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Why Remember The Past?

Historians with increasing and distressing frequency are openly admitting that history has no meaning and shows little or no purpose or goals.

Why Study History? What Kind Of Home School History Curriculum Should We Use...

We love christian audio and teaching history through story. But why do we study history in the first place?  And what’s the best way to go about it?  Is there a perfect home school history curriculum? Well, to begin with, most folks rarely have a good answer for the first question with respect to the "why".  And, when pressed, they are likely to say, “So we can learn from the past.”  “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” they add quickly with a smile, thinking they’ve nailed it.  

Of course, a lot of kids in this country don’t study history at all.  Instead, they attend classes called social studies, an orchestrated, highly secularized “stream of consciousness” that contains abstract “bits and pieces” of history, almost always out of sequence and always agenda driven. Proof? You’ll never find social studies taught today with an ultimate frame of reference that reflects God as creator. Never.

Alright, what’s this “ultimate frame of reference” concept as it pertains to history then?  Well, for starters, all “professional” historians have an ultimate frame of reference, despite what they may say.  They have a starting point. And when these secular historians speak of the reasons for studying history they usually tell us that history helps us understand peoples and societies, that it provides material for moral contemplation, that it helps a people develop a sense of identity, or that it even makes for stories that are simply entertaining. But here’s the dirty little secret:  All of these reasons or assumptions require some sort of overarching framework to be at all meaningful. That said, most historians today deny meaning for history.

But if history has no meaning, no purpose, what possible significance is there to succession laws of the French, the rites of the Aztec human sacrifices, or the funerary practices of the Egyptians?  If there is no moral law that applies to all peoples in all times, how in the world would anyone judge between imperialist and colonist, Marxist and Capitalist, or slaveholder and slave?  If there are no transcendent values, can we even call history an important story? “A good story”?  Or any kind of story, for that matter? 

How Do We Study History?  Whats a Good Home School History Curriculum Look Like?

A failure to answer the first question is always going to leaves you with little hope of answering the second:  How do we go about studying history?  The rejection of any true meaning for history necessarily leaves the secular historian with nothing but intellectual and moral relativism.  He has no grounds or guidelines for inquiring into history or any reason to think the inquiry has any value whatsoever. 

And so these guys usually overrule source documents and then lecture with what the source documents should have said.  They read their own political agendas into situations that exited centuries in the past and in cultures for which they have context.  They generally ignore and deride any empirical evidence that threatens their ruling paradigm.  And, of course, they ignore the work of Christian scholars without hesitation.  They write off the Bible as a source of history and chronology simply because it is the Bible.

The Foundations of Christian Scholarship - Can Christian Audio Help?

Christian scholarship, on the other hand, rests on the solid rock of Scripture.  A biblical approach to history begins by presupposing all that Scripture says.  It can’t be developed out of one or two doctrines or three or four verses.  It is ingenuous if not downright dishonest for us to pronounce history “His Story,” and then go on to sequencing facts and narratives without further theological consideration. 

It’s also important for the Christian historian to understand that what Scripture says about history is but one dimension of God’s total self-revelation in Scripture.  So, we may say something like, “God controls history,” but in the end, that too it is a meaningless statement until we confess clearly who this God is, what exactly it is that He controls, how and to what decree He effects that control. It would also be important to study the bible to determine His mediate and ultimate intentions for history actually are. 

If we are to have a biblical understanding of history, then, we’re going to have to speak of… and presuppose at all points… the doctrines of the self-contained, ontological Trinity.  (might be a little hard to work this into your home school history curriculum right away, right?)

A good home school history curriculum will also remind the child of the infallibility of scripture.

Of God’s eternal decrees and all encompassing providence; of special creation in six days and of man’s creation in God’s image.

 Of God’s plan for man’s dominion; of man’s ethical fall in Adam and the judicial and moral consequences that followed.

 Of God’s gracious covenant with His people and the promise of the gospel that lies at its heart.

 Of the verbal inspiration and infallibility of Scripture and of its sufficiency; of the Incarnation (the hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures in one Person).

 Of Christ’s substitutionary death for sinners and His literal, bodily resurrection and ascension to heaven; of His current reign in fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

 Of the central role of the Church in history; of the restraining (“common”) grace whereby God advances His program of dominion even through the unconverted.

 And of the literal, physical Second Coming of Jesus Christ at the end of history to raise the dead and judge the world. 

In other words, if we are to understand and teach history, we must have a good understanding of all the great truths that appear in Scriptural, many of which are summarized in the creeds and confessions of the Bible-believing Church.  (remember “creed” just means what you believe. And everybody believes something about God and Scripture. Everybody.) So “doctrine” becomes a pretty important tool when studying history.

The Bible as History  - The Bible As The Single Best Home School Curriculum

The Bible is the only reliable account we have of the first four thousand years of Earth’s history.  In fact, it is virtually the only account we have at all for the first two thousand years or so of that history.  The Bible tells us about man’s creation, his fall into sin, his first civilizations, and the great Flood and the waters God used to destroyed and renew the Earth.  The Bible tells us the origin of marriage, writing, worship and sacrifice, division of labor, agriculture, animal husbandry, metallurgy, music, urbanization, capital punishment, and linguistic diversity. (all the themes that should be reflected in a good christian audio adventure)

Christian Audio Adventures For Home School History Curriculum

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