In the best of cases, a secular vision of education offers students false and ungrounded optimism in human progress. In most cases, untethered from God’s Story, history appears random, the future uncertain, and life disconnected from any greater purpose. In the end, students are catechized into a truncated vision of life and the world, and especially themselves.

Late last month, the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission heard testimony from experts and teachers about the importance of overlapping religion and education. Among those voices was Dr. Hutz Hertzberg, the chief education officer of Turning Point USA’s education arm. Hertzberg argued that the public education system could not be trusted to train children in truth and morals. He also highlighted the importance of teaching children the absolute authority of Scripture. 

Dr. Hertzberg’s comments highlight the essential but often unasked question: What is the goal of education? The answer depends on what is true about reality and the human person. Education is never neutral. Every curriculum, every lesson, every teacher, and every student enters the classroom shaped by underlying assumptions about who they are, what is real, what is good, what is true, and whether life has a purpose. 

The essential task of Christian educators is to guide students toward the true, ultimate goal of becoming true worshipers of God, who recognize all of reality and truth as belonging to God, and who respond by loving Him with all they are, according to all that He has revealed. 

Therefore, Christian education is more than academic excellence in a Christian environment. It is about forming students who know and love truth, can live faithfully in a fragmented and often disorienting cultural moment, are confident in who God has created them to be, and who see their lives as lived in His presence and for His purposes.

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