How Wokeness Is Coming For Classical Christian Education

It’s been a good year for classical Christian education. Threefold more school starts have been made, and a book about classical education ranked No. The New York Times bestsellers list ranked No. 1; Fox Nation will soon release season 2 of its popular series about classical Christian education. “The Miseducation of America.” Naturally, growth brings attention. It is not common for someone to have ties with our movement at this time. — One of our own — A growing divide is brought to the forefront

Jessica Hooten Wilson, an online journalist, asked the question, “What is your favorite thing about January 12?” “Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?” It is not surprising that she experiences pressure in her main academic environment at Pepperdine University. “I experience regular pushback from those who perceive [classical Christian education] as white, Western-only, and male-dominated.” She proceeds to cast aspersions on a few people and organizations — including, indirectly, mine. Her accusations are used as a pretext to her thesis. “If the classical Christian school movement is to survive — let alone flourish — we must oppose all forms of racism and misogyny and stand with the beauty, goodness, and truth that we hold up for our students.” I’ll take her up on that charge.

Hooten Wilkinson is a staccato note that appears at the end to a new tune in our circle. She praises groups that she believes are doing the right things in her article. So far, I’ve heard no one publicly state the thesis so clearly as she does: “We should peruse the authors of the works and, if applicable, the editors or introductory writers to ensure an assortment of voices … as well as an equality of both sexes. If we look at the table of contents of a textbook or a reading list for a semester and find not a single woman or person of color in that list, then that curriculum is misrepresenting the classical Christian tradition.”

The Classical Canon

The classical canon has been a source of many cultural influences for the past three millennia. It was created by philosophical, literary, and theological authors. Learned scholars have also created lists of those who merit it over the course of the same time. “canon” status. It is unclear if there are minorities or women in Cassiodorus’ list of authors (400 A.D.), or Leonardo Bruni or Battista Guarino’s lists (humanists from the 1400s) — they don’t use those categories. Mortimer Adler, along with his 40-strong team of renowned scholars, chose the most well-respected list of books based on their contributions to history. “the great conversation.” Adler’s merit-based criteria required a work to have changed the course of history and to have developed the collective Western mind. What Adler’s team did not do is look to race or sex as criteria.

The Western classical tradition has long included people of every race and sex in a particular way: The tradition deals with a body of texts that address the universal truths about the human condition, rising above our culture’s current quest to silo everyone into an intersection of identity.

Whatever your identity may be, the long journey toward Aeneus’ destiny amplifies the tension between duty and desire. It’s hilarious to see twins living in the same place, unaware of each other. “A Comedy of Errors,” No matter what your race, gender, or sexual orientation. Hooten Wilson might tell our young women and minorities that they can’t fully converse with these texts if their voices aren’t represented there. Our schools should not sacrifice universal human dignity in the name of token inclusion. Hooten Wilson’s criteria only includes women and minorities. Some, like Kimberle Crenshaw, will not be satisfied with this attempt to diversify our reading lists — there will always be one more disaffected group.

Get sucked into Old-Fashioned Racism & Sexism

By Hooten Wilson’s standard, we must scrape and scrape until we find a “fair” Representation of “diverse” contributors. “I am especially excited about the number of women that we added to the Middle Ages list. … Classical schools should look through their reading lists to make sure women and persons of color are not excluded from their curriculum.” The spirit of our time should not lead Classical Christian education into old-fashioned racism and sexism. This spirit was not nurtured by our tradition as Hooten Wilson asserts, but by the Frankfurt School.

In the 1930s, Columbia University was home to a group cultural Marxist scholars. The Frankfurt School was established to eliminate Christianity’s influence on our culture. Their thickly veiled product called critical theory deliberately divides us by whispering one small lie, presented in two axioms: For a person to relate to anything, or gain from anything — in this case an intellectual tradition — it must have elements that “look like them” Match their “identity.” The second axiom, “If something doesn’t contain”, follows. “diverse and inclusive” It is either racist or misogynist in some elements. These fruits of critical theory travel down a circuitous path from the Frankfurt School, to Hooten Wilson’s proposal, to a few classical educators who take incremental steps toward critical theory — all of this under the trendy label of “inclusiveness.”

Classical Christian Education: True Liberation

Classical education was created to, and has, liberated the minds of countless people groups in history, and it is capable of doing the same in America today — and beyond. It has been at center of the movement for freedom, education, and individual rights without regard to race, class or sexuality. If we let the very toxin that infects progressive education get into our classrooms, we’re doomed. This toxin has been propagated by those who are against our tradition. Is it a good idea to drink it?

My daughter just graduated from New Saint Andrews College. This is one of the institutions that those in Hooten Wilson’s camp label “misogynist.” The college seeks out to respect and uphold traditional Christian femininity. This is a disgraceful statement for feminists who seem to despise femininity. Misogyny? My daughter brought her friends over to my house for Thanksgiving. I can recall listening and thinking. “Where do these women come from? They’re strong, bright, extremely well-read, fluent in ancient languages, and honoring of Christian truth — including their God-given womanhood.” All were strong women. They were all faithful, happy and confident. I don’t think any of them would want Hooten Wilson’s prescription for They Read the entire list

Is Racism a Flaw or a Feature of Classical Christian Education:

The Frankfurt School’s purpose was to deconstruct. They used a variety of techniques to do this. “bug” Critical theory and all its descendents are part of our educational system. Some in our movement now offer a batch of code that has this bug embedded deeply within it — in the form of reading lists. By Hooten Wilson’s reckoning, these groups are heading in the right direction. We are not. Our institutions will continue to follow her example by adopting coded terminology like “Kingdom Diversity”? Oder will the code be recognized as a virus? “No thank you. The classical Christian tradition is above all that nonsense — and the nonsense of white nationalists, by the way. May a plague be on all your racist houses.”

If classical Christian education is to survive, it has to reject the foolishness of our age and embrace Christ’s way alone. Christ’s church favors neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free.

Humanities are great because they unify. They are universal. Non-Europeans and women are contributing in large numbers to classical Christian education. My goal is to make sure that every child can join the great conversation, without any barriers.

“Identity,” however, won’t fit here. You can check it at the entrance. We are Christ’s. We are classical. People who desire to be loved by the spirit and culture of our time will eventually become addicted and die from its poison.