Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum
Overview
In this text, Rushdoony—a major advocate of Christian homeschooling—discusses Christian curriculum. He works from the principle that curriculum cannot be neutral—suggesting that it is either a course in humanism or training in a God-centered faith and life. The liberal arts curriculum means literally that course which trains students in the arts of freedom. This raises the key question: is freedom in and of man or Christ? The Christian art of freedom, what Rushdoony terms the Christian liberal arts curriculum, is not the same as the humanistic one. He designs this text to help Christian educators rethink the meaning and nature of their curriculum.
For the entire set, see R.J. Rushdoony Culture and Ethics Collection (7 vols.).
- Provides a foundation for homeschooling
- Maintains that a curriculum is not neutral
- Forces educators to rethink their curriculum and ultimate aims
Top Highlights
“The function of education is thus to school persons in the ultimate values of a culture. This is inescapably a religious task. Education has always been a religious function of society and closely linked to its religion. When a state takes over the responsibilities for education from the church or from Christian parents, the state has not thereby disowned all religions but simply disestablished Christianity in favor of its own statist religion, usually a form of humanism.” (Page 3)
“A state curriculum to be true to itself must teach statism. A Christian curriculum to be true to itself must be in every respect Christian.” (Page 12)
“wherever education becomes humanistic, it will produce both statism and anarchistic individualism” (Page 8)
“Psychology has, in the modern curriculum, taken the place of theology as the guide to life” (Page 11)
“For humanism, man is his own law and his own law-maker, so that social approval is the best test of law” (Pages 7–8)
- Title: The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum
- Author: Rousas John Rushdoony
- Publisher: Ross House Books
- Print Publication Date: 2001
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 194
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Education (Christian theology); Church schools › Curricula
- Resource ID: LLS:PHLSPHYCHCRRCLM
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-02-12T05:04:40Z
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) was was a well-known American scholar, writer, and author of over thirty books. He earned degrees from the University of California, received theological training at the Pacific School of Religion, and received an honorary Doctorate from Valley Christian University for his book The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum.
Rushdoony was an ordained minister and served as pastor at two California churches. He served for almost nine years as a missionary to the Shoshone and Paiute Indians in a remote area of Nevada. It was during this time as a missionary that Rushdoony began writing. The Institutes of Biblical Law and Commentary on the Pentateuch are just a few of the titles that Rushdoony has penned.
The Chalcedon Foundation, an educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and cogent communication of a distinctively Christian scholarship to the world at large, was founded by Rushdoony in 1965. He served as the editor of The Chalcedon Report, the monthly magazine of the Chalcedon Foundation.
Rushdoony also published the Journal of Christian Reconstruction and was an early board member of the Rutherford Institute which was founded by John W. Whitehead.