The Debate Goes On

Rev. J.W. Deenick. Trowel & Sword. December 1976

Preamble: Bill Deenick was passionate about many things and Parent Controlled Christian Education (PCCE) was high on his list of priorities. To him Christian Education was never about creating schools that ran parallel to the state system with a bit of Bible teaching thrown in as an added extra. Back in 1976 the question was being asked: What is Christian Education really all about? This was not an easy question to answer back then and if the truth be told that debate still continues today. In the interim, state education has to a large extent become a political football, but can the same be said about PCCE? As J.W. writes in his closing paragraph, “….we need all the talent we can muster to work together and to find biblical ways for the development of a Christian school curriculum.” Have we come any closer to achieving that goal than we were in 1976? And so…

The Debate Goes On

This paper has never been ashamed of its excitement about the Christian education issue, or about the progress made towards the establishment of Christian schools controlled by Christian parents. We are well aware of the relative smallness of the Christian school movement but we would like to believe that being small does not necessarily mean being insignificant. A beginning has been made, schools have been established, the issues have been raised and the debate on what Christian education is about has been thrown wide open.

In the circle of the Australian National Union of Christian Schools the Education in Focus Conferences have been a tremendous help. As a venue for discussion and for training in Christian educational thought the conferences have been unique in Australia. It is essential that the Christian School movement finds its own answers to the educational challenge of the day: which are the ultimate aims and the methods of classroom education?

Not every one at the Education in Focus (E.in F.) Conferences came up with the same answers. That was hardly to be expected and it was never the case. Yet, when I look through the pile of studies and papers delivered at the conferences since they started I can only be impressed with the great variety of the work done and with the skill and enthusiasm with which it has been done. Taking into account that nothing much of this nature has been tried in Australia before and that the evangelical community never managed to proceed much beyond a program for Bible-in-school lessons we may forgive the participants in the E.in F. conferences their reliance on work done overseas, particularly in Canada. It is only understandable that much of the Toronto material has been received here with enthusiasm. For one thing nothing much else is available: and for another the Canadian material, based on the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd, represents the first effort to come up with an all-over Christian educational program.

Even when we are critical of that program (for more reasons than one) we ought to make sure that our criticism is restrained and constructive. If we concentrate on picking holes in the various publications coming from Toronto (which in itself is easy enough) we offer little positive service to the Christian educational community. When I listen to criticism of the integral school curriculum which the Canadians have begun to produce (Joy in Learning) I am tempted to fear that we are driven back into the wilderness where for over a hundred years Christian teachers looked for a Christian philosophy of education and found Bible-in-school lessons.

However, this is not to say that the Canadian program is sacrosanct. It is not; nor is the philosophy on which it is based, the Dooyeweerdian philosophy, sacrosanct. It is good to remember that the Christian school movement is NOT a Dooyeweerdian movement. It never was. Long before there was a Dooyeweerdian philosophy there was a Christian educational program. It could even be argued that the Toronto men have come to the educational scene as Johnnies come lately. It is therefore proper that their material is studied carefully and that critique and corrections are offered freely where these are believed to be needed. The discussion is still wide open. The Toronto Institute does not function as the Holy See for Christian educational thought; nor has Dooyeweerd been canonised.

Not so long ago Dr. Noel Weeks has offered points of criticism regarding the Canadian program as presented at the E. in F. conferences. Some of his questions I find most relevant and to the point, but in other instances I find his critique uncertain and the Canadian propositions more Biblically sound.

Dr. Weeks asks a very pertinent question on the consequences of what the Bible teaches regarding the total depravity of the human nature for Christian thought on education. Good question. He also challenges some of the Canadians on what he sees as their compromise with present day unbelief in educational philosophy (Dewey). Did we reject the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas on account of its attempted synthesis between the gospel and classical thought in order to do some modern day synthesising ourselves? Dr. Weeks further raises the issue of the school as a unique structure of society, and of history as normative for the truth.

On the other hand there are questions that I would like to ask Dr. Weeks: e.g. since we all agree that God’s self-revelation in the Scriptures is normative for the faith and life of God’s people what reason is there to doubt that also His self-revelation in the creation can be trusted by those who read “the book of nature” believingly, i.e. believing the whole self-revelation of God in the creation and in the Scripture? And when we do study God’s creation by faith do we then not discover by faith His wonderful and wise designs and the amazing order in all that He has created? It seems to me that not the Bible but that the solar system tells me in what wonderful ways God keeps the solar system together. For the pulpit it is enough for me to say that He does so by the Word of His power; but in the school and at the university I have to explain what Bible believing research has discovered about the laws of creation by which the Word of God’s power functions in the solar system. And these discoveries then have authority for my Christian thinking as well as for my Christian behaviour within the solar system.

And so the discussion is altogether wide open yet and the debate goes on. But let it be positively directed. We need to furnish the young men and women who pioneer in teaching at the Christian school not only with good material and textbooks, but also with a comprehensive program for Christian education in which the textbooks properly fit. This may seem a mammoth task; and it is. But then we need all the talent we can muster to work together and to find biblical ways for the development of a Christian school curriculum. In T&S we hope to continue taking part in the discussion on these educational matters. One point that we hope to bring up in the next issue is that of the confessional basis of the school. This is the more interesting since the same question has come up in the context of the Association for a Christian University and its confessional basis.

BILL DEENICK

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Looking Back – “Things We Couldn’t Say”

On May 26 we posted a book review, also by Bill Deenick, with the above title. In it he wrote: “Now that I have read it, I want to tell the readers of T&S more about it, because it is a very wonderful book; and it deserves place of honour on the book shelves of those who have come to love and serve the Lord Jesus in the Reformed tradition.” I took Bill’s advice, bought a second hand copy on the internet and finished reading it last week. I concur with everything Bill wrote about this incredible book. Being knee-high to a grasshopper when my family migrated to Australia I have never really felt a connection to the country of my birth – until I read “Things We Couldn’t Say”. My parents never spoke about their experiences during the war but this book has given some insight into what they went through. It explains a lot why they were the way they were.

It also sounds a warning about the anti-Semitism that currently appears to be sweeping through the Western World, including Australia. A warning that history is repeating itself. In the postscript Diet writes: “When the war ended we all said,’This can never happen again.’ But now polls show that 22 percent of the US population does not believe there was a holocaust. The story has to be retold so that history does not repeat itself.” That was written over 25 years ago. Diet Eman and many of those who worked with her were members of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands. It is time that the CRC here in Australia and also in New Zealand make our voices heard in our churches, in the papers and in the halls of power to stop the increasing anti Jewish sentiment from growing into another holocaust.