This is the final post in Ty Fischer's three-part monthly series looking at gender and family roles from a Godly perspective in today's postmodern society. You can view last month's post on gender equality and 3 reasons why a child needs both a father and mother here, and the first post on 3 steps to reacquire a taste for fatherhood here.

In a cultural revolution, language is often the first casualty. One term that has gotten roundly pummeled is the word "diversity." What used to mean a range of different things, in our day too often denotes the acceptance of everything…except a preference for anything traditional.

This has even reached into areas as deep as the sexual identity of our children. Too many schools in our country - particularly public schools - are being pushed to capitulate to the revolution (an eye-opening article from The Federalist sheds light on this troubling trend). This gets particularly confusing to children when they ask the questions that all children must eventually ponder: what does it mean to be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl? Underneath the modern concept of “diversity” is a weird anti-diversity that affirms that everyone is actually, essentially the same. There is no boy or girl in this world of “diversity.”

There is not enough time in this post to fully unpack the issue, but I do want to let you know a few of the ways that schools like Veritas can help our children navigate the confusing currents of our culture.

Here are three ways that Veritas Academy celebrates real diversity:

1. Affirming the Value of Both Sexes Without Requiring Uniformity

The first step toward helping boys and girls love and accept themselves is making sure that we don’t affirm the value of only one sex. In the past, too often, culture affirmed male standards of value. Making who can lift the most weight or who can jump the highest the chief standard of goodness devalues girls. In reaction to this girls bent themselves around male standards.

Today, too often, boys are devalued because we use girls’ standards as the norm. Recently, joking, I mentioned to a public school teacher that it seemed that our culture just wanted boys to become girls (and be more emotionally and relationally sensitive). She did not get the joke. She said, “Yes, that is what we need.” God made real diversity, however, and that means that we need to affirm strengths of boys and girls without demeaning the other sex.

Along with this, we have to build our view of men and women on biblical standards rather than cultural ones. Cultures can fall off the log both ways. Victorian culture winked at things like men being promiscuous and limited the role of women to beings who were inspirational and ornamental. The Bible will have none of this. Men are to be holy and wholly committed to sacrificial love for their wife alone (like Christ for His Church). Biblical men write poetry, fight battles, and sacrifice themselves for their people. The Bible affirms women who are both maternal and profitable. Proverbs 31 affirms femininity that is productive, strong, competent, and decision-making. She buys property. She plants a vineyard. She is not a wallflower. Both men and women are affirmed; neither has to become the other to be a full and complete person.

2. Encouraging Boys and Girls to Relate to Each Other Without Suppression or Objectification

Of course, our culture has given in to those who want to destroy real diversity by affirming that there is no real difference between boys and girls. This, of course, leads many students to do what teenagers do best…rebel! And the rebellion is ugly. It turns the other sex into objects for their use. Our culture does a number on boys by telling them (endlessly) that they are not sensitive enough or not quiet enough. This is terrible for boys. This level of teenage objectification, however, is also awful for girls. In a culture of sexting and hooking up, boys and girls don’t face equal risk. Girls, sadly, get crushed.

At Veritas Academy, we teach boys and girls to relate to each other as people. We do this by requiring them to sit around tables and discuss issues. We encourage them to argue with each other, to discuss important issues, and to work together in discussions and debates. This leads to affirmation and friendship, and naturally quells objectification.

3. Preparing Young Men and Women to Enjoy Real Diversity

Veritas seeks to holistically prepare students for the future - not just with classroom knowledge, but the wisdom and character needed to pursue God's truth, beauty, and goodness in the world.

The future for many men and women includes marriage and family. We help prepare them for this calling by asking boys to make small, preparatory sacrifices to practice being leaders - because the Bible calls on husbands to lead their families by making sacrifices for them (like Christ did for His people). Boys open doors and pull out chairs for girls at Veritas. Boys ask girls to dance at events like our Colonial Ball. This is scary for boys, but it helps them grow to be men (and husbands and fathers).

Girls are encouraged to be gracious and thankful for the sacrifices that are made for them without thinking themselves weak. Both sexes are affirmed…and it is glorious. Boys become men of substance. Girls grow to be strong women. This is both challenging and enjoyable.

Our culture is headed into the wilderness. It stumbles over pronouns; it flinches at declarative sentences that affirm strengths of one sex or the other. By affirming its “diversity” it denies the real biblical diversity found in nature and affirmed by the Bible. At Veritas, we are committed to real, joyful, sexual diversity—diversity that affirms men and women in their God-given strengths.

Wouldn’t it be great for our culture to have answers to questions like “what does it mean to be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl?” At Veritas, this biblical view of diversity is exactly what we believe and affirm.