Underpinnings of 2nd Year History

The moment that God opened my eyes to the anti-Christian nature of classical education was when I noticed that the classical "Christian" history curriculum I intended to use spent a whole year on the ancient Greeks and Romans, including the time of Christ's life and the beginnings of the apostolic church, during which year it had at least 8 books of classical mythology and only two books about the church (the Bible and another on architecture of bascilicas). How foolish and sinful to steep our children in man-made religion and the imaginations of wicked God-hating civilizations, while largely ignoring the history of the people of God! I was disgusted, and went off in search of a thoroughly-Christian, elementary, history curriculum.

My search was not fruitful, however. There were a few curricula created by people and publishers that I had reason to trust, but they focused, almost exclusively, on American history. This is very disappointing to me. It is important for our children to learn American history, and that in detail, but to spend 6 - 8 years exclusively on American history does our children a great disservice. America does not exist in a vacuum. Furthermore, God does not govern His creation through isolated acts of Providence that interrupt the normal flow of history. On the contrary, the Sovereign Creator, who does not let a single hair of our head fall without His permission, has controlled the entirety of history throughout the whole earth. Thus, if we are to praise the mighty acts of God to the next generation, we must teach them the history of the world, not just the United States.

The mandate to teach all of world history does not mean that we learn about every battle and every leader in every civilization that ever existed. In the teaching of history, as in all things, we look to the Bible for our model. The Bible contains much history, and it all focuses on the people of God. We meet other civilizations and peoples and learn something about them, but only when they intersect with the people of God. Such must be our approach to history. We are to teach the history of God's people in this world. This will necessitate learning about unbelievers, so we might understand how they affect the church, but our focus should always be on the church and God's providential care of her.

That brings us to the Greeks and Romans. The Roman civilization was dominant during the time of Christ's incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. It was also dominant during the early days of the apostolic church. Many aspects of the Roman culture (one language, good roads, and even the cruelty of the colosseums) were used of God to advance the gospel. The Romans took much of their philosophy and culture directly from the Greeks, and Greek philosophy contributed to the heresies that plagued the early church and were addressed in church councils. Further, the triumph of the Greek and Roman civilizations were prophesied by Daniel, as well as their ultimate fall. For these reasons the Christian should learn about the Greeks and Romans, but should always place more emphasis on learning about the church.

Since I could not find a thoroughly Christian text to tell the story of the Greeks and Romans to elementary school children I went back to The Story of the Greeks and The Story of the Romans, both by H. A. Grueber and published by Nothing New Press. These were the books that the classical curriculum advertised were written back when "academic standards were more rigorous and the acquiring of a biblical worldview was considered just as important as the acquiring of reading, writing, and arithmetic skills". I bought these texts and was quite disappointed. They most certainly did not contain a biblical worldview. The views expressed in them were less blatantly humanistic and evolutionary than modern, secular school books, but that only makes them more dangerous. The unsuspecting mother could be lulled by some Christian-sounding phrases into missing heresy such as the books' claim that Socrates was the wisest man and greatest philosopher that ever lived. We know from the Bible that Solomon, not Socrates, was the wisest man that ever lived. The whole of The Story of the Greeks was peppered with the claim that the Greek civilization was the greatest the world has ever known. This is a terrible thing to teach a child, for how can pagans create the greatest civilization ever? Such a claim is to deny the beautifulness of God's laws (which the Greeks trampled), to deny the power of the gospel (by claiming that unbelievers can be good) and to call God a liar when He says, "Blessed in the nation whose God is Jehovah, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance." (Psalm 33:12)

However, since I know of no other text that tells the story, for children, with such thoroughness, I am forced to use this text. I will tell in my next post what parts I cut out and what parts I changed to make the text acceptable. I will also give an outline of the lessons I intend to teach, which should cover approximately six weeks (down from 18 weeks or so devoted to the Greeks in the classical curriculum outline). If you know of another text I can use, please tell me. I will be exceedingly grateful.