It’s been several years now since I wrote something in a series that I called “Monday Musings,” but as I begin my new role as Head of School at Sager Classical Academy and work through other thoughts I’ve had about classical Christian education for a while, it seemed like a good time to break it back out. The idea is that I muse upon some idea on a Monday in a half-formed fashion that invites discussion and readers’ own ideas as much as (or more than) I provide any conclusive thoughts.

Today’s musing is something I’ve been thinking about lately. First, I am convinced that the primary way we should conceive of and discuss classical Christian education, especially in comparison to other educational options, is to begin with its telos (end/purpose) rather than its method. The method of classical Christian education is important and worth discussion, but only, I believe, after we have established what we are aiming at with the methods. A full discussion of these ends will have to wait for another musing, but one thing I’ve become more and more convinced of is that the telos of classical Christian education, if it is going to be distinctly Christian, must match the telos of Christian discipleship.

For years, I have spent time in ministry settings telling students that the core of the Christian life is found in the Great Commission (Matt 28) and Great Commandment (Matt 22). As I reflected lately on the Great Commandment (to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves), I was struck by several points of overlap between Jesus’ four categories (heart, soul, mind, and strength) and many of the goals of classical Christian education.

Heart: Classical Christian education aims at forming and rightly ordering our loves, teaching us live good lives.

Soul: Classical Christian education draws our hearts towards God, to love Him, know Him, glorify Him, and enjoy Him, and to live this out in lives of virtue.

Mind: Classical Christian education aims to shape in each person the mind of Christ (e.g., Phil 2), to become wise persons. The liberating arts, as Hugh of St. Victor once said, “[…] intend, namely, to restore within us the divine likeness, a likeness which to us is a form but to God is his nature. The more we are conformed to the divine nature, the more do we possess Wisdom, for then there begins to shine forth again in us what has forever existed in the divine Idea or Pattern coming and going in us but standing changeless in God.”[1]

Strength: Classical Christian education aims to educate the whole person, soul AND body, and therefore values embodied learning that brings all a person under the Lordship of Christ to do His will.

As I said, Monday Musings are only a start, so I value your feedback, questions, and comments as I think on this topic and hope to develop it further in the future.

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[1]Hugh of Saint Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 61.