Editor’s note: David Cooper is the Head of School at FRCS. This post is quite a bit longer than our normal entry, but it is well worth the read. So, grab a cup coffee, find a comfortable place to sit, and enjoy!
Truth Omitted: The Stakes of Christian Education
Truth omitted or left unpresented allows lies to persist and take root in the hearts and heads of the hearers.
There are few responsibilities more consequential than the education of a child. Every day, parents and teachers participate in the formation of young minds and hearts. We do not merely teach students what to know; we help shape how they understand the world, what they believe to be true, what they love, and ultimately, what kind of people they will become.
This is why the distinction between public/public charter education and Christian education matters so profoundly.
The difference is not simply a matter of curriculum, religious activities, or whether a Bible class appears on the schedule. At its deepest level, the difference concerns the starting point from which we understand truth itself. Christian education begins with the conviction that there is a God who has made the world, that He has revealed Himself in Scripture, and that all truth ultimately belongs to Him. As the apostle Paul reminds us, “For from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36).
If that is true—and Christians believe that it is—then there is no intellectually neutral way to educate a child.
Every educational system operates from a set of assumptions about reality. Every curriculum makes choices about what is worthy of attention, what is true, what is good, what is beautiful, and what can be reasonably left unsaid. The question, therefore, is not whether a child will encounter a worldview in school. The question is which worldview will provide the framework through which that child learns to interpret the world?
This brings us back to the warning that truth omitted or left unpresented allows lies to persist and take root.
A lie does not always announce itself as a lie. More often, it gains influence through omission. A student does not have to be explicitly told that God is irrelevant for God to become functionally irrelevant. A student does not have to be told that human beings are merely biological organisms for a materialistic understanding of humanity to become the assumed framework. A student does not have to be instructed that morality is subjective for the repeated separation of moral reasoning from transcendent truth to make that conclusion seem natural.
Sometimes what is missing from the conversation can be as formative as what is included.
Christian education seeks to address this problem not by shielding students from competing ideas, but by ensuring that those ideas are encountered within a coherent understanding of truth. We want our students to know what others believe, to understand competing arguments, and to engage the world thoughtfully and charitably. But we also want them to possess the intellectual and spiritual foundation necessary to evaluate those ideas.
Scripture commands us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Notice that Paul does not tell Christians to avoid thought. He calls us to think deeply and faithfully—to bring every idea under the lordship of Christ.
This is one of the great strengths of a Christian liberal arts education. We do not believe that faith and intellect are enemies. We believe that faith illumines intellect and that disciplined intellectual inquiry can deepen our appreciation for the truthfulness and beauty of God’s created order.
At Front Range Christian School, we want students to enter the Great Conversation. We want them to encounter literature, history, mathematics, science, philosophy, art, and the ideas that have shaped civilizations. But we do not want them to encounter these things as disconnected fragments of information. We want them to see the unity of knowledge because all truth ultimately finds its coherence in the God who made and sustains all things.
This is where Christian education differs fundamentally from an education that must remain religiously neutral. A public school may rightly serve families from many different religious and philosophical traditions, and Christian families should be grateful for the many dedicated teachers and administrators who serve students faithfully within that system. Yet the constraints of public education necessarily limit the ability to present explicitly Christian claims as foundational truths across the curriculum.
Christian education has the freedom—and, I would argue, the responsibility—to say what cannot always be said elsewhere: God is real. Christ is Lord. Scripture is true. Creation is purposeful. Human beings possess dignity because they bear the image of God. Moral truth is not merely a matter of preference. Knowledge has a moral dimension. And education is ultimately about more than preparing students for employment; it is about preparing them to live faithfully in God’s world.
That does not mean that every lesson in a Christian school becomes a sermon. Nor does it mean that Christians possess every answer or that our students should never wrestle with difficult questions. Quite the opposite. A genuinely Christian education should cultivate curiosity, courage, humility, and intellectual honesty.
We should welcome questions.
We should examine evidence.
We should read opposing arguments.
We should acknowledge complexity.
And we should never fear the truth.
For if God is the author of truth, then truth has nothing to fear from honest investigation.
The danger comes when students are given fragments of knowledge without the framework necessary to understand them. They may learn what happened without asking what it means. They may learn how something works without asking why it matters. They may become increasingly sophisticated in their ability to process information while remaining increasingly uncertain about what is worthy of belief, love, and pursuit.
That is why Christian education must concern itself with formation as much as information.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Truth is not merely an academic possession. Truth liberates. It orders the mind, steadies the soul, and provides a foundation upon which a person can build a life.
And because truth matters, what we omit matters.
When the existence of God is omitted, students may come to believe that the universe is ultimately without purpose.
When the biblical account of human dignity is omitted, students may struggle to articulate why every human life possesses inherent worth.
When the Christian understanding of virtue is omitted, students may be left with the idea that education is primarily about achievement rather than character.
When the historical influence of Christianity is omitted or distorted, students lose an important part of the story of Western civilization.
And when the claims of Christ are treated as merely private opinions rather than matters worthy of serious intellectual consideration, students may never discover that Christianity offers not merely a set of personal beliefs but a comprehensive account of reality.
This is why Christian parents should think carefully about education.
Education is discipleship, whether we call it that or not. Someone is teaching our children what to believe about the world. Someone is helping them determine what constitutes knowledge, goodness, beauty, justice, success, and human flourishing.
The question is whether that formation will be intentional and rooted in truth.
At Front Range Christian School, our aspiration is not simply to produce students who can succeed academically. We want to cultivate Christian scholars—young men and women capable of cogent thought and articulate speech, students whose intellectual rigor is mediated by love and whose faith is strengthened rather than threatened by serious engagement with ideas.
We want our graduates to leave us prepared not only to answer questions, but to ask better ones. Not merely to defend what they believe, but to understand why they believe it. Not simply to recognize falsehood, but to love truth.
Because truth matters.
What we teach matters.
What we leave unspoken matters.
And ultimately, who sits at the center of our educational vision matters most of all.
Christian education places Christ at the center—not as an addition to an otherwise secular education, but as the One in whom all things hold together. From that center, mathematics can reveal order, science can inspire wonder, history can cultivate wisdom, literature can illuminate the human condition, and philosophy can teach us to reason carefully about the deepest questions of existence.
Our task is therefore both humbling and hopeful. We are entrusted with young people whose minds and hearts are still being formed. We have the opportunity to place before them the truth in all its richness and to teach them not merely to know it, but to love it.
For when truth is faithfully presented, lies lose their soil.
And when truth is rooted deeply in the heart and mind, a young person is better prepared to stand faithfully, think clearly, speak courageously, and live wisely in a world that desperately needs all four.
