The Disease of Egalitarianism and Classical Christian Ed

What superior effort accomplishes . . .

I will deal with the qualifications that I need to make here in the first couple of paragraphs. After that, I will just let fly. There is a kind of effete elitism that is obnoxious to God, and which ought to obnoxious to all of His children as well.

“Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity” (Psalm 62:9).

Classical Christian education ought not to be thought of as a kind of varnish that we apply as the final coat to the swells we have created in our snob factory. That is not it. But having said so much, the need of the hour is to push in the other direction. In other words, we need to recover an appreciation for truly superior forms of education.

The first step in accomplishing this is to stop being superstitious about words. Julius Caesar could get away with all sorts of things, provided he did it as a dictator, and did not call himself an emperor. Americans have the same kind of issues with terms like king and president. The president of the United States has far more monarchical power than George III ever dreamt of having, but we put up with it because the president still observes the pieties, and does not style himself “a king.” When it comes to schools, we have a similar thing going—we all like the word excellence, but nobody likes the word elite.

I take that back. We don’t mind the word elite when we are talking about special military forces, like the Navy SEALS. They are an elite fighting force, and everybody is fine with that. But if a prestigious school tried to use the word elite on their brochures, the chances of significant blowback would be very high. Who do they think they are?

The tag line motto of Logos School is gratitude, sacrifice, excellence. Excellence is a good word, and so everyone thinks we should go ahead and pursue that. But if you attain it, you are going to have trouble talking about what you have accomplished. And why? Because the pursuit of excellence results in superior schools, superior graduates, and a superior culture.

This collides with our implicit egalitarianism. In the world, the egalitarianism is overt and explicit, but in Christian circles it is often still implicit. This is because too many people have read the Bible recently.

Once it becomes apparent that education is the beginning of culture, and that an alternative form of education is the beginning of an alternative culture, the challenge is then issued. An alternative culture like this is a rival culture, and the culture of the secularists will brook no rival. Especially not a superior one.

The world of egalitarianism is a world of crabs in a bucket. As soon as one of them looks as though he might escape, the other crabs drag him back. My daughter was once volunteering for a Christian organization, working in their office, when a mother from our church came in, along with her young daughter. The daughter was dressed very nicely, and was extraordinarily polite. “Yes, ma’am,” and “no, ma’am,” were the sorts of things she would say. After they left, my daughter was startled and astonished by the strong and very negative reaction of the other women in the office. Crabs in a bucket.

Excellence tells.

“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men” (Proverbs 22:29).

And when it comes to diligence in our respective vocations, the recipients of a superior education have a decided head start. When a group of people discover this reality together, and band together in order to form a school, and consequently to establish a superior sub-culture in their community, they can expect to be attacked.

Many Christians are baffled by how people can agree, in the name of the LGBTQ+ wickedness, to call a boy a girl, or a girl a boy. But this kind of behavior was nurtured and cultivated in the church long between it came out in the sexual revolution. How long have we been calling the slipshod “good enough?” We do some kind of slapdash work for the kingdom, and then say, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.”

“And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:8).

We too often shrink from the challenges of excellence because we think it will be a lot of hard work. This is a reasonable explanation. It will be a lot of hard work. But I am convinced that many of us know—in the recesses of our hearts—the real reason for shrinking back from the challenge of pursuing excellence. We shrink back because we understand that success in the task will be something that provokes a great deal of hostility.

Hard work leading up to the excellence, and pointed hostility for that excellence afterwards. Is it worth it?

It most certainly is worth it. We should stop fearing man, and starting fearing the one who entrusted us with these talents. If we say that we think of our master as a hard man, harvesting where he had not sown, then we will be condemned from our own words, and written off as “wicked and slothful servants.” But those educators who give themselves to the hard work of doing first rate work in the realm of education in the kingdom are those who will be invited into the “joy of their Lord” (Matt. 25:23).

Yes, it is well worth it.