The Role of Schools in Our Problems

 

A Review of C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man

Years ago when I first picked up C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, I read a bit of the first chapter and liked what I read. But as with some of Lewis’ other works, it gets a bit dense at times. This is not The Chronicles of Narnia. So I put it down. The book remained on my shelf for some time I heard it mentioned for the seventh or eighth time by Christian educators. So I decided to read it all the way through, no matter how dense it was. My reading was thoroughly rewarded. It is a fascinating look at the world of education through the eyes of a twentieth century prophet.

The book was written in 1944, with World War Two ongoing. The three lectures that make up the book describe how modern textbooks and teachers insidiously drain the eternal forms of truth, goodness, and beauty from every part of life. This hollowing out of standards supposedly “frees” us to follow our natural instincts, but that freedom is actually a method of enslaving us to the whims of the broader society and its leaders. What those leaders do with their “slaves” in the name of “man’s power over nature” is attempt to forge a society with themselves in complete power. In other words, he explains how the rules of our world try to take over societies through the side door of coercion, rather than the front door of force.

Learning to Listen

 

A Review of Mortimer Adler's How to Speak How to Listen. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Communication is becoming a lost art. A mere scan of news channels or one’s Facebook feed demonstrates that many do not appreciate opposing opinions. Recent books like Alan Jacob’s How to Think, or Justin Lee’s Talking Across the Divide address the difficulty of speaking and listening to those who hold differing opinions. But communication is more than being polite when someone contradicts you. It requires thinking, pondering, and gently probing to understand what the other person is saying. It requires careful consideration of how your own words, facial expression, and body language will be understood, and striving to use these methods of expression to appropriately convey your meaning.

Mortimer Adler understood the importance of communication. His most famous work, How to Read a Book, is a timeless guide to understanding what we read. In that work he calls the reader to treat a book’s author like a conversation partner, one whom we should approach with magnanimity. His advice has helped many students gain a better grasp on receiving written communication.

Forty years later he wrote another, less famous book on communication, How to Speak, Hot to Listen. The lessons presented in How to Speak are no less important today than they were when he first penned them. Not only does he present the basics of speaking and listening, he explains the why we should care about the topic to begin with. This book is for those who are interested in communication, but he doesn’t stop there. Adler demonstrates how communication is not the end, but the means to an even greater gift: communion with others.

The book begins with two introductory chapters in which he addresses the problem of communication. The second part of the book explains various methods of public speaking, e.g. rhetoric, sales speech, lectures, etc. and how one should prepare for them. These should not be skipped over lightly because one never knows when it might be necessary to publicly address a group. The third part of the book explains what Adler calls “silent listening,” or how one should listen to public speech. He admonishes hearers to listen actively rather than passively, to carefully consider the message of the speaker and how it applies to the hearer. Part four discusses communication in day-to-day conversation. The most notable chapter of that section to me was chapter nine, “Question and Answer Sessions: Forum”. It details how one should participate when there are public meetings that allow short question and answer times between individuals. It is particularly applicable to our social media age, when short posted statements are often quickly followed by immediate responses. The lessons in this chapter may seem dated, but are still important.

My favorite chapter  was the last one, where Adler discusses the connection of conversation to being human. While all mammals communicate in some fashion, God made man with the ability to have fellowship with others, which is something the animals can never have. He then refers to Rene Descartes, the French philosopher who said that man differs from matter primarily because matter can’t think as man can. To apply this lesson today, artificial intelligence can only respond as it was programmed to respond. No matter how detailed it gets, when it is traced back to its origin, those programmed responses have their origin in man. This differentiation is sorely needed today in an age when more and more interaction is mechanical. One recent commercial showed an only child “communicating” with a robot child, and the parents looking on happily. This exemplifies the problem Adler points out. When the meaning of human communion through communication is lost, the result is the confusion in which we live. The first appendix, a lecture given by Adler to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, solidly presents further evidence for why machines can never be truly conversant with people.

Dr. Adler’s background as a philosopher is evident in his writing (I mean that as a compliment). As a classical scholar, he uses language to help the reader think about what writes, not just to score quick rhetorical points or quickly persuade the reader. This book might be a challenge for some who only want a quick, self-help book, but it rewards the reader who ponders its meaning. It is evident that he wants to help the reader grow not only as a communicator but as a human being. If communication is indeed a means to communion, Adler’s book will aid all those who pursue that worthy goal.  ow How to Speak

The Faithfulness of Telemachus

 "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." - Revelation 2:10

Around Christmas in ancient Rome, thousands had gathered at the stadium to watch the gladiatorial contests. The bloodlust was strong as the crowd cheered, not caring as much who won as to see a good fight and abundant carnage. One man though was appalled. The name Telemachus probably doesn’t mean much to you; it didn’t mean anything to the crowd. Yet this man, formed in the desert monastery, had courage forged through the fires of self-denial, daily prayer, and immersion in Scripture. His virtue was not delicate, but his conscience thankfully was.

Visiting Rome on pilgrimage, he was sickened by the murderous games. Seeing the contest he entered the arena and came between the two fighters, calling upon them to put their swords away. “Do not requite God’s mercy in turning away the swords of your enemies by murdering each other,” he said. The crowd turned against the monk, yelling for the battle to continue. He wouldn’t budge, holding the two apart with his hands. The curses of the crowd grew, and the gladiators turned against him, killing him before one and all. The crowed pelted him with rocks, scoffing at the one who would disrupt their entertainment.

But after witnessing the death of this God-fearing monk, Rome would never be the same. The testimony of one who would give his life to stop these games had immediate results. Within a few months of Telemachus’ death the gladiatorial games in the Colosseum ceased. This desert monk of tender conscience and strong courage was used by God to accomplish much. 

May we learn from the example of this godly man who was faithful when it mattered most. 

A Renewed Perspective of Education

 

           A Review of Dorothy Sayers' Essay, "The Lost Tools of Learning"

            For generations the education system has been floundering. Having followed the methods of John Dewey and the mechanical philosophy of Frederick Taylor, public schools are a bureaucratic mass measured by test performance and the ability to inculcate the latest social ideas. Countless parents know there are problems but do not know how to address them. Many educators know that the system is failing to provide students with what they need but have grown apathetic after years of striving within the system. Where is the hope for educating our children when such conditions exist and the system itself seems to be on an endless downward spiral?

            Dorothy Sayers’ essay, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” is timelier today than it was when it was written in 1947. The problems she identified then seem only to have multiplied in the more than sixty years hence. Students have greater access to knowledge today than they did in medieval times yet foolishness abounds. There is a world of information available through technology, but no wisdom as to how and when it should be used. And as Mrs. Sayers so aptly expressed in her essay, “Is it not the great defect of our education to-day… that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils "subjects," we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think?” 

Living In A Technocratic Economy

The study of economics includes a discussion of what are known as economic systems: the way a society chooses to make economic choices. Every society does this in one way or another. When teaching economic systems, I normally teach about command economies (government run), free market economies (individual and business run), and traditional/household economies (run by patriarchs). This year I added a fourth type, the one I believe we are living in currently: the technocratic economy. 

A technocratic economy is one managed by a combination of the civil government, big businesses, and media/technology companies, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. It is hard for some to imagine how media/tech companies work with businesses to manage the economy, but that's exactly what happens. 

As we've recently seen, when your opinion contradicts the big tech powers that be, you can simply be de-platformed (stripped of your online presence). As the biggest businesses grow in technological presence, luring people into more and tech reliance, the will to resist shrinks. As one former pastor recently said, "What will we do when everyone is has self-driving cars and the operating system no longer allows the vehicle to take us to unacceptable places, i.e. churches?" How will people respond when big business and big tech give us something like China's social credit system?  

As I was teaching this concept, I saw it in action. Many of my students had just been looking at their phones before class started; some continued to discreetly after class started (at least discreet in their minds). Until I start class, I don't often hear from many of my students because they are glued to their phones. I reminded them of this, and the response was, "You're just saying we need to all get rid of our phones." Consider how much of reality is mediated through screens: purchases, relationships, grades, jobs, they are all mediated. If, as Augustine says, freedom is having one's loves rightly ordered, and having self-control, I witness little to no freedom in technocratic society. 

What then is the alternative? To begin (my student's fears to the contrary), we can't all get rid of our phones and become Amish. That is neither possible or sustainable for most. But we can pursue wisdom in how we use technology. For example:

• Vary your technological presence among more than one or two forms. Don't just rely on Youtube or Facebook. Spread it out a bit.
• Be wise in what you post. There are many situations that are simply not our business and nothing will change if we say something or say nothing, so say nothing (Prov. 26:17). Don't put yourself at useless risk. 
• Pursue business platforms that appreciate your convictions. You should already know the major social media platforms and banks hate your convictions; while this may not matter as long as you don't rely on them too much for income, the bigger you get, the more it will hurt if they come after you. Therefore begin with someone who can meet your needs but won't throw you under the bus because of what you believe. 

Once you understand that we are not living in the economic system of your parents or grandparents, you are ahead of the game. The sooner we take steps to prepare ourselves for the ride, the better off we will be. 

Establishing Habits

 

This is the second part of a personal finance lecture on goals and habits. 

Goals must have an action plan, a method of putting the steps towards achieving that goal into practice. In our traveling case, the action plan were the roads we’ve travel to get where we wanted to be at the end of each day. This leads us into the discussion of habits.

I’m taking much of this from the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. It is the best book I’ve read about habits and the effects they have on people.

People often confuse goals and habits. Forming particular habits can be a goal, but good habits should not be temporary things we attempt and let go of, but permanent changes we make that form character. Aristotle refers to the four cardinal virtues as types of habits, things we must be formed in. But developing good habits is not easy. So if you set large habits it may not be attainable immediately. You should aim for smaller, more permanent habits (hence the name, atomic, i.e. atom-like” habits). These will remain with you. The author, James Clear, emphasizes the nature of compound interest when considering habits. Compound interest is the interest that builds up over time, months, and years. When we build smaller habits over time, they form larger patterns in our lives and give us the ability to achieve our goals.

“Small changes often appear to make no difference until you cross a critical threshold. The most powerful outcomes of any compounding process are delayed. You need to be patient.” (Atomic Habits, ch. 1). Also in chapter 1, he says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” In other words, you must have a system or a process in place to bring about your goals. He even says that goals are a waste of time, which I disagree with, but I understand what he’s saying. There must be a plan to accomplish the goals, and then there must be further goals to pursue them.

As your habits change, you will change. You will find that your outlook improves and you will grow in confidence. This is not immediate but happens as you stick with your habits. Which leads to another point – you must be willing to grow, to change. Jesus commended humility in what we know as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), e.g. “blessed are the poor in Spirit, blessed are the meek…” These qualities are born in the person who is sees his or her life as being in God’s hands and is willing to submit his life to the direction God gives.

We all have areas in which we need to grow. Willingness to give yourself to godly habits and change is necessary to become the person He intends you to be. Never become locked into thoughts or a mindset except what is commanded by God in His word. Commit yourself to growth throughout your life.

There is much more we could say about habits, but let me tie this together with personal finance. In time we will come to discussing God calls us to be good stewards of our finances, i.e. saving and building. But having more money isn’t the end of life. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that the rich only end up leaving their money to others (Eccl. 5:10-17). We begin this semester by considering how we are to arrive at the destination before us. But if your destination if faulty, all the planning in the world will only get you to perdition faster. This goes back to your reason for building wealth. If you see yourself as a steward in God’s kingdom and everything you have as a gift from Him, you will be more likely to pursue the gifts of God but to do so as a soldier, living as a minister of God’s restoration in the world.  

Setting Goals

This is the first portion of a lecture I delivered on goals and habits. 

Time is precious. Your time is marked when you’re young by holidays, usually Christmas or birthdays. As you grow older, those markers become more closely aligned, because you have more years behind you. As you grow, your memories collapse together. The question is, what will you do with your time?

Time is a gift, just as any other type of wealth. Every person is allotted 24 hours in a day, 365 ¼ days a year. Why do some people accomplish more than others? Because of the way they use time. If you are lazy, you will not accomplish as much. On the other hand, others follow the tyranny of the urgent, only doing the things that are in front of them, rather than investing your time beforehand. Don be that person either. We are called to invest, to be good stewards of our time. This doesn’t mean we only work all day, every day. It means we plan beforehand for how we will spend our time. ‘

One of the saddest things to hear is someone who is older who regrets wasting their time on their daily job, their bad habits, or selfish behavior. It is not possible to have everything you want; scarcity is still with us. But God has given you gifts, abilities, wealth, and time to use those things.

Your life is not your own. Throughout your life there will be stops, starts, energy, and lack thereof. Yet in everything, God controls your life. You belong to Him and He calls you to use your gifts to honor Him.

The direction of your life is largely in front of you. You have a multitude of options available, based on your gifts or skills. The choices you make in the next several years will determine the path you follow, the person you marry, and the eulogy that will read about you at your funeral. 

We will talk about those choices soon, but this week we must consider the first objective: setting goals and building habits. A goal is not just a task, but a building-block to the type of person you want to become. Years ago, when our family moved out to Idaho, the trip took 36 hours of driving, not including stops. Our final destination was Lewiston, Idaho, but there had to be planning beforehand. I planned four stops along the way. We would stay there each night and go the next morning. I realized my planning was not thorough enough because one of the stops, Denver, CO, unbeknownst to me, had three major events going on and every hotel within a 1-hour radius of the city was booked. We ended up driving until almost 1:30 in the morning and staying 1 and ½ hours further north.

You should have one or two final goals, the things you want to do with your life, which will probably resemble the final goal of others. But the stops along the way will be different for each of you, based on where you are. The stops along the way are your goals now. I thought Lewiston might be a long-term place for us to live, but it turned out that we only lived there two years. Then we repeated the trip back, although to a different place in Alabama. Your life will change and you will have to adapt at times, but your goals are still attainable.

Why set goals? They require you to set a destination. You’ve probably hear the saying, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” That is true. There must be something you want to achieve.

They must be goals that motivate you. You won’t pursue them if they don’t. It will probably be something that you appreciate or want to become.

They should be SMART (https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_90.htm).

Specific – they must be clear, not vague. For example, when we traveled instead of saying, “Denver, CO,” I should have said, “The Holiday Inn Express at 123 Johnson Street in Denver.”

Measurable – you must know how you can determine whether or not you met the goal.

Attainable – if it is not within your reach in the time you set, you will get discouraged and be more tempted to quit.

Relevant – they should be in the service of the general direction you want to go. If we were travelling from Alabama to Idaho, we shouldn’t set a goal of stopping in Maine. It’s not relevant to our main goal.

Time Bound – there should be a specific time you plan on achieving your goal. If not, you will flounder. We planned on driving approximately 9-10 hours each day on our trip west. Establishing a time (create a website in 6 months) puts you under the gun.

Finally, they must have an action plan, a method of putting the steps towards achieving that goal into practice. In our traveling case, the action plan were the roads we’ve travel to get where we wanted to be at the end of each day.

The Lord of Armies

"The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." Psalm 46:7

It is common in Scripture to see the name "Lord of hosts," ascribed to God. It means "Lord of armies," as in, the armies of heaven and earth (Daniel 4:35). God's people were always a small nation when compared to the others surrounding them. Though they had an army in the time of the kings (Saul, David, etc.), they had to rely on God for deliverance. It was only by relying on Him that they were able to win in battle. You regularly see them victorious when they humbly seek God in prayer first, and usually defeated when they rely on the arm of man alone. It was always the Lord of armies who gave them victory in battle.

It became even more important to trust in Yahweh's protection after they returned from exile in Babylon, and that is exactly when you see this name for God come into much more common use. When God's people returned to their homeland, they had no standing army. They were under the dominion of Persia, sort of a colony. If they faced attack from outside, they had no earthly king who would lead them into battle. They had to rely on the Lord of armies to defeat their enemies. This didn't mean they would not fight (see the story of Esther), but there was no main leader to whom they could trust. It was either God or no one. 

I thought about this recently after the events of this past week: Republicans lost in Georgia, giving the Presidency, the U.S. House, and Senate all to a political party who seeks to increasingly restrict the voice of orthodox Christians from all spheres of life. This is in addition to the decades-long push by the largest businesses in the U.S. to pull down all opposition to the ongoing techno-sexual revolution. The icing on the cake this week was the mob invading the U.S. Capitol building, and the association of those clowns with anyone who opposes the incoming President and his party. 

Before the special Georgia election, some (including me) said that surely at least one Republican would be elected and at least the Senate would be able to block the garbage from the House. But no, there is now no block. Even then, aside from judges, how much good have the so-called "good guys" done when they controlled the Presidency, House, and Senate? Might our hopes have been put in the wrong thing?

God's people in the United States need to learn what our brethren in Nigeria, China, and Iran have known for a long time: our only help comes from the Lord of hosts. Certainly we should pursue the election of godly leaders, men and women who will lead in justice, mercy, and humility, who will speak out against technocracy, sexual perversion, and stand/fight for truth. But never forget that our deliverance, our protection, and our victory belongs to the Lord of hosts.

When we're tempted to become cynical, to despair, and put our heads down, remember He who fights for us is greater than the forces who oppose us. Men have and will fail at times - therefore we don't put our ultimate hope in men. We might not see all our allies, but in God's cosmic commonwealth, the opposition is at His mercy. In the meantime we continue working, praying, standing upright, and pursuing the ground before us. All the while remembering that no matter what happens, the Lord of armies is our defense. 

Owning Our Curse

Genesis 9 tells the story of Noah after his return from the ark. Having retired from zoology, he took up gardening, specifically planting a vineyard. One day after drinking too much, he went to his tent. His son Ham went in, saw his father naked, and scornfully told his two brothers about it. They quickly took a cloth and covered their father without looking at him. Upon recovering from his drunken state, Noah cursed Ham's son, Canaan. 

This story has led to plenty of theories of what Ham actually did. I will not delve into those, but Scripture makes it plain that Ham was wrong. At the very least he revealed the shame of his father, while Shem and Japheth covered their father's shame. Nothing is said about Noah's being drunk. There were no commands about drunkenness at the time and Scripture does not condemn him; for us to do so is to miss part of the point.

There's a lesson for us in this passage. It's become popular to  heap scorn upon prior generations for their sins and blind spots. Those blind spots are real and we should certainly learn from them. But there is a great difference between that learning from our fathers' mistakes and publicly proclaiming their shame. I suspect our reasons for doing so are similar to Ham's: we think if we shame our fathers, we no longer have to submit to them. We showcase their sins (whether real or perceived) and think it frees us from hearing what they have to say. In doing so, we bring a curse upon our offspring. 

We teach them to scoff at the guidance of the past and consider our scoffing virtuous, saying those old paths lead to slavery. In fact, it's only those paths that chart a course out of our dark modern cave. This is no call to ignore the sins of our fathers. But to ignore their wisdom and proclaim their shame, we sin against them. Only by loving and appreciating our forebears can we learn from them. Only by receiving their wisdom can we protect our children and grandchildren from the ignorance of the age. 

In Defense of Real Church

 

The most significant attack on the Church currently is sexual relativism. This infection has been invading for decades and the host has shown little defense. But perversion is not the only attack, just the most significant one currently. There are other lines of attack, and one we must prepare for is the attack on real, local churches.

I don’t necessarily believe churches will be physically attacked. Right now that would draw too much attention and support for them. Our enemy – the one not of flesh and blood – is too smart for that. He prepared the groundwork for this attack through confusing reality and mediated reality over the last sixty years. “Reality” as I refer to it here is that which exists and is true, regardless of our human perception or understanding. Mediated reality, in contrast is what we perceive to be real as mediated by other sources, particularly technological sources.[1]