A Civics Lesson for American Christians: "Church and State in the United States," by Dr. Philip Schaff

Dr. Philip Schaff (d. 1893) was among America's pre-eminent church historians and theologians of the 19^th Century. Together with Dr. John Williamson Nevin (d. 1886), Dr. Schaff assisted in advocating German Reformed theology, a Zwinglian variety of Reformed teaching, contributing to a rise in its prominence that pitted it against the more widely accepted Calvinist theology of Charles Hodge (d. 1878) in a bid for dominance among the Reformed in America. Though this bid was unsuccessful, the Mercersburg Theology, as it was named in honor of the seminary where Nevin and Schaff taught, represented a teaching that was uniquely Christocentric among the Reformed, whose theology typically begins with and centers on the sovereignty of God, rather than the person of Christ.⁰ This factor, in addition to the impeccable academic credentials of these men, no doubt contributed to the use of their research by prominent confessional Lutherans, like C.F.W Walther and C.P. Krauth, both of whom quote favorably from Schaff and Nevin. In fact, Krauth's Conservative Reformation quotes both Nevin and Schaff with great frequency. We at Intrepid Lutherans quote from Dr. Schaff's History of the Christian ChurchClick here for a brief biography of Dr. Philip Schaff, and links to download his public domain works, including his 3 volume Creeds of Christendom and his 7 volume History of the Christian Church quite frequently as well.

In 1887, Dr. Schaff, published a little book entitled, Church and State in the United States: Or the American Idea of Religious Liberty and it Practical Effects; with Official Documents. It is a marvelous little book, an indispensable civics guide for the American Christian. In honor of this important day, November 6, 2012, the day of our national election for the Presidency of the United States, we here publish select sections from this book, from pages 53-56 and pages 69-78.

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Church and State
in the United States:
or
The American Idea of
Religious Liberty and
its Practical Effect
(excerpts from)

by Dr. Philip Schaff

A.D. 1887

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THE NATION AND CHRISTIANITY.
(pp. 53-56)

The separation of church and state as it exists in this country is not a separation of the nation from Christianity.

This seems paradoxical and impossible to all who entertain an absolutist or utopian idea of the state, and identify it either with the government, as did Louis XIV (according to his maxim: L'ttat cest moi),¹ or with the realization of the moral idea, as Hegel² and Rothe,³ or with the nation, as Bluntschli,⁴ and Mulford.⁵

The tendency of modern times is to limit the powers of the government, and to raise the liberty of the people. The government is for the people, and not the people for the government. In ancient Greece and Rome the freeman was lost in the citizen, and the majority of the people were slaves. Plato carried this idea to the extent of community of property, wives, and children, in his utopian Republic.⁶ Against this Aristotle protested with his strong realistic sense, and defended in his Politics the rights of property and the dignity of the family. The American ideal of the state is a republic of self-governing freemen who are a law to themselves. "That government is best which governs least."

The state can never be indifferent to the morals of the people; it can never prosper without education and public virtue. Nevertheless its direct and chief concern in our country is with the political, civil, and secular affairs; while the literary, moral, and religious interests are left to the voluntary agency of individuals, societies, and churches, under the protection of the laws. In Europe, the people look to the government for taking the initiative; in America they help themselves and go ahead.

The nation is much broader and deeper than the state, and the deepest thing in the nation's heart is its religion.

If we speak of a Christian nation we must take the word in the qualified sense of the prevailing religious sentiment and profession; for in any nation and under any relation of church and state, there are multitudes of unbelievers, misbelievers, and hypocrites. Moreover, we must not measure the Christian character of a people by outward signs, such as crosses, crucifixes, pictures, processions, clerical coats, and monastic cowls, all of which abound in Roman Catholic countries and in Russia, on the streets and in public places, but are seldom seen in the United States. We must go to the churches and Sunday-schools, visit the houses and family altars, attend the numerous meetings of synods, conferences, conventions, observe the sacred stillness of the Lord's Day, converse with leading men of all professions and grades of culture, study the religious literature and periodical press with its accounts of the daily thoughts, words, and deeds of the people. A foreigner may at first get bewildered by the seeming confusion of ideas, and be repelled by strange novelties or eccentricities; but he will gradually be impressed with the unity and strength of the national sentiment on all vital questions of religion and morals.

With this understanding we may boldly assert that the American nation is as religious and as Christian as any nation on earth, and in some respects even more so, for the very reason that the profession and support of religion are left entirely free. State-churchism is apt to breed hypocrisy and infidelity, while free-churchism favors the growth of religion.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the most philosophic foreign observer of American institutions, says:

There is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth... In the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion, but it directs the manners of the community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the state... Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must, nevertheless, be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country, for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. I am certain that the Americans hold religion to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.⁷

This judgment of the celebrated French scholar and statesman is extremely important, and worthy of being seriously considered by all our educators and politicians, in opposition to infidels and anarchists, foreign and domestic, who are zealous in spreading the seed of atheism and irreligion, and are undermining the very foundations of our republic. I fully agree with De Tocqueville. I came to the same conclusion soon after my immigration to America in 1844, and I have been confirmed in it by an experience of forty-three years and a dozen visits to Europe. In Roman Catholic countries and in Russia there is more outward show, in Protestant countries more inward substance, of religion. There the common people are devout and churchy, but ignorant and superstitious; while the educated classes are skeptical or indifferent. In Protestant countries there is more information and intelligent faith, but also a vast amount of rationalism and unbelief. In Great Britain Christianity has a stronger hold on all classes of society than on the Continent, and this is partly due to the fact that it is allowed more freedom.


THE CONNECTING LINKS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE.
(pp. 68-79)

A total separation of church and state is an impossibility, unless we cease to be a Christian people.

There are three interests and institutions which belong to both church and state, and must be maintained and regulated by both. These are

1. monogamy in marriage,
2. the weekly day of rest,
3. and the public school

Here the American government and national sentiment have so far decidedly protected the principles and institutions of Christianity as essential elements in our conception of civilized society.

Marriage.
Monogamy, according to the unanimous sentiment of all Christian nations, is the only normal and legitimate form of marriage. It has been maintained by Congress, with the approval of the nation, in its prohibitory legislation against the new Mohammedanism in Utah, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest tribunal of our laws, has sanctioned the prohibition of polygamy as constitutional. The Mormons have to submit, or to emigrate to more congenial climes.

All the States uphold monogamy and punish bigamy. But some of them, unfortunately, are very loose on the subject of divorce, and a reform of legislation in conformity to the law of Christ is highly necessary for the safety and prosperity of the family. It is to the honor of the Roman Catholic Church in our country that she upholds the sanctity of the marriage tie.⁸

Sunday Laws.
The Christian Sabbath or weekly day of rest is likewise protected by legislation, and justly so, because it has a civil as well as a religious side; it is necessary and profitable for the body as well as for the soul; it is of special benefit to the laboring classes, and guards them against the tyranny of capital. The Sabbath, like the family, antedates the Mosaic legislation, and is founded in the original constitution of man, for whose temporal and spiritual benefit it was instituted by the God of creation. The state has nothing to do with the religious aspect of Sunday, but is deeply interested in its civil aspect, which affects the whole domestic and social life of a people.

The Federal Constitution, in deference to the national sentiment, incidentally recognizes Sunday by the clause (Art. I., Sect. 7):

If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.

Congress never meets on Sunday, except of necessity, at the close of the short term, to complete legislation if the third of March happens to fall on a Sunday. The President is never inaugurated on a Sunday. The Supreme Court and the Federal Courts are closed on that day. And if the Fourth of July falls on a Sunday, the great national festival is put off till Monday. The Revised Statutes of the United States sustain the observance of Sunday in four particulars. They exempt the cadets at West Point and the students of the Naval Academy from study on Sunday; they exclude Sunday, like the Fourth of July and Christmas Day, from computation in certain bankruptcy proceedings; and provide that army chaplains shall hold religious services at least once on each Lord's Day.

During the civil war, when the Sunday rest was very much interrupted by the army movements, the President of the United States issued the following important order:

Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 15, 1862.

The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance, for man and beast, of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. At this time of public distress, adopting the words of Washington, in 1776, "men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended:

"The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The State legislatures, State courts, and State elections follow the example of the general government, or rather preceded it. The States are older than the United States, and Sunday is older than both.

Most of the States protect Sunday by special statutes.

These Sunday laws of the States are not positive and coercive, but negative, defensive, and protective, and as such perfectly constitutional, whatever Sabbath-breaking infidels may say. The state, indeed, has no right to command the religious observance of Sunday, or to punish anybody for not going to church, as was done formerly in some countries of Europe. Such coercive legislation would be unconstitutional and contrary to religious liberty. The private observance and private non-observance is left perfectly free to everybody. But the state is in duty bound to protect the religious community in their right to enjoy the rest of that day, and should forbid such public desecration as interferes with this right.

The Supreme Court of the State of New York, February 4, 1861, decided that the regulation of the Christian Sabbath "as a civil and political institution" is "within the just powers of the civil government," and that the prohibition of theatrical and dramatic performances on that day

rests on the same foundation as a multitude of other laws on our statute-book, such as those against gambling, lotteries, keeping disorderly houses, polygamy, horse-racing, profane cursing and swearing, disturbances of religious meetings, selling of intoxicating liquor on election days within a given distance from the polls, etc. All these and many others do, to some extent, restrain the citizen and deprive him of some of his natural rights; but the legislature have the right to prohibit acts injurious to the public and subversive of government, or which tend to the destruction of the morals of the people, and disturb the peace and good order of society. It is exclusively for the legislature to determine what acts should be prohibited as dangerous to the community.⁹

The Penal Code of New York, as amended in 1882 and 1883, forbids "all labor on Sunday, excepting works of necessity or charity," and declares "Sabbath-breaking a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than one dollar and not more than ten dollars, or by imprisonment in a jail not exceeding five days, or by both." Among things expressly prohibited on Sunday, the Penal Code¹⁰ mentions

• "all shooting, hunting, fishing, playing, horse-racing, gaming, or other public sports, exercises, or shows";
• "all trades, manufactures, agricultural or mechanical employments";
• "all manner of public selling or offering for sale of any property" (except articles of food and meals);
• "all service of legal process of any kind whatever";
• "all processions and parades" (except funeral processions and religious processions);
• "the performance of any tragedy, comedy, opera," or any other dramatic performance (which is subjected to an additional penalty of five hundred dollars).¹¹

The opposition to the Sunday laws comes especially from the foreign population, who have grown up under the demoralizing influence of the continental Sunday, and are not yet sufficiently naturalized to appreciate the habits of the land of their adoption. But the more earnest and religious portion of German immigrants are in hearty sympathy with the quiet and order of the American Sunday and have repeatedly expressed it in public meetings in New York and other large cities.¹²

The only class of American citizens who might with justice complain of our Sunday laws and ask protection of the last day of the week instead of the first, are the Jews and the Seventh Day Baptists. But they are a small minority, and must submit to the will of the majority, as the government cannot wisely appoint two weekly days of rest. The Revised Statutes of New York, however, provide that those who keep "the last day of the week, called Saturday, as holy time, and do not labor or work on that day," shall be exempted from the penalties of the statute against labor on Sunday, provided only that their labor do not "interrupt or disturb other persons in observing the first day of the week as holy time." The law of New York exempts also the same persons from military duty and jury duty on Saturday.

The United States present, in respect to Sunday legislation and Sunday observance, a most striking contrast to the Continent of Europe, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, where Sunday is perverted from a holy day of rest and worship into a frivolous holiday of amusement and dissipation,¹³ dedicated to beer gardens, theatres, horse-races, and political elections. Judged by the standard of Sunday observance, America is the most Christian country in the world, with the only exceptions of England and Scotland.

Religion in Public Schools.
The relation of state education to religion is a most important and most difficult problem, which will agitate the country for a long time. It is increased by a difference of views within the religious denominations themselves; while on the questions of monogamy and Sunday they are substantially agreed.

The Roman Catholics, under the dictation of the Vatican, oppose our public schools, which are supported by general taxation, for the reason that their religion is not taught there, and that a "godless" education is worse than none. They are right in the supreme estimate of religion as a factor in education, but they are radically wrong in identifying the Christian religion with the Roman creed, and very unjust in calling our public schools "godless." They must learn to appreciate Protestant Christianity, which has built up this country and made it great, prosperous, and free.¹⁴ Their Church enjoys greater liberty in the United States than in Italy or Spain or Austria or France or Mexico, and for this they should at least be grateful. They will never succeed in overthrowing the public school system, nor in securing a division of the school funds for sectarian purposes. They have a remedy in private and parochial schools, which they can multiply without let or hindrance. There is no compulsory attendance on public schools in any of our States. The only point of reasonable complaint from Catholics is that they are taxed for the support of public schools which they condemn. Strict justice would exempt them from the school tax.¹⁵ But the principal tax-payers are wealthy Protestants, who, for various reasons, prefer to educate their children in private schools at their own expense. The right of minorities should be protected by all means save the destruction of the rights of the majority, which must rule in a republican country. The Roman Catholics would act more wisely and patriotically by uniting with the religious portion of the Protestant community in every effort to improve the moral character of the public schools. They may be sure of a cordial disposition to meet them in every just and reasonable demand. Protestants are just as much concerned for the religious and moral training of their children as they.

The public school is and ever will be an American institution from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It dates from early colonial days in New England, and has always been, next to the church, the chief nursery of popular intelligence, virtue, and piety. The Continental Congress, in the ordinance of 1787 (Article III.), enjoined it upon the territory northwest of the Ohio River, that "schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," because "religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind."¹⁶ The public school system grows and aims higher every year. It is not satisfied with elementary instruction, but aims at a full college and university education, at least in the West, where large landed endowments come to its aid. The state has the right and the duty to educate its citizens for useful citizenship, and should give the poorest and humblest the benefit of a sufficient training for that purpose. A democratic republic based upon universal suffrage depends for its safety and prosperity upon the intelligence and virtue of the people. But virtue is based on religion, and the obligations of man to man rest upon the obligations of man to his Maker and Preserver. Intellectual training without moral training is dangerous, and moral training without religion lacks the strongest incentive which appeals to the highest motives, and quickens and energizes all the lower motives. Who can measure the influence of the single idea of an omniscient and omnipresent God who reads our thoughts afar off and who will judge all our deeds? The example of Christ is a more effectual teacher and reformer than all the moral philosophies, ancient and modern.

The state recognizes the importance of religion by allowing the reading of the Bible, the singing of a hymn, and the recital of the Lord's Prayer, or some other prayer, as opening exercises of the school. I am informed by competent authority that at least four fifths of the public schools in the United States observe this custom.¹⁷ Most of the school teachers, especially the ladies, are members of evangelical churches, and commend religion by their spirit and example. To call such schools "godless" is simply a slander.

Some schools exclude the Bible to please the Roman Catholics, who oppose every Protestant version, and the Jews and infidels who oppose Christianity in any form. Other schools have found it necessary to reintroduce religious exercises for the maintenance of proper discipline.

The Catholics certainly have a right to demand the Douay version as a substitute for that of King James, and both might be read, the one to the Catholic, the other to the Protestant pupils; but they are at heart opposed to the free and independent atmosphere of thought which prevails in the schools of a Protestant community, and which is dangerous to the principles of authority and absolute obedience to the priesthood. It is vain, therefore, to expect to satisfy them by the exclusion of the Bible from the public school, which is advocated by many Protestants as a peace measure.¹⁸ It is better to hold on to the timehonored custom of holding up before the rising generation day by day a short and suitable lesson from the Book of books, no matter in what version. The Psalms contain the sublimest lyrical poetry; the Lord's Prayer is the best of all prayers: the Sermon on the Mount is more popular and beautiful than any moral essay; and the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians is the most effective sermon on charity. A competent committee of clergymen and laymen of all denominations could make a judicious selection which would satisfy every reasonable demand. With unreason even the gods fight in vain.¹⁹

The reading of brief Bible lessons, with prayer and singing, is a devotional exercise rather than religious instruction, but it is all that can be expected from the state, which dare not intermeddle with the differences of belief. Positive religious instruction is the duty of the family, and the church, which has the commission to teach all nations the way of life. The state cannot be safely intrusted with this duty. It might teach rationalism, as is actually done in many public schools and universities of Germany, Holland, and Switzerland.

But the state may allow the different denominations to monopolize certain school hours in the school building for religious instruction.²⁰ In this way the problem of united secular and separate religious education could be solved, at least to the reasonable satisfaction of the great majority. Possibly the more liberal portion of our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens might agree to such a compromise. In communities which are sufficiently homogeneous, one teacher would answer; in others, two or more might be chosen, and the children divided into classes according to the will of the parents or guardians.

The state is undoubtedly competent to give instruction in all elementary and secular or neutral branches of learning, such as reading and writing, mathematics, languages, geography, chemistry, natural science, logic, rhetoric, medicine, law, etc.²¹ The difficulty begins in history and the moral sciences which deal with character, touch upon religious ground, and enjoin the eternal principles of duty. A history which would ignore God, Christ, the Bible, the Church, the Reformation, and the faith of the first settlers of this country, would be nothing but a ghastly skeleton of dry bones. An education which ignores the greatest characters and events and the most sacred interests in human life must breed religious indifference, infidelity, and immorality.

But the people will not allow this as long as they remain religious and Christian. Parents will not send their children to godless schools. They have the power in their own hands; they appoint the school boards, and through them the teachers.²² This is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Republican institutions are a blessing or a curse according to the character of those who administer them.²³ And so it is with our public schools. All depends at last upon competent and faithful teachers. If the teachers fear God and love righteousness, they will inspire their pupils with the same spirit; if they do not, they will raise an infidel generation, notwithstanding the reading of the Bible and the teaching of the Catechism. It is in the interest of the educational institutions of the several States, and indispensable to their well-being, that they should maintain a friendly relation to the churches and the Christian religion, which is the best educator and civilizer of any people.

Whatever defects there are in our public schools, they can be supplied by the Sunday-schools, which are multiplying and increasing in importance with the growth of the country, by catechetical instruction of the pastor, which ought to be revived as a special preparation for church membership; and by private schools, academies, and denominational colleges and universities. The church is perfectly free and untrammelled in the vast work of education, and this is all she can expect. If she does her full duty, America will soon surpass every other country in general intelligence, knowledge, and culture. Here is an opportunity for every man to become a gentleman, for every woman to become a lady, and for all to become good Christians.²⁴



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Endnotes:

0. IL Note: For more details, including the impact of this starting place in Reformed-Calvinist and Lutheran systems of theology, please see our essay, Differences between Reformed and Lutheran Doctrines. (Click here to return)
1. This corresponds to the Roman Catholic idea that the clergy or hierarchy are the church; while the laity are doomed to passive obedience. Pope Pius IX. said during the Vatican Council: "I am the tradition." (Click here to return)
2. Philosophic des Rechts. Hegel calls the state "die Wirklichkeit dcr sittlichen Idee," "die selbstbewusste Verniinftigkeit und Sittlichkeit", and "das System der sittlichen Welt." ("Works," vol. viii. p. 340 sqq.) (Click here to return)
3. Richard Rothe, in his Anfange der christlichen Kirche, (Wittenberg, 1837, pp, 1-138), teaches the ultimate absorption of religion into morals, and of the church into an ideal state, which he identifies with the kingdom of God (the basileia tou' qeou'). But the ultimate state is a theocracy where God shall be all in all. (i Cor. xv. 28) (Click here to return)
4. Lehre vom modernen Staat. Engl. translation: Theory of the Modern State, Oxford, 1885. (Click here to return)
5. The Nation: The Foundations of Civil and Political Life in the United States, Boston, 1870, 9^th edition, 1884. This work grew out of the enthusiasm for the nation enkindled by the civil war for its salvation. It is a profound study of speculative politics, with the main ideas borrowed from Bluntschli and Hegel. Mulford wrote afterwards a theological treatise under the title, The Republic of God, Boston, 9^th ed., 1886. (Click here to return)
6. IL Note: C.F.W. Walther, in his Second Lecture on Communism and Socialism, highlighted this -- Plato's communistic theory of property ownership -- as follows: "Plato, the renowned philosopher, lived 400 years before Christ. He wrote a book treating exclusively of government and the commonwealth. In this book he also says that the most beautiful and most perfect form of a republic is that of communism." (Click here to return)
7. Democracy in America, translated by Henry Reeve, New York, 1838, vol. i. pp. 285, 286 sq. (Click here to return)
8. IL Note: See the following Intrepid Lutheran post for details on the relationship between Gay Marriage and Polygamy: God, Marriage, and The State In Our World Today. Maintaining the integrity of the institution of marriage, as a monogomous lifelong union between one man and one woman, continues to be a critical factor in maintaining a civilized society, which continues to be attacked by "infidels and anarchists ...zealous in spreading the seed of atheism and irreligion." And by all accounts, the Church in America is acquiescing to the enemies of civilization. In the words of Dr. Schaff, above, I must agree, "It is to the honor of the Roman Catholic Church in our country that she upholds the sanctity of the marriage tie." While to their shame, other Christians are absenting themselves from this critical debate. (Click here to return)
9. See the whole decision in Document XI. (Click here to return)
10. See "The Penal Code of New York," Title x. ch. 1, Of Crimes against Religious Liberty and Conscience. (Click here to return)
11. IL Note: Obviously, if such laws were common, and enforced, today, much of what passes for "Worship" these days (especially among congregations infected with the disease of Church Growth) would be outlawed as "the performance of tragedy, comedy... or any other dramatic performance" as a "public desecration [which] interferes with [the] right [of religious observance]". They would also do away with the frustrating interference of sporting events with Christian religious observance. While it is true that many such laws are no longer on the books, there are still many which remain, some of which are still enforced. As a child growing up in Ohio, hunting seasons were closed on Sundays, nor was liquor sold on Sundays. Many states and localities continue to observe such ordinances as healthy for the community. Whether it is the law or not, many Christian business owners continue to observe the "Christian Sabbath" for the sake of conscience anyway. The owner of Discount Tires, for example, being a devout Roman Catholic (so I was told a few years ago by one of his proud long-time employees), closes his stores nationwide on Sunday. Many businesses remain closed on Sunday. One businesses I had owned in the past, a small store, my business partner and I felt compelled to close on Sunday. Many consultants I know and work with -- especially Christians -- refuse to travel on Sunday. These are good practices that are healthy for Christianity, and therefore, healthy for our Christian nation.
    
    But the principle at work here extends beyond the civic recognition of Sunday as the "Christian Sabbath," the protection of which is enjoined for the benefit of society. In my honest opinion, it extends to all public Christian practice, especially protection from state coercion to civic practices that violate Christian doctrine. One such example facing Christians today is the enforcement of health care provisions requiring Christian businessmen and various religious organizations to violate their Christian conscience by providing for the use of abortifacient in the health insurance they offer to employees. Rev. Matthew Harrison, LCMS Synod President, courageously testified before a Congressional hearing against this horrifically anti-Christian practice, and was later joined by WELS Synod President, Rev. Mark Schroeder and other Christians, in a publicly issued declaration denouncing the government's interference with people who act according to religious conscience. In these and in every case, the freedom of Christians to publicly practice their religion according to conscience is tied to the connection of that practice to their doctrine. While advocates of the Church Growth Movement strive at every turn to convince Christians that all practice is completely free, is completely separate from Christian doctrine, and is therefore, totally arbitrary and open to the whim of the individual, they are also sweeping away all grounds on which Christians may claim protection for any public manifestation of their religion: none of the Christian's practice is a matter of religious conviction, it is completely a matter of his arbitrary opinion, having as its foundation any one thing or another, and if it so happens that doctrine is involved in his opinion, it is not necessarily involved, but only incidentally involved. They engage in all forms of verbal thrashing in order to create room enough to justify, not just liberty, but open license to engage in all manner of irreverent worship practice, and in this way unwittingly deny themselves and all those associated with them any foundation for religious liberty in society. (Click here to return)
12. See documents of the New York Sabbath Committee, Nos. xv., xvi., xxvi., xxvii., and the author's essays on the Christian Sabbath, in "Christ and Christianity," New York and London, 1885, pp. 213-275. The most recent German demonstration in protection of the Sunday and Excise laws took place November 1, 1887, at a mass meeting in Cooper Institute, New York, against the "Personal Liberty Party," which would claim the half of Sunday from 2 P.M. till midnight for the special benefit of the liquor trade, while all other trades are prohibited. All the speeches were made in the German language and met with enthusiastic applause. (Click here to return)
13. IL Note: To the shame of American Christians, they have allowed the same to occur here in the United States, since the time Dr. Schaff wrote this treatise. (Click here to return)
14. IL Note: Dr. Schaff may seem to be overreaching here, but he is right. Roman Catholics did not start emigrating to the United States in any significant number until the mid-19^th Century. (Click here to return)
15. IL Note: Note Dr. Schaff's reasoning, here. It is very reasonable and fair. The same applies to any group of Christians, who are forced to condemn a public school system as a godless enemy of Christianity. (Click here to return)
16. IL Note: It is very important to recognize that, in the purpose of education to prepare "citizens for useful citizenship," in order to secure for the future, as much as possible, "good government and the happiness of mankind," "knowledge" was regarded by our Founders as only one of three necessary components. The other two necessary components of education were Religion and Morality. Note also that "training in the performance of manual tasks" was not (and has never been) considered a legitimate aspect of a real education. Education addresses the mind and character of the human. Manual training does not. You can train a monkey, after all; but you can't educate him. We at Intrepid Lutherans have addressed the topic of Education several times. A good place to start is to read the "Nurturing the Fine Arts in the Church" section in our recent post, Confessional Lutheran Evangelism: Confessing Scripture's Message about Advent & Christmas, and follow the links from that post to our other posts on Education. (Click here to return)
17. E, E. White, LL.D., Superintendent of Public Schools in Cincinnati, in his paper read before the National Educational Association in Topeka, Kansas, July 15, 1886, says (p. 10): "The great majority of American schools are religious without being sectarian; and it is high time that this fact were more universally recognized. It is doubtless true that the most impressive forms of presenting religious sanctions to the mind and heart of the young are prayer, silent or spoken, and the reverent reading of the Bible, especially those portions that present human duty in its relations to the Divine Will — forms still permitted and widely used in four fifths of the American schools." (Click here to return)
18. IL Note: Today, of course, the majority of Christians of all stripes, having been effectively schooled on the the subject by the United States Supreme Court in its 1962 and 1963 decisions prohibiting prayer and all activities which "advance or inhibit religion" or "result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion" (with the term "excessive entanglement" now taken to mean "any connection with"), are active advocates for the removal of wholesome Bible reading from the school. Dr. Schaff is correct: it is vain to think that would satisfy anyone, especially those among the "infidels and anarchists ...zealous in spreading the seed of atheism and irreligion" who so boldly attack Christianity in all of its forms. They didn't stop at prayer, they took the Bible, and not satisfied with that, they now wage open war against Christianity while openly embracing and advocating nearly all other forms of "alternative religion," including atheism. American Christians have lost contact with their Christian conscience, either through lack of education and catechesis, or through sufficient bullying from the institutions of government and the liberal church. (Click here to return)
19. IL Note: Notice that Dr. Schaff's defense for wholesome Bible reading in the public schools has nothing whatsoever to do with "nurturing the faith of the reader," but, properly within the sphere of public education, is a Natural Law defense focusing on the aims of education itself: cultivating the intellect and moral character of the individual. (Click here to return)
20. IL Note: When I was a high-school student in a small school district in northwest Wisconsin, not only were teachers prohibited from assigning homework on Wednesdays (the day most commonly set aside by the churches for catechism and mid-week worship), but absences on Wednesdays for day-time catechism and religious instruction were automatically approved. Of course, these activities did not occur in the school building, but this was the next best thing that a largely Christian community could do considering the anti-Christian edicts of the United States Supreme Court. (Click here to return)
21. IL Note: Theoretically, yes, "the state is undoubtedly competent to give instruction..." In actuality, especially following Dewey's Progressivistic "Education Revolution" in the early 20^th Century, which has now been co-opted by post-Modern Epistemological Learning Theories, like Social and Radical Constructivism, we cannot share Dr. Schaff's confidence in the state to provide competent education. As mentioned in footnote 16, please see the "Nurturing the Fine Arts in the Church" section in our recent post, Confessional Lutheran Evangelism: Confessing Scripture's Message about Advent & Christmas, and follow the links from that post to our other posts on Education, for more information. (Click here to return)
22. IL Note: O how many Christian parents have abdicated their involvement in public affairs, especially that of the local school board, to the "infidels and anarchists ...zealous in spreading the seed of atheism and irreligion!" And how American Education and Society has suffered! We are now staring the veritable collapse of Western Civilization square in the eye. And no one would care even if they were equipped to recognize it!. (Click here to return)
23. IL Note: And, hence, the necessity of education to address the character of the individual, which necessarily forces education to come into positive contact with religion. The two cannot be separated. (Click here to return)
24. IL Note: And here, in pointing to the positive civic and social impact of a robust Christian influence in American Society, Dr. Schaff echoes Dr. Walther, who in his First Lecture on Communism and Socialism stated:
    "If, then, there is to be any help for the world, the people must become Christians, as said above. There is no other way. There are, however, many thousands of people who are called Christians, but who are not such... We must admit, that it is even so, that there are many scoundrels among those who bear the Christian name, who are not worthy of the name. But when we speak of Christians we do not mean those who simply have the name, but those who do not only believe in the Bible, but who, in their life, manifest and carry out the principles contained in the Bible. These alone are Christians, and if all were such Christians, we would have heaven on earth, and the cross, which we must expect, would be easy to bear."
    And who also warned in his Fourth Lecture on Communism and Socialism:
    "To this must be added, that where the true Christian religion takes possession of the human heart, there it changes the relation between man and man and actually improves it. It is then that the relation between the rich and poor, between rulers and subjects, between employers and employees, and between the lofty and the low, is really improved. That true faith produces these fruits when it takes possession of the heart, we learned in the last lecture. For when great necessity came upon the Christian congregation at Jerusalem, when the sword hung, as it were, by a hair over the Christian’s head, the Christians had all things common, neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, and all only provided that none might be in want. And such will be men’s relation to each other, where persons have become true Christians, who do not carry their faith at their tongue’s end, but in whose hearts faith dwells."
    The Church, active in Society, had made Western Civilization what it once was. The Church, retreating from active life in Society, has reduced Western Civilization to the convulsing wretch it has become. It is, as it always has been, the Church which must now rebuild the West for the sake of future generations, for the sake of Civilization itself, by once again asserting itself in the society in which God has placed it and maintaining: (a) the Sanctity of Marriage, (b) the protection of Christian Practice in public life, and, (c) because "religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind," the advocacy of a genuine education -- which cultivates the intellect and character of the individual -- for all people (not mere training in manual tasks for the masses), recognizing the necessary connection of this endeavor to the singularly civilizing character of the Christian religion. Indeed, "an education which ignores the greatest characters and events of human history and the most sacred interests in human life must breed religious indifference, infidelity, and immorality;" we know this is true because this is the point at which we have now arrived in America. Therefore, "it is in the interest of the educational institutions of the several States, and indispensable to their well-being, that they should maintain a friendly relation to the churches and the Christian religion, which is the best educator and civilizer of any people." This is where the church in America ought to assert herself. (Click here to return)

Church and Continuity Conference Review: The Beauty of the Western Rite – by Rev. Michael Berg

The third presentation on Saturday was given by Rev. Michael Berg: “The Beauty of the Western Rite, Part 1.” More than a simple explanation of the parts of the historic Divine Service, the first section of Rev. Berg’s paper explores the sacramental nature of Lutheran worship and how various worship forms are a response to the fundamental question, “Who is present?” in worship. Like Rev. Boehringer, Rev. Berg also emphasizes the bound will of man, the theology of the cross and Christian vocation, and suggests that an evangelical and catholic Lutheranism that remains true to its theology holds out exactly what a postmodern world needs.

In "The Beauty of the Western Rite, Part 2," Rev. Berg tells a short story called, "Any Given Sunday," in which he illustrates in a very down-to-earth way how the Divine Service confronts real-life sinners in the midst of their troubles, struggles, joys and sorrows and brings the Word of God to them right where they need it.  This section also includes an explanation of the benefits of offering Holy Communion every Sunday.


Conference of Intrepid Lutherans: Church and Continuity ~ June 1-2, 2012
Bethlehem Lutheran Church ~ Oshkosh, WI
The Beauty of the Western Rite, Part 1
The Beauty of the Western Rite, Part 2
by Rev. Michael Berg.

Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 3: Johann Sebastian Bach

Our Third and final installment¹ of Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, features a famous Christmas piece by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Before introducing that piece, however, it may be interesting to review a little about Bach and his artform. As we summarized last April in the post, Music for Holy Week, Part 1 – excerpts from Matthäus Passion,

Bach perhaps needs little introduction: he was and remains the master of counterpoint and represents the pinnacle of Baroque musical achievement. In addition to his many secular works, as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig he composed a full series of Cantatas to accompany the Lutheran liturgy for each week of the Church Calendar, along with many other Sacred works as he was commissioned... It is worth noting, however, than in addition to his status as a composer, Johann Sebastian Bach was also fiercely orthodox in his Lutheranism. Being active as a composer during the rise of German Pietism² and attempting to ward it off through the Sacred works he was often commissioned to compose, his professional library was proliferate with personally annotated works of Lutheran theology – he had the library of a theologian, and he used it as reference material in the composition of his works.

Bach's genius as a composer was not entirely his own. He is known to have studied the Masters of the previous generation and incorporated their genius into his own art: men like Michael Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Schein, and especially Heinrich Schütz – who was the subject of Part Two of this Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas series. Indeed, Bach's relationship to Schütz is almost serendipitous. Recall from Part Two the concern Schütz had in the second third of his life over the decline in compositional integrity he had been witnessing, for "

the advent of the chordal style dispensing with linear but rich polyphonic textures made it possible for technically less accomplished composers to shine with concertante figured-bass music. According to Schütz, there were hardly any younger composers in Germany willing to deal with the more profound aspects of composition. So their tonal idiom was bound to become increasingly shallow and banal.

As a result, he published his Geistliche Chormusik (Sacred Choral Music) in 1648, dedicating it to the choir of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, to "encourage budding German composers, before they would try their hand at the concertante style ...to first demonstrate their skill in this area."

It seems to be unknown whether Bach took the recommendation of Schütz to heart, or whether those responsible for calling Bach to be Cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig were seeking to diligently live up to the encouragement Schütz obviously meant for them, or whether his Geistliche Chormusik had any such impact by that time at all. But it is, at least, an interesting coincidence. Other interesting coincidences include Bach's place in time: Heinrich Schütz died as Pia Desideria (published 1675) was percolating in the mind of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705); Bach was born as plans for the Pietist learning center, University of Halle were being drawn; while Bach served in Leipzig, the last of the Lutheran theologians from the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy," and vigorous opponent of Pietism, Valentin Ernst Löscher (1673 - 1749), served as Superintendant and as pastor at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden (practically a stones-throw from the Royal Court, and a place known to benefit from regular collaboration with Schütz); and both Bach and Löscher, being in such proximity, battled with fierce dedication against Pietism in their respective vocations. Löscher and Bach died at the opening of the Enlightenment, in 1749 and 1750, respectively – with no one, really, to take their place.

Art following the Enlightenment ceases to speak of objective subjects
The opening of the Enlightenment, around 1750, marks the end of the Baroque Period, and the beginning of the Classical Period. This period lasts roughly until the period in which German Romantic philosophy began to have cultural significance, around the turn of the 19^th Century; this is about the time that Romanticism began to displace Classical expressions of the Enlightenment. But what is it about Baroque music that sets it apart? What really were the "the more profound aspects of composition" referred to by Heinrich Schütz (above)? Why does there appear to be a rigid structure and order in the Baroque period, to the point where J.G. Walther (a cousin of Bach) would define such music as "a heavenly philosophical and specifically mathematical science?"³ From the time of Plato and re-emphasized by Martin Luther, music was viewed as a direct reflection of and "evidence of divine order,"⁴ in the world and in the Universe. Johannes Kepler wrote "Now one will no longer be surprised that man has formed this most excellent order of notes or steps into the musical system or scale, since one can see that in this matter he acts as nothing but the Ape of God, the Creator, playing, as it were, a drama about the Order of celestial motions."⁵

As a result of such a lofty view of music and composition, Baroque composers infused their music with numerical code and allegory, attaching meaning to specific numbers and ratios, and in this way, the learned composer attempted "to replicate in earthly music the celestial harmony with which God had joined and imbued the Universe."⁶ Therefore, as Luther put it, music is the "faithful servant of theology" and ought to deliver "sermons in sound."⁷

Contrary to those of later era's, like the Classical and Romantic, the Baroque composer saw

"himself as an artisan: not an artist 'expressing' a personal idea or feeling – a conception the Baroque composer would have found entirely strange – but as a professional with an assigned task and learnable, teachable methods of doing it. Combined with the Baroque infatuation with encoded allegory, this concept of music as an oratorial craft inspired a vast compositional vocabulary of passages, rhythms, key changes, and other devices that could telegraph in music the meaning of a text, the language of which came to be known as musical-rhetorical figures."⁸

Thus we see the force of Natural Law⁹, observations of Divine Order and understanding of their significance, informing the expression of Baroque "artisans."

"The rich acoustic medium of the medieval stone church had encouraged composers' experiments writing note against note (punctus contra punctum) and eventually of braiding related vocal lines through one another to form increasingly rich weaves of melody. The most rigorous of part-writing, such as cannon and fugue, came to be known collectively as learned counterpoint."¹⁰

"For Bach and his musical ancestors ...composing and performing music was ...a deeply spiritual enterprise whose sole purpose, as his works were inscribed, was for the glory of God. [And to His glory], Bach represented Church music and especially the learned counter-point of cannon and fugue"¹¹

Yet, as the Age of Lutheran Orthodoxy came to a close, as the strong Lutheran voice in culture began to wane, as fidelity to God's Word in thought, word and deed gave way to new ways of thinking, and as man in his natural state of rebellion thereby sought freedom from God and the Church, clinging to the only other tools available with which to make sense of the world, empiricism and reason, the necessity and reality of Divine grace also gave way to "confidence in human perfectibility."¹² Oddly, the result in artistic expression was that instead of outward or objective subjects, the work of the composer became significantly more subjective, especially by the time of the Romantic Era, standing as much as self-projection as anything else:

"the expression of feeling in music was all, and the affectation that mattered was not a text or other object for depiction but the feeling state of the performer and composer... the new 'enlightened' composer wrote for one reason and one only: to please the audience."¹³

In this way, the subject of musical compositions following the Enlightenment became the composer, became his thoughts and his feelings as he struggled to give voice to them through his art, while the performer strove to abscond with that subject by embodying and personifying the composition in his own performance of it, thus making himself the subject of the art.

By the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Enlightenment composers had thoroughly

"denigrated counterpoint as the vestige of an outworn aesthetic, extolling instead the 'natural and delightful' in music, by which they meant the easier pleasure of song, the harmonious ornamentation of a single line of melody... For Frederick, the goal of music was simply to be 'agreeable,' an entertainment and a diversion, easy work for the performer and audience alike. He despised music that, as he put it, 'smells of the Church,' and Bach's chorales specifically as 'dumb stuff.'"¹⁴

Bach's Evening in the "Palace of Reason"
Later in life, Bach was given the opportunity to respond to the Enlightenment, in one of his most outstanding works. As one who represented the modern philosophies of his day, Frederick the Great of Prussia grasped an opportunity to summon the elderly Johann Sebastian Bach to his palace in 1747, for the purpose of presenting "history's greatest master of counterpoint the most taxing possible challenge to his art,"¹⁵ for what seems to have been simply a joke out of contempt for the "old" style of music which Bach so ably represented – that of the "learned counterpoint" of cannon and fugue which had been used for centuries to mirror the celestial harmony of heaven and nature. Frederick proceeded to play for Bach a melody of twenty-one notes which had been "constructed to be as resistant to counterpoint as possible"¹⁶ and then challenged the elderly composer to improvise a three-part fugue using the theme he had played. Bach, who had mastered the art of his craft and who understood the mechanics as well as the power of music to communicate, was able then and there to improvise "a three-part fugue on Frederick's Royal Theme [which] had all the intellectual rigor of a finished work."¹⁷ Not impressed, Frederick demanded that Bach start over, this time composing a fugue in six parts – something which Bach had never done. Bach agreed, but added that he would need time to work out the composition. Two months later, Bach had finished his six-part fugue – but not only this, for Bach had something to say to the monarch who had not simply challenged him, but who had rejected God and the music of the Church. In that time he had composed two fugues, the first being the three-part fugue requested by Frederick, the second being the six part fugue he had also requested, along with ten cannons (each representing the Ten Commandments) and a sonata, bundling them in a single work he titled, Musikalisches Opfer (Musical Offering). The two fugues he named Ricercar, a term he had never used as a title for a fugue. The term is at once a Latin acronymn representing the words Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Cononica Arte Resoluta (At the king's command, the song and the remainder resolved with cannonic art), and is also a Latin word meaning, "to search out with diligence."¹⁸ Bach wove his message to Frederick throughout his composition, using musical-rhetorical tools such as rising and sinking keys. For example, inscriptions were written to the king in the cannons, telling him in one cannon to "Seek and ye shall find" (referring to God's mercy), and indicating the fate of Enlightenment thinking in another cannon which was inscribed to represent the king's glory: though the notes would rise, it never seemed to have left its original key or to go anywhere. One could say that this "Musical Offering to Frederick represents as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and worldview as an absolute monarch has ever received,"¹⁹ and at the same time "it is one of the great works of art in the history of music."²⁰ And this is but a small taste of what was going on in art of the Baroque Period. Not just vague sentiment the artist attempted to evoke in the heart of his viewer or hearer, but a specific message using a system long developed according to observation of God's General Revelation.

Bach: Weinachts Oratorium
For this final installment of Christmas Music, we present Bach's Weinachts Oratorium. It's six parts were intended for the context of worship on three generally observed Church holidays immediately following Christmas Day: Parts 1 and 2 for the Feast of Christ's Circumcision (celebrated on January 1), Parts 3 and 4 for the Sunday following the New Year, and Parts 5 and 6 for the Feast of Epiphany. There are multiple recurring themes in Bach's Christmas Oratorio – one of which is a Lutheran lenten theme the reader may recognize from Bach's use of it in his Matthäus Passion. What does he do with this theme throughout the Oratorio? As you listen, what else do you hear?


Johann Sebastion Bach: Weinachts Oratorium
The standard recording of this piece in our household, should the reader be interested,
has become that of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, under Martin Flämig

This full recording of Bach's Weinachts Oratorium is broken into two videos, which play consecutively. It is about 2.5hrs in length.



------------
Endnotes:

1. I had planned additional installments, but illness has prevented me from getting to them – so I publish this post, even though it is no longer Christmas, but the first day of Epiphany. In fact, credit for most of the content of this post belongs to my wife, who, as an accomplished vocalist and skilled artist, knows these details better than I do. Since her interest and growing area of expertise is cultural apologetics, I asked her to help me out, giving her a few guidelines from which she produced most of the above...
   
2. Radical German Pietism, its causes and impact on orthodox Lutheranism, was briefly described in the following post on Intrepid Lutherans: Law and Gospel: What do they teach? -- Part 3.2, What Happened to the Events of the Gospel? (The Church Responds to the Enlightenment: Pietism)
   
3. Gaines, James. (2005). Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. New York: Fourth Estate. pg. 116.
   
4. Ibid., pg. 49.
   
5. Ibid., pp. 49-50.
   
6. Ibid., pg. 47.
   
7. Ibid., pg. 81. Note also, that numbers not only had significance in music, they had significance in Lutheran theology at the time and even today, particularly in the interpretation of prophetic books of the Bible: the numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10 & 12 have long been recognized as significant – Dr. Siegbert Becker's (WELS) work on Revelation, Revelation: The Distant Triumph Song, and Rev. Wayne Mueller's (WELS) follow-up commentary on Revelation for the People's Bible Commentary series, are evidence of this significance. Rev. Jack Cascione (LCMS) published a work studying the use of number in prophetical books of the Bible, entitled In Search of the Biblical Order, and the publisher of this book, Biblion Publishing, used his research in their typesetting of of the Book of Revelation that appeared in the Lutheran translation of the New Testament, God's Word to the Nations (1988), to visually, and very effectively, impress upon the reader how number was being used in the text.
   
8. Ibid., pg. 81. See also this Wikipeadia article on "'musical-rhetorical' figures," a.k.a. Musica Poetica
   
9. Intrepid Lutherans featured a piece which included a brief explanation of General Revelation or Natural Law. For more information, read Law and Gospel: What do they teach? -- Part 2, The Teaching of the Law
   
10. Gaines, James. (2005). Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. New York: Fourth Estate. pg. 50.
    
11. Ibid., pp. 7-8.
    
12. Ibid., pg. 8.
    
13. Ibid., pp. 117,220.
    
14. Ibid., pp. 7,8.
    
15. Ibid., pg. 11.
    
16. Ibid., pg. 9.
    
17. Ibid., pg. 226.
    
18. Taken from the liner notes of the album, Bach: Die Kunst der Fugue & Musikalisches Opfer
    
19. Gaines, James. (2005). Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. New York: Fourth Estate. pg. 12.
    
20. Ibid.
    

Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 2: Heinrich Schütz ... and other thoughts to ponder over the New Year Holiday...

Art is a conversation
Competent art is hard to come by these days. True, there are many who have been trained in the techniques of their particular artform, or who have practiced on their own, and have developed an impressive skill. But the execution of technical skill alone is not art. The most that such accomplishes is to showcase the skill of a work's creator, while reducing the measure of art’s usefulness to the act of gratifying consumers. True art has little to do with either the artist or his immediate consumers, but centers on a subject which is external to both. More than just centering on a subject matter, compelling art succeeds at drawing the viewer, reader or hearer of it into a conversation regarding the subject. And this is no small task for the artist! In a single work, he must initiate a conversation and say everything he intends in a way that holds his end of the conversation throughout the inquiries and developing thoughts of those who may engage in it. If the artist is to avoid babbling, this requires that he have such a thorough familiarity with his subject that he can anticipate questions or objections associated with his expression of it, and respond to them while also reinforcing areas of agreement. Sometimes, the subject is simple and the conversation is short. Other times the conversation is longer. Sometimes, the artist points toward or draws conclusions. Other times, he only questions. Sometimes he is speaking for himself. Other times, he represents the voice of others. Regardless of the type of conversation, enduring art is that to which its viewers, readers or hearers return again and again, to admire how the conversation is carried out by the artist, or even to renew it again for themselves. Thus, in addition to technical skill, true, compelling and enduring art requires an abundance of creativity.

In the case of Christian art, the creation of a compelling and enduring work is truly an amazing accomplishment. The subject matter of Christian art itself is generally despised by the World; and ambiguity, which is inherent to art and very often its most appreciated aspect, is at the same time a great enemy of Christian subject matter – fidelity to which requires clarity and closure. Thus, Christian art that remains beloved and acclaimed by all, over centuries and across cultures, which succeeds at engaging its viewers, hearers or readers in unambiguous conversation regarding the reality of Christ and the impact of His Gospel, represents skill and creativity towering over that which produces ambiguous works of profane subject matter for which people already have natural affinity. Why? Because it is an easy task to produce works of art having the World’s approval by appealing to fleshly desires and worldly sensibilities, relative to the task of producing generally acclaimed works which militate against what naturally appeals to man and which serves to lift up the offense of the Cross instead.

Creativity is refined through study and emulation of the Masters
One would think that such Christian artists have been endowed by God with a superabundance of creativity. And this is undoubtedly so. But is this as far as any explanation extends? No, it isn’t. For, excepting the rare savant, such artists also acquired training and education: training, that they might develop the technical skill required for their vocation; and education to cultivate the intellect and equip them with the Tools of Learning¹, and prepare them for a lifetime of inquiry, study, thought and expression. But what of creativity? It is no accident that, in the West, we see an explosion of enduring creative expression in the realms of art and science beginning with the Renaissance². It was this period of Western history which called for “a return to the sources” – ad fontes!, as we often hear in our own circles today, was the principle of Renaissance Humanism itself – and this call applied to all areas of inquiry. As a result, Renaissance era students and scholars found themselves “returning to the sources,” and in so doing, learning directly from the greatest and most creative minds that the West had produced; and to this greatness they added their own portion of creativity by using the “tools of learning” with which they had been equipped.

Christian artistic expression during the Renaissance, and its impact on the Baroque
Throughout the Renaissance, patronage of the arts was supplied mostly by powerful Italian families. In the abundance of extant art that they commissioned, it is often very clear that the inspiration behind it (and in many cases, even the subject matter) was derived directly from the pagan works of ancient Greece and Rome – such were “the sources” which one would consult. These sources were the novelty of the period, of course, since inspiration was also to be found and built upon in the works of previous “little Renaissance’s,” like that of Charlemagne (Carolingian Renaissance) or the Renaissance of the 12^th Century which was essentially book-ended by the careers of St. Anselm and Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, non-Christian influences were not always negative. Of great positive influence on Western Art, for example, were the ideas of the ancient Ionians and of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, whose pre-Socratic philosophies dictated “Everything is Number” (or “integer”) and elevated wholeness and perfection in unity (or the number “1”), which, having constituent harmonies of integer ratios, served as the basis for the development of our Western system of music (a perfect octave comprised of twelve discrete whole- and semi-tones, perfect ratios of which create harmonic chords) and thus also the design of musical instruments, and also led to the study of perspective, proportion and combinations of color in visual art – “Mighty are numbers,” said the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, “joined with art, resistless.”

As these Italian families used the Church in their power struggles against one another, and even began to occupy the papacy, the Church became a patron of the arts as well. Ruinously so, in fact. As a result of the opulent artistic tastes and ceaseless spending of Pope Leo X, of the prominent Medici family, the Roman Church faced insolvency, resulting in corruption of various forms in attempt to replenish its treasury: sale of bishoprics, for instance, and most famously, the sale of indulgences. The infamous peddler of indulgences, Johann Tetzel, who raised the ire of Dr. Martin Luther and prompted him to post his 95 Thesis in 1517, worked under the direction of Leo X. While slowing Rome’s investment in artistic expression, the onset of the Reformation hardly ended it. In fact, the arts were vigorously employed by both the Roman Catholics and the Reformers, who, each seeking to be justified in their religious positions in the eyes of the other and looking ever more intently into Scripture and/or the teachings of the Church for inspiration, employed the arts as a means of engaging the discussion, with one another and with the masses, of unity under pure doctrine. And this is especially the case as the Catholic Counter Reformation began to exert pressure on the movement begun by the Reformers. The pressure of theological warfare, the vastly overriding value of ultimate truth, and the urgency of keeping that truth pure in the face of its enemies, propelled Renaissance and Baroque Christian artists to the heights of creative expression such as the world had never seen before, and rarely since. By the close of the 16^th Century, the cemetaries of lower mid- and southern Europe were strewn with monuments to the masters such pressures, learning, and sources of inspiration produced – the Church’s own uniquely Christian masters, from whom successive generations of Christians could learn without having to draw their inspiration directly from pagan sources. This had radical influence on the Christian Baroque period of the 17^th Century.

Heinrich Schütz: The greatest German composer before Bach
Enter Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672). Born in 1585, he was raised the gifted son of a prominent Hessian businessman. He became a talented student of law, but so strong was his giftedness for music that in 1609, the Landgrave of Hesse, insisting that he study music instead, procured for him a scholarship to study under the Renaissance Master of antiphonal and polychoral composition, Giovanni Gabrieli, at the St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. At that time, St. Mark’s enjoyed a quasi-independence from Rome – while residing within its precincts, it was not a church of the Western Rite, but of the Alexandrian Rite (or Coptic rite). As a result, many of Europe’s most gifted students and composers flocked to Venice to study; yet, so remarkable was Heinrich Schütz’s performance as a student, that Master Gabrieli was compelled to assure the Landgrave that “In Schütz you will have a musician such as one will not find in many other places”³. Indeed, upon his death in 1612, Gabrieli willed his signet ring to Schütz. Thus the influence of Gabrieli was brought to Germany and upper Europe. Schütz was appointed Kapellmeister at the Royal Court in Dresden in 1615, and from there through the remainder of his career, he masterfully wedded the highest musical art of the Renaissance with the German language , the purest manifestation of which, for him, was Martin Luther's translation of the the Bible. Thus, it is impossible to substantively confront the compositions of Heinrich Schütz without also being confronted by the message of the Holy Scriptures.

Heinrich Schütz died in 1672. Having lived for 87 years, he was active composing from 1611 through the rest of his life. Of his compositions, over 500 remain extant, and they distinctly represent the nature of the changing times and the needs of Christians throughout his career. Interestingly, the first third of his life was enjoyed in the lucrative and relatively peaceful times following the Reformation, as Luther’s program of universal education began to have the civic benefit he was certain would result, and we see this in lavish and massive compositions like the Psalmen Davids (Book 1, 1619), and the rather avant-garde Cantiones Sacrae (1625). Composed for the context of worship, these pieces appeal to the pocketbook, and the intellectual predispositions, of the wealthy and well-educated. Yet his Auferstehungshistorie (1623) of this same period (which was featured on Intrepid Lutherans on Easter 2011) was clearly a piece that would be edifying for all.

On the other hand, the second third of Heinrich Schütz’s life was scarred by the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War⁴, and in works of this period we see an ever increasing focus on Scripture texts preaching assurance in the promises of Christ in the face of what seems to be never-ending death and destruction, while his compositions simultaneously grow simpler and more modest over time to accommodate the increasing lack of highly skilled vocalists and instrumentalists, culminating in 1648 with a collection of music containing what are considered his greatest works: Geistliche Chormusik. Written for the context of worship, as all of these pieces were, also of prime consideration to Schütz in the composition of this collection was the significant decline in skill – no doubt wrought by the War – demonstrated by the younger composers of that time. He wrote Geistliche Chormusik to teach them the finer points of contrapuntal composition (counterpoint) and to encourage them to study the masterly techniques of previous generations and carry such expertise along with them in their own musical creativity:

Geistliche Chormusik (Sacred Choral Music) was published in Dresden in 1648... It is dedicated to the Leipzig City Council and St. Thomas’ choir. The original title provides a clue to the performing practice which Schütz had in mind. It reads in full:


“Sacred Choral Music for 5, 6 and 7 vocal or instrumental parts composed by Heinrich Schütz... and provided with a figured bass not out of necessity, but for reasons of expediency.”

Schütz was clearly concerned about the decline of polyphonic writing which the widespread adoption of the figured bass had brought in its wake, notable in Germany. The advent of the chordal style dispensing with linear but rich polyphonic textures made it possible for technically less accomplished composers to shine with concertante figured-bass music. According to Schütz, there were hardly any younger composers in Germany willing to deal with the more profound aspects of composition. So their tonal idiom was bound to become increasingly shallow and banal, for there was


“no doubt among the well-trained musicians that only those who are sufficiently versed in the basso continuo style are capable of coping successfully with an exacting contrapuntal style in other types of composition.”

As Schütz made abundantly clear, his aim was to


“encourage budding German composers, before they would try their hand at the concertante style, to crack this tough nut (the right ‘kernel’ and foundation for good contrapuntal writing) and first demonstrate their skill in this area.”

We can see here that Schütz was by no means looking backwards in artistic terms. He was not opposed to the new basso continuo style as a matter of principle, but merely insisted that it should be employed only by composers who made the most exacting demands on themselves and who were unwilling to jettison the masterly compositional techniques of the past, seeking instead to combine it in creative fashion with their own new insights and thus keep it alive.⁵

Not only had the number and quality of musicians declined, so had the musical integrity of the compositions. Increasingly, new composers were unwilling to study the Masters and add to their accomplishments their own pittance of creativity, but seemed to prefer jettisoning those accomplishments for something of their own novel creation, something comparatively shallow and banal.

The final third of Schütz’s life saw the challenges of reconstruction after the War. Not only infrastructure, but commerce and community needed to be rebuilt everywhere. Most significantly, the Church in Germany had been thrashed in many places from Protestant to Catholic, as various territories exchanged hands during the War, or suffered manic reversal of religious sentiment as a result of political pressures and deal making. In many places the churches had been physically razed to the ground, and in many more had grown severely dilapidated from the ravages of war, misuse and neglect. The laity was utterly demoralized. He had by this time buried his wife and all of his children. Schütz continued to compose, although as he grew older his compositions seemed to grow more spartan, as if his intentions lay more with serving the Court by serving the needs of the laity. Thus, it is from this period of his that we receive his Passions (many of which were featured in the Music for Holy Week 2011 series on Intrepid Lutherans), and it is from this period of his life that our current selection comes: Weinachtshistorie (or the History of the Birth of Christ), composed in 1664. The recording below is a performance given by the very excellent MonteverdiChor. Available on YouTube in five parts, each part is automatically played in succession below:



Heinrich Schütz, Weinachtshistorie
performed by the MonteverdiChor
One recording of this piece we've enjoyed this Christmas Season can be found here

What kind of learning cultivates the intellect, nurtures creativity and passes along a society’s culture to successive generations?
Over the centuries, the form of learning described above, which equips a person with the “tools of learning” and prepares him for a lifetime of learning and creative expression, had been termed within educational circles as “The Great Tradition;” and right away during the period of the Renaissance, it became the means of passing along Western culture to each successive generation, to which each generation added their own accomplishments and by which Western Society advanced. It was this form of education that was systematized by Melanchthon (along with the important contributions of Bugenhagen, Trotzendorf, and especially Sturm) at the request of Luther, advocated by him among the German princes and eventually adopted as the form of education provided to both boys and girls, not only in Germany, and eventually not only across the continent and in England, but was adopted early in America as our Founding Fathers realized the need for a universal education in our own country⁶. When the German Lutherans came to America in the mid-19^th Century, it was Luther’s form of education that they adopted as a pedagogical framework for Lutheran Education in America⁷, and which equipped generations of Lutheran theologians, pastors, businessmen, artisans, and homemakers.

The Great Tradition of education, terminated by John Dewey and utopian industrialists
An intellectually capable and creative citizenry militating against the utopian ideals of late 19^th Century Western industrialists⁸, they determined that what they required was a labor pool which was merely trained to perform tasks well, and intellectually suited only to follow the orders of their superiors. So they plotted together, planning over time the overthrow of the “The Great Tradition” as the form of universal education in our Nation, because it equipped individuals with the tools of learning and prepared them for a life of creative independence as free men. Reserving this form of education only for the elite (for those who would lead others in business and government), industrialists of the late 19^th Century desired that the “The Great Tradition” be replaced with something more pragmatic, more well-suited to the needs of industry, to prepare the masses in the arts of efficient labor rather than the arts of free men – to replace education with training. To this end they enlisted the assistance of the radical pedagogue, John Dewey (Dewey's connection to Rockefeller and other industrialists is well-documented...), and with him taking the lead, their educational coup d'état was accomplished early in the 20^th Century. It is referred to as the “Educational Revolution” of John Dewey⁹, who, responding to the calls of the industrialists (who also financed him), systematized and aggressively advocated his educational philosophy of Progressivism – a pragmatic pedagogy focusing only on what is useful in immediately tangible terms, eliminating “idea” from the content of education as superfluous to the need for “doing”¹⁰. By the 1950’s, succumbing to the pressure of Naturalistic and Progressivistic pedagogics being pushed in secular academia, “The Great Tradition” had also disappeared from the LCMS¹¹, and by the 1970’s, had disappeared from WELS ministerial education schools as well¹². Dewey’s Progressivism served the pragmatic needs of the industrialist quite well, up until the 1980’s when America ceased to be a nation that produced tangible goods. A new learning theory was required which would serve the West as it exited the “production” era, and entered the “service” era: post-Modern Social Constructivism, which scoffed at shallow task oriented education as much as it scoffed at an education in which students imbibed the enduring ideas and accomplishments of the past as a foundation on which to build the future. On the contrary, according to Social Constructivism (a post-Modern "epistemological learning theory"), truth and value are discerned through common experience with one’s immediate social collective¹³. Hence, contemporary education strives to provide learners with ever broadening “experience” (which is really nothing more than “interface with phenomena in a social context”) that works to liberate them from the constraints of “underdeveloped schemata” (i.e., “shared narrative”). Emerging from twelve years of dependence upon one's social collective, individuals are (supposedly) fully equipped as socially relevant persons able to tap the collective knowledge and creativity of his milieu. Today “The Great Tradition” is conflated with Dewey's “Progressive Education,” both being referred to together, without distinction, as “Traditional Education,” and is referenced by post-Modern educators in conjunction with a scornful laugh, or even a dramatic spit upon the ground. Only, post-Modern Social Constructivism is no educational panacea, either. Even if the social nature of Social Constructivism advantageously positioned America for dominance in the Services Industry, today that industry has been shipped overseas, along with the production of tangible goods. Today, America’s single most lucrative export isn’t the production of tangible goods, nor is it services, nor is it science and research, nor is it even art: it’s Entertainment – movies, games, pop-music and all of the associated gadgetry that exploit mankind’s weakness for self-indulgence and sloth. Thus, America’s public educational institutions, and the private institutions which have followed them, are left destitute of genuine education when our Nation and our Christian Confession seem to need it most.

Bringing back “The Great Tradition”: A plea to consider Classical Lutheran Education
Those of us who see that in a free society the artes liberalis are to be valued by free men far above the artes servilis, and those of us Christians who are convinced that in order to effectively learn and hold on to pure doctrine and to express it eloquently and persuasively to one another and to the World there is no better educational model than the Trivium, and who therefore wish to see the return of “The Great Tradition,” work toward this objective referring to it by another name: Classical Education.¹⁴ To be sure, there are those in the secular world who yet value this form of education: St. John’s College and Nova Classical Academy are two such examples. Among Lutherans, Classical Education is making a comeback as well: the Evangelical Lutheran Synod had attempted to promote Classical Education among Lutherans with their Lutheran Schools of America initiative, and the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education has made significant progress in advocating and effecting a return to Classical Education in the LCMS. To the shame of confessional Lutherans everywhere, however, credit for the return of Classical Education to American Christianity really belongs to the Reformed, who, influenced by the leadership of groups like the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, have about a two decade head-start on Lutherans in bringing Classical Education back to Christianity. Christian Home Educators are well-known for having adopted this model of education in great numbers early on. In fact, many of the underground Home Educators of the 1970’s were Roman Catholics who wanted their children brought up with Latin and the Classics, but found that both had swiftly disappeared after Vatican II mandated that the Mass be conducted in the vernacular. Yet it remained essentially Evangelical Reformed sources which, apparently being far more attuned to and suspicious of educational movements in secular academia, developed educational resources and supplied encouragement and assistance to Classical Home Educators. The trend proceeded a little more slowly among Christian day schools, but these days the number of Christian schools adopting Classical Education is nearly proliferate – even in the small northwest Wisconsin village of 1500 people where I live, a sound K-12 Classical Education can be had just a few miles down the road, near the Christian Reformed and OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church) congregations (although the school is run by Christian parents in the surrounding area, not the congregations). Even the subtitle of Veith & Kerns’ well-known work on the subject, Classical Education, was changed by their publisher in its recent second edition, from “Towards the Revival of American Schooling” to “The Movement Sweeping America” – and this is true, largely due to the efforts of the Reformed and of Home Educators.

What shall be the lot of us Lutherans? Right now, the real brain-trust in Lutheran Education seems to be congregating among the scholars, pastors and laity of the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education. I know for a fact that over the years they have made several overtures to the WELS, officially contacting our ministerial education college (Martin Luther College), and Wisconsin Lutheran College (which is independent of the WELS political structure but is still 'affiliated' with WELS), and others within WELS leadership; yet, as reported in their 2009 business meeting following their Ninth Annual Conference, their overtures have been met with utter silence. It was reported, with no small amount of frustration, that there has been no return communication. In 2010, after another year of attempting to stir some interest among WELS leadership, WELS was mentioned at the business meeting with a resounding “humph,” and written off. I know for a fact, that all they want is an audience with receptive listeners, to whom they can make their case for Classical Education – perhaps a struggling high-school or elementary school having little left to lose by giving Classical Education a try. Many confessional Lutheran schools have made the switch under similar circumstances, with surprising results – both in terms of student appreciation, academic achievement, teacher satisfaction and enrollment growth. Is there any interest in sound Classical Lutheran Education in WELS?

Something to Ponder in the New Year,

Mr. Douglas Lindee

P.S.: Don't forget to read the footnotes!

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Endnotes:

1. Sayers, Dorothy. (1947). The Lost Tools of Learning. (First delivered at Oxford in 1947, by Dorothy L. Sayers, this little essay stands at the foundation of today’s strong movement to return to Classical Christian Education. The “Tools of Learning,” which had been lost by the time of Miss Sayers’ essay in 1947, are the Trivium and Quadrivium. The Trivium is the structure of all learning: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric – every area of study having its own knowledge structure (Grammar), its own process of deciphering meaning (Dialectic), and means of expressing it (Rhetoric). And the Grammar of Learning itself is the medium in which human thought is expressed: Language. That the Grammar of Learning is learned through study of either Latin or Classical Greek is due precisely to the facts that both (a) are complete grammars, and (b) are dead, or unspoken, languages and therefore must be learned through deductive epistemological processes. The Quadrivium is the four Classical areas of study to which the tools of learning are applied: Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, Astronomy. The Grammar of the Quadrivium is Arithmetic. Simply described, Arithmetic is the study of numbers, Music is the study of numbers in time, Geometry is the study of numbers in space, and Astronomy is the study of numbers in space and time¹⁵.)
   
   
2. Kopff, E. Christian. (2008). Greek to Us: The Death of Classical Education and Its Consequences. (An address delivered by Dr. Kopff at the H.L. Mencken Club’s Annual Meeting; November 21-23, 2008)
   
   
3. Quoted from the liner notes of Heinrich Schütz: Cantiones Sacrae (Manfred Cordes, Rogers Covey-Crump; Weser-Resiassance)
   
   
4. Lindee, Douglas. (2011). Law and Gospel: What do they teach? – Part 3.2, What Happened to the Events of the Gospel? (The Church Responds to the Enlightenment: Pietism). This essay includes a section summarizing the impact of the Thirty Years’ War on Lutheranism.
   
   See also: Thirty Years’ War
   
   
5. Quoted from the liner notes of Heinrich Schütz: Geistliche Chormusik (Rudolf Mauersberger; Dresdner Kreuzchor)
   
   
6. Kopff, E. Christian. (2011). How Classical Christian Education Created the Modern World. Classical Lutheran Education Journal, 5(1). pp 12-17.
   
   
7. Korcok, Thomas. (2011). Lutheran Education: From Wittenberg to the Future. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House. pp. 163-236.
   
   
8. Hein, Steven. (2011). A Politically Incorrect Review of American Progressive Education: What was it intended to be and do? Classical Lutheran Education Journal, 5(1). pp 1-12.
   
   see also this work by former New York State & New York City Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto:
   
   Gatto, John. (2006). The Underground History of American Education: an Intimate Investigation into the Prison of Modern Schooling. Oxford, NY: Oxford Village Press.
   
   
9. Nock, Albert. (1931). The Theory of Education in the United States. (From the 1931 Page-Barbour Lectures at the University of Virginia.)
   
   
10. Kern, Andrew. (2009). Classical Education: Theory & Praxis. The Plenary Lecture delivered at the Ninth Conference of the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education in 2009.
    
    
11. Hein, Steven. (2009). Classical Lutheran Education: What is it and Why is it Good?. Lecture delivered at the Ninth Conference of the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education in 2009. He did also state that the precise reasons for this disappearance remain uninvestigated.
    
    
12. Lange, Lyle. (2006). A publicly offered comment by Professor Lyle Lange (Martin Luther College) in response to a direct question asked by Rev. Dr. Edward Bryant (ELS) during Q&A following his lecture, Truth and Uncertainty: Assumptions, Message and Method in American Education at the last Confessional Christian Worldview Seminar in 2006, who asked whether Classical Education was being promoted or discussed in the WELS ministerial education program (and I quote from memory): “I’ve been at DMLC since the 1970’s, and in that time I don’t ever recall this being discussed as a part of our curriculum, much less emphasized or promoted”.
    
    
13. Lindee, Douglas. (2011). Post-Modernism, Pop-culture, Transcendence, and the Church Militant. Summarized from paragraph 7.
    
    I will add the following, however, in this footnote: The post-Modern epistemological learning theory, Social Constructivism, has several tangible and observable consequences on the roles of “teacher and student,” the goals of education and the manner of assessment. For example, since according to Social Constructivism, “teacher and students” are merely co-learners, there is no “master/learner” relationship between the two. Rather, their relationship is principally a social arrangement in which the elder learner becomes a sort of social peer to the younger learners, rather than the outmoded professional separation between teacher/student or adult/child (especially at the high school level). Thus, the “teacher” disappears from Social Constructivist educational settings. Having more experience as a learner, therefore, the “elder learner” instead becomes the “learning facilitator” or “mentor” of the collective (or “cadre” as they are being called now). This has the deliberate effect of diminishing authority structure, resulting in a “shared authority” across co-learners. This “shared authority” collaboratively determines not only the rules of social order, but most significantly, the “meaning” to be found in the object of the cadre's collective interface with new phenomena. That is, in a Social Constructivist learning environment, “meaning” is generally not something predetermined and lectured upon by a “teacher,” but is precisely what is "negotiated" among the co-learners in a given cadre through various social experiences contrived by the learning facilitator for this purpose – like group projects, group investigation, group discussion, open ended questioning and other mechanisms of arriving at group consensus through "negotiated meaning." In addition to disappearing “teachers,” the “classroom” also disappears from Social Constructivist education settings, instead becoming a “learning laboratory” in which co-learners experience phenomena and negotiate its meaning together, and in this way construct their collective knowledge schemata (or “shared narrative”) – all of which requires considerably more space (two-thirds again the space, approximately... at least that was the rule of thumb back in the 1990’s – even then we knew that Social Constructivism would result in sharply higher property taxes and educational costs, though none of the research showed any kind of improvement in academic achievement). From here, assessment devolves considerably. Rather than individual assessment where there is “right or wrong” answers – a procedure which is “deeply disrespectful of the students’ point of view” – assessment is preferably administered to the group all at once for the purpose of determining whether the negotiated conclusion of the collective is consistent with its own schemata, and if not, whether their schemata has been altered to accommodate it; if it is administered individually, the purpose is to test whether the learner was a genuine participant with the collective by determining if his answers are consistent with those of his cadre and the schemata of the collective. That is to say, and this is emphasized among post-Modern Social Constructivists, individual learners are not expected to be owners of their own knowledge. Instead, the collective owns knowledge and determines meaning. Of course, this sort of assessment doesn't very often get to the point of praxis these days, as “No Child Left Behind” mandates require that “students” measurably achieve at certain quantifiable academic standards – in other words, the Federal Government says that public school students have to answer right or wrong. This is why most post-Modern educators in America agree that government should get out of education...
    
    
14. The following web resources are eminently useful introductory resources for understanding this term:
    
    
    From the CiRCE Institute:
    
    • About Classical Education
    • Definitions of Classical Education
    • Principles of Classical Education
    • What to Teach in Classical Education: The Basics
    • How to Teach Classically
    
    From the Consortium for Classical and Lutheran Education:
    
    • Luther on Classical Lutheran Education
    • Marks of a Lutheran and Classical Schoo
    
    From Memoria Press:
    
    • Classical Christian Education 101: Required Readings
    
    
15. Veith, Gene. (2010). The mathematical part of classical education.