The Lie of Neutral Education
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
This common cliché embodies the approach of Sergeant Joe Friday, a police detective from the popular 1950s television show Dragnet.[1] Rather than getting sidetracked by irrelevant details during his investigative work, Friday’s no-nonsense approach to interrogating people—in his wonderfully monotone voice—was to get “just the facts.” When questioning suspects or witnesses, he wanted to remove any irrelevant factors, so as to get a neutral, unbiased, purely objective understanding of the case.
And that approach works well if you’re a fictional investigator. Unfortunately, many parents have adopted that perspective in real life, when it comes to their child’s education. “Just the facts, teacher.” But is that kind neutrality in education possible? Can a child be taught “just the facts” apart from any operative worldview, philosophy, or religion? Government bureaucrats certainly want you to believe that it is.
In fact, a policy guidance document from the U.S. Department of Education, titled, “Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer and Religious Expression in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools,” says just as much:
“Although a government may not promote or favor religion or coerce the consciences of students, schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression by students, teachers, or other employees. Schools must also maintain neutrality among faiths rather than preferring one or more religions over others.”[2]
While acknowledging the rights of individuals to privately express their beliefs, the institution itself is purported to be a kind of “innocent bystander” in the realm of religion.
Consider, on the other hand, the perspective of the late Dr. R.C. Sproul:
“A neutral education is one that is neither proreligion or antireligion. It is neither pro-God nor anti-God. It seeks to keep God out of educational issues. The only problem with the solution is that the ideal is impossible. There is no such thing as a neutral education. Every education, every curriculum has a viewpoint. That viewpoint either considers God in it or it does not. To teach children about life and the world in which they live without reference to God is to make a statement about God. It screams a statement. The message is either that there is no God or that God is irrelevant. Either way the message is the same--there is no God. An irrelevant God is the same as no God at all. If God is, then He must be relevant—to His entire creation.”[3]
So, who’s right?
To answer that, we need to evaluate the concept of education itself. If education were to be purely neutral, each element of the educational process would have to be neutral. If even one aspect is shown not to be neutral, then the entire process is biased to some degree. Like links in a chain, comprehensive neutrality requires each constituent component to be neutral.
With that in mind, we’ll examine the following five components of the educational process:
The teacher: the one who provides the education.
The student: the one who receives the education.
The curriculum: the content of the education.
The method: the way to provide the education.
The purpose: the ultimate reason for the education.
A closer look, from a biblical perspective, reveals not only an absence of neutrality for the educational process as a whole, but that in reality not even one of these five components is neutral.
The Teacher Is Not Neutral
The first aspect to consider is the educator. Is a teacher morally and religiously neutral? Does a teacher educate in the classroom without possessing a worldview? The answer to this question simply comes down to anthropology: what the Bible teaches about the nature of man.
As a result of Adam’s original sin in the garden, death and sin spread to all men—since Adam served as humanity’s federal head (cf. Rom. 5:12, 1 Cor. 15:22). And the fall of mankind was just that—a complete fall into the depths of depravity. It wasn’t a mere stumble, or a momentary loss of balance. Rather, it resulted in total depravity, a wholesale enslavement to sin: Paul describes man’s natural state as being a slave to “sin” (Rom. 6:17), a slave to “impurity and lawlessness” (Rom. 6:19), enslaved to “various lusts and pleasures” (Titus 3:3), and a captive of “the devil” (2 Tim. 2:25). The heart, mind, will, character, desires, preferences, intentions, and emotions of a lost man are enslaved to evil. Before the global Flood of Noah’s day, Scripture says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). And lest anyone mistakenly believe that the Flood cured man’s wicked heart, God reiterated to Noah afterward that “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21).
Furthermore, man’s fallen nature is described as spiritual death: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins…” (Eph. 2:1). Being spiritually dead means that the unconverted man cannot understand spiritual realities (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14), has no interest in the light of God’s truth (cf. John 3:20), and does not possess the ability to rectify his own fallen condition (cf. Jer. 13:23). Paul explained, in Ephesians 4:18-19, that being excluded from the life of God means that unbelievers are “darkened in their understanding,” possess a “hardness of heart,” and are “callous” with respect to ongoing sin in their lives. When it comes to the righteous things of God, man is no better than a corpse.
At the same time, make no mistake about it: being spiritually dead does not mean (as some misunderstand) that fallen men are spiritually inactive. On the contrary, lost sinners are very active—in their hostility and hatred of God. As Romans 8:7-8 says, “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Colossians 1:21 describes non-Christians as “alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds.” Titus 3:3 explains that unbelievers spend their lives “in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.”
It shouldn’t need to be said, but a classroom setting changes nothing about the nature of fallen men. It’s not as if when a teacher enters a school building, these characteristics of depravity wait outside. Satan doesn’t leverage his control over the darkened minds of unregenerate men based on the academic calendar. Unbelievers don’t postpone their hatred of God until after working hours. Sure, a non-Christian teacher may be able to put on a smile, act in a polite manner, and exhibit a degree of self-control in order to remain employed, but that teacher is still a God-hating rebel nonetheless. This applies to the twenty-something new hire as well as the tenured sixty-year-old grandmother. It applies to self-professed atheists as well as those of false religions. It applies to the “good ol’ boy” teachers in rural school districts as well as the purple-haired liberals in the inner cities. It applies to the custodian, the principal, the counselor, and the lunch lady. It applies to those who are blatantly unrighteous as well as those who are religiously self-righteous.
Lastly, the total depravity of mankind doesn’t mean that unbelievers are as bad as possible. That’s another common misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what it means for a lost person to be totally depraved. No one would suggest that secular teachers stand in front of their classroom and hail Satan at the beginning of every lecture. Instead, it means that the totality (heart, soul, mind, and strength) of non-Christian teachers is antithetical to righteousness. The way they speak, the demeanor by which they carry themselves, the approach to interacting with students, the side conversations they have, the emotions they exhibit, the worldview by which they reason, and everything else about their work in the classroom is affected by their spiritually lost condition. They may act as if they’re morally and ethically neutral in the classroom, but that’s a lie. Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matt. 12:3). In life, there are only two roads (cf. Psa. 1:6), two kingdoms (cf. Col. 1:13), two groups (cf. 1 Cor. 15:22), two natures (cf. Rom. 6:18), and two destinies (cf. Matt. 7:13-14). No one straddles the fence, no one lives as a blank canvas, no one educates in a moral vacuum.
As you consider the non-Christian teachers in any school system, remember this: they aren’t neutral. They hate the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. John 7:7, 15:18-20). As a result, they have no authentic interest in your child loving Him. Hopefully this echoes in your mind whenever you consider these words from Jesus: “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40).
The Student Is Not Neutral
In further considering a biblical anthropology, we should recognize that everything pertaining to a non-Christian teacher’s depravity also applies to a non-Christian student’s depravity. Though we often refer to infants as being “innocent” (which, they are with respect to human affairs, cf. Jer. 19:4), the reality is that they are conceived in guilt and sin before a holy God (cf. Rom. 3:23). Thus, from that standpoint, students are not a morally neutral aspect of the educational process. They, too, are born with a rebellious tendency until such a time when they would be born again. Yet, since students are the ones receiving the education, rather than providing it, their depravity is less of a factor than a teacher’s in determining whether the educational process is neutral.
Instead, there’s another aspect of anthropology that’s important to recognize: a doctrine known as dichotomism. This theological truth refers to the fact that God has created each human with two (“di-”) distinct aspects of existence: a body (the material/physical aspect) and a soul (the non-material/spiritual aspect).[4] Genesis 2:7 describes these two components at the creation of mankind, saying, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Ecclesiastes 12:7 describes these same two components at death, saying, “…then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” 2 Corinthians 4:16 describes these two components of believers, saying, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” Matthew 10:28 describes the judgment that follows after the death of unbelievers, saying, “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” In each of these instances, mankind’s dual components are highlighted.
Why does this matter?
Though we often use various terms like “character,” “personality,” “emotions,” “thoughts,” “fears,” and “hopes,” to stress aspects of our inner self (cf. Matt. 12:30), the reality is that those are all just descriptions of the one spiritual component of humanity: the soul. Dichotomism reminds us that a human consists of only two components—body and soul—not a body plus a conglomeration of several independent, non-material silos.
For example, when children are reprimanded by their parents for bad behavior, we would say that such discipline affects their “thoughts,” but ultimately it’s shaping their souls toward godliness. Proverbs 10:17, for example, says, “He is on the path of life who heeds instruction, but he who ignores reproof goes astray.” Or, when children listen to God’s Word preached, we might understand that such instruction is having an impact on their emotions, but ultimately it’s impacting their souls regarding spiritual realities. Deuteronomy 31:12-13 says, “Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law. Their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”
With that said, know this: when children sit in a classroom and their “minds” are being affected, it’s really their souls that are being affected. Children, like all humans, possess only a body and a soul. Thus, unless we’re talking about gym class, there should be no confusion as to which aspect a teacher is influencing in the classroom. In an educational environment, a child’s mind is not a neutral repository of isolated facts in which teachers can deposit information without making a spiritual impact. To educate the mind is to influence the soul. The non-material aspect of a child is being affected. The child’s “inner man” is being guided. And, in fact, a child’s soul is even more susceptible influence than an adult’s (cf. Eph. 4:14).
For these reasons, we must come to understand that education is discipleship. As Voddie Baucham famously warned, “We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.”[5]
Far from remaining neutral, students are being spiritually shaped when they’re being educated.
The Curriculum Is Not Neutral
In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul outlined the judgment of God upon sinful, pagan cultures. And though he mentioned sins like greed, murder, strife, and gossip (Rom. 1:29), his evaluation of mankind’s depravity didn’t actually begin with those types of obvious sins. Instead, he began by saying that men “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18), do not honor God or “give thanks” (Rom. 1:21), and do not “acknowledge God any longer” (Rom. 1:28).
What’s striking about these descriptions is that they’re essentially sins of omission. They’re less about what mankind does and more about what mankind does not do. When it comes to sins of commission (the doing of evil) versus sins of omission (the failing to do good), the latter are more difficult to identify because of what they are: an absence. It’s far easier to identify the sin of a husband committing adultery against wife than it is the sin of a husband failing to love his wife. The former is an evil deed done; the latter is a righteous deed left undone.
This same principle is true when it comes to the third component of education: the curriculum.
Though a school may outwardly claim no formal religion, that’s not actually possible. A school that champions the Qur’an is undoubtedly a Muslim school (a kuttab).[6] A school that champions the Torah is, of course, a Jewish school (a yeshiva).[7] What, then, is a school that champions no divine Creator at all? A generic “public school?” No, it’s an atheistic school. And this is precisely what government education is today. Of course, in the minds of government educators, the removal of God from the curriculum is a feature, not a bug. They intentionally do this because they recognize that a religious free-for-all would result in unmitigated chaos.
Imagine, for example, a freshman science class led by a devout Hindu who teaches students that the origin of biological processes is brahman, the “uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, and all-embracing principle” which is the “ultimate cause, foundation, source, and goal of all existence.”[8] Imagine, then, in that same high school, a sophomore science class taught by a devout Buddhist who tells students that true reality is brought about by dhammas, “a succession and concatenation of microelements” which are “interrelated elements that make up the empirical world.”[9] Then imagine a different perspective from the junior class science teacher, followed by yet another in the senior science class. If these teachers were given free reign to teach a science curriculum according to their personal worldviews, the end result of the four-year science education would be a disastrously unworkable contradiction.
So what’s the government’s remedy to what would otherwise be an insurmountable obstacle? In their words, “neutrality.” No mention of a divine Creator establishing the world with meaning and purpose. No acknowledgment of a moral Law-giver influencing the conscience and defining right and wrong. No discussion of divine providence ordering all of life and recorded in world history. No explanation of a divine Sustainer upholding the natural laws upon which science and math depend. But, as mentioned in Romans 1, does this make the curriculum “neutral?” Not at all. Instead, this amounts to the very failure to “acknowledge God” that Paul rebuked! It’s rank paganism of the highest order. It’s atheistic idolatry. It’s unmitigated folly: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psa. 14:1). To intentionally strip God out of a curriculum—in any subject—is to commit the very sin of omission for which a society suffers the wrath of God, according to the Apostle Paul.
And that’s the state of government education today, which would come as no surprise to mature believers of the past.
Consider the words of A.A. Hodge, professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in the late 1800s:
“I am as sure as I am of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has never seen.”[10]
Presbyterian theologian Gordon Clark picked up the baton, writing the following in the mid-1900s:
“Aside from definite anti-Christian instruction to be discussed later, the public schools are not, never were, can never be, neutral. Neutrality is impossible. Let one ask what neutrality can possibly mean when God is involved. How does God judge the school system which says to him, ‘O God, we neither deny nor assert thy existence; and O God, we neither obey nor disobey thy commands; we are strictly neutral.’ Let no one fail to see the point: The school system that ignores God teaches its pupils to ignore God; and this is not neutrality. It is the worst form of antagonism, for it judges God to be unimportant and irrelevant in human affairs. This is atheism.”[11]
Ken Ham, founder of the Answers in Genesis ministry, wrote the following in the early 2000s:
“When secular schools in the United States eliminated creation, the Bible, and prayer from the classroom, they didn’t eliminate religion; they eliminated Christianity and replaced it with the religion of naturalism. Such a religion is not ‘neutral,’ it is anti-God. Millions of students are being trained to believe that humanity can explain every aspect of reality without God—this is ‘darkness,’ not ‘light.’”[12]
The well-known passage Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Faithful men over the past two hundred years have recognized that acknowledging the Lord in all their ways includes the ways of math, science, history, and literature, too.
A curriculum that omits God is not neutral nor non-religious; it’s the curriculum of atheism.
The Method is Not Neutral
The fourth component of education, the method, has to do with how children are educated (the technical term for this is pedagogy).
If you were to ask someone who grew up decades ago about what the classroom setting was like in their day, you would get a far different picture than that of the classroom today. Certainly, the teachers are different. Undoubtedly, the students don’t act the same. Without question, the curriculum has changed. But you would also realize that the methods have changed.
Consider a subject like spelling. If you think teaching students to spell is a pretty straightforward endeavor, remaining fairly unchanged over the years, think again. Whereas you might have been taught conventional spelling (strict rules of phonics, matching and blending the sounds of letters to pronounce and identify words), an alternative approach today is known as constructivist spelling. According to the constructivist paradigm, the learning happens better by discovery and participation rather than instruction and memorization, and “factors such as a student’s prior experiences, learnings, social and cultural beliefs, and how they process information allow them to digest information in their own manner.”[13]
When applied to spelling, this results in what is known as “invented spelling” or “developmental spelling,” in which children “use their best judgments about spelling.”[14] For example, if a child were to write, “Ther ouns was two flawrs. Oun was pink and the othr was prpul,” rather than, “There once was two flowers. One was pink and the other was purple,” the constructivist approach would praise the child’s phonetic inferences rather than critique the blatant errors.[15] The idea is that this allows children to express themselves long before they have the ability to spell everything correctly.
This approach has also been applied to even more traditionally objective subjects like math. One such example, called “Building Thinking Classrooms,” follows a similar mentality:
“Often called discovery, experiential, or inquiry-based learning, this constructivist approach believes in student-centered learning where the teacher’s role is minimized, and students ‘regulate their own activity while exploring a prompt.’”[16]
Like constructivist spelling, this method emphasizes a student-led, rather than teacher-led, educational environment. More specifically, it’s been known to embrace the following aspects:
Homework is an “opportunity” rather than a “requirement.”
When taking notes, students decide “for themselves what notes their future selves will need.”
Students work in groups standing at an erasable surface (i.e. whiteboard) rather than sitting at a desk with a more permanent writing surface (i.e. notebook).
Students face each other rather than the teacher, known as a “defronted” classroom.
Evaluations are not based solely on individual attainment, but also includes competencies such as “patience,” “grit,” and “positive views.”[17]
Rather than disputing the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of constructivism, the point is that far from being neutral, this approach is absolutely saturated with philosophical precommitments. This isn’t even a disputed point; one scholar in the field of academic theory describes constructivism as “an approach to learning that holds that people actively construct or make their own knowledge and that reality is determined by the experiences of the learner.”[18] There’s an entire metaphysical framework packed into that brief description.
When it comes to the “learner,” the Bible describes the folly that resides in a child’s heart (cf. Prov. 22:15), the inferiority of a child’s thoughts compared to an adult’s (cf. 1 Cor. 13:11), and therefore the need for children to be instructed by their elders (cf. Deut. 32:7). Additionally, Scripture warns that if a child is left to his own way, he may very well become trapped in his folly long-term (cf. Prov. 22:6, and note that this passage is a warning of potential disaster, not a promise of guaranteed blessing). The constructivist approach, on the other hand, makes children the arbiter of their own education, granting them the authority both to dictate and evaluate their own efforts according to their own preferences and metrics. This approach has much in common with liberal ideologies of the 1960s and 70s, ideologies which are identified by one theologian as “anti-authoritarian, sometimes anti-propositional, basically turning to more emotional and sometimes explicitly political forms of education and educational motivation.”[19]
Beyond these considerations, when it comes to classroom management (a major area of study in post-secondary academics), consider the fact that previous generations of students experienced corporal punishment (i.e. spanking) in the classroom. Whether one agrees or not with such an approach, the point is that the presence or absence of this type of discipline is founded on principles which are most assuredly not neutral.
Gordon Clark said just as much decades ago:
“That neutrality is impossible becomes clearer and clearer as the system of Christian theism is further understood. Mention has already been made of the fact that Christianity is not to be identified with and restricted to a bare belief in God. For example, Christianity has a theory of evil; it differs from the humanistic theory; and therefore a secular school cannot adopt the same policies a Christian school adopts in dealing with recalcitrant pupils.”[20]
Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is that pedagogy reflects a worldview. Methodology is a product of theology. When it comes to education, the method is not neutral.
The Purpose is Not Neutral
Finally, what’s the point of education? Virtually everyone would agree that education is about the formation of a child—but the formation of a child into what? What is the intended result? If a teacher wanted to be as neutral as possible, perhaps he or she would answer, “I have no idea.”
Astonishingly, R.C. Sproul once recalled a situation in which a school principal stated just that. At a parent-teacher open house he was attending, the principal spent the evening explaining the impressive resources and methods used to educate the children, and then asked if there were any questions from the parents. Sproul described what happened after raising his hand to respond:
“I said, ‘I deeply appreciate not only the content of what you have communicated today, but the spirit in which you’ve done it. You’ve been so articulate and I’m overwhelmed by the amount of care and precision that has gone into the planning and preparation of this curriculum. I only have one question. We all know that there are only so many hours in a day, and that there are only so many purposes that we can seek to implement in an educational curriculum, and that we have to choose from a lot more potential or possible purposes than we ever have the time to implement. And you have chosen these specific purposes to implement in the curriculum. Now, what I would like to know is this, simply: what is the overarching purpose you’re trying to achieve? What is the overarching purpose of education that you have here, that leads you to discriminate among these various specific purposes you are trying to implement. In other words, what kind of a child are you trying to produce, and why?’
Well, first of all, the man’s face turned white and then like a thermometer—mercurial—blood flowed to his head and he turned beat red. And to his credit, he was completely candid and honest. He looked at me and he said, ‘I don’t know. No one has ever asked me that question.’ And I said, ‘I respected you when I heard your first speech.’ I said, ‘Now, when you’ve been so open and honest, my respect for you has even increased, and I appreciate the honesty of your reply. But frankly, your reply terrifies me.’”[21]
The reality is that few educators are that open and honest to such a question. Instead, whether stated or not, the underlying answer is that education provides more knowledge, which provides more opportunities, which provides better careers, which provides more money. Functionally, the end goal is hedonistic: maximize your wealth to maximize your happiness.
For the Christian, education has a far greater purpose. We exist to glorify God in all that we do, maximizing our time, talents, and treasures for the purpose of being a light to the world until the Lord returns (cf. 1 Cor. 10:31, Psa. 90:10-17, 1 Pet. 2:9, Matt. 25:14-30). Biblically, education is to serve that transcendent purpose.
With that said, even the intermediate goals of education require a non-neutral philosophy in order to be assessed. For example, if a student is learning chemistry, is it to create a nuclear power reactor to provide electricity to a nation, or is to create an atomic bomb to cripple an enemy civilization? The exact same academic content can be directed toward vastly different outcomes depending on one’s purpose. And how one defines the morality of those educational goals necessarily stands upon a worldview that is far from neutral.
Gordon Clark, once again, expressed the heart of the matter:
“Improved chemistry can work wonders in medicine. But if improved techniques are used to make biological warfare more horrible, we may well wish chemistry less success. Technique in education, similarly, will make the teaching of children more efficient; but if the educator teaches the wrong ideals, the more efficiently he does so, the worse the results.”[22]
The Lie of Neutral Education
A cursory review of the teacher, the student, the curriculum, the method, and the purpose makes it clear that a neutral education is impossible. A school that claims not to promote any religious view is actually promoting the religion of secularism. As some might say, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” Or, more biblically, “Everyone worships.”
Consider, then, the warning from Ken Ham:
“The secular education system rejects God and the Bible and is based on naturalism. Secular means anti-God. I say this to challenge us. Those whose children attend the secular (public) schools need to recognize that, even though there are some Christian teachers in that system (a small minority), the children are still attending an ‘anti-God school.’ And most kids from church homes do not survive the secular system. That’s a fact.”[23]
With the decline of Christianity in the West, the issue of education is no longer a matter of ignorance. On the contrary, as government schools grow increasingly brazen in their promotion of evil, claiming neutrality at this point requires a certain level of intellectual dishonesty. If you were told that education is neutral, I’m afraid I have some bad news: you were lied to. Sadly, this is actually one of the greatest lies that continues to be perpetuated by evangelicals. Don’t buy it for a minute. Do everything in your power to give your children an education that is Christ-centered, “so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Col. 1:18).
References:
[1] Although catchy, it should be noted that the phrase, "Just the facts, ma'am" doesn't actually appear in the television series. In the 1953 episode "The Big Lease," Friday tells the main suspect, Mrs. Banner (Sarah Selby), "All we know are the facts, ma'am." Source: https://www.metv.com/stories/sgt-joe-friday-never-actually-said-just-the-facts-maam-on-dragnet
[2] https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/laws-preschool-grade-12-education/preschool-grade-12-policy-documents/guidance-on-constitutionally-protected-prayer-and-religious-expression-in-public-elementary-and-secondary-schools
[3] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/the-importance-of-cultural-awareness-pt-1
[4] Some theologians prefer the term "complex unity" to stress the reality that body and soul function together, see: John MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Biblical Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 424. One benefit to the term "dichotomism" is that it explicitly contrasts with the false alternative views of "monism" (that man consists of only one element: either just the body, which is a form of materialism, or just the soul, which is a form of idealism) and "trichotomism" (that man consists of three elements: body, soul, and spirit). The trichotomist misinterprets passages that speak of multiple aspects of the soul. For example, when the "heart," "soul," "mind," and "strength" are expressed in sequence, this constitutes a literary device known as an “accumulative expression,” meaning these are multiple aspects that should be taken together to describe a single concept. This concept also applies to passages like Hebrews 4:12 and 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
[5] Voddie Baucham, Family Driven Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 200.
[6] https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/kuttab
[7] https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/yeshiva
[8] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hinduism/Practice
[9] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism/The-life-of-the-Buddha, https://www.britannica.com/topic/dharmas
[10] A.A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1976), p. 242.
[11] https://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=93
[12] Ken Ham, Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008), 161.
[13] https://www.nu.edu/blog/what-is-constructivism-in-education. Note that many of these principles aren't new; John Dewey articulated many of them in The School and Society (first published in 1899). Nevertheless, many of these principles are being amplified in a postmodern culture.
[14] https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/spelling-and-word-study/articles/invented-spelling-and-spelling-development
[15] https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/invented-spelling
[16] https://www.educationnext.org/math-movement-taking-over-our-schools-building-thinking-classrooms
[17] https://www.buildingthinkingclassrooms.com/about-btc
[18] As cited in https://www.simplypsychology.org/constructivism.html, for example. Note that this scholar (Susan N. Elliot) is also cited in numerous articles in a digital library sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education
[19] https://albertmohler.com/2024/10/22/briefing-10-22-24
[20] Gordon Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1988), 62.
[21] R.C. Sproul, "The Goal of Education," Renewing Your Mind, Ligonier Ministries, September 10, 2018.
[22] Gordon Clark, A Christian View of Men and Things (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1998), 207.
[23] https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2024/01/31/secular-is-not-neutral