The Christian School in History

“The Christian school is no new thing.  It has a long and honorable tradition.  What is new is the willingness of parents who confess Christ to have their children educated in schools from which God’s Word is rigorously banned.  During the centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Word of God was central in the instruction that the people of God gave to their children, a God Himself commanded in Deuteronomy 6:6-9.  The education provided for the children of the church during the 1,400 years between the time of the apostles and the time of the Reformation of the church in A.D. 1517 was permeated with the Word of God.  In this period, the schools were closely connected with the church.  After 1517, the Reformers, notable among whom were Martin Luther and John Calvin, were agreed in their zeal for the establishment of schools in which all the children might receive an education. Their concern for schools was only surpassed by their concern for the church herself.  But they were also one in their insistence that these schools be founded upon and ruled by the Word of God, the Bible.  Those early citizens of our own country who set up schools and universities that were intended to be Christian continued the long tradition of the Christian school.”

(An excerpt from “The Christian School:  Why?” by David J. Engelsma .  Originally published in the 1960s by the Protestant Reformed Christian School Society in Loveland, Colorado.)