Jason Albertson

In his book, Art + Faith , Makoto Fujimura describes the Garden of Eden as a “discovery zone” God prepared for Adam and Eve. God filled the garden with every kind of tree (Gen. 2:8-9). He brought to the garden all the beasts and birds (Gen. 2:19-20). God introduced the materials of the earth to humans, and then He expected them to make something of those materials by naming and cultivating them (Gen. 2:15; 2:19). And we get hints in Gen. 2 of fabulous and exotic materials God placed beneath the soil for Adam and Eve and their children to eventually explore, excavate, discover, refine and employ (Gen. 2:11-12). Fujimura wonders, “are we to assume that they would have begun the work of building the city of God in some way, to use the materials, even if the Fall had not occurred?” Consider God’s actions in Eden as an analogy for education. God… Introduces unfamiliar material and Provides opportunities for creative, meaningful work (naming, cultivating) that results in Growth in knowledge ...

I think most of us are used to thinking of Christian worldview in education as something that affects class content. For example, if I’m teaching a high school science class, I might take time to talk about what creation reveals about God, and I might think of that as Christian worldview integration.  Those content-level connections often end up feeling—and being —squashed in where they aren’t actually helpful. When that happens, it cheapens the way we and our students think about the truth, because it’s a misuse of the truth. That kind of mis-integration can lead us to think of a Christian worldview as a habit of tipping our cap toward God at the end of every conversation. If we only ever portray God’s perspective as an obligatory afterthought, I would argue that that’s actually a subversion of a Christian worldview. There’s a deeper level of Christian worldview integration available, and I think it’s actually a more helpful level. What if we could apply Christian teaching not jus...

In his recent book, The Life We’re Looking For , Andy Crouch describes the way marketers talk about new tech products: Now you can … Now you don’t have to … Crouch argues that there are two more ways we need to look at new tech to get a good read on whether it’s worth using: Now you can’t … Now you have to … I like to think of these four statements as related like this in a grid of possibilities: Can we? Must we? Yes 1. Now you can ... 4. Now you have to ... No 3. Now you can't ... 2. Now you don't have to ... Consider the interstate highway system. Because it exists,  Now we can travel or transport goods a lot more quickly and cheaply over greater distances. Now we don’t have to develop towns and cities that permit non-automobile traffic. But now you can’t access a lot of places without an automobile; and Now we have to design cities and towns to accommodate auto traffic and parking, usually at the expense of ...

College classes are video games in most of the ways that matter.  The developer controls the challenges and rewards for the user. Unlike the student's social or spiritual life, everything that happens in their academic life is within a constructed environment. Architect: you, within the boundaries set by accrediting agencies and the institution you work for. Engagement is voluntary.  You might try a computer game because your friend said it was good, but you probably won’t stick around for your friend’s sake. Similarly, some students may come to college classes because influential people in their lives said they should, but that isn’t what will make them stay. Both distort the passage of time to accelerate skill acquisition.  Video games often do this by making skill acquisition take a lot less time than it would in real life.  College does this by forcing students to read, write, remember and practice more in a semester than they typically would in a year (or five)....

The pastor told me, "Some of the people I trust most have discouraged me from taking graduate classes. They say, 'What's the point of education? Aren't you supposed to depend on the Holy Spirit for help with preaching the Word?'" They're not wrong--education can be dangerous. Pride is one of the primary dangers in the pursuit of knowledge. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that knowledge puffs up, while love builds up (1 Cor. 8:1). "Puffing up" yields a deceptive appearance of growth, while "building up" is authentic growth. The Corinthians were taking pride in their knowledge that idols are just powerless material, and while Paul agrees (1 Cor. 8:4-6), he also puts their strutting knowledge in perspective (1 Cor. 8:2): they don't know anything yet like they ought to, because they are using their knowledge to sin against others (1 Cor. 8:7, 12). If education did always leads to pride, then we would have to avoid education. But I d...