Welcome

Welcome to the Christians in Education blog – I hope you will find it a useful and thought provoking place to visit. For my first post, I thought it would be good to tell you a little about Christians in Education and the intended purpose of its blogs.

Christians in Education has two aims – to support all Christians working in the world of education, and to advocate for the Christian worldview through challenging contemporary thinking.  Although my professional experience is UK based, the issues currently affecting education are broadly similar on both sides of the Atlantic. The time has gone when Christianity was the dominant social narrative in our countries and secularism is aiming to be the new black. A growing trend towards identity politics has created a noisy arena, crowded with entitlement, as a new social narrative is forged.

Education is a central stage on which this debate is being played out. Because education matters so much, the debate is often heated and sometimes bruising. What should our children and young people be taught? Should parents or the state define the ethos of our schools and the content of our curricula? Education prepares us to make our contribution to society – but what will that society look like for today’s students? Are our definitions of success too narrow? Are we so obsessed with economic security and relentless growth that we completely miss the point? The Bible is clear that ‘God created man in his own image,’ (Genesis 1:27 NIV) and that defines, and should inform, the debate. Each child, each young person, each adult whom we teach is made in God’s image to reflect his nature. As Stephen Covey reminds us: ‘We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey.’ Education isn’t only about learning and preparing for this world, it’s about learning and preparing for eternity within the kingdom of God.

Jesus was clear about our role: ‘You are like salt for everyone on earth … You are like light for the whole world’ (Matthew 5:13—14 CEV).  What a challenge! Verse 16 goes on to say ‘Make your light shine’ and one way in which we can do that is to ensure that as Christians we are part of the social debate, to ensure that the Christian worldview is presented clearly, concisely, courteously and intelligently.

There is an increasing trend in media debates to deflect from the underlying principle of a discussion by picking on particular points – LGBT and creationism are favourites when Christians are interviewed. But these are issues, not principles, and one of the aims of this blog is to focus on the big underlying questions, rather than get sidetracked into playing ping-pong about issues and individual interpretations of what Christians should believe.

To this end, I will be writing about social and cultural trends, posting profiles of individual Christians who care passionately about their work in education and who think about how their faith relates to it, and inviting guest blogs from key thinkers. The purpose is to make our light shine in the world, to be a voice in the debate, to contribute as society tries to write a pluralist narrative, and always to write as a child of God, belonging to his kingdom but living in a broken world.

So welcome to Christians in Education. I hope that our journey together will have a positive effect on the culture and contexts in which we each live and work.