Why Secular Education is Untenable

One of the hallmarks of modern education is the belief that education should be secular. According to the OED, secular is defined as being “distinguished from the church and religion; civil, lay, temporal… meaning non-ecclesiastical, non-religious, or non-sacred.”

The modern notion of education is an attempt to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next without regards to transmitting its traditions, religious beliefs, values, or culture. The logic of the secular educator tends to work something like this. Since only knowledge can be measured or analyzed, and values cannot be, then these latter aspects are extraneous and merely personal. Operating under this impression, secular education is considered the best approach to civic education.

But if this were true, just imagine the practical implications for teachers. On what authority could they make a student sit still and listen? What value system could be justified for grading assignments? If it is argued that the teacher should be respected, and the teacher’s judgment is the standard for evaluation, then immediately education ceases to be secular. Someone’s values are in play; but whose? From whom is the secular teacher borrowing his or her value system for authority and judgment?

This video from an incident in 2015 illustrates the point in praxis.

In Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver asserts that it is a loss of piety that has contributed more than anything else to the demise of society and this secular approach to education. Weaver states, “I see no way to sum up the offense of modern man except to say that he is impious.”

By impious, Weaver means that the modern man is “a parricide.” In his egotism, modern man has “taken up arms against, and he has effectually slain, what former men have regarded with filial veneration.” Weaver suggests there are three things which have, in effect, been killed that our “Western” ancestors regarded with filial veneration: nature, our neighbors, and the past. To put it in the words of C. S. Lewis, the modern man “castrates and bids the geldings be fruitful.”

Weaver’s use of “impious” is drawn from the ancient virtue of pietas, “a discipline of the will through respect.” He explains,

Among the Romans piety was considered a part of aequitas, which expressed the Platonic concept of justice, or the rendering to each his due. I have attempted to show that something is due to nature, and to our fellow-men, and to those who have passed out of temporal existence. Modern civilization, having lost all sense of obligation, is brought up against the fact that it does not know what is due to anything; consequently its affirmations grow feebler.

Interestingly, the idea of pietas, or piety, isn’t exclusive to the Greeks and the Romans. The Apostle Paul expresses it as a Christian virtue, a manifestation of the gospel. In his letter to the Romans (Romans 13:8–10, ESV), he writes,

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

What Paul lists as being “love owed” is derived from the second half of the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20, the first four commandments are directed Godward. This corresponds with Weaver’s belief that man owes something to the natural order; that is, piety is honoring the Creator and His creation.

The next six are directed toward one’s fellow man, obviously corresponding to Weaver’s second focus of duty in regards to piety.

Finally, the first of the six commandments directed toward one’s fellow man is “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12, ESV). This commandment is about more than just children obeying their parents, or taking care of one’s parents in old age. It’s about each generation’s duty to honor their parents’ tradition. This corresponds to Weaver’s emphasis on piety toward the past.

This is why classical and Christian educators say true education is much more than just the transference of knowledge. To use Clark and Jain’s description in The Liberal Arts Tradition, “Education… is the transmission of values, culture, and the proper ordering of loves.”

I muse secular education is unsustainable and untenable because true education must start with a proper love for God and proper love for man, something secular education attempts to avoid. True education is, therefore, a gospel-oriented education.