St. Brendan's Podcast

Have you ever wondered what was going through our heads as we ramped up to the start of our Classical Christian school? What could have dared us to take the risk? 

Maybe you find yourself in the same boat that we were, praying and planning to start your own school, weighing the risks and discussing the costs. Or, maybe you're just in need of some encouragement in this monumental task that we call education.

Either way, this episode was made for you.

Join us as Eric Conn interviews the Dan Berkholder, Brian Sauvé, and Kevin Love, the Founders of St. Brendan's Classical Christian Academy.

The long-awaited episode airs at last!

P.S. Did we miss you at the 2024 NCP Conference? Feeling a little FOMO? Don't worry–we have you covered. Simply follow this link over to our St. Brendan's Patreon channel for the link to all the conference talks. We want you to be equipped to build Christian boroughs in your place with your people. 

Can a Christian education thrive without aiming at our ultimate Christian purpose?

Or, as a practical consideration that pushes the antithesis more concretely, is it possible for a non-Christian to provide their child with a complete Christian education? Here, as everywhere, definitions matter.

As we apply the Parable of the Two Sons to our own day, we find that for Christian education to reach full-flower, it must grow out of the soil of families that are eating, breathing, sleeping, living, working, and educating to the glory of God.

No ulterior motive will suffice. No alternative could take its place.

This means we've landed on our final principle for this first season. And in reality, no discussion about Christian education would be complete without it.

Principle #7: Christian education must maintain a Christian purpose.

P.S. Did we miss you at the 2024 NCP Conference? Feeling a little FOMO? Don't worry–we have you covered. Simply follow this link over to our St. Brendan's Patreon channel for the link to all the conference talks. We want you to be equipped to build Christian boroughs in your place with your people. 

If challenged to defend it in your own words, what would you claim is the "goal" of a bona fide Christian education?

What are you hoping this education will achieve for your children?

Will it land them a high paying job? Will it secure a life of pleasure and ease? Will it produce a full-ride basketball scholarship?

What will determine success or failure at the end of the day?

In this episode of the St. Brendan's Podcast, we will argue that we are aiming at nothing less than making our children committed disciples of Jesus Christ. We don't feel bad owning that, and neither should you!

If we are to provide a truly Christian education for our kids, then we must also have a truly Christian goal FOR that education.

In short, we don't want our children to gain the world only to lose their souls; we want them to emerge on the other side of this paideia as Christians.

P.S. Did we miss you at the 2024 NCP Conference? Feeling a little FOMO? Don't worry–we have you covered. Simply follow this link over to our St. Brendan's Patreon channel for the link to all the conference talks. We want you to be equipped to build Christian boroughs in your place with your people. 

Pastor Voddie Baucham was right when he warned us prophetically, "If you send your children to Caesar for their education, don't be surprised when they come back as Romans." Though, he was not foreseeing something unexpected or counter-intuitive. He did not have some secret gnosis. He was simply reading his Bible, then reading the room.

Why do you think we've seen such rampant apostasy through GovEd? It's because children will naturally imitate their teachers, whether foolish or wise.

Education itself is fundamentally mimetic. It deals in the currency of teaching and learning, of modeling and imitating.

As you've heard it said, "a disciple, when fully trained, will be like his master" (Luke 6:40). He will be LIKE his teacher.

This is one of those principles that the Marxists get, yet we somehow miss. We find once again that "the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light" (Luke 16:8). They understand that, if you want to control the next generation, all you have to do is replace their teachers.

So, what kind of teachers were shepherding your children this last year? What about this next year?

As Christians, you are commanded to provide your children with the paideia of the Lord, a full-orbed education and discipline that is meant to shape them into the image of Jesus Christ. As you will hear today in Episode 6, this obviously includes being formed by Christian teachers. "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ," said the Apostle Paul.

Anyways, education is much more than 2+2=4.

Education is whole-souled formation.
Education is the shaping of loves.

We cannot escape the fact that our teachers WILL shape our child's loves. From the way the teachers dress, to the way they joke, all the way out to what they do in their own leisure. All of these details inevitably force their way into the classroom because the teacher is a real human being endowed with real authority. There's no avoiding it.

Yet, the broader Christian community still carts their children off to the local Public School, forgetting that a child who bakes in that environment 6 hours each day, 170 days each year, for 12 years, cannot help resisting the unrelenting call of their teacher, "BE LIKE ME."

It's a no-brainer then that we would deploy our forces to defend this important hill: Christian education must supply Christian teachers.

In fact, it wouldn't be "Christian" education without them.

P.S. Did we miss you at the 2024 NCP Conference? Feeling a little FOMO? Don't worry–we have you covered. Simply follow this link over to our St. Brendan's Patreon channel for the link to all the conference talks. We want you to be equipped to build Christian boroughs in your place with your people. 

Do you believe this to be true? Must Christian education fly the Christian flag?

Of course, we don't mean this literally. The fabric you see flapping in the wind won't keep the bad guys out.

But it does serve as a metaphor, imagery that's meant to pull back the curtain and display our ultimate commitments.

Like it or not, every education is flying some kind of flag. Every educational system makes an appeal to a higher standard, even if that's just the appetites, the passions, or the law of non-contradiction.

As Christians, we fight to maintain a clear apprehension of our standard, God and His Word. To be worthy of the name, Christian education must appeal to a Christian standard.

Though, this episode isn't a history lesson; it's a call to action for parents and educators to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. As the winds of academia shift again towards emotional subjectivism and intellectual skepticism, we're standing firm with one simple clarion call:

Christian education flies the Christian flag. There is no other.

Join us now as we discuss!

P.S. if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024. See you there!

P.P.S. join us over on Patreon if you're looking for more school resources as well as community with other like-minded parents.

When Paul uses the Greek word paideia in Ephesians 6:4, what did he mean? What is the paideia of the Lord? And how comprehensive was its scope?

Well, it certainly wasn't minimalistic or truncated.

God isn't only Lord of our hearts, or of STEM, or of the kitchen. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. In Christ are hidden ALL the treasures of knowledge and wisdom.

Christian education, then, must pursue a full Christian scope.

Join Headmaster Kevin Love and Pastor Eric Conn for Season 1, Episode 4 as they discuss the importance of this principle for our children's education.

P.S. if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024. We'll see you there!

P.P.S. join us over on Patreon if you're looking for more resources as well as community with other like-minded parents.

We're often deceived into thinking that if we just teach our kids the "right" answers, we will have done our job. Check. Complete.

But instruction on the particulars is simply not enough. Otherwise, what happens once your kids move out and confront a question for which they hadn't studied? Can you really say they are well prepared for a robust Christian life?

This is why any education worthy of the adjective "Christian" must impart a distinctly Christian lens through which our children will see ALL the particulars of life. Education is never neutral, so ours shouldn't pretend to be either.

Join Headmaster Kevin Love and Pastor Eric Conn for Season 1, Episode 3 as they discuss the importance of imparting this Christian lens for our children.

P.S. if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024. See you there!

P.P.S. join us over on Patreon if you're looking for more resources as well as community with other like-minded parents.

How must we Christians educate our children amidst an idolatrous culture? Christianly, of course, but what does this really mean? Has that adjective become a useless platitude? It doesn't have to be.

Our latest episode for the St. Brendan's Podcast is the first installment as we try to answer the question, "What is a Christian education?"

Principle #1 registers loud and clear: Christian education must pour a Christian foundation. Your children will either worship the creature or they will worship the Creator. They will either fear God or they will fear man. They will either follow God's law or they will follow man's law. They are either for Christ or against him–there is no middle ground.

Join us, Pastor Eric Conn and Headmaster Kevin Love, as we discuss the importance of pouring this Christian foundation.

P.S. if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024. See you there!

P.P.S. join us over on Patreon if you're looking for more resources as well as community with other like-minded parents.

Could the very state-run school system designed to educate our children be subverting the core values that Christian families hold dear? Kevin Love, headmaster at St. Brendan's Classical Christian Academy in Ogden, UT, helps navigate the treacherous waters of public school indoctrination, where the undertow of secular humanism and relativism threatens to pull our youth away from Christian beliefs.

Kevin and co-host Eric Conn talk about Ephesians 6 and Deuteronomy 6, asking a pivotal question: "What is the point of Christian education?" We also talk about Alan Bloom's prescient observations on the rise of relativism, which illuminates our discussion as we sound the alarm for Christian parents to take decisive action. The call to arms is clear: it's time to consider educational alternatives like St Brendan's Classical Christian Academy or Christian homeschooling to safeguard our children's faith and values.

As we press forward, we tackle the intricate dance between educational influence and cultural impacts, taking cues from Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind." The stakes are high in this battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation, and our strategy involves intervening before college, shaping the perspectives of our youth to appreciate the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024.

Join the Patreon exclusive membership.