"Christian" "Education"

To mark the Christmas holiday--even though Limbaugh wants you to think they are part of the "War on Christmas"--the NYTimes reviewed a handful of books on Christianity's attitudes toward thinking. Reason and religion have had an on-again, off-again relationship for all of history; Judaism has a vigorous respect for the mind and a great love of the written word, and, following this, Christians too are supposed to respect the mind and love the word. This was the tradition the medieval church drew on when it founded the universities of Europe to seek the mind of God. But then the same church then chewed up Galileo and spit him out. (Hey, we can't be right all the time.)

Jon Meacham starts by pointing out that "[the notion] that Christianity is a matter of both intellect and imagination, however, has fallen from popular favor." You think? As obvious as this is, we put some effort into googling the state of Christian education today to demonstrate how much better off you'd be in a medieval university.

We found The Jubilee Academy, where, for the low price of $399 per class, you can do all the work of teaching your children that "the Bible is God's infallible written Word," along with English classes with themes like, "Christian Fantasy and Fiction" and "Writing with Wisdom," the requisite "Creation Science" curriculum, "Heritage Social Studies," "Wonderfully Made Health and Physical Education," and electives such as "Christian Manhood" and "Christian Symbolism in Art." If you do a good job--and your $399 per course does not get you any guarantees--your kids may pass the GED and "make a positive impact for Christ" at a Christian college. O judgment, thou art fled to brutish wingnuts.