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r with Christians are equally corrupted by elements ofumanism. This is not to say that we must never use suchaterials, but it is to say that when we have the opportu-

ty to replace them with something that self-consciouslyhristian, we have a moral obligation to do so. Until suchme as there is a self-conscious attempt on the parl of

hristians to reconstruct every aspect of the lowest cur-culum materials to conform to biblical revelation, the work

Christian Reconstruction in education will remain deeply

mpromised.The next stage beyond the simplest kind of educationalaterials is the high curriculum. Here again, if weok at the curriculum materials, especially in the humani-es, we find horrendous theological compromises, not onlyth humanism but also with various forms of heretical Chris-

an movements in church history. There has been noonscious attempt on the part of Christiants or Calvinists in general to reconstruct high schoolrriculum materials to make them conform rigorously toblical principles of social theory.

One reason for this is that there has been noonscious attempt to develop Christian social theory inrms of biblical revelation. The development of an explic-

y Bible-based social theory haa been the exclusive prov-ce of the Christian Reconstruction movement since 1973nd ignored prior to 1973). We have not had a sufficientvision of labor thus far to achieve this kind of compre-ensive reconstruction of all the academic disciplines of

ocial theory in general. This is what must be done in theture, but it has not been done yet.

Outlines of what needs to be done have been pre-nted, but only the barest filling-in of these outlines has

een attempted. This is why a new generation needs toe trained over the next thirty years: to begin filling in theaps that now lie in the task of reconstructing all the aca-emic disciplines to conform with biblical presuppositions.

No one who accepts the doctrine of the myth of neu-ality is academically capable of doing this, yet virtually the Ph.D.-holding professors who call themselves Chris-

ans who are teaching today have adopted some degree

the myth of neutrality. They have been formally certifiedy those who proclaim the myth of neutrality, and deeplysent the intrusion of Christian Reconstructionists in call-g attention to the fact that they are morally and intellec-ally compromised by adopting the principle of the mythneutrality, better known in modern circles today as the

octrine of natural law. Natural law theory from the veryeginning was an attempt of the scholastic theologians tocorporate Greek learning and revelation. This wasways a doomed effort. It has hampered the development

Christian civilization ever since.

An Academically Compromised Church

The reason why we face a civilization that is committedanti-Christian categories is that the church has aban-

oned to its enemies the training of ita own leaders. I will

eal with this at greater length in the next issue ofconomics Today. Conservative Presbyterians today re-

uire for ordination into what they call the teaching minis-y that the candidate be a graduate of a state accredited

humanist accredited college or university before he cantend The church then requires at least three

emesters of before ordination can take place.The only thing that has offset this defection to the pro-

ssorate on the part of all American churches is the fact

at fundamentalist churches have generally not required thata ministers attend such institutions. The first and second

Awakenings saw the replacement of Calvinism byrminianism (especially Methodism), and the replacement oferarchical churches by either independent Baptist churches

or other forms of independent Thesetions have not generally required that their ministers become

ordained by first attending a college or university. un-willingness on the part of fundamentalist, Arrninian churches

to bend the knee before the Baal of higher education hasbeen a blessing to American Christianity.

This is not to say that the myth of neutrality has notbeen basic to these independent churches. They have

adopted the American civil religion, better known as political

pluralism, and undergirding this civil religion is the doctrineof the myth of political neutrality and the myth of religiousneutrality. But the is, these churches refused to runtheir leaders through the gauntlet of self-conscious humanist

education, and therefore the corruption of higher educationdid not spread to these churches to the extent that it hasspread to the mainline denominations that require suchformal of all its ordained ministers.

The Christian looks at the educationalsituation today and says that everything must be changedfrom bottom to top. Christian have beenoptimistic about the long-term effects of Christian educa-tion at the lower levels, not simply because we believe thatfamilies are before God required to educate their children,

but because we understand that any successful long-termrevolution must begin at the lowest level and work up tothe highest level. We understand that until we have a fullydeveloped curriculum at all levels of education, it is uto-pian and counter-productive to imagine that we can over-come humanist civilization. We can get into all kinds ofpolitical battles, but none of this will amount to anything

unless the de-funding of all education by the state takesplace. The long-term goal of every battle mustbe the total abolition of all state money in the field ofeducation.

The trouble is, most Christians today have made theircompromise with the state, not on the basis that there is

no other way to get their children educated, but on theassumption that the modern education is not really a threatto the childs moral and intellectual standards none worthpaying extra money to defend against, anyway. By the timethe child goes off to college, the parent has washed hishands of the whole thing. Theres nothing I can do aboutit now, he concludes. The symbol of this transfer ofsovereignty Is the dorm key. From that day forth, otherswill set the only rules that count institutionally rules withsanctions attached.

This compromise usually begins very early. It begins atleast at the high school level, when the parent says, Thelocal public high school is not really aa as we read

about in other cities. Apparently, his academic standard is

whatever is going on in some high school in Harlem orSouth Central Los Angeles, and if what is going on locallyis not so bad as what is going on in some inner-city highschool, then there is nothing fundamentally wrong with thelocal high school. While it is understandable that the Chris-tian parent is forced into this of intellectual self-justifica-tion when the child enters college, since there is no univer-sity or college anywhere in the world that has a

conscious Christian curriculum at its foundation, it is not alegitimate when there is any other alternative available tothe parent, including home schooling, that would enable himto keep his child out of the public high school. So, the childis sent into the humanist gauntlet at a very young age, andis expected by the pastor and the parents to emerge rela-tively unscathed from that gauntlet. This is naive.

A New Curriculum la Needed

What we need today is a reconstruction of social the-ory and physical theory. We need a biblical curriculum inevery field at the college level. We need a college that

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umanistic education until we are ready to providenanced Christian education. The is not ready foris, Christian Reconstruction is not ready for this, and soe have to operate in a difficult environment, but onehich can be overcome at least in the lives of a smallumber of dedicated students. It is now time for Christian

to begin to identify these students, re-

uit them and train them.

Robes of AuthorityIn the West, the mark of a representative who pos-

esses lawful authority in a is his wear-g of robes. From the period until today, prieststhe church have worn robes, very often black. similarly,

dges in civil governments wear black robes. Black robesre worn in the modern world by only two other groups:hurch choirs and graduates of academic institutions.White gowns are worn by physicians - anotherriestly guild and laboratory scientists.)

commented very early on the relationshipetween the robe and formal authority in the

West (Messianic Character of American Education, p. 10).e understood that the demand by medieval universities

hat their members be allowed to wear black robes was fact an assertion of primary legal jurisdiction. The uni-

ersities demanded legal sovereignty in their operations,utonomy from both church and state. The world of theniversity was a priesthood and a brotherhood, a privilegedealm. . . . (Ibid., p. 11). The symbol of this privilege wase black roba.

The Western university successfully established itsaim to legal autonomy. This meant that church authori-es were restrained in their ability to enforce theologicalandards on professors in the universities. The doctrineacademic freedom goes back many centuries to the ear-

est universities: Paris, Cambridge, and Oxford. Oxford and

ambridge had their own representatives in Parliament.Sir Isaac Newton on occasion served in an undistin-uished fashion in Parliament.) One of the best examples

this autonomy was John In the late fourteenthentury, was under attack by ecclesiastical authori-es because of his teachings. He taught against the doc-ne of transubstantiation. He taught what might be called

n early Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith. He wasble to do this because he had been given sanctuary byxford. Church authorities could not enforce their will onm until very late in his career, when Oxford buckled to

xtreme pressure and removed him from his academic po-tion. Martin Luther enjoyed similar protection a

nd a half later.Western intellectuals until World War were a very tinyass, but they were increasingly powerful from the twelfthentury onward. They staffed the clerical positions of bothhurch and state, and apart from certification by universi-es it became increasingly dift to be ordained into thegher levels of the priesthood. This academic certification

nd judicial bureaucratization steadily transformed Euro-ean thought and culture. The universities were to a great

extent outside civil and law, yet they providedboth the staff and of those who administered thelaw. The rise of the professional lawyer class was madepossible by the rise of the teaching of law within theuniversities. (Harold Berman, Law and University Press, 1963).

This development has posed a major problem for thechurch and for Christian civilization generally from the verybeginning of the university system. Greek knowledge,

especially the philosophy of Aristotle, was brought into theuniversities as early as the late eleventh when theuniversities first appeared. The rise and triumph of Scho-lasticism over the next two centuries made possible the

secularization of formal education. The doctrine of the twomodes of learning, reason and revelation, held in dialecti-cal tension, was a product not only of Scholasticism butof formal education generally. This meant thata major divi-sion was placed between revelation and reason.

in academic circles, reason became enthroned as theprimary means of knowledge, with revelation relegated to

a secondary position. This culminated in the nineteenth cen-tury with the rise of atheism and secular humanism,

in the major French universities athat has become triumphant in our day. The independenceof the universities made possible the incorporation of pa-gan learning into the life of the West.

This autonomy led also to the spread of many kinds

of heresy within the universities. There were two majorinstitutional sources of heresy within the church in the laterMiddle Ages: the universities and the various monastic or-ders that were independent of local ecclesiastical authority.The Franciscan order is probably the best example of her-

esy and borderline heresy inside the late-medieval church.Many of these doctrines, sometimes referred to as Spiritu-alist doctrines, were incorporated into the curricula of theuniversities. Medieval World, Mentor,

1962, chaps. 9, 10). But the fundamental problem wasauthority: autonomy bred error.

The universities threat to orthodoxy was recognized by

the Puritans during the English Civil War, 1640-1660.Cromwell and his supportera understood that secular edu-cation, meaning education outside the church, was acounter-force to the Puritans goal of the comprehensiverestoration of Christianity in English civilization. They un-derstood clearly that the curriculum of the colleges in bothCambridge and Oxford was shot through and through withhumanism. But so powerful was the hold of these two uni-versities on the judicial and social order of England thateven Cromwells political authoritarianism was incapable of

reforming those two universities. The Puritans knew thatthis power had to be challenged and had to be replacedby a thoroughgoing Christian world-and-life view, but theydid not have the authority, the power, or the alternativecurriculum to ram through the changes that were needed.(John Morgan, Learning, Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986), Conclusion.) In distant Harvard College, noone even tried.

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