The Case for Christian Education

Proverbs 1:7
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
September 7, 2003
Christian Education Sunday

T. S. Eliot writes:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass

The interpretations of Eliot’s “hollow-men” have been varied and many, sometimes even

fantastic. If you want to read a number of these opinions, simply log on to the internet

and type in “straw men” and “Eliot” and you will have a cornucopia of literary analysis to

sift through. It seems that Eliot, in writing about straw-men set up enough straw-men to

keep the literary community yammering about nothing for years. People tend to fill the

“hollow-men” image with whatever straw fills their own heads.

What interests me about this image is its theological content. Now, before you

start accusing me of joining the straw-headed literaries, hear me out. First, by training I

am a straw-headed literary – BA in Literature, concentration in British literature. But

before I am a literary, I am a theologian and as a theologian I know unequivocally that the

beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. Taking that proverb to its logical

conclusion, all wisdom, all knowledge – even that expressed in literature – has a

theological basis behind it. I could spend the next half-hour giving you example after
example of how this poet or that author, who though being entirely secular and humanist

in his or theological outlook – and atheist, if you will – still wrote lines filled with

theological truth. Amazingly, all creation does proclaim the glory of God, even when we

purposely try to wrest ourselves away from it.

And let me add a third point to support my spying theological content in the lines

of Eliot’s poem. Eliot, though reputedly coming from Unitarian parents – Unitarianism

being a Romantic era version of the New Age Movement – was professed to be a

Christian. I have even heard it said among some literary circles that once T.S. Eliot

became a Christian his writing suffered because the light of Christ removed the darkness

that tortured his soul. Be that as it may, Eliot’s conversion is clear evidence that God was

busily at work in the heart of this poetic genius. That said, let me share with you the

theological content that inhabits the image of Eliot’s “hollow men.”

But I want to share this with you in a particular way – after all, this is not a

literature class. I would like to use Eliot’s “hollow men” a controlling image to make a

case for Christian education. As many of you know, the Christian Reformed Church

understands that part of its task as covenant people is to promote and encourage Christian

education. Why? Well, in the Acts of Synod 1955 (pp.193-200 for any interested in

looking at the report itself) the CRC developed 8 principles of Christian education. The

purpose of the document was to express why Christian education is a necessity – not a

luxury, not an option but a necessity – for the faith development of our children. For this

morning, I have taken the eight principles and boiled them down to three biblical bases.
Using Eliot’s “hollow men” image, I want to look at these three bases for Christian

education.

The first basis for Christian education is that its foundation is in the Creator-

creature relationship. In Genesis 1:26-27, we hear God saying, “Let us make man in our

own image….” Now, the theories concerning what composes the image of God are about

as wide and varied as the interpretations of Eliot’s “hollow men.” But one of the clear

implications of being created in the image of God is that we are made for intimate

relationship with God. We were and are created to be God’s friend, so to speak.

Essential to intimacy is the ability to know one another. God created us to know

him – in other words, he put sufficient revelation in creation, apart from direct revelation,

to know him and gave us the capacity to recognize it. Romans 1:20 says “For since the

creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature

—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men

are without excuse.”

So prior to the fall, we were able to see the thumbprint of God in the wisp of a

cloud. We knew God not only because we talked with him in the cool of the evening –

face to face as dear friends or more appropriately as parent and child – but because he

revealed himself to continuously through the work of creation. In the earth and the

heavens, we could see the reflection of God’s glory.

What startles me about Eliot’s vision of hollow men is how accurately, how

vividly it describes all of mankind after the fall. When Adam sinned, we became for all

intents and purposes, hollow men – or I should say hollow persons. We were hollowed
out of that which allowed us to be distinctly human. Sin, like a great big scoop, plunged

deep into our hearts and excavated the things that allowed us to have undisturbed,

unbroken, perfect fellowship with the Father – our reason for being. We became less than

human – only a shadow our created selves. A hull of humanity, if you will, because that

which makes us distinctly human – being an image bearer of God – has become

incapacitated, misdirected.

Because of this incapacitation, this misdirection, we no longer image God as we

were created to do. We no longer are able to relate to God as we used to. The very

purpose we were created for has become an alien activity – as foreign to us as air to the

gills of a fish. Post fall, we desperately gasp our way through life, vainly thrashing about.

The thoughts, the visions of God that used to fill our whole being have become

impenetrable mysteries to us. Instead of friends with God, Romans 5:10 says in the fall

we become God’s enemies. We are incapable of knowing him – apart from the work of

the Holy Spirit.

But the image of God is still present in us, though misdirected, and it longs to

know – anything. So we fill our hollowness with straw. Instead of pursuing the Truth

Romans 1:18 says, “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the

godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

And our suppression of the truth leads us further into a false pursuit of knowledge. And

our false pursuit of knowledge leads us into wrong ways of acting. And wrong ways of

acting lead us into impure affections. And so we spiral deeper into the mire of sin,
helpless and hopeless until we finally exchange the truth of God for a lie, and begin to

worship the created thing rather than the Creator.

People of God, Christian education is a bulwark against that descending spiral.

John Calvin said – and I paraphrase here – if one is to know God he must use the

Scriptures to correct his eyes from the myopia of sin. Through the lens of Scripture, the

thumbprint of God becomes evident in creation once more. Without the Scriptures –

God’s self-disclosure to man – man cannot understand the revelation Psalm 19 proclaims

to be there

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of
his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display
knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the
world.

Christian education is aimed at restoring the relationship between the Creator and the

creature. It reintroduces us to the Lover of our souls who calls us back, despite our

adulertries. Through it the Holy Spirit opens our eyes again to the wonder and grace of

God. Christian education is necessary because it trains our eyes to see God.

The second basis for Christian education is that true education has its inception in

the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. As we noted earlier, man by his

very nature is created for relationship with God. At his very core he is religious. The

person who says that he is not religious is a clueless person who does not understand his

own nature. We are all religious – it is in our very make up. And as we read in Romans
1, if we do not offer our devotion to the proper religious object – that is God our Creator

– we will set up every kind of substitute to try and fill the hole created in us by excluding

God.

In a very a real sense, an education absent Christ sets up straw men – what

Colossians 2:8 refers to as hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human

tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ – to distract and

misdirect us. Instead pursuing real truth – truth which reveals and lead us to God – we

pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake or maybe for more pragmatic reasons like to

earn a living. The point of the education becomes expertise, not deepening the

knowledge of God and self. And so we waste ourselves on various bodies of knowledge

with no greater vision than our own interests and immediate needs.

The point is that education not centered on Christ divorces the man from himself.

It fails to illuminate our purpose. Because it does not aim at the restoration of the

Creator-creature relationship, it fails to impart true knowledge. There is no fear of God

before our eyes. So, in the greater scheme of things, an education devoid of Christ is

meaningless. For education to be truly effective, it must be truly Christian.

Since we are created for relationship with God, our deepest need is religious.

Christian education, true education, is the bringing up of the whole man – mind, body,

and soul – and comprises all of life. It is more than just the transmission of facts, it is the

process by which the whole person is nurtured, trained, and enabled to become fully,

authentically human – what God intended us to be. Without a full-orbed Christian

education, we remain “hollow” persons -

 Headpieces filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless.

Christian education is necessary because it teaches us to fear the Lord, and trains to be

fully, authentically human – in relationship with our Creator.

Our final basic principle for Christian education is that children born of Christian

parents are members of the church of Christ. God gathers from a ruined human race,

groping in the darkness of sin, a chosen people that they as sons and daughters by

adoption “may show forth the glory of his grace,” as Ephesians 1:5-6 tells us.

With these chosen people, God makes a covenant and essential to being faithful to

that covenant is teaching our children what it means to live as members of the covenant.

God makes this clear through Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-25. One thing you notice about

this passage is how we are instructed to educate our children. Not just a transmission of

facts – it is a full-orbed education. We are not only to give them the facts, the laws,

decrees and stipulations of the Lord our God, but we are also to teach them about what

our God has done for us as a motivation for right behavior. And we are supposed to do it

in the first person narrative – God did this for me.

Why? So that the student will come to see God as his God – personally involved

with him. It places our response to God in the realm of gratitude and not obedience

because of fear. You see, the education God proscribed was a full-orbed education –

aimed at drawing the whole person into a deeper relationship with God. It not only

teaches us right action and right thought but also right affections. We learn to love God
because he loved us first. Christian education is necessary because God commands it and

leads to lives of gratitude.

When you look at the basis for Christian education, it becomes apparent why it is

necessity, and not an option. Only Christ-centered education will train you and your

children for relationship with God. Only Christ–centered education will prepare you see

the Living God as he reveals himself to you in his Word and in his world. Only a Christ-

centered education prepares you to be fully human – what God intended you to be. Only

Christ-centered education teaches you live grateful, authentic lives. Education without

Christ is hollow and empty and all it can produce is hollow men.

Last year, I stated from this pulpit that I wanted to see this congregation becoming

more involved with Christian education – to support through participation in our local

Christian schools, including financial assistance. This year we have several students

from our congregation enrolled in Christian schools and for that we are indeed grateful.

But we need to do more. If we truly believe in the necessity of Christian education, let us

commit to establishing a fund to help our families who want to honor their covenant

commitment by sending their children to Christian schools.

In the interim, let us continue as a church to strive toward providing quality,

Christ-centered instruction for our children here at the church. This morning, we make a

move in that direction by celebrating Christian education through the commissioning of

our Sunday school teachers. Let me encourage the congregation, even as we commission

our teachers, to bear in mind the task for which they are appointed. To educate us – to

help us in restoring our relationship between the Creator and the creature. They have
been raised up in this congregation to point us toward Christ through education. Let’s

make sure we honor their service by participating in the Christian education program of

the church. Let’s avail ourselves of the opportunity to see God revealed through their

teaching.