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What Has Happened to the Great Books and Why Christian Educators Need to Get Back to Them

June 24th, 2006 | 2 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

Tomorrow, I am speaking at the Southwestern Conference for Classical Christian Educators on the topic of Great Books. Below is my introduction to my speech.

“Due to neglect of our rich heritage in the West our civilization is crumbling. Powerful and seductive ideas have gripped the minds of the Western man and have caused him to worship the creation instead of the creator. Darwinism, utopianism and Freudian psychology, to name a few, have lured us away from pursuing a life of virtue in an intellectually and emotionally robust Christianity.

“Not surprisingly, these ideas have focused their attack on our educational system. What better way to radically change culture than to affect the hearts and minds of our young? Today, the standard approach to education assumes people do not have souls and that the highest end of man is to do a job well and fit in with the rest of society. The virtue most emphasized in our schools, therefore, is…tolerance.

“Our high school curriculum quite clearly reflects these aims.

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Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.

Topics:

Education