AMERICAN IDOL

"On Wednesday, [March 4, 2015] New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City schools will begin to observe the Islamic holidays of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr. . . .Letitia James, New York’s public advocate, praised New York and America as a beacon of religious diversity . . . saying, 'America is one nation under all.' " (Blake Neff)

We might ask, "What in the name of common sense does one nation under all" mean, but let's not go into Alice In Wonderland Land. Let's look at something else. New York's public advocate said it, a word we hear too many times. Children hear it; adults hear it. We hear it in regard to everything--education, politics, college admission decisions, jurisprudence, the formation of committees, sports, journalism, law enforcement, and even in regard to awards, awards like those given when millionaires get together to congratulate themselves at the Oscars.

THE WORD IS OUT AND WORSHIPED

Of course, it's the word, "diversity." Diversity is the real American idol. We don't need a TV program to vote on that. In 2009, when President Obama picked Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court, many commended his choice for the diversity she would bring to the judicial branch. CNN reported that Frank Forrester, a lifelong Republican who switched parties to vote for Obama, said, "Diversity is a valuable attribute for the court to have."

Others stated their worship as well:

"As a woman and Hispanic, she brings to the court a necessary flavor to the court that reflects what America is," said Egberto Willies of Kingwood, Texas.

"She is the new face of America," added Jimmy Deol of Toronto, Canada. "She's a woman, she's of Hispanic descent, and with her moderate liberal views, she reflects the ... diversity and mainstream views of today's America."

Aside from asking, "Since when does what a Canadian think, qualify as important," let's focus on the idol and ask, "Can a nation unite and survive around "diversity?" The ancient Romans knew about and acted upon something America has forgotten--a nation, to be a nation, must unify around a principle that brings them together. In their case, it was emperor worship and that's why they went after the Christians like Paul, John, Peter, and James. The Christians refused to worship the emperor and that was treason. Back then, Rome didn't care who you worshiped, as long as you burned incense to the emperor. That emperor worship united the Empire. That's where we get our word, "religion," which means "to bind together," religion binds people together.

Speaking of diversity, in 40% of the homes in New York City, English is not the language spoken. It is most difficult for a nation to survive where there is no common, official language. The ideal of America as a melting pot where immigrants become Americans is no longer the goal.

ISN'T THE CHURCH TO BE AN EXAMPLE OF DIVERSITY?

Yes, but not the world's definition of diversity. Unfortunately, there are churches which go in for diversity--believe anything you want, you set your own agenda, and discover your own truth is their idea. A Muslim speaks one Sunday and the next Sunday, you're listening to instruction from a Buddhist, and after that, an atheist.

The biblical church has diversity of gifts, but a unity of those gifts exists in mission, function, and purpose (Matt. 28). Paul pointed out that when the church meets and excises the diverse gifts of the group, there is a unity of purpose: edification. Paul talked about the unity of the church as being, "One Lord, one faith, and one baptism" in which Christ is all in all. That's a far cry from the world's idol.

BACK WHEN

American universities used to teach with a mission in mind. Whether they were secular or denominational, their goal was to produce a Christian gentleman-citizen. They looked upon their purpose as being to pass on a valued spiritual and intellectual heritage to the next generations. This is why colleges like Yale had a daily mandatory chapel service for all their students. This is why Noah Porter, the president of Yale wrote in 1869, "American colleges should have a positive religious and Christian character." If a secular college president said that today, the next place you'd see him is in the unemployment line.

Noah Porter believed that no one should use his position at Yale to teach anything hostile to Christianity. He understood that all colleges teach some type of value system or theology, so the only question is, "What theology shall it teach?" The theology of choice in universities today is, "In the beginning were the particles and the particles became complex stuff and the complex stuff imagined God until they discovered evolution."

To produce the Christian gentleman-citizen, the universities were united around a core curriculum with chapel services. We call that curriculum a classical education. A classical education was, in and of itself, a statement of what the university believed to be important and believed to be the truth. It demonstrated what the university held to be aesthetic, intellectual, and moral.

Back then, an education consisted of mathematics to give logic, the Greek and Roman classics to cultivate taste, rhetoric to give speech, and Christianity to give ethics and ideals. The chapel services were an integral part of this curriculum and prayer was part of the daily chapels. The chapel services were so important that when it was proposed at Yale that the chapel no longer exist, the students protested, saying they needed that time for prayer. The classical curriculum united the students of the universities. This curriculum civilized each succeeding generation.

THEN IT HAPPENED

Then it happened. Forces came into being which tore classical education apart. The destruction came because of something we consider both normal and essential today--the elective system. The elective system carries its own statement: the university will no longer decide what subjects are important, you decide and you take the courses we'll provide for your choosing. To look at a college catalog today is to be confronted with hundreds of courses in scores of specialized fields.

Back in 1868-1888, James McCosh, the president of Princeton University noted that because of the elective system, students were asking troubling questions about the meaning of life and whether life was worth living. Only Christianity could have answered those questions for them, but the classical curriculum was fading.

There were those educators back then who saw where the elective system with its emphasis of science and progress apart from a classical Christian education would lead--it would cause the destruction of cohesion on campus and the loss of the civilizing mission of the universities. And that's where we are today. They foresaw that the elective system would bring educational anarchy to the campus and that it would mean that the adults, the educators, would not be able to tell the youth what was important. Many educators back then feared that the vacuum left by a classical education would be filled by materialism. (They were right; just this week I heard a young adult, as he was leaving the building, say good-bye to his friend telling him, "I'm off for the most important part of the day, to make money. That's my goal, my life goal.")

A former professor of mine remarked that when he asked his college class, "What is the purpose of life," the resounding answer was, "To have fun." No student in the days of Porter and McCosh would have even considered such an moronic answer.

THE HARVEST

The harvest came in the 1960's when the universities allowed the students to set their own agendas for what education should be. Because of the drift from classical education, we don't have any definition of what an educated person is and what the truth is. The colleges have abandoned their moral authority to tell us. You go find your own truth and purpose, and I'll find mine.

Lost in the elective system were the teachers who could lead the students to the wisdom of the past and help them stand on the shoulders of the sages of the ages. The elective system means that there is no wisdom from the past to transmit, that there is no ultimate truth to pass on to anyone, an idea contrary to Deuteronomy 6:6-7 No truth means that there's no basis to stand against evil; in order to do that, a person must know the truth, what's right.

YOU MIGHT BE ASKING

You might be asking, "What's the elective system brought to education?" That's a good question. To answer it, here's a sampling, only a partial one, of elective courses a student may take at various universities in America:

1. The History of Maple Syrup
2. How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U. S. National Identity
3. Elvish: The Language of "Lord of the Rings"
4. The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie
5. The Science of Superheroes
6. The Art of Walking (the student receives credit for walking to class)
7. Learning from YouTube

Former Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett summed it up: "The Color Purple" has replaced Shakespeare as being taught in more English departments in the 1990's than all of Shakespeare's plays combined."

SO WHAT TO DO?

A Christian classical education is in the hands of Christian parents and grandparents, not in the hands of the professionals. A good start would be reading the classics to children, including the Bible, and history by the carloads. What are the classics? Bill Bennett tells us: "The [classics] can be described as the best that has been said, thought, written, and otherwise expressed about the human experience. They tell us how men and women of our and other civilizations have grappled with life's enduring fundamental questions."

Education today has lost its mind and mission.
_________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."

Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.

If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.

Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.

Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:

notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org

Also:

Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582