Welcome to Summit Ministries’ Worldview Education Newsletter! Each month, Dr. Roger Erdvig and Dr. Maggie Pope, Director and Associate Director of Worldview Education at Summit, serve educators by sharing resources, suggesting strategies for biblical worldview formation, and showcasing educators’ stories from around the world.
In this issue:
- Learn how to process the aftermath of the election season in your classroom. Is there a biblical response for Christian educators questioning whether they can or should navigate the issues with students?
- Understand the 5Rs of a processing framework you can use today to encourage students to engage in sound processing.
- Explore resources from Summit that explore the foundational biblical truths all students need.
The Aftermath of the Election and Our Classrooms
The election may be over, but the aftershocks of the season are still being felt. Regardless of whether an individual’s voting choices resulted in the desired outcome, the reality is that Americans have low opinions about politics and government, often using words like divisive, messy, and corrupt to describe them. These emotions and views about politics have also found a way onto our Christian school campuses. While many well-meaning Christian educators admit they should be more involved and vested in politics, many Christian schools discourage discussion by adopting formal or informal guidelines that limit conversation in the name of an orderly and focused educational environment. After all, discussing politics introduces polarizing issues of ethics like abortion, immigration, government control, trans-people in women’s spaces, and more. The mere thought of discussing those topics with students is enough to send most educators running. But before you lace up your running shoes, ask yourself, as a Christian educator, should we engage with students when faced with these questions and topics? Consider three realities that impact your kingdom work well beyond election season.
Avoiding difficult conversations allows competing worldviews the first opportunity to impact our students. Read that again. When we push away the topics infiltrating our students’ worlds, it’s as if we knowingly allow a virus to take root and hide undetected until it becomes a significant illness. Each hot-button topic associated with the political arena is a symptom of a bigger ideological problem—a worldview problem. While we disengage and avoid political discussions, the world—through the media, social media, peers, and Hollywood—is blazing forward, capitalizing on every opportunity to influence our students. Unfortunately, their message not only counters what is good, right, and beautiful as defined by God but also is done in a winsome way that captures the hearts of our younger generations. Take, for example, the pro-choice argument. Our students are presented with claims that sound reasonable and compassionate, persuading people with a false picture of what is right or good. The “my body, my choice” argument has been wildly successful in capturing the hearts of a younger generation who, in the absence of explicit teaching and discussion guided by biblical truth, are more concerned with whether killing at 6 weeks, 13 weeks, or even 30 weeks is most acceptable. Depending on the age of your students, a discussion about the biblical morality of abortion may not be appropriate. However, helping our students learn to process topics in a way that is inextricably woven into God’s Truth is one way to minimize the confusion our students face. (Read below for a framework for doing this at any age!)
Culture plays a role in the emotions of our students. The arrival of the smartphone in the early 2000s quietly ushered in dramatic increases in anxiety and mental illness in young people. During election season, emotional unrest heightens as adults—intentionally or unintentionally—add fuel to the fire. For months, students have listened to emotionally charged statements like, “If so-and-so gets into office, we are all doomed,” or comments suggesting that our nation’s foundational structure is threatened and financial ruin is around the corner. The students in our classrooms are not equipped to process these types of statements. The overwhelming majority of students haven’t developed the spiritual muscle to rest in God’s sovereignty while actively working to push back against the forces of evil. As students enter our classrooms, they’re often preoccupied with emotions, whether settled at the surface or deep down, that may interfere with their learning ability.
Relational conflict is now a defining characteristic associated with important moral issues. During one of the 2020 presidential debates, a moderator read a question from a young child asking why the candidates spoke to each other in harsh and derogatory ways when, as students, they were being taught to do the opposite. How would such an honest, innocent, and appropriate question be answered? In short, it wasn’t. We can’t miss the significance of the individuals vying for the highest office in the land, who have demonstrated some of the poorest behaviors in disagreement and conversation. Unsurprisingly, the conversations in locker rooms, offices, classrooms, grocery stores, and news outlets mirror these behaviors, placing incredible strain on everyday relationships. Students have witnessed friends (or even family) disagree over the last few months and become estranged as a result. In light of these trends, many well-meaning Christians avoid the topics entirely, sending the message that disagreement is always associated with conflict, hatred, and rejection.
So, we return to our initial question: Should we engage with students when faced with the questions and pressures of this time of year? This is a question that each educator and school must ultimately answer for themselves. May we suggest you inform your answer with your school’s core mission and vision? At Summit, our mission is to equip and support rising generations to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview. So, for us, the answer is a resounding YES.
Classroom Snapshot: A Framework for Processing Experiences
An experience is anything that happens to you or that you make happen. Our students’ worlds are full of new experiences, and our classrooms are an experience in and of themselves. However, experience alone is not the best teacher when it comes to biblical worldview formation. We can foster our students’ biblical worldview formation by encouraging them to process their experiences in light of biblical truth. Sound processing has become less utilized and valued in our culture. Not only do students have shorter attention spans, but culture has encouraged the replacement of objective biblical truth with subjectively defined truth, stunting formation processing. As educators, we can engage in formation efforts by helping students process new experiences in academic content or when discussing the tough topics they encounter today. The 5 Rs of processing framework assists teachers in guiding students to process information meaningfully.
The 5 Rs of processing help students navigate both the cognitive and affective elements of experiences. As with all aspects of education, teachers should scaffold the process in age-appropriate ways, incrementally working towards an independence that will serve students well post-graduation. Depending on their students’ ages, teachers may spend more time at the beginning or end of the framework to reflect their students’ developmental capacity.
Restate – Have students reveal what they know about a topic or social issue. This may feel reminiscent of the K or know part of the KWL tool. The key is to listen—there may be misconceptions or untruths, but listen actively and compassionately. Showing you are willing to listen helps establish rapport with students, which will help in future parts of the conversation.
React – Discover the feelings and emotions underlying the topic. Emotions are a valid part of the human experience. Humans are made in God’s image; the Bible shows how even Christ expressed emotions while walking the earth. Understanding the emotions a student is feeling can help us better minister to our students and inform our approach to the topic. Ignoring the emotional aspects that arise can stunt our students’ processing of experiences.
Revise – Next, we help revise students’ thinking to reflect the way things are. We want to teach our students how to hold up their perspectives and reactions against the authority of Scripture and assure them that doing so is fundamental to truth-seeking. Young people increasingly rely on TikTok, Reddit, and other unreliable sources for news. Although the internet can be helpful, students must be taught to perform searches and filter out opinions disguised as truth. We must also help students refer to the Bible and books from godly, trustworthy authors as they seek truth. The end goal of revising is to evaluate and adjust initial thoughts by purposefully seeking objective biblical truth to help students realize that their initial thoughts and reactions were not the entire truth.
Recognize – Seek to recognize the issue’s importance. We ask: “Why does this matter?” “Is it significant?” “Is it worth the time we’ve spent on it?” Up to this point, we’ve been pulling apart ideas. However, during this stage we begin to reassemble all the individual parts. We consider the initial claims, the emotional response, and the truth, and then we help students draw conclusions about the issue’s significance.
Respond – Finally, we explore how we are called to respond as Christians. Students see plenty of examples of non-biblical responses, which is why this stage is critical. Today’s students value equality and justice (even when they don’t live that out). They desire a cause to be a part of to fight back against perceived inequity. Our students are likely already asking themselves: “What does it all mean in light of how I live, think, or interact?” “What am I called to do now?” “How does it change my behavior moving forward?” This stage of the framework allows us to guide their thinking about the topic, rooting that response in biblical truth.
But What About Truth?
In a time where truth has been redefined as a personal construct, Biblical truth has never been so important. In our short presentation of the arguments of the pro-choice camp, we highlighted their persuasive tactics, including a play on words that numbs people to the truth. In addition to compelling arguments, the Western church has failed to develop an understanding of the core truths of Christianity that stand in opposition to abortion, gender fluidity, or homosexuality. Although fostering a biblical worldview is about more than just teaching Biblical truth claims, make no mistake, Truth (capital T intentional) is a necessary foundation for our faith.
We cannot imagine how different the conversations in high school would be if even half of the students were clearly and systematically taught core Biblical truth during their early years. Instead, many Bible curriculums have focused on entertaining younger students with Bible stories loosely connected to God’s principles for right thinking and biblical living. One of the strengths of Summit’s Building on the Rock Bible curriculum is that kindergarten through fifth-grade students are systematically exposed to Biblical truth as the foundational element of reading the Bible. The 20 Biblical Truths, intertwined into every grade level, support Christian schools in developing students’ biblical worldview. The Truths are practically examined and applied throughout each lesson through guided discussion and age-appropriate learning activities. The 20 Biblical truths are experienced as evidence that a biblical worldview applies to all of life. This foundation of truth is essential in a time when truth is under attack.
Talk with us! Share a question, comment, or example of how you use the principles of biblical worldview formation in your classroom!
Resource Corner
Politics from a Christian Worldview: Grow your Biblical worldview of politics by accessing Dr. Jeff Myers’ video series here. You’ll receive links to four powerful videos that explore Biblical truth related to political involvement in a concise and applicable way.
Biblical Truth: Here at Summit, we understand that truth matters. That’s why we’ve identified core biblical truths that are cyclically woven throughout our Bible curriculum. Learn more about our Bible curriculum for Grades K-12 here.
Upcoming Biblical Worldview Immersion Conferences: Dig deeper into immersing your classroom content and methods in a biblical worldview by joining us at an upcoming educator conference. We are still accepting registrations at the following locations:
Summit’s Biblical Worldview Immersion Conference at The Woodlands
5800 Academy Way | The Woodlands, TX | 77384
January 6th and 7th, 2025
Register!
Summit’s Biblical Worldview Immersion Conference at Calvary Christian High School
110 N. McMullen Booth Road | Clearwater, FL | 33759
February 14, 2025
Register!