Real Community

Real community must be joyful for its members. It is easy to try to force community or force friendships. There is a certain hollowness to community which is not based on one's heart.

It is interesting in life that there are often ethical positions which require ethicical decisions to be disinterested. If we do something out of joy the decision loses its ethical value.

The bible is clearly against such an ethic. It is better to do what is right without joy than to do evil, but the highest ethical sense is when our joy aligns with what is right.

Doing good out of love for God and with joy is much preferred to doing good and finding it drudgery. Often Christians pull a certain stoicism into the Christian life which was never meant to be there.

Disinterest has no place in the Christian life. It brings an interesting side question as to the wisdom of required Christian education.

If children are enrolled in a Christian school or are at a Christian college that requires them to attend a chapel or spiritual formation class they do not wish to attend, are they harmed by the requirement? Could forced Christian education be harmful?

My opinion is, yes. A one size fits all approach to Christian education can be harmful. It is of course why pastors do not read sermons from famous pastors when they get into the pulpit. The sermon should be a faithful exposition of God's word to the people in the church.

In my mind things such as required chapel or curriculum in Christian schools may harm those who do not wish to attend. It is a delicate balance between encouraging and fostering faith and hindering faith by making it distasteful.

Right Living not based on Knowledge

A large portion of the American educational mindset is that morality can be taught simply by making people aware of what is right or wrong. This stands in stark contrast to the bible.

Actually mankind lived perfectly before he had any knowledge of right or wrong (pre-fall). The knowledge of good and evil did not make man good.

The reality is that telling people what is right and wrong is of limited use. For young children there is often benefit, but most of the time the problem of the darkness within is not lack of education but a bad heart.

Sociologist do note that poverty increases crime and education reduces poverty. There is value in helping society through education as it makes people good citizens, but it does not make people good people.

Only through right relation to Jesus are people made good. It is not something which comes from within, since within is full of darkness. Instead we need a righteousness which comes only through faith.

Educational Arms Race

The Colleges and Universities in the USA are engaged in an educational arms race. The forgone conclusion is the extinction of poor and middle class upper education and the massive extinction of many institutions.

C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity quote

A bit from Mere Christianity:
“as St Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain Children in intelligence: on the contrary.  He told us to be not only ‘as harmless as doves’, but also ‘as wise as serpents’.  He wants a child’s hear, but a grown-up’s head.  He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim… God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.  If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all.  But, fortunately, it works the other way round.  Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself.  That is why an uneducated believer like Bunyan was able to write a book that has astonished the whole world.” – C. S. Lewis