Baptized Education

The Christian school has to function as a fruit of the Christian church. That does not mean it has to be administratively connected to a church. But to be Christian it has to take the church’s ministry as its given starting point.

Specifically, I have in mind the sacrament, rite, or ordinance of baptism. What does baptism have to do with education?

We might think very little. Kids from Christian schools are subjects of Christian nurture simply by virtue of their birth. But that is not a sound premise. They are members of the people of God not by virtue of birth but by virtue of baptism. They are to be nurtured in Christian faith not because they are human but because God has claimed them.

This has several direct implications for how teachers carry out their work.Whenever and however administered, baptism is a renunciation of the world. It is a liturgical initiation into a people that rejects and resists the liturgies of the world. 

A teacher can appeal to the students’ baptisms as grounds for moral exhortation and formation. “You have been bought with a price,” a teacher says, “you belong to Jesus. Therefore, don’t give your soul and your loves to David Tennant or Benedict Cumberbatch or the latest rock star. Your life is in Christ, therefore does not consist of possessions. Your people are the people of God, and so your loyalties are first of all there. You are baptized, therefore you are not the kind of person to despise the wisdom of the aged. You are baptized, therefore you live and study in patient faith.”

(This is taken from a lecture delivered at the Covenant School, Dallas, Texas, November 16, 2015.)