Back to School, with Jesus
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As children return to school (or homeschool) this fall, the Hausvater Project offers:
- “Back to School”: How about Going 500 Years Back? Learn why the classical approach to education promoted by Luther and his contemporaries remains relevant today.
- The Reformation and Education: Emphases, Influence, and Lasting Impact: Re-discover Luther’s vision for who should educate children and how.
- How to Foster Cooperation among Homeschools, Christian Day Schools, and the Congregation Rather than compete, work together toward a common goal: the Christian training of our youth.
- Nurtured for Chastity or Schooled for Sexual Expression? We offer a refreshingly biblical perspective on the recent debates concerning sex education.
- What Blessings Are These?: A poem encouraging parents in their vocation of training up their children in the Christian faith.
- Coming to Iowa on October 14: Marriage, Children, & Music: A Reformation Symposium (Marshalltown, Iowa, Oct. 14, 2017)
“Back to School”: How about Going 500 Years Back?
By Johann Caauwe
It is the time of year when students go back to school, as they have for every year of their education career, and will do until they graduate out of school. But perhaps it is also a good time for all of us to go back to school. Let me explain.
Seventy years ago, Dorothy Sayers wrote, “if we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, toward the end of the Middle Ages.”
In this essay, Sayers was advocating for a return to the classical liberal arts in education, or simply classical education. First she lamented the state of education in her day (1947!), saying “is it not the great defect of our education today … we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think.” She concludes that in order to improve education, we must go back to school. That is, we must return to another kind of school. Eventually, Sayers’ essay sparked a revival and renewal of classical learning in the United States. Today there is a growing movement of schools and homeschooling parents seeking to recover this education for their children and for future generations.
The point to which Sayers would have us go back, “four or five hundred years … toward the end of the Middle Ages” is a significant one for Lutherans. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation. “Four or five hundred years ago” is exactly the time in which Martin Luther, his colleagues, and those who followed them sought to establish a system of education that would do exactly what Sayers sought.
Click to Continue Reading: http://www.hausvater.org/articles/383
The Reformation and Education: Emphases, Influence, and Lasting Impact:
By Ryan MacPherson
Martin Luther may be best known for his theological reformation of the medieval church, which had strayed from the pure teaching of God’s Word. Luther did not, however, pursue his theological aims in isolation from other concerns; his writings touch upon politics, social life, and the arts. He also recognized the importance of education, both for the church and for the civil realm.
From Luther’s writings on education, we may derive answers to the following questions:
- What Should Be Taught?
- How Should It Be Taught?
- To Whom Should It Be Taught?
- By Whom Should It Be Taught?
- How Shall We Honor Luther’s Legacy Today?
Click to Continue Reading: http://www.hausvater.org/articles/381
How to Foster Cooperation among Homeschools, Christian Day Schools, and the Congregation
By Marie MacPherson
Christian homes, Christian congregations, and Christian schools are all places in which the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word, gives and strengthens the faith of His children. Yet, it’s easy to see ourselves in vastly contrasting “boxes” which emphasize our differences and weaknesses, rather than our similarities and strengths. All too often, suspicion and misunderstanding exists between school leadership and homeschool families. Instead, what we all need is proactive, constructive curiosity and mutual respect. How can we build bridges between churches, schools, and homeschools, working together for the Christian education of all of the congregation’s children?
How Can a Church/Church School Support Homeschooling Families in the Church?
- Shared Goals/Recognition
- Open Communication/Invitation
- Shared Resources
Click to Continue Reading: http://www.hausvater.org/articles/382
Nurtured for Chastity or Schooled for Sexual Expression?
By Ryan MacPherson
When the Trump administration announced in August 2017 a shift in funding from “comprehensive sex education” to “abstinence only,” the public outcry warned that the sky was falling down. Scientific reports circulated stating that abstinence doesn’t work and only comprehensive sex education can train students for success in the real world. A third approach, nurturing children for what Luther called “chaste and decent lives,” was unfortunately overlooked. It is that third approach that truly prepares the youth for success, not only in this world but also in the next.
Chastity, as Luther noted in the Small Catechism, has to do both with “what we say and what we do.” The saying part can best be fulfilled not by teachers in co-educational classrooms discussing delicate matters with confused pubescent pupils but by parents nurturing their children in the fear of the Lord privately in the home (Ephesians 6:4). The doing part involves not merely an avoidance of intercourse prior to marriage but a more proactive honoring of God by how we cover our bodies (1 Peter 3:3–5), respect our neighbors (Hebrews 13:4), and develop God-fearing relationships (1 Corinthians 15:33, 2 Corinthians 6:14).
Click to Continue Reading: http://www.hausvater.org/articles/384
What Blessings Are These?
By Justin Whitmore
Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
(Ephesians 6:4, ESV)
What blessings are these
That God has placed within our arms
As we bring them to Christ
Within this water here outpoured?
His blessings theirs
And we to them a blessing, too
As we teach their lips
To praise and call Him Lord.
Click to Continue Reading: http://www.hausvater.org/poetry/380
Marriage, Children, & Music: A Reformation Symposium (Marshalltown, Iowa, Oct. 14, 2017)
FREE registration. Bring the whole family!
Click for Details: http://www.hausvater.org/events/378
Forgiveness in Christ: it’s for you and your children. (Acts 2:38-29)
The Hausvater Project seeks to equip Christian men and women for distinctive and complementary vocations in family, church, and society, by fostering research and education in light of Holy Scripture as proclaimed by the Lutheran Confessions.
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