The Value of a Classical Christian Education

Posted by Ty Fischer on Oct 6, 2009 3:36:51 AM
We spend a lot of time reading the Great Books at Veritas Academy. Our Omnibus has been a paradigm that has encouraged a great number of people to read the Bible and Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Milton and Melville. But why spend so much time on this?

Recently, I realized that there was a discussion going on in my mind concerning the Christianity and the power, purpose and usefulness of the arts (particularly music) in the life of our culture. It is a discussion that was initiated by Plato, entered into by Augustine and brought to resolution by Dante. It goes something like this:

Plato points out (Republic 424c) that changes in the music result in changes in the government. This is an incredible statement. There is no way to prove it. It rails against all our modern sensibilities….and I am pretty sure it is dead on right. I think that music forms the character of a people. Particular types of characters are fitted for different governments. People eventually end up with a government that fits their character. If this is true, then, perhaps, some of the most important work that we can do as believers is to make new music—great new music. Of course, we need music for worship, but we need music that flows over and out of the church building into the culture—music that wins mens’ hearts to love those things true, good and beautiful. This music should be of such excellence and winsomeness that it wins over even those that hate the gospel.

Just when I was heading downstairs to catch up on my violin practice, Augustine enters into the conversation. He, like the Puritans, is very suspect of music. He thinks it moves the heart so powerfully that it distracts people from the gospel. (It is interesting that Augustine was converted at the church in Milan where St. Ambrose created some of the greatest hymns of the ancient church.) Other modern believers—even artists—chime into the discussion pointing out that in secular/pagan societies the arts end up taking the place of religion supplanting it. This attempted elevation of the arts leads inevitably to the debasement of the arts. Perhaps, we should distance ourselves from the arts and try to get everyone to concentrate on the gospel.

I stopped. Maybe, I am too hasty trying to learn violin. Then, however, Dante reminded me of the subservient, but massively helpful use of the arts in lost cultures. Dante believed that the arts—while they can never be a religion—can prepare a person to receive the gospel. This purpose is particularly important for cultures or people who are so lost that they can not are not initially able to engage the gospel (of course God can just knock people over with the gospel, but, I would maintain, He does use broader tools like art and music to prepare them for reception). Dante was a person like this. He starts his famous poem with the admission, “At life’s midpoint, I found myself lost in a dark woods.” He remains lost. God does not send an evangelist to him. He send Virgil—the great pagan poet who wrote about the fall of Troy, the travels of Aeneas and founding of Rome. Virgil’s poetry made the wandering Dante long for something more than his present dark trek. His travel with Virgil (who represents art at its best and the height of human reason) brings Dante to Beatrice and finally to God. The beginning of the journey, however, starts within him contemplating the exiled Aeneas who was forced to leave everything he loved and flee toward a greater purpose (carrying his father on his back). It is no wonder that this poetry moved the recently exiled Dante. It moves us still. This poetry prepared Dante’s heart for the gospel. Perhaps we should all pick up our pens and our instruments if we long for reformation and revival in our culture in the next generation.

This conversation is the result of what we call Omnibus. These conversations with their forefathers in the faith and with great minds like Plato will greatly bless their lives and will, we hope, result in real leadership in the Christian community here in Lancaster County and across the world.