Hello Fellow Educators,

Welcome to podcast #16. We have been talking about the integration of our Christian and Biblical worldview into every subject 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.

Last week we focused on the idea of the synthesizing truth to the reality. I realize that this is just a bad use of English. Truth and reality are synonymous. But the process of teaching requires us to theoretically separate the concepts of what we are trying to teach about something from the thing itself. An example of this would be talking about the human circulatory system. A good way to do this would be to present a diagram of the system overlaying the shape of a human body. For us to understand the intricacies of the veins, arteries and capillaries we have to separate them out of their natural contexts. If you have ever seen an artery in its real context it doesn’t really resemble the diagram. Teaching about our world is often a very artificial and abstract process. Letters and numbers have no specific reality outside of the abstract way in which we use them. Our ability to convert shapes and symbols into meaning is one of the most amazing things about being human. Eric Sauer in his book, “The King of the Earth” relates our ability to use language as a creative force is something that indicates our likeness to God. So as we separate out the concepts of the disciplines that we teach we end up removing them from their setting in reality itself. In the example of the circulatory system it has little or no function outside of the body. We only separate it out to give specific understanding of its shape, capacity and function.  As we divide the world up into our neat four or five core subjects we remove these subjects from their contexts of reality. Thus we need to re-synthesize truth into subjects we teach.

When I look out the window in my home I see the world as it displays itself before me. I see everything integrated and moving together. The trees and plants along with the buildings and cars, the air and sky, the mountains, our little beagle playing on the porch, everything integrates into everything else. The fresh air, the warm sun, the smell of spring, the noise of the cars, my sense of self all are one. At risk of sounding a bit new age here, everything interlinks with everything else in our world. So, if the God of the Bible is really God and the Creator of all the Universe; if Jesus really did come as God in the flesh and became our sin substitute in his death and rose again; if Adam really did eat the fruit, die spiritually and pass on his falleness to us; if there really is a Satan and a spiritual kingdom of demons attacking our existence; if we really are redeemed and born again as a new creation of God’s new humanity; then all this is true and infuses everything I see out of my window. These invisible truths of Christian revelation are as much a part of everything I see as the atoms, electrons, molecules and cells that are the unseen building blocks our world.

We must be told that our world is made up of these little unseen building blocks and, though we intuitively know that God is here and has a relationship with everything He has been created, we must be told this as well. So when we teach about history we have to look for him in the timelines and the human experiences we are trying to convey. When we teach language and mathematics we have to see his image in the ability He has given us to be like Him to communicate and create through the word.

Worldview becomes an intimate part of everything. It is here where Christian education becomes very radical and distinctive. If we have truly come to terms with the Bible and believe in the God of the Bible, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is Creator and Superintendent of all things, we must declare to our students and our critics that our way of thinking and seeing the world is the right way of thinking and viewing the world. We must be so committed to this revelation that we are willing to establish this viewpoint as the only complete perspective that can completely embrace and understand the way the world is. We must declare and teach that our worldview is the most consistent with reality.

I know how “fundamentalist” and radical this sounds to many of you. I know how arrogant this comes off but embracing and being committed to a worldview will do this. Let me modify my previous statements with this; I don’t think that my individual perspective is always correct. I don’t for a minute think that I am incapable of misinterpreting or misrepresenting the Bible and all of its special revelation. It is for this very reason that I try to be careful with our Christian controversies such as a literal seven days of creation or when Jesus will return. I have formed opinions about these details and I want to be careful about how much weight I place on them in the larger view of things. But there are foundational ideas and truths that come from the Bible that I am utterly committed to. It is these truths that shape the Christian worldview and make us distinct from all other worldviews. If we are committed to these truths we will become exclusive in our understanding of the world. I believe that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit is the only God and the only creator of our Universe. I believe that the only way to a complete covenant relationship with God is exclusively through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). When we talk about our world in such exclusive terms we find ourselves diametrically opposed to our pluralistic, postmodern culture. But this is true of anyone who is committed to a worldview perspective and if they have the courage of their convictions they will fight for their perspectives. The committed “believer” will also fight for the ethical or moral inclusions of their beliefs. This is why fundamentalist Muslims declare jihad and fly planes into buildings or secular humanists like Margaret Sanger and Henry Morgentaler fight so hard for the rights of abortion. This explains why whole university campuses and scientific disciplines are so up in arms about Intelligent Design theory. It is a clash of worldviews between two groups that believe passionately in their perspective.

This clash of worldviews is raging in our Province over the issue of Same Sex marriage and making Homosexuality as a racial issue. Two years ago a homosexual couple won the right, in a court battle with the Ministry of Education, to review and revise portions of our public school curriculum. The Ministry of Education was required to hire Murray and Peter Corren as consultants. They have come out with a comprehensive document called Making Space, Giving Voice, that would inform and instruct all public school teachers how to rethink their approach to everything they teach. In an editorial by Canadianchristianity.com Frank Stirk writes, “Concern among people of faith that public school authorities will try to undermine the rights of parents is not new. But this time, the Ministry of Education has drafted a new teacher’s guide that Murphy and others believe poses an unprecedented threat.

Making Space, Giving Voice would revise the entire curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to include mandatory instruction on diversity and social justice issues, such as sexual orientation. Even mathematics would be taught differently.” Notice the last comment, even mathematics would be taught different. This is true because this document is recommending a subtle but important shift in how we think about humanity. Worldview thinking is always one sided and by its very nature creates an exclusive perspective. In this case the Corren’s review, a small minority special interest group is radically changing the way public school children in our Province see their world.

By being committed to and teaching our Christian, Biblical worldview we are not proposing an easy, friendly solution to this cultural clash of worldviews. This is what Jesus was preparing us for when he plainly warned his disciples: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” (Matt. 10:34-35)

I realize that this is quite a rant. But, I want you to be warned that as we travel down this road of Christian and Biblical Integration it is not without its dangers. We are not discipling mushy, tolerant postmoderns here. We are equipping radical soldiers to engage the culture wars. Because God is Love and He loves the world we are not teaching our kids how to fly planes into buildings. On the other hand, we are not encouraging them to weak minded relativism and tolerance that allows the destructive ideologies of fallen men to prevail. We are preparing our children for war and if our culture continues down the paths of secularism, new age mysticism, or postmodern relativism our children will encounter a much more heated battle than we do today!

Ok so let’s talk about how Integration relates to the Bible

The Bible, as we have stated in our previous podcast is God’s “special revelation” to mankind. He has given us this revelation through the original apostles of the church and prophets of the old testament to reveal Himself and His purpose for Creation to us. His guiding hand gave the inspiration to these human authors in such a way that we can consider the Bible to without error. Here is how he describes the process in 2 Peter 1: 19-21 “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (NIV)   and 1 Tim. 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed…”

By inerrancy we mean that the Bible is without error when it was first transmitted from the original authors and inspired by the Holy Spirit in its full cannon. This does not mean that our present day versions are completely free from error in the copied manuscripts or the translations. However, the sciences of textual criticism and original language studies have given us a very accurate rendering of the Scriptures and all orthodox Christian doctrines have been upheld through more thorough research in these fields. When we refer to the Cannon of Scripture we are talking about the 39 books of the Old Testament held by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians and the 27 books of the New Testament as outlined by Protestants, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

Because we hold to the inerrancy of the Scriptures and the Bible is so much more than a book of philosophy or religion we are faced with the daunting task of reconciling the statements and context of Scripture with the world as we experience and know it.

The challenge is presented to us because of the following five points:

1. There is a profound ignorance of the Scriptures within the modern day church and its teachers which keeps us “from rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15).
2. The Bible is not the starting point of truth in many of the disciplines we teach. Most teachers, curriculum and disciplines do not start with the under-lying universal principles of scripture to guide them. They do not begin with a biblically sound perspective of the fundamental ideas of the subject matter.
3. We possess a dualistic approach towards reality separating “secular truth” from “sacred truth” which relegates the Bible null and void of those concepts beyond theology and religion.
4. We fall into faulty hermeneutics in scriptural interpretation and understand-ing.  The cultural context we find ourselves in may make it difficult for us to see the context that scripture was written in. We bring to the Bible a cultural bias that comes from the age in which we live and the religious influences and traditions we aspire to. It is theoretically impossible to be truly objective in our understanding of the Bible yet this must be every Christian scholar’s quest.
5. We encounter contradictory aspects of the Bible and “accepted knowledge” within the particular discipline, such as, contradictions between the Genesis account of the origin of the universe and contemporary scientific theory.  

David Couchman, founder of Faith Radio in the UK and author of the “Facing the Challenge” series of courses offers a very balanced answer to the apparent contradictions we see between modern science and the Bible, “If our study of the Bible and of nature seems to lead to a contradiction, we do not need to give up our faith, nor do we need to panic. It is more likely that our interpretation of one or the other is wrong, rather than God has contradicted himself. The wisest course (and the most difficult), may be for us to suspend judgment until more data becomes available. Meanwhile, we need to go back to the Bible and the natural world, to see whether we have misunderstood one or the other.”

These challenges must be overcome by Christian educator if they are to bring true Biblical Integration to their students. We must dedicate ourselves to thorough understanding of the scriptures especially in the disciplines and fields of study that we teach. In order to truly know something we must see it from the Designer’s perspective as given to us in the Bible. We must integrate our knowledge of the subject with the Bible in all aspects of purpose, history, function and application. The Bible gives us the “principles” through which we can know the true nature of all things as God created them. Mark Eckel, One of my professors in my Master’s program highlights the foundational importance of this idea: “Biblical Principles permeate everything. ‘Permeation’ suggests that the foundation of truth is God’s and God accomplishes the unification of all truth.  ‘Principled permeation’ identifies errors and codifies instruction from books or ideas with tenets established in God’s Word.” This brings us back to our original ideas of the synthesis of truth to everyday reality. As I look out my window here in Kelowna I see the incredible beauty of the Okanagan. Permeating all of what I see is the presence of God. Even my sense of beauty comes from the consciousness of His presence and hand in everything.

Next week we will talk about the specific ideas that constitute a worldview.

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.

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