Ellen White on religious education and our future

In early 1903, Ellen G. White (1827-1915), a prolific American Christian author and counselor, published her first book on education. The subject appeared before Mrs. White’s eyes long before it aroused interest in our society. For example, in 1862, Mrs. White and her husband, James White, were interested in organizing formal education. As a result, his denomination established a school in Battle Creek, Michigan, initially to train church workers.

In recent decades, a cultural phenomenon called postmodernism gained momentum after World War II, when society underwent a rapid process of destabilization of the family, school, churches, and other Western traditions. Postmodern ideas threaten the very possibility of education. For postmodern thinkers, the truth isn’t even a slippery salmon: it doesn’t exist. However, the search for meaning is an inalienable human right. The belief in meaning and the freedom to seek it are the principles of a healthy society.

Mrs. White believes that when science and the spiritual are combined in the studies in our schools, we provide the opportunity for young people to become men of deep thinking. That is why the educational system fails to educate students. They are not even able to think clearly. Entire generations are growing up addicted to laziness, homework is undone, and everything is fine! In reality, despite great effort over the past 20 years, academic achievement among students continues to lag behind. The truth is that the public school system does not provide an adequate environment for learning. However, today’s public school system tolerates new ideas only on a small scale and does so largely to reduce pressures for broader change.

It is time to ask some questions: what kind of education can rescue man from nihilism and allow him to achieve authenticity? And how will we try to achieve this ideal?

Therefore, the attention in education must be to keep away from the schools the doctrines that are conjectures of men without commitment to true freedom. Christian authors and scientists give us the opportunity to believe in freedom and that freedom gives us the opportunity to change. Unquestionably, the way to get education back on track is to provide young people with a broad-based education in which they have the opportunity to study science, arts, and skills in the context of a biblical worldview.