You Made a GREAT Choice

As this new school year moves forward, I want to simply say, “Thank you.” Your decision to enroll your children at Calvary Chapel High School is one that is to be commended at the very highest extent possible. Your decision truly demands that you put your money where your mouth is! Not only is a family investment in the education of their children a significant one—it is a very expensive one.  Such a decision in a society that provides a free government education to its children has to be one arrived at after very much prayer and seeking the Lord because for most, it demands significant economic commitment and sacrifice.
We live in a culture that less and less embraces spiritual formation as being significant, let alone crucial. We are experiencing an increased level of attack on any sort of orthodox belief in God and on any pursuit of spiritual formation that recognizes the authority of God—and these attacks often renounce the very existence of God. In America one of the great distortions of recent times has been the common perspective regarding “the separation of church and state,” and this distortion has very disturbingly resulted in the attempted and generally successful removal of any religious discussion in the government school classroom.
The attack on the very existence of God, and in particular on God as the creator, has found a rich battleground in the ongoing and testy science-and-religion debate.  On November 21, 2006, the New York Times reported on a conference that had taken place that month on science and religion at the Salk institute for Biological studies in La Jolla, California. In that article, titled “A free-for-All on science and religion,” George Johnson noted the following:
Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the space science institute in Boulder, Colo., called, half in jest, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson whose powerful celebration of scientific discovery had the force and cadence of a good sermon, as its first minister (“Dr. Tyson is non-religious and has argued that the intelligent design movement, of the kind that credits complex, yet-to-be-understood phenomena in nature to a higher intelligence, thwarts the advance of scientific knowledge”). She was not entirely kidding. “We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. Porco said. “Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome—and even comforting—than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.” she displayed a picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn and its glowing rings eclipsing the sun, revealing in the shadow a barely noticeable speck called earth.
A little later in the same article, Johnson reported on the comments of Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason:
“Every religion is making claims about the way the world is,” he said. “These are claims about the divine origin of certain books, about the virgin birth of certain people, about the survival of the human personality after death. These claims purport to be about reality.” By shying away from questioning people’s deeply felt beliefs, even the skeptics, Mr. Harris said, are providing safe harbor for ideas that are at best mistaken and at worst dangerous. “I don’t know how many more engineers and architects need to fly planes into our buildings before we realize that this is not merely a matter of lack of education or economic despair.”
Sadly, these attacks against Christian faith and practice are being widely read and accepted as truth by many. We should be extremely disturbed that a Christian worldview is not simply described as stupid but emphatically defined as dangerous—with references to terrorism in order to embellish the point. Calvary Chapel Schools, your school, is working diligently to support you in the intellectual development and spiritual formation of our children, preparing them not merely to survive but to engage effectively in a culture that seeks to convert to fantasy all things Christian. Instead of perpetuating fear, Calvary Chapel High School is encouraging Godly lives through Jesus Christ. These lives reach out and serve, truly enhancing our culture and our world.  So be heartened. Your choice of Christian schooling will be blessed—you have chosen well.