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Secularism Destroyed Our Schools | David Goodwin | Of Flames and Crowns — Transcript

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0:00That order of love needs to be set
0:03deeply at a young age.
0:06>> And that's what classical Christian
0:07education sets out to do. And what that
0:10boils up into is young men and women who
0:13have a set of an ordered set of
0:15affections that collectively form a
0:19community. The communities collectively
0:22form civilization
0:25and civilizations bless or they curse.
0:29So PIEA, you know, you're the strength
0:33of your building is only as good as the
0:36blocks you build it with.
0:38And [music] that's what PIDEA is, is the
0:40building block of culture.
0:45[music]
0:52[music]
0:57David, thank [music] you so much for
0:58being with me today. I feel like you and
1:00I have such interesting conversations
1:02all the time. So, I thought, you know
1:04what? Let's let's actually get one on
1:06camera, you know. [laughter]
1:08Uh but yeah, so thank you so much. It's
1:10it's always such a good time with you
1:12and always good conversing with you. So,
1:14thank you for making it happen.
1:15>> Well, you know, the feelings mutual. I
1:17know uh my trip to Africa was made uh
1:20exceptionally more interesting because
1:23of uh your ability to show me the local
1:26culture. So, thank you.
1:27>> Yeah. I mean, at the time that we're
1:28actually having this conversation, you
1:30and I, I think we met about 2 years ago.
1:32>> Exactly. And it's just it's unbelievable
1:35to me just the kind of friendship we've
1:37built the last couple of years. We've
1:39been in two different locations, two
1:41different continents, two different
1:42countries.
1:43>> Yes. Um, and not just that, we've
1:45actually seen each other in various
1:47spots around the US as well, you know.
1:49So, that's been that's been so much fun.
1:51Um, the Africa tour was definitely
1:54interesting. Uh, all kinds of
1:56conversations on culture and education
1:58and all of that. So, yeah, I I think
2:01>> we'll get you to write all this down
2:02sooner or later.
2:03>> It has to happen as long [clears throat]
2:05as you Yeah, [laughter] you have got a
2:08lot of um a lot of material for a great
2:11book. I hope you uh get that out soon
2:13>> and we'll see what happens. Your
2:14encouragement always means a lot to me
2:16in that regard. So, thank you. So, of
2:19course, you wrote the book Battle for
2:20American Mind. When was this published?
2:23About four years ago at this point.
2:24>> Uh 2022.
2:25>> Okay. 2022. Yeah. 3 years ago. U you did
2:28it alongside some guy. I forget his name
2:30now. [laughter]
2:33>> Um yeah, you wrote this alongside Pete
2:36Hegsath.
2:37My greatest surprise this year is, you
2:41know, Hegathth got the SEC deaf position
2:43and I'm fully expecting you to come
2:46right alongside him as like his deputy
2:48or something like that. I mean,
2:50>> yeah. [laughter]
2:50>> Well, maybe if he had be been the
2:52secretary of education, but
2:54>> maybe so.
2:54>> My uh my knowledge of the defense
2:56industry is pretty uh pretty limited.
2:59>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Well,
3:01speaking of Department of Education,
3:04there's been an interesting shakeup
3:05since Trump came into the White House.
3:08Linda McMahon's now uh the Secretary of
3:11of Education.
3:13And I think the play is supposed to be
3:15to shut down the Department of
3:17Education.
3:19Just in your opinion, how feasible do
3:21you think that is? Is that possible?
3:24>> Well, it'll depend a lot on the
3:25midterms. I don't think they're going to
3:26try and get it done until the midterm
3:28elections. if they can get enough seats
3:30in Congress to repeal. You know, it was
3:33put in place, of course, by a
3:34congressional act. So, uh I don't
3:37believe there's a way for the executive
3:38to close it unless Congress goes along.
3:41And um but there certainly, you know,
3:45it's kind of like a moving party over
3:47there. They're uh they're selling off
3:48all the furniture, moving stuff out.
3:50They, you know, uh our organization
3:52works occasionally with a federal
3:54organization called the NAP. I think
3:56it's or NAES. It's a statistics
3:59gathering organization. I think it got
4:01moved to the um census department. So,
4:04they're kind of um shuffling things
4:07around. They're certainly preparing to
4:09sell the house. We'll see if Congress
4:10lets them.
4:10>> Yeah. Yeah. No, certainly. One of the
4:13things that I've I've noticed in recent
4:15times is
4:17uh in Florida, there seems to be a push
4:19towards classical education uh in some
4:22of its curricula uh at a public school
4:25level. Mhm.
4:27>> Is this a good idea? Uh can this really
4:30work? Is this what it takes to save
4:34America?
4:35>> Well, the problem is going to be that
4:37the the uh concept of pluralism is still
4:40alive and well, and they're trying to
4:42keep um Christianity out of it. And I
4:45think a lot of people mistake classical
4:46education.
4:48>> There's not one classical education.
4:50There's at least three that I I would
4:52track. And the one that you can perform
4:56in a public school setting is really
4:58just a great books sort of approach
5:00where you're reading great text. You may
5:02learn some logic and rhetoric in the
5:04same context that maybe ancient Rome
5:06would have or some of the um more
5:10progressive areas the United States did
5:12in the late 19th century. Uh that's a
5:15very different kind of classical
5:17education than classical Christian
5:18education. Uh, and people sometimes
5:21think that classical Christian education
5:23is just the addition of a Christian um,
5:27uh, sort of religious uh, frosting
5:31>> on top of an otherwise classical cake.
5:35And that's not the way it is. It doesn't
5:37work that way.
5:38>> Right. How can you just like flesh that
5:40out for me? Like what is what are the
5:42distinctives of classical Christian
5:44education as opposed to when contrast
5:46with just a classical education?
5:48>> Yes. Well, [clears throat] the easiest
5:50way I think to see it is to go back and
5:53say really there just use three points
5:55in time and say these are the three
5:57different ways uh classical education
5:59has been. The first was the Greeks and
6:01the Romans. Of course, they the the
6:03Greeks practiced it first, passed it on
6:05to the Romans. The Romans uh trained in
6:08the grammar, logic, and rhetoric. They
6:11didn't call it the trivium. They just
6:12called it grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
6:15And that form of education was fairly
6:17intact until uh somewhere between 500
6:20and 800 AD. Um and then and of course
6:24education wasn't universal at the time
6:26but the one the people who were educated
6:28that's how they were educated was in the
6:29old Roman form. By 800 AD that form had
6:32died out and in around uh 1050 to 1100 a
6:37new form rose
6:39>> and the new form of classical education
6:41was deeply Christian because it was born
6:45of an interest uh you know we we hear
6:48recall anelm's um St. Nansam was a saint
6:52in uh uh I don't know 1080 it's about
6:55when he starts writing and he his famous
6:59uh axiom was that he does not understand
7:03so that he may know God he knows God so
7:06that he may understand and there's a lot
7:08more wrapped up in that rapper than we
7:10realize the the the picture of education
7:13he creates is that there's an
7:16epistemology for the $2 word or just a
7:18way of coming to know things
7:20>> that can be used to bring forth the
7:23kingdom of God. And you see just about
7:26every major um institution and idea set
7:30that formed the Christian West, which is
7:33the West.
7:34>> The West is not, despite what people
7:36think, a product of Greece and Rome,
7:38although they certainly influenced it.
7:40It is a product of medieval
7:41Christianity. And so that form of
7:44education that's when they started
7:46calling it the trivium or the three
7:49ways. And then there was the quadriium
7:51which in Latin means the four ways. You
7:53ask ways to what? Ways to know. How do
7:56we come to know things? Because if we
7:58can come to understand things, to know
8:00things, we can apply that to our
8:03governments, to our families, to our
8:04churches, to our institutions, and our
8:07um just everything becomes uh a piece of
8:11the Christian kingdom.
8:14>> Then the enlightenment happens. They
8:16tell a new story. The new story says,
8:19"Oh, that really wasn't the medieval
8:21medievals who did uh all that great
8:23knowing." uh because obviously that's
8:25what marks the west is the great
8:27knowledge that the west developed.
8:29>> Um it's [clears throat] not really the
8:31medievals that sparked it. That was
8:33humanism born in the uh Greece and Rome
8:36and then just rediscovered in the
8:38Renaissance and reborn as they say in
8:41the Renaissance. And so by the 19th
8:43century classical education had shifted
8:46to a humanism base. And when you and
8:49what that means is they strip out the
8:52key axiom of uh classical Christian
8:55education which is that theology is the
8:58queen of the sciences.
9:00>> That um the the lynch pin or the kingpin
9:04in all of the the method of classical
9:08understanding is that the crown is the
9:10the study of theology. And if you go
9:13back even to 1700s,
9:16uh the greatest uh colleges at Oxford or
9:20University of Parish or Bologn or any of
9:22those were the theology departments.
9:25That's that's where all the action
9:26happened. If you were in the natural
9:28sciences, you were in s sort of the
9:30backwater, right? Yes.
9:32>> You were also ran. Um, and then of
9:34course by the Enlightenment they changed
9:36that, flipped that around and then
9:38pretty much now I don't know what kind
9:39of a theological um, uh, education you
9:42even get at Oxford, but
9:44>> I I know it's it's a still a big
9:46department there, but the bottom line
9:47that I'm trying to say is these charter
9:50schools that they're in Florida or
9:51anywhere, if you take Christ out of it,
9:53>> you're not just taking the frosting off,
9:56you're taking the ingredients out the
9:58way we come to know. And so it's not
10:00even really the same category of thing.
10:03Um,
10:04>> yeah, there's a
10:08I think when when once you take theology
10:10out of things, you lose
10:13a cosmological vision for things.
10:16>> Well said.
10:17>> Yeah. You because God really is the
10:20sovereign who rules over absolutely
10:22everything. because he is omnisient and
10:26because he's actually the one who
10:29determines and defines what true
10:32epistemology is.
10:35We're just never really going to
10:36understand the world in the way we
10:38should without theology anchoring that,
10:42>> you know, and and so that certainly
10:44needs to be recovered. In the last
10:46season of of of of this show, I I sat
10:49down with Vishal Mangalwadi and kind of
10:52was interrogating a similar line of
10:54thought. Um, and his thesis that I
10:57largely agree with was, you know, him
11:00talking about the intellectual surrender
11:02of the church when they decided to pull
11:05away from the university and essentially
11:07silo themselves into seminaries. When
11:10you think about all the great reformers,
11:11you think about influential Christians
11:14over time,
11:16they all had this classical Christian
11:18education and they were all men of the
11:21university.
11:22>> Um, but now seminary and theology as a
11:25as a um distinct discipline has kind of
11:28been siloed into academic corners that
11:31has at least in people's minds no
11:33bearing on the rest of life. Uh and of
11:36course his goal is to kind of see that
11:37reconciled where seminaries can recover
11:39that holistic cosmological vision for
11:42all things and recover their voice in
11:45the public square. Um that that's what
11:46he'd like to see happen.
11:48>> Um so I I hope that happens.
11:50>> Yes. I think um I think pluralism I
11:54mentioned that a minute ago.
11:56>> U we don't realize how crafty and how
12:00destructive pluralism is as an idea. It
12:03would be interesting to explore the idea
12:05a little bit because as I understand it,
12:08it comes into play. You know, there are
12:10a lot of religious wars. There's a lot
12:12of uh contention between states. Some of
12:16which may be Catholic, others
12:17Protestant, others. And so, you know, I
12:22guess what I would call the the the most
12:26um graphic case of throwing the baby out
12:28with bath water.
12:30um they they don't
12:34attack in pluralism. They don't attack
12:37religion or Christianity. They just move
12:40it to a safe space which is basically no
12:44place and uh that's the
12:50that's the beginning of the end for the
12:51west in my view.
12:53>> So taking Christ out of the
12:54Christianity.
12:56>> Yep. Taking Christ out of Christianity.
12:58taking Christ out of basically
13:00everything, marginalizing him. Uh, and
13:04the thing is is he says he's the way,
13:06the truth, and the life. Those are the
13:08only three things, you know, what we do,
13:10the way, what we see as truth, and how
13:13we live. Um,
13:16you take all that out of Christianity
13:20and you basically have denied the
13:22essential reality of who Christ is,
13:24>> right? So let's say people are hearing
13:27us have this conversation and they're
13:29they might say a hearty amen to all of
13:31this, but they might be wondering, okay,
13:33what does this actually look like in
13:35pedigogy, for example? What does this
13:37look like in a classroom setup? Like we
13:40love this idea of Christ being the
13:42center of things, theology being the
13:44queen of the sciences, but how does this
13:47influence the way that we then teach and
13:49learn?
13:50Well, I think I think uh if we go back
13:54to the medievals for the first thing we
13:56have to realize that the project of
13:58education is the art of learning itself
14:00and I when I first heard that I think
14:02like everyone I gave it too little
14:04credence I didn't uh you know how hard
14:07can it be to learn something but I had a
14:09modern mind and the modern mind was
14:11saying learning is just a function of
14:12scientific experimentation right just uh
14:15read read a book uh read another book
14:17see if they align it's all done done in
14:19here. That's human rationalism and it's
14:22it's not the way that Christians come to
14:24know things. Christians create an
14:26ordered hierarchy. So we have the triv
14:30which is grammar, logic, rhetoric, the
14:32three things that train. And for
14:34Christians, rhetoric was different. When
14:36you get into the middle ages, it's not
14:38the Roman rhetoric of of political
14:40discourse. It's discourse
14:43uh brotherto in the search of the truth.
14:47And uh it can involve speeches. It does
14:50involve that sort of thing. But it's
14:52mostly not to win the day in the
14:54political sphere. It's to come to a a
14:58knowledge of the truth together. Come,
15:00let us reason together. Um
15:03and so you get this more uh
15:05sophisticated version of rhetoric.
15:07There's a more sophisticated version or
15:09Christian sophisticated is the wrong
15:11word. More Christian version of
15:12rhetoric. More Christian word version of
15:14the dialectic. Of course, the medievals
15:16were great logicians. They would they
15:18would um you know work through the logic
15:21of things.
15:22>> So you take that, you layer the
15:24theologies of the queen of the sciences
15:25on top of it. And then you take what um
15:29Thomas Aquinus told us about synthesis
15:33that only in a Christian you know in any
15:36pagan world you can't have synthesis
15:38because you got multiple gods. And so
15:40any truth can only be a truth in so far
15:43as you don't switch gods
15:45>> out, right?
15:46>> Um [clears throat]
15:48very different for a Christian. There's
15:50only one God. Christ reigns over uh all.
15:54Uh so that makes everything work
15:56together. So you asked kind of a
16:00question about how's it different
16:01pedagogically and I would say that whole
16:04envelope of grammar, logic, rhetoric,
16:06theology the queen of the sciences
16:08wrapped in sort of a synthesis trying to
16:11bring everything together so that in the
16:13university the university was an
16:14invention of the medieval Christians for
16:16this purpose of bringing things that we
16:18can know together. The outworking of
16:21that was many institutions that we now
16:23hang on. So, uh, if you look at, um,
16:27American legal system, it's it's quite a
16:29miraculous thing when you look at it,
16:31how it works. um the idea of of juries
16:35and judges, the idea of a trial, the way
16:37the trial works, how um
16:40uh you know what what is legal and
16:42illegal in property law or in contract
16:45law, all of that dates into uh what's
16:47often pointed to as British common law,
16:50but British common law descended from
16:52ecclesiastical law from the Middle Ages.
16:54And that's where it was really
16:55generated. And when you look at it, all
16:58of these laws really come down to
17:02Christian principles of law.
17:05>> Yes.
17:05>> How do we treat someone who commits a
17:10crime?
17:11>> Uh how how do uh waring nations justly
17:17um work within the context of a just war
17:20theory? Um, how does a uh property right
17:25pass from a uh one generation to the
17:28next? Is it something that can be sold?
17:30Is it the the divine right of the king?
17:33I mean, there's there's all kinds of
17:35things that were meed out, figured out,
17:37and parsed once they had developed a way
17:40of knowing,
17:41>> right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that's
17:44that's profound. I wish I wish more
17:45people would actually grasp that. Um,
17:47and we certainly need a lot more of
17:49that. And yeah, I think America in that
17:52sense is just so different and distinct
17:54than most countries around the world in
17:56that regard as well. It was applied in a
17:59um in a unique way. I think building on
18:01on that tradition as well. Turns out
18:04biblical law, Christian law is good for
18:08the world.
18:09>> Who would have thought, right?
18:11[laughter]
18:11>> Yes. I mean, imagine where we'd be if
18:14instead of adopting pluralism and
18:17jettisoning Christianity,
18:19the Christians would have continued the
18:22um the um process of working together,
18:28Catholics, Protestants, uh you know, all
18:30the very [clears throat] Orthodox, the
18:32various forms working together to come
18:34to a knowledge of truth to continue
18:37building the west. Um what we see is
18:40that pretty much throughout the 20th
18:43century the west is falling into
18:45decadence
18:47>> and we can't just assume that that's the
18:49natural outworking. Ideas have
18:51consequences that flows from this
18:53pluralistic idea that Christianity has
18:56to be taken out of public discourse
19:00and that that way of knowing has to be
19:02sanitized down to scientific learning.
19:06um you take those two ideas and you can
19:08see exactly what destroyed the west.
19:10>> Exactly. One of the things that I've
19:12observed about the west as well and this
19:15is largely
19:18been concentrated in Europe but I think
19:20the west has lost its will to fight. Um
19:23it's it's lost its faculties of
19:26discernment
19:28regarding what is good, what is evil,
19:32who are we, what are we for?
19:35uh how do we resist the rot? What does
19:38it look like to build civilization in a
19:41way that is anchored in in virtue? I
19:45think it's lost some of those
19:47fundamental sensibilities.
19:49We're now as the west is is crumbling.
19:52It's it's crumbling in its freedoms.
19:54It's crumbling in its in its prosperity
19:56in many ways.
19:58And some people are disillusioned about
20:00it all. They have no idea how this is
20:02happening. Some also just don't frankly
20:05care or even have the categories to
20:06discern [clears throat]
20:08what's actually happened.
20:11And of course, I think that's a
20:12consequence of just throwing God out of
20:15the equation entirely. Um that's what
20:17happens when a nation abandons God.
20:19>> Mhm.
20:21>> To what degree
20:23do you think education
20:27has contributed to that? like what what
20:30I mean you speak about the enlightenment
20:31but [clears throat] it's just amazing
20:33and shocking to me just how quickly
20:36education has been eroded. I mean part
20:37of your rationale for writing battle for
20:39the American mind was because
20:41>> you were concerned about the state of
20:44education in America.
20:46Well, originally I had heard a lecture
20:49that just had a quote from a progressive
20:51educator in the early part of the 20th
20:53century where he said that they that the
20:56parents didn't have the right to control
20:58the plasticity of the child. And that
21:01was an odd word. Of course, in the early
21:0220th century, they were using more uh
21:04diverse vocabulary than we now do. But I
21:07went to find out what that meant. Um, I
21:09knew what plasticity in that context
21:11must mean, but what were they actually
21:14trying to uh achieve and that's when I
21:18un
21:19unraveled what I you know much to my
21:22surprise that the progressives this was
21:25not I guess I had always thought it was
21:27just a natural slow uh progression away
21:32from uh the Christian worldview and
21:34towards sort of a a progressive America.
21:37But it was an orchestrated intentional
21:40act by the progressives to um upend
21:44Christian classical Christian education
21:46which had dominated even into the late
21:4919th century. It was still the dominant
21:52ethos in schools the way things were
21:54learned.
21:55And in 1905 they started a lab school
21:59called the Gary School in Gary, Indiana.
22:02That turned into the Gary plan that they
22:04imported into other states. And by 1915,
22:07they had a strategy to move forward and
22:10get um get Christ out of of uh schools
22:14all across America. The problem they had
22:17is that they had been Gary was unique
22:19because Gary was a relatively small town
22:21at the time because it was brand new. It
22:23was a an industrial town right on the
22:26shores of Lake Michigan. And so it was
22:29fairly new and they could do whatever
22:30they wanted there. most of the people
22:32there were in, you know, workers, you
22:34bluecollar. Um, and then in the big
22:37cities, they had a liberal uh
22:39stronghold, but getting it out into the
22:41rural areas and into the um the rest of
22:44America was going to be very hard
22:47>> because these were Christian areas. And
22:50um prior to this, you had in many of
22:52these areas, you had the um the Apostles
22:56Creed being recited every morning um at
22:59least before 1905. And you you had um
23:03Christian um work going on in the
23:06classroom all the time. So, how do you
23:08get that out? Well, they knew that they
23:10couldn't um just yank it out because
23:13people, local people still controlled
23:15the school boards and it would never
23:16happen. So what they did is they, you
23:20know, we use a story in the book of, you
23:22know, those uh spy dramas where there's
23:25a uh precious gem on a plate and um in a
23:30museum and somebody's wanting to steal
23:32it, but they have to put something just
23:34like it on the plate in or the same
23:36weight, same look so that no one will
23:38notice it's gone to give them time. And
23:41what that gem was in this case was uh
23:45American patriotism. So you see the rise
23:48of the Bellamy salute which prior to
23:511942
23:53uh was a different salute than prior to
23:551952. It didn't have under God in it but
23:57it was meant to replace the Apostles's
23:59Creed. Uh the flag in front of the class
24:02replaced the crosses. The pictures of
24:04George Washington replaced any uh
24:06Christian paraphernalia that was in the
24:08room. And uh they were off to the races.
24:11It was their intention to trick the
24:14American people into letting Christ go
24:16in favor of patriotism.
24:18>> And that's the sad thing is is that even
24:22patriotism is a bad substitute.
24:25>> Yes.
24:25>> Uh for Christ. It doesn't work. And it
24:28drove us into the 1950s where we had a
24:30very patriotic population but not a very
24:33godly one. At least not in a spiritual
24:36sense.
24:38and that led to the decay that we see.
24:41So,
24:42>> yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's
24:45I've been thinking quite a bit about
24:47patriotism the last couple years and
24:50thinking like what are the core
24:50ingredients that make patriotism
24:53virtuous and where does it get
24:55dangerous?
24:57Um, and one of the things that I started
25:00to muse through is the correlation
25:02between truth, beauty, and goodness,
25:05which I think are very distinctly
25:07Christian ideals, and patriotism. Um, I
25:12think American patriotism really is
25:14unique. Americans might be the most
25:17patriotic people on planet Earth. And I
25:19think that's because they really do have
25:21a strong foundation. there's
25:25an abundance of liberty and prosperity
25:28over time and people love that and they
25:31want to defend that.
25:33But I think what I've noticed is in
25:36civilizations that loosen those hinges,
25:39they lose a grasp of what truth is, they
25:44redefine what beauty is and replace that
25:48with distortion.
25:51They think of goodness as as a as a
25:53relative thing and all of a sudden your
25:57patriotism becomes quite empty like
25:59you're not even really defending
26:02uh virtue anymore. Um you're defending
26:06uh a the sentimentality. [clears throat]
26:08It's it's it becomes a sentimental thing
26:10and that's and that's all it it amounts
26:12to. Um so as you're saying that I'm just
26:14musing through this and thinking like hm
26:16um is that what we're seeing here? Is
26:18that is that what happened? Um but yeah,
26:21that's a that's a quite a profound
26:23obser.
26:23>> Yes, I think
26:26um
26:29[clears throat] in some sense the
26:30strength of American patriotism is due
26:32to its ideology. Uh it was an
26:35ideological uh experiment,
26:37>> right?
26:38>> And it wasn't the only one. There were
26:40other ideologies. There was communism
26:42and Marxism. there was um what has
26:44become in the 20th century uh a liberal
26:49democracy. You know the idea of um each
26:53man can you know you could not get away
26:56with most of the sexual uh deviency that
26:59we see today in the 19th century in
27:01America. Uh it's not that they were less
27:04committed to liberty. It's that liberty
27:05meant something different. Liberty.
27:08Liberty was the pursuit of the good life
27:12as defined by Christ, as defined by God.
27:16>> And then that that that got shifted
27:18along with that same sort of the the
27:21shuffle of the diamond, you know, they
27:23move everything elsewhere. I think, you
27:26know, that patriotism
27:29to an ideology is what we see
27:32particularly in the early part of the
27:3320th century in communism. Um, you know,
27:37I a little hesitant to recommend books
27:40because everybody does that too much.
27:41But, um, there's an old book uh called
27:44Witness by a guy by the name of Whitaker
27:47Chambers. He was um involved
27:50[clears throat]
27:50in the he was a communist party member
27:53helping move in in the United States
27:56helping to move state secrets out to um
28:00to [clears throat]
28:01Russia. and he testified, you know, in
28:04this trial and that's where this witness
28:06comes from. But he became a Christian
28:09and the beginning of that book tells an
28:12amazing story of communism and he goes
28:17through all the possible
28:19all sort of all the possible ways people
28:22think communism is and he lands on it's
28:25none of these. It's a religion. It's an
28:27ideology. It's a religion based in
28:29ideology. And I'd never really thought
28:31about the fact because I just recently
28:34picked up the book um never really
28:37thought about the fact that ideologies
28:40make bad religions.
28:42>> Yes.
28:42>> Right.
28:43>> Um because they're very humanentric,
28:48right? It's it's uh it gives the human
28:51the power. And uh that's the problem
28:54we're in is if if we're highly patriotic
28:58to an ideology,
29:01it's going to yield um some downstream
29:06problems every time.
29:08>> Yeah. As we're seeing now, right?
29:10>> Yeah.
29:10>> Yeah.
29:11>> And by that I mean I mean I guess I'm
29:13being a little nebulous. I should say if
29:16something is right or wrong based upon
29:19what the God of the universe says and we
29:22may debate, you know, maybe for a
29:24Catholic it's it's is a Protestant,
29:28right? Is contraception biblically
29:30allowed? Um those kinds of debates
29:34are acceptable and good to have mainly
29:38because you know you're all working from
29:40the same not ideology but from the same
29:44basis of truth in Christianity and in
29:47the Bible.
29:48>> Without the Christianity in the Bible,
29:50you don't have the West. You don't even
29:52get close to it.
29:53>> Exactly. And I think we just one of one
29:56of the weak spots for modern men
29:58certainly I'm there as well is the
30:01inability to imagine what the world
30:03would be like without Christianity.
30:05>> Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's actually
30:08been one of the things that
30:09[sighs and gasps]
30:10in my time living in the United States
30:14is just how influenced the
30:16non-Christians are by Christianity. Like
30:18they don't understand how Christian they
30:20are. [laughter]
30:21uh they really can't imagine a world
30:24that hasn't been influenced by
30:26Christianity. Um it's inescapable. Um
30:28the the service delivery they expect
30:31that's good and timely and honest. Uh
30:35the fact that there's sidewalks on the
30:37side of every street [laughter] and you
30:39know that's fun to me. You've seen what
30:40Zambia is like, right? Um those are
30:43those are all things people can easily
30:45take for granted but those are
30:47fundamentally Christian Christian
30:50um distinctives.
30:52Yeah. [clears throat] I mean one of the
30:54most profound experiment experiences I
30:56had when I was in Zambia with you is
30:59that you'd put me in a home uh for with
31:01some people for afternoon dinner.
31:04>> These were Christians. Uh, by the way, I
31:06found all Zambians that I met to be
31:08joyful uh just um very enjoyable people.
31:14Uh but as we were eating, they were
31:17talking about how difficult it is to
31:21conduct life in the tribal conduct or
31:24context,
31:25>> right,
31:25>> with their Christianity because they
31:28were talking about their daughter being
31:29married and what that involved and how
31:32the tribal uh practices were different.
31:34And and in short,
31:37>> it was my first time to ever realize,
31:39wait a minute, the world doesn't all
31:41think like Americans.
31:43>> [laughter]
31:44>> Right.
31:45>> It it it was uh the problems they had
31:48were very foreign to me.
31:49>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And what it
31:51boils down to is just the degree to
31:53which Christianity influences any given
31:56nation is going to determine how free it
31:59is uh and even how prosperous it's going
32:03to be. I think in much of the third
32:04world the way the reason the third world
32:06is what it is is because it doesn't have
32:09that Christian influence um in that way.
32:12I mean, sure, missionaries have have
32:14gone all across the third world at this
32:16point for a few centuries,
32:19but at best, I think they've often
32:21preached
32:23um a very narrow-minded gospel. It's
32:28really about trying to get people to
32:30punch their tickets to heaven and not
32:32really uh teaching a cosmological vision
32:35of what Christianity really is, the
32:37implications of what the gospel uh
32:40produces. and we need to recover that.
32:42And I think where those gaps exist as as
32:46as you've observed,
32:48usually you're going to get some pagan
32:51secular alternative that fills those
32:54gaps. Um, and that's why in much of the
32:56third world, synratism, that pluralism
32:58to a degree is is a real thing where
33:00people actually think um these disperate
33:02worldviews, contrasting worldviews can
33:05actually coexist and it just doesn't
33:07work. Mhm.
33:08>> Um, and that can only really be
33:10remedied, I think, with a robust
33:13Christianity. Um, which is why
33:17I love classical Christian education. I
33:19really do think it's that tool that
33:20actually, um, will help to move that
33:23needle a little bit. Yeah.
33:25>> Yeah. [clears throat]
33:28Uh, president of New St. Andrews wrote a
33:30book that's one of my favorite books uh,
33:32ever.
33:33>> Yeah. Um, I I maybe should qualify that
33:36a bit more, but very good book,
33:38>> The White Horse.
33:39>> The White Horse King.
33:40>> And I commend it to everyone because you
33:43can see little glimpses of how
33:45Christianity changed pagan cultures
33:48right in that book.
33:49>> Yes. Exactly. One of the classic cases
33:51is that um
33:54when the Danes take over England or
33:58parts of England and the locals are
34:00trying to figure out how to fight them,
34:02they they finally band together and are
34:05able to conquer the these uh invaders.
34:09But the invaders live, you know, at this
34:11point they're living in in um uh
34:15England. And so the question is what do
34:17you do when you vanqu when you conquer a
34:20people like that? Now historically
34:22you sell everyone into slavery or you
34:24kill them or you take their women and
34:27you marry. You know that was like the
34:29way that every society throughout time
34:33when you won a war that's what you did.
34:34And when you think about it it wasn't
34:36just barbarism it was practical.
34:38>> You if you let these people you know go
34:40back to their homes you're going to be
34:41fighting them again in a few weeks. So,
34:44um, you don't let them go back. You you
34:46just upend upend them. Alfred the Great
34:49comes up with a Christian answer, which
34:52is, "No, I'm going to baptize you." Now,
34:56modern Christians are like, "What?" You
34:58know, this, you can't force a guy to be
35:00baptized. You know, no, we're going to
35:02baptize you and you're going to live by
35:04Christian rules. You can keep living
35:05here and you can do your thing, but
35:07you're going to do it in a Christian
35:09context. We're going to be brothers. we
35:10are not going to be uh uh waiting for
35:13you to come invade us again. And that
35:15just in itself just in a microcosm is a
35:18picture of how Christianity changed the
35:20world is that it sees people not as um
35:27you know us and them. It sees people as
35:32image godbearers.
35:34Therefore,
35:36there's got to be a better solution than
35:37killing them and enslaving them.
35:39>> Right. Exactly.
35:40>> And and that, you know, works its way
35:43through into just war theory and
35:44everything that comes later.
35:46>> Well, so much for multiculturalism, you
35:48know.
35:48>> Yeah. [laughter]
35:49Well, and yeah, there's there's a funny
35:53thing. I um as you see Europe, you know,
35:57this is a question people should be
35:58asking who who ask questions about
36:00multiculturalism.
36:01>> They act as though Europeans are this
36:03monolithic group. But if you go back to
36:06the middle ages, uh early middle ages
36:08particularly, um the the Romans could
36:11never conquer north of basically I think
36:14the rind um [clears throat] because that
36:18Germanic culture was so difficult. They
36:21couldn't deal with it. The Gauls were
36:23difficult to deal with. The picss, the
36:24Kelts, I mean these were some of the
36:26most diverse uh people groups in the
36:29world. I mean, you go over there today
36:31and you see the the um you know,
36:33Stonehinge type uh you the Druid
36:36worshiping this place was diverse,
36:39>> right?
36:39>> And yet now we're criticized Europeans
36:43for being a monolith,
36:44>> right? Yeah.
36:46>> But yet what there, you know, 15 20
36:49different languages in across the
36:51Eurasian, uh Western Asian,
36:55>> it's it's not a monolith. It's just
36:58united because Christianity united it
37:01>> about 1500 [clears throat] years ago.
37:04And
37:05>> and yet now we're told that the way to
37:08unite diverse populations is to let them
37:12um all be diverse.
37:14>> Right. Right.
37:15>> Don't unite them around any any
37:17particular truth system.
37:19>> Yeah. Exactly.
37:20>> Let them have their own truth.
37:22>> And that doesn't create a society. That
37:24creates strife.
37:25>> Right. Precisely. And I think behind
37:27that as well is just this assumption
37:30that culture is always neutral.
37:32>> Yes.
37:32>> You know, and therefore there's not not
37:34one culture that's better than the
37:36other.
37:37>> All you have to do is just travel the
37:38world a little bit and you'll realize
37:40very quickly. [laughter]
37:41>> Well, I like the way you said that
37:42culture is always neutral.
37:43>> Yeah.
37:44>> Using [clears throat] a superlative.
37:46>> The flip side is actually the truth.
37:48Culture is never neutral.
37:50>> Exactly.
37:51>> It's never ever neutral.
37:53Um, and you know, this was, you know,
37:55one of my favorite moments last year was
37:57when JD Vance pulled the Order Omar uh
38:00thing on national television. It's like
38:02this is the this is the one of the
38:04central truth claims of Christianity
38:07>> is that all things are ordered in and
38:11God orders them according to his his
38:14will, whatever he chooses.
38:17And
38:19when you look at cultures, some of them
38:22are better and some of them are worse
38:24because of the way they order their
38:26loves within the culture.
38:27>> Exactly.
38:28>> And so you have Eastern culture in the
38:30Asian space that obviously has some
38:32strengths over some other parts of the
38:34world.
38:36They aren't by any means uh a Christian
38:39culture, but their order of affections,
38:42their love of their uh parents and their
38:45ancestors, those sorts of things play
38:48some, you know, some truth. There's some
38:50truth to it.
38:51>> Um so, yeah, I think um we've got to get
38:56back to the place where Christians see
38:58our job as blessing the world.
39:02Blessing the world by bringing them
39:04Christ. Absolutely. What do you think
39:06that'll take
39:08to bring people to a point where they
39:09can [sighs]
39:10appreciate that, live by it, and seek to
39:14promote and propagate it?
39:16>> Excellent question. And of course, I
39:17only have one answer because it's my
39:19job.
39:20>> Education. And I education is not
39:22self-e. I'm not talking about individual
39:24salvation. What I'm talking about is
39:27>> that order of love needs to be set
39:30deeply at a young age. And that's what
39:33classical Christian education sets out
39:35to do. And what that boils up into is
39:39young men and women who have a set of an
39:41ordered set of affections that
39:44collectively form a community. The
39:47communities collectively
39:49form civilization
39:52and civilizations bless or they curse.
39:56So PIEA, you know, you're the strength
40:00of your building is only as good as the
40:02blocks you build it with. And that's
40:05what PIEA is, is the building block of
40:08culture.
40:09>> Let's unearth this a little bit. Pidea,
40:11it's a Greek term.
40:14Uh what I often understand by it is this
40:17idea of inculturation.
40:20um this appeal to [sighs]
40:23the whole being of a person, appealing
40:26to their affections, their mind,
40:28absolutely everything. Um seeking to
40:31conform them
40:33to
40:35the image of
40:38some standard or ideal. Um for the
40:40Greeks that was about trying to produce
40:43a good, I suppose, virtuous Greek
40:46citizen. Um, so would you simply say
40:49that it's the same thing in that regard,
40:52but what we're trying to orient students
40:54around is the virtue of being
40:57Christlike.
40:58>> Um, how would you unpack that idea of
41:01PIDEA?
41:02>> I think the easiest way to understand
41:03PIDEA is to understand how it came to be
41:05known. It's really a concept. It's a
41:08reality, but it's a concept because it
41:09was given a name by the Greeks.
41:12>> And it it begins in Athens. And you
41:14know, the Athenians were great at
41:15thinking about things. And of course,
41:17they were always waring with the city
41:18states around them and some uh foreign
41:21powers, whether it's the Persians or the
41:24Italians or the the um Spartans or the
41:28you Macedonians, you know, the the
41:30Athenians were always waring around.
41:32They asked a question, what makes a
41:34Macedonian a Macedonian? What makes a
41:37Spartan a Spartan? They're different
41:38kind of people. They just they you you
41:41only have to watch, you know, you must
41:43whatever the 300 and you see the
41:45Spartans were very different kind of
41:47people. Um
41:49and they noticed that if you took a
41:51child, a baby as an infant and took them
41:53out of one of these cultures and put
41:55them in another, no matter it wasn't
41:57genetic, they grew up to be like the
41:59culture they were put in. And so they
42:02anticipated that they wanted to create a
42:04new form of of government that didn't
42:06involve tyrants because as we know from
42:08Plato's republic um the the Greeks were
42:11very interested in the in the
42:13understanding of why tyrants rise and
42:15how do you know because it it makes for
42:17very bad government and their idea was
42:19democracy. What if we have a democracy
42:22where there's no one person with this
42:23power? And the question that was raised
42:27was with all these pideas they all share
42:31one thing in common. They revere the
42:33leader. Whoever the king is, they're
42:36brought up from a as an infant to revere
42:40that person. So they're brought up in a
42:42surviile way. They're brought up to
42:44serve the king. What if we're going to
42:47have a democracy, we need to figure out
42:50how to liberate
42:53these children from this idea that you
42:57have to serve the king and the way we do
43:00that is we teach them to think for
43:02themselves because then we can have
43:05debates and dialogues in the public
43:07square. That was the basis of the
43:09Athenian democracy originally and that's
43:11where PIDEA was born. The liberal arts
43:13were born there. grammar, logic,
43:14rhetoric, uh geometry, you know, all the
43:16all the other elements. The philosophy
43:18of the Greeks was born out of this idea
43:22of Pidea,
43:24training young children to think
43:27liberally, meaning free. Um, and of
43:32course, the Romans developed further,
43:34the Christians really developed it in
43:36the Middle Ages. We already talked about
43:38that. And what it is is just training
43:41children to order their affections.
43:44So that if you if you're brought up to
43:47seek truth, but you realize that the
43:51ultimate source of truth is Jesus Christ
43:54and God the Father, God God the Holy
43:56Spirit. You're brought up to to order
43:59the Trinity correctly. You're brought up
44:01to order your family correctly.
44:02Everything is rightly ordered. That's a
44:04big part of PIDEA is rightly ordering
44:07how you how you um uh love the world.
44:12>> Um [clears throat]
44:14another aspect of PIDEA
44:17is the myth or the narrative that you
44:21think about the world. Um, most kids
44:24that are running around today who
44:25weren't brought up in in the church or
44:28some that were brought up in the church,
44:30their myth is about apes turning into
44:32people and that, you know, we think of
44:34that and think, oh, that's just a
44:36scientific theory. Everybody lives in a
44:38story.
44:39I mean, I'm be interested what what do
44:42you think the the
44:45most destructive myths are
44:48>> that are um either in your homeland or
44:52in America as you've seen it
44:54>> that people just live in this story and
44:56they don't realize uh that it's a false
44:59story.
45:00>> Yeah. I think there's a sequence of
45:02things I could think to that. Um one is
45:06that man is the center of the universe.
45:09So, we're in our we're all in our own
45:12stories where each one of us is a main
45:15character.
45:15>> Excellent point.
45:16>> Right. Um
45:18I think largely God is dismissed from
45:20that story by and large. Um that the
45:24greatest problems in this world are
45:26problems of disparity rather than sin.
45:29And I mean financial disparity. That
45:31differences are the great evil in this
45:33world. I think that's a a narrative I I
45:36hear that's very pre prevalent. You've
45:39already touched on this, but government
45:40is God is another prevalent narrative
45:43that I think is has been very
45:44destructive.
45:46Uh and I think another one is just
45:50a very entropic view of what life is all
45:54about. And by entropic I mean actually
45:56the better word is fatalistic.
45:58um that the world's going to hell
46:01anyway, so let's just do whatever we
46:04want. Uh
46:05>> hedonism.
46:06>> Yes, it's it it really is hedonism. Um
46:09and and even as far as people try to
46:11build this idea of utopia,
46:15it's still quite shallow, you know, uh
46:19the the crescendo of the world's
46:22narrative is still very cheap. Um and I
46:26think these are these are a few things
46:28that I see as far as the world's
46:29narrative. Yeah.
46:31>> No, that's great. So, PIDEA has got
46:34three three elements. One is this uh
46:37ordered affections, how what we love and
46:39in what order. One is the myth or or the
46:42the story that we're in and what it
46:45means to you know what our part is in
46:47that story. And the third is what
46:49sometimes people call worldview, but
46:51it's really just a set of basic
46:53assumptions you make about things every
46:55day. Uh when I walk into a store in the
46:58United States, uh I put my money or
47:02credit card, I guess, down on the table
47:04and I anticipate getting what is is on
47:07offer.
47:09That's a worldview-based thing that um
47:13the guy across the counter is interested
47:15in my good as much as his own in the in
47:18the transaction and isn't selling me a
47:21hollow shell or something. Now, of
47:23course, there's cheats everywhere, but
47:24as you pointed out, it's a worldview
47:26thing. Sure.
47:27>> So those three things in PIDEA, the the
47:29way we the assumptions we carry with us
47:32about the world, the affections we have
47:35and the myths that we're in pretty much
47:38shape PIDEA,
47:39>> right?
47:41>> Wow. Where would you begin with trying
47:43to reorder that? Like very practically,
47:45how do we begin to set
47:48propose a truthful narrative? How do we
47:51push that forward? very young read your
47:55kids the old western stories. Uh you
47:57would be shocked at how I tell a story
48:00sometimes. My when my son was about five
48:02or six, he's a thinker. This this one.
48:06>> Yeah,
48:07>> I have two sons. Uh he's a thinker and I
48:10had been reading him great western
48:12stories for a long time. Uh Grim's Fairy
48:14Tales. Uh
48:15>> I was going to ask you like what are
48:17some of your favorites to read there?
48:18>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean shoot my favorites
48:20are all George McDonald. um every George
48:23McDonald book that are for kids. Uh he
48:25writes a couple adult novels are just
48:27amazing in the their way of
48:29communicating truth. So I picked up a
48:31101 or 101 Arabian Knights once and
48:34started to read a story out of there and
48:36he uh we get to the end of the story and
48:40um the basic plot of the story was that
48:42there was this lion that was
48:44encountering walking around and he kept
48:47encountering different animals who'd
48:48been abused by this thing called man.
48:50and how terrible it was. And he set out
48:54to find this thing called man and uh
48:59punish it for what it was doing to all
49:01these animals. And he comes across this
49:04animal that
49:05>> [clears throat]
49:05>> um that is so abused the hair has been
49:09worn off his whole body except the top
49:10of his head. And which of course you
49:12know it's a man. And the man, you know,
49:15he he says, "Yeah, they made me row
49:16their boat. They did this. They did
49:18that." And the lion says, "What can I do
49:20for you?" And he says, "Build me a
49:21house." So the lion builds it to his
49:23specifications. The man goes in with the
49:26lion and then steps out, slams the door,
49:29and it's a lion trap, right? And my
49:35my son started crying at that moment.
49:38And I we had read, you know, Grim's
49:40fairy tales. I mean, there's death,
49:42there's torture. I mean, everything's in
49:44the I'm going, "What is so bad about
49:46this?"
49:47And I asked him, I said,"Wh are you
49:50upset about the end of this story?" I
49:53said, 'You know, lots of people die and
49:56things die in these stories. And he
49:58goes, "It's not that, Dad. It's that the
50:02lion was just sneak or the man was just
50:04sneaky."
50:05>> Yeah.
50:06>> The virtue of the story was that he was
50:07sneaky.
50:08>> Being clever made you good.
50:11>> That's a very non-Christian cultural
50:15>> uh influence. And that's where if you
50:18want your kids to grow up, the first
50:20thing to love the good, the true, and
50:23the beautiful, read them good, true, and
50:25beautiful stories over and over and over
50:26again. Read the Chronicles of Narnia at
50:28least three times before they're in the
50:30third grade.
50:31>> Absolutely. That's the way to do it.
50:33>> That's one way. And there's uh the other
50:36is just straight biblical um depth.
50:40Don't just read uh the verses. Read the
50:43narrative of of scripture because that
50:45narrative sets better um better
50:50affections than you can ever even do
50:52with with fairy tales.
50:54>> Um and then
50:57in your home you just need to you know
50:59this is the funny thing is I work for
51:01school network
51:02>> but it's parents
51:03>> who have the biggest influence on the
51:05pidea of their children.
51:07Um as a school what we can do is we can
51:10deepen and make a richer pidea of what
51:13you do but we cannot we cannot make the
51:16base of what it is that comes from the
51:18home. It's how you live. It's how it's
51:21do you hold your kids to high standards.
51:25And when you as a parent fall short of
51:28those standards, do you confess your sin
51:31to your children? and and do they see
51:33that, you know, that wholly enveloping
51:37Christian worldview in your home?
51:40>> Yeah. So good. One of the things that uh
51:42was very integral in my upbringing was
51:44just kateesus as well. My parents did an
51:46excellent job catechizing me. And
51:49recently I've been I've been thinking
51:51about what makes katakesis so potent.
51:56And it's interesting because kind of
51:59taking this back to the trivium,
52:01[clears throat] I think Kateesus
52:02actually teaches you both gram all
52:05grammar, logic, and rhetoric all all at
52:07once. You're learning what things are,
52:09who God is, who we are. Uh logic, you're
52:13you're make you're helping them think
52:16uh through interrogation. It they're
52:19they're learning to ask the right
52:20questions. And then in rhetoric, they're
52:23also learning to answer questions.
52:25Um, and I mean I I just I didn't even
52:28think about it when I was growing up.
52:30It's really in my adulthood that I
52:31really appreciated this, but I realized
52:33that wow, from the time I was young,
52:35I've had this ability to answer
52:37questions and and you can even say
52:40existential questions about the meaning
52:41of life for people who um
52:46might seem confused on those kinds of
52:47things. Um, and so I've I've thought
52:50that katakesus is very powerful that
52:52way. But then connect with it and I've
52:55really I've really wanted your thoughts
52:56on this. Um, in dealing with the trivium
53:00in this way, people like to sometimes
53:02sequence it as like stages of learning
53:03as opposed to
53:05not so much stages of learning but as
53:07something that actually comes together
53:09as a whole at every stage of a student's
53:13life. Um how do you generally like to
53:17think of the trivia in that sense? Um
53:21>> well I think the trivia is a complete
53:23set.
53:23>> Yeah.
53:24>> Um [clears throat] it
53:28the short answer would be yeah the
53:31classical movement got its start with
53:32Dorothy Seers and she made that
53:34observation about she had three stages
53:36and she said gee they overlay these
53:38three grammar, logic, rhetoric.
53:40Historically, um, grammar had always
53:43been started for young children and
53:45logic and rhetoric were kind of grouped
53:46together in the secondary. Um, I I think
53:50they work together better than they work
53:52separately. They aren't phases that you
53:55go through. They they are they are a
53:57complete set of tools you use the way,
54:00as I said earlier, the way you come to
54:03know things. And and so I think that
54:06rhetoric it does have an ordering to it.
54:09uh the dialectic and the rhetoric are
54:11superior to the grammar, the rhetoric is
54:13superior to the dialectic because what
54:16rhetoric is doing is synthesizing and so
54:19you're getting you're drawing truth
54:20together. Um
54:23so I do think it's a it's a um
54:27it's better to see it as a set of arts.
54:29That's the other thing I often talk
54:30about with regard to the triv. These are
54:33arts, which means they're human
54:35practices.
54:37um they aren't subjects, they aren't um
54:41you know, you can't read a book on
54:44dialectic and be a good dialectician. Um
54:48>> you have to practice it. It it's you
54:50know,
54:51>> they always a little nervous when you go
54:53into the doctor's office and he calls
54:55himself a practice.
54:56>> Um I'd rather he not practice on me, but
54:59practicing the art of thinking is in the
55:01same category.
55:01>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
55:03Complete sense. Of course, one of your
55:05your big role is you're the president of
55:08the Association for Classical Christian
55:10Schools. Um, how many schools are are in
55:14the ACS?
55:14>> We have about 550.
55:15>> It's amazing. Yeah. Um, uh, on average,
55:19how many schools would do you add a
55:21year?
55:22>> Well, that varies year to year. On
55:24average, it'd probably be around 30 30
55:26or 40, but we had a big boom between
55:292023 and 2024.
55:32a couple hundred schools added. Um, it's
55:36it's found its its own. It's and that's
55:38one of the reasons I'm so passionate
55:40about making it clear to people that
55:42classical Christian education is not
55:45just a hair's breath away from classical
55:49education or you know great books
55:51education. It's it's a whole different
55:53thing. It and and it it's difference is
55:56not just the Bible. That's part of it
55:58but that's not it. It's differences the
56:01whole way it works.
56:02>> Yeah. What what has encouraged you most
56:05as you've seen classical Christian
56:07education continue to grow? The other
56:10side of it that I want to know is just
56:11what things are you concerned about if
56:14anything.
56:15>> Well, it's exciting. You know, we did a
56:17study called the good soil study where
56:18we tracked people uh for age 24 to 44
56:22who had um
56:24who had been to a classical Christian
56:26school and compared them to other types
56:27of schools. And it's quite an
56:28interesting study. You can find it at
56:29classicalchristian.org.
56:31There were seven categories that we
56:32broke the answers into. And the
56:35essential outcome was that they were
56:37substantially different than people
56:38educated in other forms of education. So
56:41that you know that is um the positive
56:45side I think on the you know the threat
56:48to any success is success itself.
56:51>> Um you start losing some of the
56:56People
56:59like to grab hold of something
57:00successful and make it their own and
57:04they they label it classical, but then
57:06they they say, you know, but the way we
57:09do it is this. And to a good degree,
57:13classical education is not a a
57:15prescribed curriculum or a uh a very uh
57:20particular pedagogical form, but it it's
57:24a set of principles that are pretty
57:26wellestablished in the Middle Ages. Um,
57:29I think the biggest threat is that we're
57:30going to lose some of that uh
57:32effectiveness because once you step away
57:35from the the form that the Middle Ages
57:37gave us, um, you you you step away from
57:42a Christian form and humanism yields
57:46ugliness and um,
57:50really effective humanism yields really
57:53effective ugliness. Um,
57:56>> yeah. and classical schools that do not
58:00um you know that the the term is often
58:02thrown around you might make clever
58:05devils.
58:06>> Yes.
58:06>> Um
58:08you might or you just might make some
58:10very effective humanists who will look
58:14like devils.
58:15>> Right. Right. Yeah. Well said. Something
58:18else I want to ask you here is
58:22um you know sometimes I've had
58:24opportunities to speak on classical
58:26Christian education. Um interesting
58:28enough I think I've had a couple of
58:29opportunities to speak about some of the
58:30pitfalls of classical Christian
58:32education. Um which I mean I'm sold out
58:34on classical Christian education. Um but
58:37one of the pitfalls that I sometimes
58:38encounter like I I'll bring up two. One
58:41is
58:45basically the a tendency among some
58:47students to be anacronistic where
58:49they're perpetually living in the past
58:52and understand much about the history of
58:56the world say the history of
58:58Christianity but seem somewhat impotent
59:01to actually build culture today. Um they
59:06live in the archives um but they don't
59:08know what to do with that. That's one
59:10thing I sometimes observe. The other
59:12thing um and personally I've seen this
59:14to a lesser degree, but it's it's
59:16something I still observe is uh how
59:20sometimes it it it could tickle the gray
59:23matter, so to speak, of of students and
59:27and they're kind of confined into this
59:29nerdish silo
59:32that I think for some for for boys
59:34especially
59:36can make them somewhat effeminite. Um, I
59:38don't know how else to put that. Um,
59:42>> would you share some of these similar
59:44concerns?
59:46If so, how do we address this? How does
59:50classical Christian education deal with
59:52these things or how ought it to deal
59:54with these kinds of things?
59:55>> No, you're right on point. I think I
59:57share both those concern. I think
59:58they're related to what I said, but
1:00:00they're they're very much better stated.
1:00:02I mean, you're you're putting them out
1:00:03there. the first of the two,
1:00:07you know, this
1:00:10it's a problem of telos, uh the fancy
1:00:13Greek word, but purpose is what we might
1:00:15say. One of the 19th century uh
1:00:18artifacts that got pushed into classical
1:00:20education was that okay, the original
1:00:23classical education had its purpose was
1:00:26to take every thought captive to Christ.
1:00:28>> Yes.
1:00:28>> Right.
1:00:29>> But we aren't doing that in a
1:00:30pluralistic society in the 19th century.
1:00:32So what are we doing it for?
1:00:34>> Well, the artifacts of classical
1:00:36education tend to be true, good and
1:00:38beautiful. Beautiful art, beautiful
1:00:40music, beautiful books, beautiful
1:00:42literature. And
1:00:45um the
1:00:48um the the artifacts themselves become
1:00:52glorified,
1:00:53>> right?
1:00:54>> And people start focusing on the great
1:00:56works and not the telos of
1:00:59Christianizing the culture. Yeah.
1:01:01>> And that's that's the first problem and
1:01:03that's a function I think of classicism
1:01:05and practices in classicism that were
1:01:07brought forward from the 19th century
1:01:09instead of from the middle ages.
1:01:11>> Um the second remind me the second
1:01:15>> um basically the effeminacy.
1:01:16>> Oh the epheminacy. Yeah.
1:01:18>> Uh yes that that that can be a concern.
1:01:21Um the funny thing is that in any prior
1:01:25generation um that wouldn't have been
1:01:28much of an issue. I think it the the
1:01:29second relates to the first. I mean,
1:01:33Middle Ages um not,
1:01:38you know, it's complicated to say
1:01:40anything about education in Middle Ages
1:01:42because it wasn't for everyone. It was
1:01:44for a select few. But you had to be as
1:01:47good of a warrior as you were a thinker.
1:01:50Um, and that was certainly true in
1:01:53Greece and Rome, which is why as they
1:01:55passed their form of education forward,
1:01:59it was very masculine. It was called
1:02:03gymnasium.
1:02:04>> Uh, and
1:02:06still is in Europe. If you want to get
1:02:08an education that'll take you to
1:02:10college, you go to gymnasium. So that's
1:02:13a function of I don't know whether it's
1:02:17the feminization of classical education.
1:02:20Um I don't know too many kids who can
1:02:23read the Wars of the GS
1:02:25>> and you know or you know pick pick your
1:02:29classical work
1:02:31>> and not end up just
1:02:36>> more masculine just for reading it.
1:02:38>> Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Oh totally
1:02:40agreed. Uh what are you working on at
1:02:43the moment? Anything interesting in the
1:02:45in the pipeline?
1:02:46>> Yeah, I'm working a following of Battle
1:02:47for the American Mind. It's been a long
1:02:49project. Uh it's taken a few years
1:02:50because it's really a field guide to
1:02:52classical education so that people can
1:02:54see how does this work. You know, we've
1:02:56touched on some things here. How does
1:02:57this work in a real practical K through
1:02:5912 and that's what that book is.
1:03:02>> Got some other things. Um you know,
1:03:03we're continuing to try and expand
1:03:06classical Christian education as fast as
1:03:08the demand and that is very difficult.
1:03:10We're trying to raise some funds to do
1:03:11that and that sort of thing.
1:03:12>> That's excellent. Well, David, it's
1:03:14always good speaking with you. Um,
1:03:16you're one of my favorite people to hang
1:03:17out with and and I really mean it. It's
1:03:20it'sual.
1:03:20>> It's always an adventure with you. So
1:03:22grateful for your friendship.
1:03:23>> Uh, I look forward to more adventure
1:03:25with you down the road.
1:03:26>> Yeah.
1:03:26>> Yeah. How about this? As we end this, I
1:03:28want to I like to end with a toast these
1:03:29days.
1:03:31>> What can we toast to that's really good
1:03:33today? Um, I'll let you call out the
1:03:36toast.
1:03:36>> Okay.
1:03:38Um,
1:03:40>> let's toast the teachers.
1:03:42>> Yeah. Toast the teachers.
1:03:43>> Let's toast the teachers who labor in
1:03:46classical Christian education for the
1:03:47sake of the kids.
1:03:48>> Amen. Yeah. Cheers.

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