Evangelism In Christian Education:
A Holistic Curriculum As A Modern Evangelistic Tool
Although Catholic schools as we know them today did not come into existence until the about a century after the birth of Christianity, Christian education can be traced back to Biblical times. In fact, Christian education actually predates the establishment of the early church, as a Christian schools without walls existed everywhere Jesus went throughout the New Testament. Jesus can easily be seen as the first Christian school instructor and his disciples and the crowds to whom he ministered his students. In addition to his twelve disciples, most of the people with whom Jesus came into contact referred to him as a teacher, and the scripture refers to his work in different towns throughout the land of his ministry as teaching. Further evidence of Jesus' early work in Christian education can be seen in his location and manner of teaching. He corrected existing teachings and instructors' interpretations and methods through his teaching of law and his rebuking of the Pharisees. Just as important teachers of the contemporary era frequent universities to offer lectures and answer questions, the Bible often records Jesus lecturing and interpreting from the steps of the synagogue, arguing with other learned scholars of his time.
If an institution is primarily concerned with wining souls and hearts to Catholicism instead of furthering academic knowledge, many parents and education specialists may question the school's ability to develop students academically, especially with regards to critical thinking skills. Since their conception, the primary purpose of Catholic schools has been evangelism. In addition to performing the tasks of evangelism as stated in the traditional definition, this approach also allows new-wave evangelism, which not only presents sacred teachings in an attempt to win souls to heaven, but also makes an attempt to convince all people of the freedom of involvement in the Catholic church. While this statement is a command to evangelize, it is also a command to teach. By employing the holistic method of Catholic education, however, most Catholic schools respond to the call to answer "very basic questions about the Church in such a way that the characterization of what the Church is," offering free participation in an entwined secular and sacred climate to all (Bright 1985, 163). Of course, even the holistic education method of evangelism in the Catholic schools is a rather controversial subject. Besides dealing with the opposition with empirical studies, Catholic school educators and administrators can solve the problems created by evangelism as the center of Catholic education. A curriculum synthesizing faith and learning, or making faith relevant to current cultural and academic topic is one way in which many Catholic schools satisfy this requirement. In religious jargon, therefore, the Catholic church, and by extension the Catholic school and Catholic educators, is called to evangelism. Charged with sacred teaching, or the saving of souls, the church soon undertook secular learning in order to emphasize and continue that evangelism. In addition to these sacred subjects, it has become the tradition of sacred, or Catholic schools, to include secular matters in their instruction (Knight 2008). Gallagher suggests that many experience "unbelief as a cultural byproduct" (1996, 21). Because the post-modern culture has produced many whose attitude toward religion is rather agnostic, this method of instruction is the also the best method of evangelizing to these students. Perhaps this is the result of fundamentalist Christian evangelicals who do not evangelize with love.
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