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Goals of a Christian Education
By Chris Banescu - May 25, 2003

I believe that the purpose of a Christian education is to involve students in a learning atmosphere immersed in Christian values, educate them to recognize that all truths are part of God's truth, show them how the Christian faith should permeate all scholarship, and motivate them to serve Christ in every aspect of their lives.

Furthermore, a Christian education should also contribute to the advancement of knowledge and foster a vital Christian, intellectual, social, educational, and scholarly environment grounded in love, peace, ethics, and morality. The Gospels are to be lived not just read.

Frequently subjects taught in a secularized environment are sterile and disjointed because they are presented as existing only in themselves, apart from any sense of moral and spiritual purpose or moral implications and apart from the source of all reality and truth, God. However, the most realistic and effective method of studying and learning is under the guidance and through the wisdom of the Creator.

Our knowledge of Christ and His teachings, provides the most natural, essential, and illuminating framework of the true reality and meaning of everything. Who else to better explain, instruct, motivate, and guide us than the One by whom, and through whom all things were made, Jesus Christ.

A proper approach in integrating faith into the classroom is to draw the students into a learning environment that not only challenges and stimulates their intellect and critical thinking abilities, but also addresses their faith in Christ, their hearts, and their minds. This approach will helps students live their faith and begin to understand how to use and apply it in their daily lives, 24 hours a day and seven days a week; not just on Sunday mornings for 2-3 hours.

Courses taught in a Christian context give knowledge its true meaning and purpose. Without reference to its creator and designer, all knowledge lacks a proper foundation. Courses grounded in God not only educate students, but also inspire, motivate, and strengthen them both intellectually and spiritually. Blending faith with learning is most natural and normal way to educate, since Christ is the ultimate source of all truth and all wisdom in the universe. This is the full life that Christ came to bring us: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

Only a Christian education grounded in a strong faith and God's wisdom can provide the elements of theological knowledge and meaning that have a lasting and positive influence. Everything humanity has ever invented, discovered, and built, is just another glimpse in the great mystery of God. Therefore, all the subjects the students study and learn, represent different sides and perspectives on the miraculous reality of creation. Since Christ is the source of all truth and all wisdom, blending faith with learning is re-creating the reality of our existence that God intended from the very beginning.