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Just a few weeks ago, a Canadian journalist gave me the perfect excuse to get out of mowing. In her article entitled, “Is it Time to De-Colonize Your Lawn?” she makes the case that backyard lawns are vestiges of European colonialism and we should stop cutting the grass.
While this may seem an innocuous article that reflects fringe thinking, it actually serves as a good reminder of how important it is to understand the worldview of others and to evaluate that worldview in light of a Biblical worldview. (It’s also not as fringe as you might think.)  By WCS Headmaster Dr. Roger Erdvig
In the 1940s, C. S. Lewis wrote his famous "Screwtape Letters" as a clever means to equip Christians to guard against the wiles of the evil one. In the spirit and style of Lewis' imagined correspondence between a senior demon (Screwtape), and his young tempter-protege (Wormwood), I wrote a new entry on how high school graduates can spot and defend against attacks from the evil one. In this "newly discovered" Screwtape Letter, I imagine how an experienced demon would advise an apprentice on how to trip up a recent Christian school graduate. Note: I have no intention of telling you how I came upon this secret correspondence between what seems to be a more senior demon and his junior apprentice. The text of the letter leads me to believe that the senior demon is responsible for instructing the younger on the art of temptation and how to win an individual over to the evil one. You must keep in mind that when the writer is referring to “our enemy,” he is referring to God, and when referring to “our father below,” he is talking about Satan himself. My Dear Wormwood, Congratulations on your assignment to your new patient. I trust you will be much more vigilant in following my directives on this one than you were with the last, who I must remind you again, escaped your grasp and is now firmly in the hands of the enemy. Frankly, I am amazed that your punishment was not more significant than it was… but that’s a subject for another day. On to the business at hand. Your new patient is ideal for a young, inexperienced tempter as yourself. Actually, I can’t think of a better one on whom you can practice, and perhaps renew your standing with me. She is what the filthy two-legged animals call a “high school graduate,” and they are pathetically easy to confound and confuse. Yes, I am aware that she attended a Christian school, but that can actually play to our advantage. I have often seen where humans who attended Christian schools develop a very desirable habit, at least for our purposes: they tend to skip along blindly, relying on their parents' or their teachers’ connection to the enemy, instead of knowing him for themselves, all the while not even realizing they are living in our clutches. In this way, they practically do all of the work for us. But, don’t get too lazy. You still must exert much effort to win her over to our father’s side.  By WCS Headmaster Dr. Roger Erdvig
Theodore Roosevelt didn’t always wear his famous round spectacles. In fact, we find in his autobiography that it wasn’t until late in his childhood that he even realized that he was terribly nearsighted. Though he loved to study nature as a boy, he recalled that he was “always at a hopeless disadvantage” and befuddled because he couldn’t see—and yet was “wholly ignorant that [he] was not seeing.” When he finally got his first pair of glasses, “an entirely new world was opened” to him. This is a common story… an elementary student struggles with paying attention in class but then gets glasses and everything changes. An aspiring tennis player can’t improve beyond basic proficiency until he gets glasses and suddenly he can see the ball just as it hits his opponent’s racquet and his game instantly improves. These are great analogies for another kind of seeing—how we see, understand, and navigate the world around us. Philosophers call this a worldview, and as its name implies, it functions as the lens through which a person views the world. But beyond merely seeing, our worldview dictates how we live in the world. By WCS Headmaster Dr. Roger Erdvig
Most Christian schools include some version of "impacting the culture for Christ" in their mission statements. But very few define what that means, and even fewer seem to specifically plan for how they will actually equip their students to do so. WCS has adopted a set of four key questions that help guide our efforts at helping our students apply a Biblical worldview-- questions that flesh out what it means to impact the culture. These questions are adapted from Restoring All Things: God's Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People, by John Stonestreet and Warren Cole Smith. (Buy it here on Amazon.) 1) What is good in our community that we can cultivate? In this question, we're looking for what's already good in our community and considering how we can improve it. Whether it's perfecting a piece of music for a concert or re-writing several drafts of a persuasive paper to make it "pop," students are encouraged to take what's good, and make it better. |
Wilmington Christian School provides a distinctively Christian, innovative education that effectively develops Godly influencers who are well prepared for life after high school and who impact the culture for Christ.
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