What Would Abbot Suger Say Today?

"The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material. And, in seeing this light, is resurrected from its former submersion." ~Abbot Suger

I'd like to thank you for meeting with me Mr. Warbucks, and I'm glad to hear that Peter, Edmund, and Lucy are all enjoying the school year so far. I enjoyed watching you quaff a pint of fresh brewed root beer with Peter at our Medieval Feast earlier this year--it is one of my favorite events of the year. 

As you know, our school hopes to renovate our downtown property, including a 120-year-old Gothic-style church honored with a state historical marker. There are many practical benefits the school hopes to achieve with this renovation, such as bringing our entire student body together in one building, reducing the burden on our local Church ministry partner, and returning a historic landmark back to its former glory in our city. But I want you to see the grander vision behind and beyond these modest aims, because I'd like you to be a cornerstone donor of this restoration project, contributing the first 15% to the $1.5 million budget; $225,000. I know that's a lot to ask, but let me put it into perspective.

Perhaps you've seen the Abbey of St. Denis in France, renovated by Abbot Suger in the 12th century? Suger raised an enormous amount of wealth to build the basilica of the Abbey--money that could have been allocated toward the feeding of the poor or the relief of widows or a host of other humanitarian needs surrounding him. Why did he build a basilica? He wanted there to be a place where Divine truth could be discovered and contemplated for generations--a symbol of Christ's glory and His glorification of His Bride. 

You and I both believe that the Classical Christian Education Veritas provides your grandchildren is the richest inheritance they could receive, and it is no less true for the other members of Christ's body and our neighbors in this county. Like the Abbey of St. Denis, the church we want to restore will serve as a symbol for our current families, and for their children and their children's children for generations to come--a symbol of the wisdom and virtue of men passed down through the ages and brought under the banner of aegis of Christ and His Church. The vision of Classical Christian Education will become more visible, more tangible, more glorious to those who are looking for something better for their own children, and I hope you can see the value of it too. Are you willing to set this first cornerstone of the vision into the earth?

My Attempt at Branding

In preparation for answering a hypothetical scenario, I wrote the following "sales pitch" to parents in the Bible Belt who might inquire about Classical Christian Education. Despite being a student of rhetoric for half of my life, I don't think persuasion is in my blood. 

Why Classical Christian Education?

 

Why do we educate our children? What do we hope it will make of them? If our education is for acquiring college scholarships, job placements, career paths, and stability for the future, what makes us different from the atheist who denies God, the soul, and life after death? If we make no distinction, our children won’t either, and when they enter a world where remaining faithful to Christ threatens the things we’ve taught them to seek they will jettison Christ for earthly success. Our children will gain the whole world and lose their souls.

 

Paul put it this way to the Corinthians, who were also tempted to seek the wrong things:

 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:

 

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

 

20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

 

Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 answer the question, Why Classical Christian Education?

 

Wisdom shows us how to live well in the world. Education offers wisdom to its students. At least that’s what education should do. Acquiring wisdom requires more than being around kind people who will keep us safe and provide us with facts and skills. Paul says the message of the cross is the power of God, power that “will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” In other words, those who don’t learn according to the message of the cross will find their “wisdom” brought to nothing. To learn Christ’s message of the cross requires more than learning its truth. It includes learning how to abide in the truth. What is the message of the cross? In 1 Corinthians it is chiefly acknowledging that human weakness—a humble, poor spirit we might say—is God’s chosen vessel of demonstrating His wisdom and power. In one sense education according to the cross is a revelation of man to himself to humble him—I am a mortal, full of vice and corruption. We approach learning in the double darkness of sin and ignorance. In another sense education according to the cross is a revelation of God to man to glorify him—God became man to transform my mortality into immortality, my vice and corruption into incorruptible virtue. We approach learning in the hope of becoming divine.

 

Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. The Jews are the people of God who have rejected the message of the cross in hopes of earthly gain, though they possess the oracles of God. Greeks are those who long for knowledge and experience of the divine, but cannot submit their “wisdom” to the “foolishness” of God’s revelation in Christ, the God-man. Classical education, in its most basic form, is remembering; guarding the memory of man’s best efforts—honoring our forefathers that we may inherit God’s promise. We guard the people of God’s best efforts to preserve the Way of Christ against the temptations of the world. We guard the City of Man’s best efforts to “seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him” against the despair of pride. If we want to go further up and further into the wisdom and power of God, we must stand upon their shoulders. And isn’t this what we should want education to make of our children?

Gareth's Good Word

How does one recognize when one has fallen into idolatry? Though it isn't perhaps the only way, one good way is to examine one's liberty--am I free from guilt, anxiety, covetousness, discontent, wrath, vainglory, and so forth--in other words, am I living like a slave, or am living like a free individual?

Who should be King save him who makes us free?

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

In the second story in Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Gareth wants to join Arthur's knights, but his mother Bellicent wants him to remain home and hunt until he has grown older and stronger. At the end of one of his pleas, Gareth says, "Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. / Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, / Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King - / Else, wherefore born?" Bellicent ignores the noble element of his plea and focuses on the tenuous nature of Arthur's kingship, since his claim to the throne remains disputed. The opening quote is Gareth's final word before his mother relents (with a condition).

Gareth's simple words strike at the heart of man's plight, reflected in the words of Jesus to the Pharisees in John 8, also quoted above. Those given over to sin remain slaves to sin, and have no sonship, no inheritance, in the Kingdom of God. But those whom the Son has set free, are free indeed--that is, they are no longer slaves to sin, but heirs of the household; sons of the Father. Elsewhere in John's Gospel, Jesus defines His sonship to the Father and the authority such sonship implies by His submission to the Father's will and commands: "I can do nothing on my own authority; I judge only as God tells me, so my judgement is right, because I am not trying to do what I want, but only what he who sent me wants;" "For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak." 

A Master and a Father both command and promise. A slave obeys his master out of fear, or because of some promised reward. However, the freedom of sonship is the freedom to obey the Father's commands willingly, in the knowledge that the Father's pleasure and future inheritance remain upon, and are entrusted to the son. Everything a master has belongs to the master alone, not the slave. Everything the Father has belongs to the Son, and will be his to command in the fullness time. The slave has no hope of inheritance, because he is a slave and not a son. The son has no fear of retribution or renunciation, for his mistakes are part of becoming able to command his inheritance.

Idols are like masters, but worse, for they make promises illegitimately, since only the Father possesses by rights all that He has made. An idol will make demands and offer rewards, but consumptively; not as the Father who commands His son to obey so that he might become greater and be glorified. An idol's promises are illicit--the idol has no power to glorify, no power to save, but only the power to consume and destroy. An idol "would be King," but cannot make his "slave" free. Only the King who can free is a King worthy of honor, fidelity, and worship. So what does it look like to be a son in the Father's Kingdom?

As expected, the Only Son of God shows us. The freedom of the Son is the freedom to speak as the Father would have us speak and do as the Father would have us do. Idolatry is characterized by the inability to live in this freedom. To cling to patterns of sin, to cling to identities that are abominable in God's sight, to wield worldly powers to coerce others (sex, wealth, fame, intelligence, physical strength, etc.), to live in despair of obedience--these are the rewards of idolatry.

In John 12, Jesus says this:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Shall we follow the deer? Shall we seek those earthly rewards that bring pleasure; those patterns of selfish desire? No! Let us follow the Christ, the King! Let us live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King -  else, wherefore born?

On the Use of Fairy Stories in Communal Education

Education in a diverse community introduces difficulties that don't exist (or exist less characteristically) within an individual family. Parents have particular convictions and affections, which they pass on to their children directly and indirectly. When parents collaborate with one another to educate their children, whether in a co-op or in a school, they bring not only the convictions and affections they share, but also those that differ. An important conversation involves discovering what differences are irresolvable, but that's a conversation for another time. Assuming that differences do not pose irresolvable difficulties:

What can families do to help one another stay united in the education of their children?

Sharing common stories offers a means for navigating differences, because shared stories can help people identify wise, virtuous principles and choices in the midst of their differences. In lived reality wise, virtuous principles and choices become confused by the naturally limited perspective of humans and by selfish desires that oppose wisdom and virtue. Fairy stories provide the kind of story well-suited to discover wisdom and virtue since they involve normal characters in abnormal adventures that put vices and virtues on display clearly and distinctly. Fairy stories do not involve ambiguity about what is right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, good or evil; and so the reader or listener knows which characters, motives, and behaviors are worthy of emulation, and why; and which characters, motives, and behaviors are worthy of renunciation, and why. Fairy stories inhabit an imaginative moral reality that provides a clear lens through which one may look at his own moral reality, which is harder to evaluate, but made easier with a "fabulous lens".

The Lord of the Rings may not be the greatest story ever told, but because it is a fairy tale accessible to people of all levels of maturity it serves as a clear lens through which to evaluate lived reality. For the sake of the following imaginative experiment, suppose the co-op or school requires all members of every family to read (or be read to) The Lord of the Rings each year as part of their enrollment and re-enrollment. Now suppose two parents differ on the amount of rigor a teacher requires of the students. Suppose as well that the rigor-loving parent and teacher have a wiser perspective than the rigor-doubtful parent. Further suppose the differences between the parents include expectations from within their families and churches, but the educational standards of the co-op or school favors the rigorous position. One could (and should) appeal to theological principles, and to hoped-for family outcomes, but since these are not closely shared, the appeal to a commonly shared story might serve better for understanding and agreement.

How might The Lord of the Rings provide a clear lens in this hypothetical situation?

The rigor-loving parent (or teacher) could remind the rigor-doubtful parent of the Scouring of the Shire. Gandalf, the wise and powerful wizard, leaves the younger, less experienced, and less powerful hobbits (Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin) alone to defeat the numerous enemies who have taken over their homeland. The parent could recall that the hobbits make short work of their enemies--an impossible victory but for the fruit produced in them by the year-long journey to destroy the Ring of Power. One could ask, "What made the hobbits brave enough, temperate enough, wise enough, strong enough, and just enough to defeat their enemies without becoming evil themselves?" Of course it was the much greater trials they suffered together on the quest under the tutelage of more mature souls. If the purpose of education is to grow wise,  virtuous, and strong, then teachers should strive to provide to children with opportunities to do things that are beyond their powers to perform easily, perfectly, without the possibility for failure, or without the need to rely upon more mature souls to guide them.

It is not certain that such appeals would be successful, but where shared stories persist, and especially where they are loved and admired, fodder for such encouragement remains available in ways that transcend the differences within the community.