Welcome Back
On behalf of the adminstration, faculty and staff of Forest Lake Christian School I wanted to extend a warm welcome to our brand new families and thank our returning families for their enduring commitment to Christian education. From our perspective it has become increasingly important to embrace the value of a distinctly Christian education. By distinctly Christian I refer to an education that is committed to teaching all truth from a world view that is based upon the Bible, the inerrant Word of God.
In his incredible work “A Christian Manifesto” Francis Schaeffer warned us that the problem with Christians in our culture is that they see the world in bits and pieces instead of total. “They have become very gradually disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion. But they have not seen this as a totality, each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much larger problem. They have failed to see that all of this has come about due to a shift in world view, that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole. This shift has been away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different, toward a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal force. They have not seen that this world view has taken the place of the one that had previously dominated Northern European culture, including the United States.
These two world views stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also in their natural results, including sociological and governmental results, and specifically including law.
It is not that these two worldviews are different only in how they understand the nature of reality and existence. They also inevitably produce totally different results. The operative word here is inevitably. It is not just that they happen to bring forth different results, but it is absolutely inevitable that they will bring forth different results.”
For most of our families, this is why you have chosen Forest Lake Christian School as your partner in education. You know that what Schaeffer is saying is true, it is about the results. Each world view is full of value specific to itself, but only one is true. I will end with one last thought from Schaeffer, “When I say Christianity is true I mean it is true to total reality, the total of what is, beginning with the central reality, the objective existence of the personl, infinite God. Christianity is not just a series of truths but Truth, Truth of all reality. And holding to that truth…and in some poor way…living upon that Truth brings forth those inevitable results. ” Let us covet to pray for one another this year and strive to hold forth the Word of Truth.
