The True Nature of Education

There is nothing Neutral about Public Education.

Dr. Alan Pue – Guest

In the fourth episode of Clearly Christian with Dr. Cy Smith, Cy talks about the true nature of education, specifically the connection between learning and believing with guest Dr. Alan Pue, multiple times published author and president of the Barnabas Group.

Dr. Smith starts with a realization that we have no problem understanding discipleship when it comes to Jesus and his followers. We see Jesus spending time with his disciples, living together, hearing what He says, asking questions, and interacting.

But when it comes to discipleship in education, we fall short. Schooling is discipleship and every day when you send your child off to school, they are being discipled by someone. Someone is pouring into their lives. Someone is sharing a worldview academically, intellectually, emotionally, and even spiritually.

“And so”, states Dr. Smith, “The question we have to ask ourselves as Christian parents is, just who do I want discipling my child?”

The Chalkboard Points for the discussion are stated as:

Chalkboard Point Number 1: Discipleship is Education and Education is Discipleship.

Believing and learning always go hand in hand in the scriptures; you just can't separate the two.

Chalkboard Point Number Two: Education is the parent's responsibility.

Parents are responsible for both who is teaching their children and what they are learning.

Chalkboard Point Number Three: Education has Consequences.

If the education does not align with Christian values and the biblical worldview, you will see the consequences play out eventually.

Dr. Alan Pue agrees. "If you're going to become the person God has wired you to be, you can't get there on your own”. That's the key to Christian schooling. We have the opportunity to engage, but I think that's where we're losing it.”

Dr. Pue continues to make the point that we don’t seem to expect much of our eighteen and nineteen-year-old young adults. In educating them, we may be stopping short. “The scriptures call us to more than knowledge. It calls us on taking that knowledge, employing that knowledge in our everyday life,” he says.

Dr. Smith makes the “Chalkboard Point” that Discipleship is Education and Education is Discipleship, inferring that one happens at the same time as another. Dr. Pue sees a missed opportunity here. “That’s not taking place nearly at the depth it needs to in our local churches”, he says. “A pastor gets maybe 40 to 50 hours (with a young person) a year. That's it. And given all the rest of the input that's coming into a kid's life, that is a thoroughly insufficient amount of time.”

Most kids are taught in government-led schools, where Christian values are not being taught. That’s a problem.“Our kids don't get to be immersed in their father's world. Dad goes off to work. And if they're lucky, they're home by seven o'clock in the evening after they've commuted all day. And in our day and age, mom goes off to work and comes home. They're immersed in another world. And the two worlds in which they are most deeply immersed are school and media. And if you're in a secular public school, you're immersed in some pretty toxic water”.

Then Dr. Pue brings up the concept of neutrality in schools. “The fact of the matter is, Jesus says it pretty clearly, either you are for me or you're against me. You're either on my team or you're on the other team. And if there's any level of honesty at all, as we look at America's current state-sponsored secular schools, there's nothing neutral there. God cannot be mentioned. He, by legal fiat, has been banished from the classroom. When you banish God from the conversation, what you're saying to the students that are in that classroom, God must have nothing of value to add to the conversation. That's not a neutral position to take.”

Dr. Alan Pue is the author of Rethinking Sustainability, Rethinking Strategic Planning, and

Rethinking Discipleship. He is also the President and Founder of The Barnabas Group, Inc.

The Clearly Christian with Dr. Cy Smith podcast has a message to be heard - the only way we're going to turn things around in our country is to increase the number of people who live and operate with a biblical worldview and to see things from God's perspective. The best way to do that is to get kids a Christian education, either at home or church, so that they understand the world from God's perspective and can truly multiply themselves and lead this next generation closer to a walk with Christ.

For more information about Dr.Cy Smith, about the Clearly Christian Education movement, and the podcast, click on Clearly Christian Education.com. And if you’d like to join the movement with partnership, funding resources, or ways to impact your own region's Christian Education opportunities, contact Dr. Smith today at 419-756-5651, ext. 218