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Habit-Forming: Liturgies of Education featuring Peter Leithart
a First Things Lecture

From the first pages of Scripture, God is revealed as a divine liturgist. His creative speech is repetitive, ritualized. Made in the image of this God, human beings are liturgical creatures. Godly habits are formed not only by instruction but by practice. Soldiers drill to become good soldiers. A basketball player trains his muscles so that each foul shot is identical to every other. In the church, the liturgy is one of the Spirit’s instruments for shaping godly persons and communities, and the same is true in education.

Dr. Leithart’s lecture will explore the implications of this perspective for education and present examples of healthy and unhealthy educational rituals. Every educational model assumes an answer to the question, ‘What is a human being?’ If we are liturgical creatures, the classroom is the space for a formative liturgical dialogue between teacher and students.


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