered and exposed to the students. This can be done by either presenting the Christian presuppositions to the discipline first and then the false premises of the non-Christian perspectives or starting by refuting the false presuppositions. The latter approach would be taken at an age level where critical thinking skills have begun to develop. Example: In studying the origin of the universe Christianity teaches that God (a spiritual being) created everything that exists, thus everything natural comes from the spiritual. Naturalism teaches that there is no spiritual realm which then means that all of creation must have a natural explanation. These two concepts compete at every juncture of scientific thought. Students must be taught that neither point can be proven scientifically thus, the disciplines of science are directly affected by the initial presuppositions. It is important to note that primary and elementary age children have not developed in their critical thinking skills and will not have much use for the competing perspectives. This is not to say that we don’t present them. Children are constantly being exposed to the false premises in the world particularly in our media driven culture. It is more of a question of how we present them to our younger children. A rational argument presented to younger children will probably not have much effect. Younger children are more inclined to accept authoritative arguments. Who teaches this verses what the Bible teaches. Nevertheless it is naive to think that our children have had no exposure to ideas like evolution that are so prevalent in our media driven culture.

2. Secondly, the teacher will have to show how the presuppositions affect the discipline being taught; what ideas exist because of the views being taken. In the previous example we see how naturalism will lead to a view of the universe that is contrary to the Biblical perspective. Teachers will have to show how these conclusions work themselves into the things commonly taught, such as, we now think of man as a highly evolved animal. Again these ideas and conclusions must be contrasted with the Christian worldview. In this specific example we teach that man is first a spiritual being in the image of God and is thus distinct from all other living creatures.

3. Finally, after the presuppositions have been outlined, the Christian construct of the discipline must be developed and applied. To conclude our example: the study of the sciences need to be investigated from a Biblical view and resources need to be found or developed in order to aid the teacher in the discipline. This does not mean that the teacher cannot use non-Christian textbooks and materials but they will have to be carefully interpreted through our Christian perspective. The teacher will have to do the scholarly work of developing their curriculum with the Christian worldview at the helm.

Some have made the case that we need not integrate the disciplines at all but rather all we should do is start with the Bible and let it establish our curriculum. Certainly this would make things easier for the teacher but it would also ignore the great work, contributions and discoveries that those outside of Christianity have made. Justin Martyr points out: “Whatever has been well said anywhere or by anyone belongs to us Christians.” Integration enables us to see truth everywhere!

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.