CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) AND SCSBC’S RESPONSE: Find the lastest updates here for students, faculty and staff.
What is the purpose and potential of Christian education in 2025? Does exploring this question support school societies in developing clarity during challenging political times? Does Christian education still serve a purpose in 2025?
To explore these and other important questions, it is worthwhile to look back at why these schools were established in the first place. The foundation of Christian schools stems from a deep theological and educational vision rooted in key principles of faith. These schools were founded to ensure that education was permeated with a biblical worldview, emphasizing God’s sovereignty, Christ’s lordship over all areas of life, and the formation of covenant children in faith and godliness.
1. To Promote the Sovereignty of God in Education
At its inception, Christian education emphasized that God’s sovereignty extends to all areas of life, including education. Abraham Kuyper, a prominent Reformed theologian and statesman, famously stated: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”
The sovereignty of God is not a phrase that arises often in Christian circles in 2025, yet it was a core idea for the parents who worked with their church communities to establish schools, often in the church’s basement. This conviction led Christians to create schools that acknowledged God’s authority over all subjects, from mathematics to literature, ensuring that every discipline was taught in the light of Scripture. Could more emphasis on God’s sovereignty in staffrooms, annual general meetings, parent communications, and classrooms serve as an antidote to the anxiety and fear consuming many in our communities?
2. To Equip Covenant Children for Kingdom Service
The founders of Christian education placed a strong emphasis on the covenant relationship between God and His people. Christian schools were seen as a means of fulfilling the covenantal responsibility to nurture children in the fear and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). John Calvin, a key figure in the Reformation, highlighted the importance of education for believers:
“It is, therefore, necessary to begin with this principle: that we must be taught by God, and that we can learn nothing of ourselves but what He teaches us through His Word and Spirit.”
The goal was to prepare children not only for earthly vocations but also for their role in God’s redemptive work.
Is homework in our schools designed as an act of worship for both the teacher who creates it and the student who completes it? Do we connect removing invasive species with God’s call on our lives? Is service in our schools an add-on or an end, or does it carry the weight of bringing value to the Kingdom?
3. To Prepare Students for Life in the World
Christians established their schools to provide an alternative to secular or state education systems, which they believed lacked a biblical foundation. Kuyper argued that education is primarily the responsibility of parents in partnership with the church and school. The family bears the primary responsibility for the spiritual and moral upbringing of children. Combined with a call to work for the common good of society, the founders believed that children educated in Christian schools would become active participants in the world. All believers, including children, were to see their life’s work as bringing restoration to all areas of society.
Through the consideration of vocation, students are invited to see their primary role in life as others-oriented, choosing to conduct themselves faithfully, whether in sanitation, medicine, or home care. Do students and families see every act or connection with others as an interaction with an image bearer worthy of love and respect?
4. To Develop a Holistic Biblical Worldview
Cornelius Van Til, a Reformed philosopher, argued that education is not neutral. He stated: “The final relation of any fact to God is what makes it what it is.”
Christian education aims to integrate faith and learning, helping students understand the unity of truth in all areas of study, from theology to the natural sciences. All learning at Christian schools should help students answer these questions:
When examining the work of students in your school, do you see evidence of the wrestling that comes with exploring how the Bible leads Christians in 2025? What would it be like to see the graduation capstone focus on how learning has shaped a student’s understanding of who God is?
5. To Preserve Faith Across Generations
Christian education also aims to ensure that faith is passed down to future generations. This vision aligns with passages such as Deuteronomy 6:6-7, which command parents to teach God’s commandments diligently to their children. Christian education remains a place parents turn to help them raise children who know God and want to follow Him.
However, Cardus and Barna research has regularly suggested that many Christian school graduates leave their faith as they transition into adulthood.
Could it be that our approach to Christian education and how we live out our Christianity in the world is working against this goal?
Let’s consider a few additions that may help students deepen their faith while giving them the confidence to live it out practically.
6. To Show Posture Before Position
Apologetics matter. Knowing what and why you believe is essential to a maturing faith. Equally important is acknowledging when you may have been wrong and remaining open to considering other perspectives. If knowledge is used as a weapon to war against others, we are not faithful to Jesus’s example. Students see this hypocrisy and may reject their faith as a result. By choosing humility and curiosity, we model for students that faithfulness begins with how we respond to others rather than what we say we believe.
7. To Be Able to Disagree Well
Are Christian schools teaching students how to disagree strongly yet still value personal relationships? One of the gifts Christian education can offer is the witness of disagreeing well in ways that strengthen relationships. By modelling strong convictions while maintaining relationships, Christian communities can shed the growing label of “haters” in broader society and demonstrate that even those who disagree with us have inherent value. Learning to disagree well equips students to be faithful in a complex world.
Christian education seeks to shape students into faithful Christians who engage with and transform culture for the glory of God. Yet, at this moment, many Christian communities have traded “engage with” for “fight against.” For many graduates, a posture of fighting is antithetical to the way of Jesus.
For Christian education to remain compelling, schools must stay rooted in the tradition of acknowledging God’s sovereignty, developing a biblical worldview, and preparing students for life in the world while examining what the world needs now. Students graduating in 2025 and beyond seek a congruent faith that invites them into God’s story with a posture of love, humility, engagement, and consistency.
To develop such a faith, students must see these attributes lived out by the staff and community around them. If they cannot find them in their faith community, they may seek these attributes elsewhere.
Darren Spyksma
SCSBC Associate Executive Director
