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

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

Worldview Education: Loving The Standard

James K.A. Smith ... makes a wonderful distinction between education as information and education as formation. ... Early on in the book [Desiring the Kingdom] Smith makes the vital point that education is about shaping desire, and not so much about dropping worldview modules into the brain, like they were so many wood pellets for that special intellectual stove of yours. What he calls shaping desire, I have called teaching students to love the standard.
--Douglas Wilson

Hidden in Christ

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

In Sunday School yesterday, John taught on Colossians 3:2 in a way that really brought it into focus. He emphasized that the earthly things that Paul is referring to are specifically the ceremonies and "good works" that a Pharisee would do to "earn" his right standing before God. The heavenly things, specifically, would be your identity in Christ. Setting your mind on heavenly things, on being "hidden in Christ" means grasping what it means to be justifed before God in Christ, totally accepted, given His righteousness that is outside of yourself. Hilda brought up the biblical metaphor of adoption and John jumped on it, saying that was exactly right. We are adopted by God, given His name, His righteousness, His lineage, even when we have not yet lived up to it -- just as an adoptive parent gives all that to the child. Then you live like a "Rabe" or a "James" because of that, because you remember that. Your identity yields your behavior. You do what you do, because you are what you are. But you are already, unconditionally "in" and that is what you focus on. Setting your mind on "doing good things" (earthly things) will only lead to Phariseeism and exhaustion, and doesn't please God. It leads to self-righteousness. Of course, Paul is very concerned for us to do good things--but he always makes that behavior the outcome of our new identity, not the basis of it, and in Paul's flow of thought, our focus on the theology of who God is, who we are, and what God has done for us will then yield the changed life and behavior. Setting your mind on what He has already done leads to humility and gratitude, rest and sanctification and greater faith in future grace. So the fight is in the mind, to be vigilant to keep thinking correctly. I so needed to hear that again and in this fresh way -- and it has given me such joy today.

Nathan Wilson on Writing for Children

Over the weekend Nathan Wilson, author of the recently released The Chestnut King, wrote a playful piece about why and how he writes for kids. Here's a quote explaining why he intentionally does not shy away from difficult or dark themes:

I want to paint a picture of this world that is accurate (if impressionistic), and I don’t want a single young reader to grow up and look back on me as the peddler of sweet youthful falsehoods. I want them to get a world vision that can grow and mature and age with them until, like all exoskeletons, it must be cast aside—not as false, but as a shallow introduction to things even deeper and stranger and more wonderful (and involving more dragonflies).

It is because I try to write this way that I use so much darkness. Evil is more than a prop. True sacrifice is not a sleight of hand. Laughter in the face of adversity is the first step to profound joy in triumph.