The Faith Integration Fallacy

Look at (almost) any Christian school website and its promotional materials, and you will find something about "integrating faith" into their education. That phrase today, it seems, is synonymous with Christian education. However, "integration" implies two things ... 

1. Faith is not currently a part of a subject or education.
2. In order for education to be "Christian," it is up to us to add the faith element.

This ultimately is a secular perspective, i.e., all education is secular (without a religious basis) and religious schools are the only ones who add faith to the learning. However, all education is religious. For Christians and Christian education, this is even more definitive because we believe God created all things out of nothing (ex nihilo), God actively provides and sustains all things, and God is sovereign over "every square inch" of creation. If that is true, God is integral to every subject in school, and faith is already a part of education. 

Faith Integration vs. Faith Integral

From a secular worldview, Christian teachers integrate their faith into a subject; it is something Christian teachers do to a secular subject. From a Christian worldview, all subjects are full of faith already and studying them reveals more about God; in fact, the study of individual subjects is actually theology (the study of God).

While it may seem like purely semantics, viewing Christian education from a faith integral perspective instead of a faith integration perspective can shift the work of Christian education.

In the beginning God

Presuppositions matter. When Christians affirm God created all things out of nothing, then the study of all things is essentially the study of God, uncovering what God has done and what God is doing. Modern education does not begin with God, and that actually is quite limiting. Secular education is limited to the study of natural things ... what humans can sense, measure, and experience or what humans have done.

Christian educators are free to explore all subjects without feeling the need to "integrate" faith; faith is already a part of the subject being studied. Teaching students a subject with excellence and depth of knowledge is the call of Christian educators, not faith integration.

This perspective aligns with a quote attributed to Martin Luther: "A Christian cobbler is not someone who puts crosses on shoes, but someone who just makes good shoes." Just as a Christian cobbler makes shoes with excellence because his/her neighbor needs good shoes, a Christian educator teaches with excellence because God's children need to be educated well to serve fully in God's kingdom.

Of course, this also aligns to God's command to work in Colossians 3:23-24 ... 

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord .... 

It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

Excellence Integration

Christian schools have emphasized "faith integration" as the way to improve Christian education, often, at the expense of excellence in teaching. Let's emphasize "excellence integration" instead because faith is already there. Through common grace, God has allowed and blessed Christian and non-Christian educators to develop the "art and science of teaching." At the risk of sounding purely pragmatic, Christian teachers need to utilize the pedagogical and assessment strategies that work. Educational psychologists and theorists have researched, developed, and studied teaching strategies that are most effective in the classroom; Classroom Instruction that Works (2001) and The Art and Science of Teaching (2007) by Robert Marzano are both excellent, research-based works that Christian teachers should study, among many other resources on the craft of teaching.

Faith Pauses

It may sound like I am against mentioning God in Christian classrooms. However, the complete opposite is true; I don't understand how a Christian teacher can go a week (or even a day) without pausing to share how God is integral to the subject that he/she is teaching.

I remember observing in a math classroom, and the teacher paused to increase student engagement, by asking "what do you notice?" (btw, a simple but great protocol for student engagement). In this class, a student raised her hand and commented, "I notice how cool it is that God has designed mathematics with organization and structure." That is a faith integral statement, and a clear indication that this teacher has paused frequently to share how God is integral to mathematics.

In both history and literature, God's storyline of creation-fall-redemption-restoration is integral to unit design and classroom discussions. When I taught Lord of the Flies to high school students, we naturally discussed what ought to be, what was fallen due to sin, how the boys were saved outside of themselves (deus ex machina), and finally how we could help "restore" brokenness for those struggling to survive in our context. God's story is integral to our stories seen in history and literature.

Some may call these examples "faith integration," but it is more accurate to say that faith is integral to every subject, and a Christian classroom uncovers the faith elements that are already present. 

If we truly believe in the sovereignty of God, we must hold to the position that God is Lord over all subjects and areas of education ... and that God is integral to every part of education. Let's stop integrating and start showing how integral God is to education.