Tim,

Send me an email to my school address, DKunkle@Phil-Mont.com and I will arrange to get you a copy, either by attachment or post.

Dan

I’d love to get a copy of that paper, Dan.

Hi Tim,

Well here are my two cents. In my view, Reformed Christians have the freedom to construct a school in a variety of ways depending on what they conceive to be the mission of that particular school. If the mission of the school is to assist Christian parents in the fulfillment of their covenant obligations to train up their children, then the admission policy of that school will need to be one that cleary embraces Christian parents and their children. In this configuration, one way of defining the constituency is that at least one parent needs to be a member in good standing of an evangelical church, although now the popularity of churches that are evangelical in theology, but do not have official membership rolls, needs to be taken into consideration. I also think that Reformed Christians have the freedom to construct a school in such a way as to be salt and light in the world, agents of grace in the broader culture. In this scenario, enrollment could be open to anyone willing to pay the tuition and willing to run the risk, so to speak, of having their children converted. I don’t think that there is just one way to do school. I am personally committed to the covenantal model, but I take that to be a matter of God’s call in my life, not a matter of requirement for any Reformed Christian who wants to be involved in education. The problem is when schools become confused about their own mission and begin to compromise it in order to remain solvent. To paraphrase Robin Williams, I think, in the Fisher King: figure out who you are and be it.

Hi Cary,

The two major works that VT wrote on education are under the titles:
“Foundations of Christian Education: Addresses to Christian Teachers”– Half of the chapters are by VT and half by Louis Berkhof. The volume is edited by Dennis E. Johnson.
The other work is “Essays in Christian Education.” both were published by P&R. The third part of “Essays” contains “The Dilemma of Education” which was published separately by the WTS bookstore at one time.
VT touched on education issues in other places, particularly in the form of critique of secular theorists.
I wrote a ThM paper that attempted to apply VT’s methodology to an atheistic, a Roman Catholic, a Liberal Protestant, and an evangelical perspective on education. I could get to you a copy of that if you would like.

Dan Kunkle

The question I’ve been trying to answer for while now is the nature and practice of ecumenicity in the Christian school. If we try to steer the middle way between parochial schooling on one hand and Darryl Hart’s dream school on the other, what exactly does it mean to be a ‘Christian’ school? For those of us who consider ourselves ‘confessional’ Presbyterians, could we also have what we call a ‘confessional’ school? How do we keep from plunging to the theological least common denominator that Doug Wilson warned about? How do we uphold a strong ecclesiology while admitting students from a variety of denominations?

A number of my friends teach at schools or send their kids to schools that appear to do this well. But is it consistent with our Reformed commitments? I don’t know.