Our kids have taken classical Christian classes through Veritas Press Scholars Academy for the past four years. This article was written for the school's monthly newsletter, The Epistula, by John and Leah's Latin teacher, Joanna Hensley, who is a gifted scholar and encourager, and also the daughter of author Gene Edward Veith.
A Latin teacher, like me, asked to write a newsletter article on "Why Classical Languages Matter" is tempted to peddle her wares like a fair barker with a megaphone: "Step right up! Get five languages for the price of one! Feel smarter in just fifteen minutes a day! Absolutely guaranteed to raise your SAT!" While all these promises regarding the study of Latin may be true, and while these may be the very reasons some students study Latin in the first place, there is something far more valuable and far less self-serving in the importance of studying classical languages. Classical languages are necessary for understanding ideas, and to illustrate the point, I will put down my megaphone and tell you the story of St. Isidore of Seville.
Born to a Christian family in Spain in A.D. 560, Isidore was a student at the Cathedral School of Seville, the first school of its kind to be structured around the trivium and quadrivium. In other words, he was one of the first boys in medieval Spain to receive a classical Christian education, not unlike the one offered by Veritas Press Scholars Academy. While the Spanish culture around him was disintegrating with the spread of anti-intellectualism and illiteracy thanks to the barbarian Goths who had taken over the government, the young Isidore was studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts, holding on to classical influences which were all too quickly disappearing in Europe.
When Isidore grew up, he put his classical education to work in service to his culture. After his older brother Leander died, Isidore became an archbishop and boldly fought against Arianism, that heresy popular among the barbarian Goths which rejects the biblical understanding of the Trinity by saying that Jesus was just a man and not true God. It took courage to tell those powerful barbarians they were wrong. (Remember what had happened to poor Boethius? If you don't, take Omnibus V.) Yet, Isidore stood fast to Scripture, and through him, God converted many.
As an archbishop, Isidore presided over several church councils, including the educationally significant Fourth National Council of Toledo in 633. At that council, Isidore encouraged everyone there to open classical schools like the one he had attended as a boy, based on the trivium and quadrivium, in all the Cathedral cities. Again, this was a bold move, quite counter-cultural. Through this spread of classical Christian education, Isidore stalled the influences of barbarism and ignited an educational renaissance throughout Spain.
Wondering what this has to do with classical languages? I'm getting to it.
In addition to fighting heresy and spreading education, Isidore wrote a gigantic encyclopedia-the first to be published during the Middle Ages-called the Origines (also known as the Etymologia and some of which students translate in my Latin II class). All 448 chapters of this 20-volume set were dedicated to understanding the origins of words. That Isidore could write such an encyclopedia is a tribute to his fine education. That he cared so much about etymologies illustrates his belief that knowledge comes to us through words, and the meanings of words come to us through study of classical languages. Isidore argued that the very existence of ideas depends upon understanding the origins of words, something you learn through the study of classical languages.
Why, then, do classical languages matter? Unless we know the origins of words, we cannot understand ideas. Since 90% of English words of two or more syllables come from Latin, English relies upon classical languages to express ideas. Take for example the phrase liberal arts. These are the arts which set a man free, not the arts which are particularly generous or best align with the Democrat Party. One understands the true meaning of liberal arts when he recognizes that the word is derived from liber, the same Latin word which gives English liberty and deliverance. This is just one example of thousands, but it shows how right Isidore was to think that understanding word origins is necessary for understanding ideas. This is why the study of classical languages is so important in becoming a well-educated person.
It makes sense to reasonable folk that words are connected to ideas. We express our ideas through words, and we read words in order to understand other people's ideas. And yet, today's postmodernism is challenging this basic connection between words and ideas. Our culture, like Isidore's, is becoming more and more barbaric. Our church, like Isidore's, is battling against heresy. Our postmodern world, like Isidore's, needs to be reminded that words have true, objective meanings. What Isidore did to revive medieval Spain-namely, the spread of classical Christian education, the defeat of heresy, and a renewed appreciation for words-can revive our culture as well.
When words hold no significance, ideas simply do not flourish. I daresay this is why postmodern America is having trouble keeping up with the Great Conversation of western civilization. Knowledge does not advance when people argue what is is. Ideas do not flourish when words have meaning only for the individual. Debates do not resolve when no one even cares to define terms, and education is pointless when universal truth is replaced by relativism.
Let us instead commit ourselves and future generations to appreciating words. Let us love words so much that we study them all the way back to antiquity. Let us know exactly what is is, to the point that we can rattle off that irregular verb chart in languages millennia old. When someone tells us, "Sure, that's what it means for you," let us know with confidence that words do have objective meaning, going back to the days of Cicero and before. Let us read Cicero, while we are at it, and let our goal for studying classical languages be to enjoy the great books written in their original great languages. That goal is not far off. My Latin Readings students are doing that even now.
With classical languages under their belts, our children and their children actually can keep up with-even lead-the Great Conversation of western civilization. Knowing words is knowing ideas, and we need good ideas these days. So study Latin to improve your SAT score, master romance languages, and feel like an all-around smart person, but do your culture a favor and be like Isidore. Use your understanding of the origins of words to battle heresy in the church, spread classical education, and transform the culture through a renewed appreciation for words, and in this way give all glory, laud, and honor to the Word Made Flesh. -- Joanna Hensley
Joanna Hensley graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota with majors in Latin and Classical Civilizations. She has been involved with classical education for a decade as a teacher, curriculum writer, and homeschool tutor. Besides teaching Latin and Omnibus, Joanna has also been the Editorial Coordinator and blog editor for WORLD Magazine. Joanna is married to Rev. Adam Hensley, a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Australia, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Old Testament. The Hensleys live with their two young children in Purcellville, Va.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Doug Wilson: True Protection Equips
G.K. Chesterton said somewhere that if a book does not have a wicked character in it, then it is a wicked book. One of the most pernicious errors that has gotten abroad in the Christian community is the error of sentimentalism -- the view that evil is to be evaded, rather than the more robust Christian view that evil is to be conquered. The Christian believes that evil is there to be fought, the dragon is there to be slain. The sentimentalist believes that evil is to be resented. ...
A classical Christian school or a home school following the classical Christian curriculum must never be thought of as an asylum. Rather, this is a time of basic training: it is boot camp. Students are being taught to handle their weapons, and they are being taught this under godly, patient supervision. But in order to learn this sort of response, it is important that students learn it well. That is, setting up a "straw man" paganism that is easily demolished equips no one. All that would do is impart a false sense of security to the students -- until they get to a secular college campus to encounter the real thing. Or, worse yet, if they continue the path into the soft,asylum-style Christian college and then find themselves addressing the marketplace completely unprepared. ...
The Scriptures doe not allow us to believe that a record of sinful behavior, or of sinful corruption, is inherently corrupting. If it were, then there are many stories and accounts in the Bible itself that would have to be excluded. But if we ever begin to think our children need to be protected "from the Bible," this should bring us up short. Perhaps we have picked up false notions of holiness somewhere. In short, there is no subject that this curriculum will raise... that would not also be raised when that student reads through his Bible, cover to cover. It is true that this curriculum has accounts of various murders, or examples of prostitution, or of tyranny from powerful and cruel kings. But we can find all the same things in the Book of Judges.
So the issue is not the presence of sin, but of the response to that sin. [We are to]... provide a guideline for responding to all the various worldviews that men outside of Christ come up with. [We are to]... equip the student to see through pretenses and lies that other Christian children, who have perhaps been too sheltered, are not able to deal with. Of course, there is a limit to this... there are certain forms of worldliness and corruption that would overwhelm a student's ability to handle it, no matter how carefully a parent or teacher was instructing them. ...
We want ...[our students] to walk away with with a profound sense of antithesis. What we mean by this is that right after Adam and Eve fell in the Garden, God gave His first messianic promise (Gen. 3:15). But along with his promise, He also said that there would be constant antipathy between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. This is what we mean by the antithesis, and we want our students to come to share in that godly antipathy. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Ps. 97:10, Prov. 8:13). In every generation, in all movements (whether of armies or philosophies), in all schools or literature, the men and women involved are either obeying God or disobeying Him. They are either trusting Him or they are not trusting Him. All students are learning to love God, or they are not learning to love God.
But when they love and trust Him, they must do so in the face of conflict. Jesus was the ultimate Seed of the woman, and yet when He came down and lived among us, He faced constant opposition from "broods of vipers." It is not possible to live in this world faithfully without coming into conflict with those who have no desire to live faithfully. The task of every Christian parent bringing children up to maturity in such a world is to do it in a way that equips. False protection, precisely because it does not equip, leaves a child defenseless when the inevitable day comes when that artificial shelter is removed. True protection equips. We do not want to build a fortress for our students to hide in; we want to give them a shield to carry -- along with a sword.
Students who have faithfully worked through this course of study will not be suckers for a romanticized view of ancient paganism offered up by Hollywood. They have read Suetonius, and they have worked through a Christian response to true paganism. They are grateful that Christ came into this dark world, and they know why they are grateful.
--Doug Wilson
A classical Christian school or a home school following the classical Christian curriculum must never be thought of as an asylum. Rather, this is a time of basic training: it is boot camp. Students are being taught to handle their weapons, and they are being taught this under godly, patient supervision. But in order to learn this sort of response, it is important that students learn it well. That is, setting up a "straw man" paganism that is easily demolished equips no one. All that would do is impart a false sense of security to the students -- until they get to a secular college campus to encounter the real thing. Or, worse yet, if they continue the path into the soft,asylum-style Christian college and then find themselves addressing the marketplace completely unprepared. ...
The Scriptures doe not allow us to believe that a record of sinful behavior, or of sinful corruption, is inherently corrupting. If it were, then there are many stories and accounts in the Bible itself that would have to be excluded. But if we ever begin to think our children need to be protected "from the Bible," this should bring us up short. Perhaps we have picked up false notions of holiness somewhere. In short, there is no subject that this curriculum will raise... that would not also be raised when that student reads through his Bible, cover to cover. It is true that this curriculum has accounts of various murders, or examples of prostitution, or of tyranny from powerful and cruel kings. But we can find all the same things in the Book of Judges.
So the issue is not the presence of sin, but of the response to that sin. [We are to]... provide a guideline for responding to all the various worldviews that men outside of Christ come up with. [We are to]... equip the student to see through pretenses and lies that other Christian children, who have perhaps been too sheltered, are not able to deal with. Of course, there is a limit to this... there are certain forms of worldliness and corruption that would overwhelm a student's ability to handle it, no matter how carefully a parent or teacher was instructing them. ...
We want ...[our students] to walk away with with a profound sense of antithesis. What we mean by this is that right after Adam and Eve fell in the Garden, God gave His first messianic promise (Gen. 3:15). But along with his promise, He also said that there would be constant antipathy between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. This is what we mean by the antithesis, and we want our students to come to share in that godly antipathy. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil (Ps. 97:10, Prov. 8:13). In every generation, in all movements (whether of armies or philosophies), in all schools or literature, the men and women involved are either obeying God or disobeying Him. They are either trusting Him or they are not trusting Him. All students are learning to love God, or they are not learning to love God.
But when they love and trust Him, they must do so in the face of conflict. Jesus was the ultimate Seed of the woman, and yet when He came down and lived among us, He faced constant opposition from "broods of vipers." It is not possible to live in this world faithfully without coming into conflict with those who have no desire to live faithfully. The task of every Christian parent bringing children up to maturity in such a world is to do it in a way that equips. False protection, precisely because it does not equip, leaves a child defenseless when the inevitable day comes when that artificial shelter is removed. True protection equips. We do not want to build a fortress for our students to hide in; we want to give them a shield to carry -- along with a sword.
Students who have faithfully worked through this course of study will not be suckers for a romanticized view of ancient paganism offered up by Hollywood. They have read Suetonius, and they have worked through a Christian response to true paganism. They are grateful that Christ came into this dark world, and they know why they are grateful.
--Doug Wilson
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Nathan Wilson: How To Train Your Dragon Review
...[W]hen the early marketing for How to Train Your Dragon began, I thought I would probably take my kids, but we wouldn’t be in a rush. We might even wait for the DVD. But Easter brought a four-day weekend and the issue was decided. The family loaded up and journeyed to the nearest theater displaying the 3D version.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I was stunned. I had expected it to look good. I had expected it to be exciting. But I hadn’t suspected a sophisticated reverence for traditional fairy tale. Not having read the book (I will now), I don’t know where the credit belongs, but HTTYD managed to paradoxically invert narrative assumptions while remaining true. And this is where I should warn you of spoilers. If you don’t want me to tell you what happens, go see it for yourself. As for the rest of you, read on.
I was expecting a contemporary morality tale (that my children and I would gripe about in the car). Dragons were going to turn out to be good after all (just misunderstood). We would learn some sort of Avatar lesson about accepting all living things as equals (superiors if they’re blue). But that’s not what was served up. Instead, dragons were bad. They raided the village stealing sheep. They burned it down constantly. They killed people. Lots of people. And here’s one of a few things that stunned me. Why did they do these evil things? Well, because they served The Dragon. The big one. The huge, ancient, evil one. And the story progresses not with one small boy (Hiccup) successfully communicating to his father (Stoick) that dragons were misunderstood, but with that boy crushing The Dragon’s head and . . . losing his foot in the process.
Victory in this story came when all the lesser dragons are freed from that ancient one. And they aren’t freed into autonomy or equality with man. They are freed into service to man—they become pets, friends, and well-treated beasts of burden. They are trained.
-- Nathan Wilson
Not to put too fine a point on it, I was stunned. I had expected it to look good. I had expected it to be exciting. But I hadn’t suspected a sophisticated reverence for traditional fairy tale. Not having read the book (I will now), I don’t know where the credit belongs, but HTTYD managed to paradoxically invert narrative assumptions while remaining true. And this is where I should warn you of spoilers. If you don’t want me to tell you what happens, go see it for yourself. As for the rest of you, read on.
I was expecting a contemporary morality tale (that my children and I would gripe about in the car). Dragons were going to turn out to be good after all (just misunderstood). We would learn some sort of Avatar lesson about accepting all living things as equals (superiors if they’re blue). But that’s not what was served up. Instead, dragons were bad. They raided the village stealing sheep. They burned it down constantly. They killed people. Lots of people. And here’s one of a few things that stunned me. Why did they do these evil things? Well, because they served The Dragon. The big one. The huge, ancient, evil one. And the story progresses not with one small boy (Hiccup) successfully communicating to his father (Stoick) that dragons were misunderstood, but with that boy crushing The Dragon’s head and . . . losing his foot in the process.
Victory in this story came when all the lesser dragons are freed from that ancient one. And they aren’t freed into autonomy or equality with man. They are freed into service to man—they become pets, friends, and well-treated beasts of burden. They are trained.
-- Nathan Wilson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
