April 7, 2008
Protestant parents want to educate their children in terms of a Roman Catholic curriculum, i.e., one based on the medieval trivium. This is called a classical Christian curriculum.
A classical Christian curriculum is inherently and necessarily Roman Catholic. If you doubt this, read Laura M. Berquist's book, published by the hardest core American Roman Catholic publisher, Ignatius: Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Education. It is Greek to the core, as are all of the Protestant knock-offs.
How is this possible? Because most Protestant home school parents were educated in tax-funded schools. A few were educated using halfway-house fundamentalist curriculum materials, which were all influenced by the right-wing Enlightenment, as were the Constitution's Framers. The Framers turned to the Roman republic for guidance and inspiration. They worried that it became the Roman empire. They feared that the new nation might recapitulate Rome's path to empire. They had that right!
A classical curriculum begins with Greece and moves politically to the Roman republic. Culturally speaking, it moves to the Roman Empire, e.g., the Aeneid: Rome's sequel to the Iliad. Classical Greece rested on five fundamental principles:
1. War as the foundation of the state. The foundational cultural document was Homer's Iliad. This led to empire: Athens vs. Sparta. Greece fought itself to death.2. The legitimacy of homosexuality for men, especially middle-age men and teenage boys. That was what the gymnasium was all about: collecting teenage boys in one place for middle-age men to recruit.
3. Occultism/polytheism. Read the works of Jane Ellen Harrison, which are still in print. Begin here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Ellen_Harrison Socratic rationalism was the only alternative: man's mind as authoritative. This was pure humanism. This was Socrates' challenge to the state. He was executed.
4. Salvation as political: "No salvation outside the city-state." This was why Socrates drank the hemlock.
5. Slavery. At least one-third of Athens' population were slaves.
On these pillars rest the classical Christian curriculum. It is what academically oriented, humanist-educated Christian parents demand for their children. They will not tolerate anything else.
They believe that truth is Greek logic and culture, plus Bible verses. I have dealt with this issue before: //www.garynorth.com/public/3155.cfm
These parents say, "But we don't teach our children any of that." They just teach the thought, art, and humanist outlook that arose out of that civiilzation, as absorbed by classical Rome and baptized by early church apologists.
"You don't understand," they insist. "Classical thought was neutral." Right. Neutral.
Read Charles Norris Cochrane's book, Christianity and Classical Culture. Read Rushdoony's book, The One and the Many, chapters 4 and 5.
I plan to write an alternative. I will call it the anti-classical Christian curriculum. I have reserved the domain name: www.anticlassical.com.
It will take thousands of hours to write it. It will be structured in terms of the Bible's 5-point covenant model:
1. Sovereignty (creation: Genesis)
2. Covenant (Exodus: the book of the covenant)
3. Law (biblical, not Greek: Leviticus)
4. Sanctions (Numbers: the book of sanctions)
5. Inheritance: (Deuteronomy, the book of inheritance)
There will be no market. Parents will hate it. It's biblical. They will cry: "Give us Barabbus!"
There appear to be no Chritian day school or home school teachers out there who understand what I am proposing. Anyway, none has contacted me so far.
My course on American history will show that all of the nation's history is marked by broken covenants by the state: always with the Indians, and then with the voters. It will hinge on my most controversial book, which is hated by the Baptists, hated by the secularists, and hated by the Classical Christian curriculum crowd: www.GaryNorth.com/philadelphia.pdf.
Meanwhile, I can find no high school teachers to help me. High school teachers are not revolutionary and suicidal career-wise, which this curriculum will be.
Here are the basics that must be re-thought. This has not been done at any level, let alone high school. //www.garynorth.com/public/department104.cfm
I write 4-5 economics books per year, plus I write at least 1,248 articles a year for this web site (this one is a bonus essay), plus answer questions on forums, plus create new websites. I write for LewRockwell.com: over 700 articles so far.
I have economic commentaries to write, plus rewrite all of my 22 existing commentaries to cross-reference them, plus write a 3-volume Christian economics, a one-volume version, and a short one. Plus, I have to do audio files on every chapter: well over 600.
I have plenty on my plate.
The curriculum is a crap-shoot and will almost certainly fail. So, I am in no hurry.
I will probably attempt the curriculum. I think it will take me 10 years: one full course per year is optimistic: U.S. history, Constitution, Western Civilization, four literature courses, economics (2 years), business, copy writing. Also needed: biology, geology, business math (time value of money, money value of time).
The curriculum needs 4 tracks in the junior and senior years: business, social sciences/humanities, math/science, and fine arts.
This project is no picnic. I am open to suggestions as to how this curriculum can be written faster. Any volunteers?
I hope my health holds.
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