“A Plea for a Christian Philosophy of Education” by Billy Graham (1959)
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Billy Graham (1918–2018) needs little introduction for most Americans. He was a great evangelist in the 20th-century and probably the most famous Christian of his era. The article below is from a 1959 edition of The Presbyterian Journal, a conservative voice of dissent in the increasingly liberal Southern Presbytery church (the PCUS). The editor of the journal in 1959 was G. Aiken Taylor (1920–1984), a founder of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which seceded from the PCUS. The prior editor was L. Nelson Bell (1894–1973), a PCUS ruling elder and father-in-law of Billy Graham. The article in PDF form can be accessed here: Billy Graham, “A Plea for a Christian Philosophy of Education,” The Presbyterian Journal (Dec. 2, 1959): 5–6.
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It is not unusual for a college to have a week of evangelistic meetings. Some years ago it was my privilege to conduct a crusade at Cambridge University in England, and later to conduct an evangelistic crusade at New Haven, Connecticut. We have received scores of invitations from outstanding universities and colleges to come and hold crusades on the campus. We have been giving serious consideration to setting apart an entire school year just for universities and colleges throughout the United States. Certainly the week at Wheaton College has given remarkable evidence as to what the Spirit of God can do on a great college campus.
It has been an invigorating experience just to walk on the campus at Wheaton. Nearly two thousand young people are there who have found an answer to the riddles and mysteries of life. Dedication is written on their faces. They have found a purpose and meaning for life. Wheaton today in its philosophy of education is very similar to what Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton were a hundred years ago.
Something happened to those great universities. Through a series of circumstances, they left their original moorings and now through much frustration and pain are trying to grope their way back to a Christian philosophy of education.
How different the students are at Wheaton than the Beatnik crowd which has fallen prey to the so-called “progressive education” which has infiltrated much of our educational system.
Since the advent of John Dewey, an insidious movement has been set in motion to undermine our traditional educational system. Stealthily and methodically these self-styled progressives have made great changes in our philosophy of education. They have used the class room as a soap box for their gospel of the new social order; and as writers of the nation’s text-books, they are to a large degree responsible for the mass departure from American principles, American ideals, and Biblical morals.
These so-called progressives have substituted instinct for knowledge, and emotion for reason. They contend that the old, the tried and proven, and the heritages of the past must be replaced by new ideas. They scoff at the concept of a vital, personal faith in God. They often belittle the framers of our constitution in the eyes of our nation’s students. They often decry our system of government as out of date, and unfit for moderns.
While John Dewey is recognized as the father of this movement, its teachings are anything but new, much less progressive! Our text-book makers have drawn largely from the writings of Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer and even on occasion Marx. These so-called intellectuals brook no authority, make no allowances for the lessons of the past, and scoff at traditional briefs and morals.
You have often wondered why children when they go off to college lose their faith, become confused in their thinking, and drift from their moral moorings. We are often told that they have “learned better,” but the truth is that through the process of “progressive education” they have learned worse!
They regard man, not as created in the image of God, but as a biological organism whose development is determined entirely from external stimuli. These exponents of progressive education throughout their textbooks which are standard in many of our educational institutions, advocate the following:
First, since man is solely physical, or animal, the spiritual concept which gives man a soul is false; and our traditional beliefs about truth, ethics, and morality are purely relative, and not constant or immutable.
Secondly, they say that since the above is to be accepted as fact, then we waste time looking to religion for standards of conduct, ethics and truth.
Thirdly, if there are no eternal verities, it logically follows that education should not be burdened with the knowledge and experience of the past. Man’s concern with the present is alone important. “Don’t think of history,” says the self-styled progressive, “that is past.” Then he says, “Don't think of the future; for when you're dead, you’re dead.” Hence, in one bold stroke these men try to sweep away all that history, the church, and the Bible have taught through the centuries. The sad fact is, that with millions of people, by systematic infiltration of our educational system, they have succeeded.
They have struck hard at two very vital areas of our American way of life.
FIRST: OUR POLITICAL LIFE
Don’t think for one minute that I believe that our form of government is the acme of perfection! We have many faults, weaknesses, and imperfections. It is right and proper that we should recognize these and not condone them. But these self-styled progressives who have had such a devastating influence on the present education system, actually despair of, and make light of our traditional political concept.
These “debunkers” of our American way of life have tip-toed into our classrooms and have put over a philosophy that is completely contradictory to our traditional way of life. For example, they make fun of our Founding Fathers, teaching that our Constitution was framed by a privileged few who were out to feather their own nests. And this is done in the sanctity of the classroom unbeknown to the faithful and loyal American parents who foot the bills for our education!
For example, in the Teacher’s Guide, used by five million children, the question is raised: “Is the United States a land of opportunity for all people?” Then the insidious answer, which reads like a Soviet indoctrination paper, is given as follows: “The United States is not a land of opportunity for all our people, for one fifth of the people do not earn any money at all . . . The majority do not have any real security.”
Then they proceed to disillusion children through their accepted text-books of any preconceived ideas that America has a glorious history or that the Founding Fathers were men of good intent. Rather, it is shown that our form of society was designed to benefit only the minority of our well-to-do citizens. The chief impression that the child gets through these false prophets of “Progressive education” is that Washington and Jefferson and the others who founded this nation and helped to shape its ideals were large property owners and members of the ruling class! The magnitude of their public service, their high ideals, and the extent of their personal sacrifice are hardly mentioned!
However, the greatest thrust has been against religion! For well do these “Progressive Planners” know the close relationship between faith and freedom.
SECOND: OUR RELIGIOUS LIFE
Horace Mann, the revered author of many of our honored educational ideals in America, said: “I hold it to be one of the laws of God that the talents of man can be developed in the best way and can produce the most beneficial results only when they are in full conscience with all the precepts and principles of religion. The pursuit of knowledge and science is the pursuit of truth.”
How different, this, from the teaching of John Dewey, the apostle of “change and progressivism” who said: “As a drowning man grasps for a straw, so men, who lack instruments and skills, developed in later days, snatched at whatever, by any stretch of the imagination, could be regarded as a source of help in time of trouble. In such an atmosphere . . . religion was born and is fostered.”
This statement of Dewey has “Karl Marx” written across it! Karl Marx said “Religion is the sighing of a creature oppressed by misfortune, it is the soul of the world that has no heart, as it is the intelligence of an unintelligent epoch. It is the opium of the people.”
Separation of church and state was never meant to separate school children from God! This trend to extricate God and moral teachings from the School is a diabolical scheme, and is bearing its fruit in the deluge of juvenile delinquency that is overwhelming our nation! New York City, where this scheme was conceived, has become the center of this festering sore. As the Bible says: “The parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth have been set on edge.”
This is the basis of much of the terrifying teen-age crime that is taking place in our major metropolitan areas today. We have ruled out moral convictions and taken God from the hearts of our young people. They have no rock upon which to build their lives. They are floundering, restless, and confused. This is one of the reasons the nation is being flooded with an abnormal obsession with sex that could eventually destroy this country. I agree with Professor Sorokin of Harvard University that immorality may destroy this country far quicker than Communism!
Of all the ideas which shape the destinies of men, the religious concept is basic. By religion we mean neither sectarianism nor secular dogma, but the broad need for man to understand his existence and relationship to his Maker.
Mankind needs to worship, needs incitement to love, and above all, needs a spiritual rebirth and the reconciliation advocated and offered by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Every thinking American recognizes the influence of true Christianity upon our national life. Our Republic was born in a religious atmosphere, and our highest courts have decreed that we are “a Christian nation.”
Justice William Douglas declared to New York’s board of higher education in 1953: “God’s order in man’s world includes a moral code, based upon man’s nature and not subject to man’s repeal, suspension or amendment.”
Education, progressive or otherwise, cannot fill the void of men’s hearts. Neither can secular success, social and economic security. You cannot void the fact of God by a cleverly worded phrase as attempted by Karl Marx or John Dewey. Across your life is indelibly written: “Made in the image of God.” And try as you might, you can never get away from it!
The Christian faith gives man something that he needs even when he has obtained all other things. This is the ultimate certainty which neither science nor philosophy can supply.
The cross of Christ is now, and always has been, “foolishness” to a world that is too arrogant to accept a Superior. But this fact remains: Those who have put their faith in the merits of Jesus Christ have found something that cannot be found in human philosophy and secular society.
Solomon, who was the peer of all the men of his day, said: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Learning minus God equals confusion and chaos — just as a house with good design minus a foundation equals disaster.
You, with millions of others, have been caught in the vortex of self-styled Progressivism. Many times you have perhaps said: “Something deep inside me yearns for God, but the text-books have told me that I am just another animal bound for oblivion. Why should I take up all the restrictions of the Christian faith, when I shall die like an animal?"
Don’t you believe it! Your conscience, your reason, and the signposts of history point to the all-important fact of God! Even now, the Holy Spirit is saying to you, “You ought to get right with God. You need God. You ought to live for Him.”
In this clear call is God’s purpose for the dignity of man. You were not made for frustration. You were not made to be a confused animal, like a beast, at bay. You were not made to be torn apart by temptation, and shot through with sin and its consequences. You were made for God!
Jesus said, (and it is more true than the Law of Gravity) “He that hath the Son hath life.” Do you have Jesus Christ? Have you trusted Him for salvation? Have you said goodbye to those forces of selfishness, lust, and sin which seek to destroy you? You can do it today. You can accept Christ, and experience His peace and joy in your heart. Jesus said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37). Do it now before it is too late!
–FROM THE HOUR OF DECISION. Reprinted by permission of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn., Minneapolis, Minn.
The image of Graham is used on Wikipedia as public domain, and is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsc.03261
