December 12, 2023 Show with Steve Schultz on “A Call to Christian Parents to Repent from Idolatry Concerning Their Children’s Education”

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 12th day of December 2023, and I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest, an old friend of mine, Steve Schultz, who is headmaster at Grace Christian Academy of Long Island, which is a classical Christian school affiliated with Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York, and today we're going to be addressing the controversial theme, A Call to Repent from Idolatry to Christian Parents Who Cling to Idols When Making Decisions on Their Children's Education, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Steve Schultz.

And Steve, are you on mute? I can't hear you.

No, I'm sorry.

I was waiting for a question or something.

Oh, that's good to have you back on the show, and tell our listeners about Grace Christian Academy of Long Island.

Okay, Grace Christian Academy is kindergarten through 12th grade. It is classical, and it is Christian. We used to be the only classical Christian K -12 in all of New York City and Long Island, but we just picked up some brethren further out in Suffolk County.

Their school is transitioning into classical, and we're excited about that, and we need more family out here, but anyway, I don't know, do I need to explain what classical Christian is?

I would think that would be a wise thing for the sake of our listeners who have not heard you or Pete Hegseth on the program before, because I believe the only times that I've discussed classical Christian education specifically was when I had you and Pete Hegseth on the show.

So if they'd missed those shows, they probably, or should I say, they very likely may not not know what classical Christian education is, so please explain.

Okay, I'm going to start to ramble. You can tell me to shut up when it's time. The term classical comes from the classical period of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the reason that we do that is because their idea of education and their idea of what can be known was radically different than what we hold to today in our culture.

What predominates the academic landscape in America today is progressivism, and at the heart of that is the idea that either God doesn't exist or he doesn't function in with man the way that we believe that he does, but the progressive system has pretty much dispensed with any notion of God.

The ancients of Greece and Rome believed that before you can rightly discern what you detect with your five senses, you must first have a set of virtue in place. The progressives believe that you can only know things if they're tangible to the five senses, and what that does is it instantly puts to death any discussion of morality, of right and wrong, of theology, of things that we as Christians would argue are more important and must be known first.

So again, back to the ancients of Greece and Rome, they believed that you needed a set of virtue before you can even rightly discern what you're detecting with your five senses. So when the Christians came along, they said, well, we know what that virtue is.

It's knowing God and knowing his word. So the classical Christian school is going to begin with a right presentation of God, of Christ, of God's word, and is going to found everything on top of that. So when we are taking into consideration what to teach, how to teach it, what clubs to form, you know, pretty much everything that we do here, it must fit through a scriptural screen.

And if the Bible doesn't support it, then we will not have it here. So that's kind of the beginning point. As a classical school, the structure that we follow is called the Trivium. It's a three-stage approach that addresses how children receive and then retain information.

The first part of the Trivium is the Grammar School. In the Grammar School, because the way their brains function biologically, children of that age are capable of consuming huge amounts of data and storing.

And, you know, so kindergarten through sixth grade is the Grammar School. It's a lot of memorization. It's heavy focus. It's on the concrete things of learning, the who, what, where, when, you know, things that can be memorized.

You get to be my age, and the brain doesn't work that way anymore. It might not even work. But when they get to the seventh and eighth grade, their brain is starting to biologically change, and they become much more capable of handling the abstract.

So we then move them from our Grammar School into the School of Logic, and that is where we train them how to think. Not what to think, you know, to, say, pass a state math test, but how to think, how to reason.

And that's where they take formal logic in the seventh and in the eighth grade, and we teach them how to think rightly using the laws of logic. And that's where they transition from the concrete who, what, where, when into the more abstract why and how.

Our instruction becomes much more Socratic at that time. We replace a lot of telling students things with asking them questions that elicit thought. And then we move them on to our School of Rhetoric.

That's the third stage of the Trivium, and that is where we train them how to eloquently articulate and intelligently defend their ideas. And it's basically learning all the subject matter that you would learn somewhere else that isn't hostile to scriptural truth.

You know, so they're teaching them how to take AP calculus, they're taking history, they're taking literature, they're taking rhetoric, they're studying forensics. But at the same time, they're learning how to effectively communicate, how to eloquently articulate it, how to argue in the context of debate.

And really what we want to do here is provide a superior education for our kids that will earn them platforms out in their culture by which to then engage their culture in its battle for ideas, hopefully from a biblical worldview.

We still have 100 graduation. We've got 100 college or military acceptance. Brown, NYU, Penn State, Syracuse, UMass, Ohio State, go Buckeyes. Locals like Stony Brook, Hunter, Baruch, NYT, Hofstra, Christian schools like Gordon, Liberty, Cedarville.

And most of our kids are getting in with some kind of scholarship. So we're doing well, and we're defending the gospel, and we're teaching our kids how to engage their culture and effectively do it. And forgive me if you mention this,.

But the grades are K through 12? 12, yes. K through 12. And which grade do you insist that the students take the blood oath? I'm only kidding. Kindergarten. And something that you said needs to be clarified.

I know that a motto of classical Christian education that you just cited moments ago, and I'm doing this from memory, so I don't have it verbatim perhaps, but we don't teach children what to know but how to think.

We don't teach children what to know but how to think. But having said that, in regard to the first half of that, we don't teach children what to know. You do teach them vital things that they should know, correct?

I mean, you just mentioned the fact that you have the standard classes of history and mathematics and.

So on. Right, absolutely. And when we shy away from that, teaching them what to think, it's not what to know, it's what to think. And where that difference is, is yes, you need to equip the student with the basic building blocks of knowledge.

They need to know that two plus two is four. They need to know that they're ABCs.

Now, wait a minute. I thought two plus two equals four was racist.

Well, if it is, then so be it. We even investigate issues like racism from a biblical worldview, though. So we're teaching kids how to think from a biblical worldview about the things that they learn.

Yes, we have to teach them the basics of math and English and letter sounds and physics and biology and chemistry and all those things. But the difference between teaching them what to think and how to think, I spent 11 years in the government schools teaching kids what to think.

Basically, in September, I start training them how to take the state math exam. And then in May or whenever, I forget when they took it, once that thing's over, they forget everything because in their heads, they don't need to know it.

There's no value to it other than doing well on that state test that they took. Teaching a kid how to think is different. You're teaching them reason. You're teaching them why the Pythagorean theorem works the way that it works.

You're teaching them that math is not from the pit of hell, that it is a language by which God created the universe. And when you can start to present the subjects with that kind of awe, the kids start to enjoy learning.

They no longer see it as a tedious chore in order to take the state math test that they don't understand why they've got to pass that thing to begin with. But they become interested in the universe and therefore interested in God's creation.

And if you go back to Romans 1, it explains how God has made himself evident through that which is created. And if we properly handle the subjects, what we are doing is we are magnifying and we are unfolding what that Romans 1 statement means by teaching them and exposing them to the things that God has made.

What is biology? Well, it's the study of life that God has made. What is chemistry? It's the study of atomic particles that God has made. What is algebra? What is calculus? What is physical education?

All these things, if we study them properly, we are going to study them in alignment with Romans 1, where each one of these things is to draw attention to the Creator and develop an awe of the Creator.

Unfortunately, in the government schools, because they've banned God, the way they teach the subjects is they take the things that were designed to make God known to us and they excuse it away. And they say, no, you're really not seeing what you think you're seeing.

What you're seeing here is a cosmic accident that has no origin, that has no divine orchestrator. We are going to provide, you know, basically, Romans goes on to call it vain speculation. Once you remove the divine creator and the divine placer of the planets and the stars and all the scientific laws and things that govern the universe, once you remove the divine orchestrator of all that, you then have to explain how that stuff got there and why it works the way that it does, but you have to do it without an author.

And that leads us to vain speculation, but what it does is it takes away what God intended from His creation, and that was to, you know, cause us to know Him,.

At least know that He's there. Now, one of the things that is fascinating about Grace Christian Academy and classical Christian schools in general is that they universally, I believe, teach Latin. And I was raised Roman Catholic.

I went to a Roman Catholic elementary school on Long Island, New York, and I was a post-Vatican II child, so we were not taught Latin at all, even in a Roman Catholic school. I was an altar boy. We didn't use Latin.

We didn't have to learn Latin. My older brothers did, who were from a different era, 15 and 16 years older than I. So tell us, why is it that classical Christian education, or should I say classical Christian educators, believe that Latin is a very important thing for children to be taught?

Okay. There's actually a whole slew of reasons, and I'm not going to remember all of them right now, but, you know, the basic mechanics of language, at least in English language, the way that we begin teaching our kids English and reading is by the use of phonics, where they systematically study English letters in their sounds, and then what happens when you put those things together.

Latin is actually the next step after phonics. It's a very logical language. So it basically takes the basic building blocks of phonics and sophisticates it. Then you have to take into consideration that more than half of our English vocabulary is made up of Latin words and roots.

So, you know, you take a word like democracy, you've got demos, you've got cratic, and, you know, a kid can walk into, say, a book or an SAT test, for example, because we do very well in those, and run across words that he's never seen before, but he can peel it apart and knows the pieces and can figure out from the pieces what the word's actually saying.

Other languages that we study don't give us that. Now, we do study a lot in America. We study Spanish, Italian, French, which are, they come from Latin, they are the Latin languages, but even though they're kind of like the modern version, but if you go back to the original Latin, the Latin sets you up well to learn those languages, to learn English, to be able to read things that are above your comfortable reading level and, you know, basically decode it.

So, that's another reason why Latin is popular, Latin is valued by us. We also value it because it is the language of the ancient Romans, and it was the Romans and the Greeks who gave us Western culture.

So, if you know Greek or you know Latin, it helps you in the other subjects. My licensure area academically is math. You know, we have gotten a lot from the Greeks and the And a lot of times in my just basically teaching math, what I'm able to teach the kids becomes enhanced if I know the words that we're talking about or the language that we're using.

Latin is heavily used in American law and government. It's used in logic. It's used in theology. You know, it is very helpful in learning English grammar because it's foundational to it.

And it's also helpful in memory loss, I think.

Yes. Well, actually, it's helpful in keeping memory because I don't know Latin. I'd probably benefit if I did.

Well, thankfully, you're not the Latin teacher.

Yeah, no.

By the way, we do.

I grew up in the government schools. I didn't learn Latin.

By the way, we do have a listener who was seeking to correct you that the word democracy has a Greek root and not Latin, but I have just found that it's both. So, democratia for Latin, and it also has a very similar Greek origin.

So, I just thought I'd correct.

There's a lot of overlap, and if you are a classical school, you are required to teach either Greek or Latin.

And the other thing that may give evangelical Christian parents a reason for pause because they misunderstand why you would do this that I'm about to reveal. The classical Christian schools typically arm the students by explaining what the enemies of the gospel and the enemies of the church and the enemies of Christ teach as a part of their worldview.

Like, for instance, you do teach Darwinian evolution, from what I understand, not as truth, but you equip the students with enough information so that they can, when they are in the public square, when they are involved in exchange, communication with non-Christian children, and even adults when they are in college.

They may have professors who are atheists and so on, or just liberals. You equip them to be able to respond to claims of the non-Christian with knowledge and authority,.

Correct?

Correct.

And so, that's one of the reasons why I said that it warranted explanation because, you know, the moment that an evangelical Christian hears that they teach the background and the tenets and even the worldview of Darwinianism, they may, what?

What's going on here? Well, you got to know why they're doing that.

Yeah. You know, give me a Christian who knows nothing about Darwinianism teaching me about creationism versus a Christian who knows everything there is to know about Darwinianism and wants to teach me about creationism.

I'm going to listen to the latter guy because he understands the importance to a much greater level. Now, I'm not understanding, though, the connection to being classical. Is it because people are afraid that we're teaching about Greek and Roman gods, or, you know, what is it?

Oh, that you're, when people hear, there are Christians, let's face it, perhaps especially when you're talking about a more fundamentalist wing of evangelicalism.

Right.

So far, fundamentalist that they don't even want to use the term evangelical, and I can't necessarily say that I blame them in this day and age. It's getting harder and harder to even define what that means.

But you have almost a monastic practice of isolationism, overprotectionism, where you don't even want children exposed to falsehoods at all. And when you do so, you're going to wind up leaving them unable to give a response when they're older and they are faced with the arguments of their peers and also their teachers and anyone who's in authority over them in any sphere of life when they start to make unbiblical worldview claims.

Right.

But we are going to go to our first break right now, and when we return, we're going to enter into our actual theme for the day, a call to repent from idolatry to Christian parents who cling to idols when making decisions on their children's education.

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We're now back with Steve Schultz, headmaster of Grace Christian Academy of Long Island, located in Merrick, New York. And the theme is very provocative that we are addressing today. As I mentioned earlier, a call to repent from idolatry to Christian parents who cling to idols when making decisions on their children's education.

I think we should probably give a caveat or perhaps dispel some presuppositions, preconceived notions that are getting some of our listeners angry already. You are not trying to be malicious or even insensitive towards parents who may be a whole host of reasons why they can't send their child to a classical Christian school.

There might not even be one in existence for hundreds of miles from where these particular listeners live. And there could be a number of reasons why this is unlikely or impossible to them. If you want to just comment on that before we go into the heart of the theme today.

Yeah. First of all, let me say, I didn't come up with that title.

Oh, I did.

I just, I was like, I'm provoked.

I came up with it just from details that you said you wanted to discuss today.

No, I have great sympathy for families who just don't have the resources, whether it be a school in their vicinity or it be the money to do so. I get it. I understand. You know, I've been, except for a stint of teaching in the public system for 11 years, I've been a missionary outside of that ever since I graduated from college.

So I know what it's like to not have money. And that's not what I'm addressing. I know that there are plenty of families who are stuck. Um, where, where I'm having a problem is when we elevate things of this world above a solid, godly, biblical thinking.

If you don't have the money to send your kid to a private school, that's got nothing to do with your priorities. It's got nothing to do with your reasoning. But when I decide to basically, you know, sacrifice my kid on the altar, because I'd rather them pursue an NFL career that they're most likely not going to get, you know, by sending them to a school that has a great football team, um, rather than sending them to a school that has a great theological program, I've got problems with that.

Of course.

Yeah, I stand by that. And I practice what I preach. I've got my own three kids, and every one of them came through my school. Um, you know, was the temptation there at times to, you know, or the desire for me to send any one of them to a school that had, you know, a better sports program?

Absolutely. But what we did was we improvised and we found other ways to do it. So, you know, we met the athletic need, uh, outside the school. But what I didn't want to do was compromise their, their, their doctrine, uh, their beliefs, their walk with the Lord, um, or even before they were saved.

I didn't want to compromise what I was teaching them or having them taught.

Right.

And so I'm sorry, you could finish what you were saying.

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

I was going to say that one of the first idols that comes to my mind is children themselves. Parents turn very often their children into idols and they bow to the whims and wishes and even demands, depending upon how spoiled the child is, uh, in order to appease them, to keep them happy, even if temporarily at the expense of what is actually, uh, not only best for them, but also most honoring and glorifying and obedient to Christ.

Uh, and it transcends the subject that we are discussing today, education. Uh, it even involves, and I've experienced this many times, where people who share my Reformed theology, my Reformed faith, they will join a church that might even be heretical in its theology, or at best, extremely shallow and weak on their theology, because that church, typically, which is a larger church, more numerically large, uh, they have so many things that keep the kids occupied, entertained, and happy, so many programs, uh, and they have a musical program that might rival Broadway.

Uh, they have all kinds of—they have an enormous gym. Uh, you know, we could go on and on and on with the things that appeal to parents, uh, that they put on a much higher level of importance than what is actually being preached, teached, proclaimed, and taught in that church, and I'm sure you've experienced that.

Absolutely. Um, I don't even know where to start with that. Uh, I mean, the first thing I've got to start with, though, is I don't want to get on a high horse and pretend like I haven't made mistakes in this arena.

Uh, a lot of what I know and a lot of what I'm convicted about is because I'm, you know, through trial and error and through making bad decisions, uh, I've made them. Um, I think in the end, God has really blessed me and, uh, has enabled me to bring all three of my kids through—strictly through Christian schooling, and, uh, that's, you know, I have a lot of things that I regret.

That's not one of them. Um, but, yeah, we've—a few years ago, when the pandemic hit, uh, I saw Christians, and I think I, at times, was tempted to do so myself until I saw how foolish it looked. Many of us were running around with the pandemic going, I—I need the president to save us.

I need the medicine to save us. I need, you know, the inoculations to save us. I need money to save us. And I'm going, you know, we owe the—the ancient Israelites who went through this in Egypt a huge apology, um, because we—we tend to come down on them because they—they escaped from Egypt.

You know, the—the plagues were assigned to take out systematically each one of the Egyptian gods one by one. And I believe that God did that to convince the Israelites, these gods are not reliable, and once I get you out of here and I stick you in the desert and things start getting tough, I don't want you turning back to them.

You need to see that they're worthless. And I think what the pandemic did was it pointed out to us that all those things that we put our trust in were worthless. We still had the pandemic. Well, what we've got to do is learn how to trust God, and we don't do that.

And we think, um, you know, basically, I like to refer to it as the—the American pantheon. We've got our own pantheon. We've got our own series of gods that we worship. We don't call them gods because they don't come in the form of, you know, stone or wood, but we give them our time, our talent, and our treasures, and we're willing to, you know, sell our souls to them very quickly.

And, you know, because I want my kid, uh, to have, you know, an education that's going to get him into Harvard or Yale or Brown or whatever, um, you know, I've become convinced by my culture that I have to send him to this multimillion-dollar tuition school, or I've got to send him to the local public school that's got this huge, you know, computer lab.

Those are all lies, by the way, um, and I personally don't want any of my kids going to Harvard or Yale because the ideology, the worldview that they teach there is directly oppositional to sound biblical theology.

Why would I want to send my kids there? Well, the argument is made that if they go there, they then have all the connections that they need. They then have the degree that they need. They'll be able to write their ticket anywhere they want to go.

Not if God takes a back seat and the God who shares his glory with no one says, I don't care what degree you've got, this isn't going to help you. On the other hand, you know, you take my kids, they're, they're going through respectable colleges.

Um, we haven't compromised and, uh, doors just keep opening. And it really comes back to, it's not the degree, it's not the name on the diploma. It's not the program that you got involved with. It comes back to what does God want?

And if I'm trusting God, he will get me my kids where he wants them to go. Um, but we're so afraid to trust God with that. And we start to manipulate the system and we, we start to worship these false gods.

And, um, you know, we, we have this fear that if we apply a biblical worldview to education, it may cost us something more than we're willing to pay. Uh, and not just financially, um, you know, it'll cost me money.

Uh, yeah. Uh, it'll cost me that seat in Harvard. Maybe, maybe not. Uh, you know, my, my daughter applied to 21 colleges and was accepted to 20 of them. Wow. Um, it'll cost me a future in STEM. My, my son was scholarshiped into Stony Brook for mechanical engineering.

Uh, talk about a STEM field. Um, he's finishing off his master's right now. Um, you know, it'll deprive my child of glorious athletic achievements. Um, Hey, I have trouble walking now because of my glorious athletic achievements.

Um, you know, and I don't have an NFL salary. You know, it'll deprive my child of extensive social opportunities. Um, I've heard that one a lot. You know, I, I, I want my kids in a bigger school where they will have more friends and, um, okay.