Philosophy of Christian Education:
A More Comprehensive Integration of Faith and Learning
In last summer’s “Get-to-Know-Dr. Sutton” series, we released a piece about his approach to Christian higher education and featured two points of his 12-point educational philosophy. This semester we will highlight the other ten principles that Dr. Sutton believes should drive Christian education at the classroom level.
Dr. Sutton’s fourth principle for Christian education is that Christian educators must be able to explain how the redemptive work of Christ should influence one’s approach to discipline-specific academic content.
Of this principle, Dr. Sutton says, “This task may be termed ‘the integration of faith and learning’ but it involves more than such integration as it has too often been understood. Christian educators must not simply cherry pick Bible verses to complement academic material, they must also teach students how the radical message of the gospel often contrasts with the message of secularism in regard to how academic disciplines are approached, studied, and applied. In short, the redemptive work of Christ should influence core presuppositions about disciplines, and Christian educators should be able to communicate convincingly the necessity of such influence.”
