The God who created all is also the one true God who loves books and words. As the author behind all human authors, God inspired His Holy Word for His people. Historically, in the West, Christians have been known as “a people of the book.” There are many reasons Christians have a great deal to lose if literacy declines. We have much to gain, if the love of reading is recovered in our day.
A few weeks ago, Veritas Christian Academy started a new tradition. It was a school-wide door decoration competition. Illiteracy (not being able to read) is not as common in America as it once was, but aliteracy (able to read, but not reading) is epidemic, including in schools.
While many schools use textbooks, as we do, not so many schools exalt the place of reading primary sources as we also do at Veritas. In other words, books are everywhere at Veritas. Most of our staff are avid readers and we teach and constantly encourage reading. It is difficult to walk far at Veritas without seeing books. The truth is that our bookish ways are counter-cultural.
At Veritas, we seek to cultivate the natural way God created us to learn. By God’s design, we humans live in a world filled with wonder. Creation evokes wonder. Words are wonderful, books are wonderful, the worlds that books make real to us are also wonderful. We miss much and schools fail mightily when students are merely taught about the Great Books rather than taught from the Great Books. Classical Christian education has always stressed and continues to properly emphasize teaching Sacred Scripture, the early Church Fathers, the Classics of the Greeks and Romans, the masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the paragons of the Renaissance and all of those that follow up to the modern world.
Education at Veritas is full of wonder. God’s world is wonderful, His human beings bearing His amazing image are wonderful, the civilizations we image bearers make are wonderful and the workings of our imaginations can also be filled with wonder designed for our enjoyment. Join us in this spirit of wonder as your look at the doors our students enjoyed making.
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