Commencement Address

Honored seniors, Westminster students, respected faculty, staff, and administration, fellow board members, friends, and most of all, parents, I am delighted to have the honor of addressing you on this important night when we celebrate the commencement of our latest senior class. I have enjoyed working with you seniors in Capstone all year, and I am very proud of your accomplishment.

Brevity is most certainly is the soul of wit, and while I am ordinarily reluctant to take any advice from Polonius, if there were an appropriate place to be brief, it would be when you are standing between a wild-eyed senior class and its stack of diplomas. In this case, brevity may prove also be the better part of valor. I want to promise you that I will indeed be brief, to the point, time-conscious, brief, short-winded, timely, brief, and most of all, redundant.

I do have to say at the outset, that I do not at all appreciate the sidelong glances and giggling that I have had to put up with from the faculty in the back halls. It is not at all professional. I have TOLD you that I didn’t pick the color of my stole – pink signifies a major in music – it is not a sissy color as some of you seem to think. So just grow up, will you?

Seniors, you have been told for years now WHAT a Classical/Christian education is, not only through the content of your classes, but in parent meetings and assemblies – some of you since first grade -- and you would probably rather have a root canal than hear it discussed in public again, and I can’t blame you. So, I’m going to make you a second promise, one that is even more daring: I am NOT going to tell you what Classical/Christian education is again…even if you beg. If you don’t know by now, there is really very little I can do to help you, anyway.

However, I do want to tell you a secret. I want to tell you WHY we did it. We, that is, the faculty, staff, board, and most of all, your parents, who chose to put you through this peculiar education when you could have been sent to public and private schools already in existence. It would have been easier, less expensive, and just the thought of the extra free-time we’d all have had --- well, all I can say is that we would all have better golf games…

Why did we do it? Because we believe it is the best way we know to prepare you to be used by God.

You have heard it said that the Classical/Christian education is the somewhat awkward combination of Greek reason and Christian revelation, and that this combination is the foundation of Western civilization. Actually neither of these statements is completely true. First, the only reason that the combination of reason and revelation is in any way awkward is that the two sides have been rather brutally separated by our recent ancestors, and putting them back together is a little reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty. And secondly, the only reason we think of this hybrid as the foundation of Western civilization is that we have overlooked what really IS the foundation of Western civilization, a foundation that is at once more clear and more mysterious.

You will recall that God had to throw the Apostle Paul down to the ground and blind him in order to get his attention. What really interests me tonight in this story is that when Paul is led into Damascus, God speaks to a fellow called Ananias, and tells him to go heal Paul’s blindness. Well, Paul’s motto was always “stone first and ask questions later,” and Ananias was understandably a bit reluctant to meet him. But God convinces him by telling him that he has chosen Paul to be the one to take God’s name to the gentiles. Why choose Paul?

Who can fathom the plans of God? Paul grew up in a Jewish home, learned his scriptures, knew the ways of temple worship, and by his own admission, kept the law perfectly. But in addition to being the consummate Pharisee, he was given a Greek education. He knew his revelation, but he also knew his rhetoric. He embodied the Athens/Jerusalem combination: reason and revelation, knowledge and belief, eloquence and wisdom. It should not surprise us that God chose this man to be the one to speak for him. He had been prepared for this job long before he had any idea what he was going to do.

A side bit of advice – it is not unusual not to know what you are going to be doing. Yes, we all like to have a plan, but God is in the business of changing your plans when it serves His purposes, and His purposes are always better for you than your original plans. So, hold those plans loosely – you may find one day that you are stoning the wrong people, and you don’t want God to have to blind you to get your attention…

So how did God’s chosen spokesman know where to preach? In Acts chapter 16, we read that Paul desires to turn north and east into the eastern world, probably toward Byzantium, but he is specifically stopped by the Holy Spirit, and given a dream of a man in Macedonia, that is in the west, calling him to come and preach the gospel to them. He immediately does so, traveling across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia, then south into Greece, and winds up in Acts 17 on Mars Hill in Athens, the center of the ancient Greek world.

In his remaining missionary work, he repeats his trip to Greece and points west, and finally goes to Rome. Rome, of course, is even further west than Athens. You see, from the point of that miraculous dream, Paul never again looks east. Once God set him on this path, he never looked back. It can rightly be argued that THIS is the true founding of what is known as Western civilization – all the accomplishments of Augustine, Boethius, Bede, Anselm, Suger, Thomas, Dante, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Milton, Rembrandt, Handel, Bach, Pascal, Newton, Burke, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Eliot, Chesterton, and even what’s-his-name who authored the Prince Caspian story, all these people owe their accomplishments to one man who was prepared when God told him to preach the gospel to the west. And how many more in the future will be blessed by this event? How many in Africa, India, China, SE Asia, and in the dense jungles of Bartlett owe their knowledge of the Savior to the Western culture that was born from Paul’s obedience and education? This is how Western civilization was born. Not simply through a forced combination of two competing schools of thought, Athens and Jerusalem, science and faith, reason and revelation, but through one unified thing: an obedient Christian who was educated to think well.

Do you see why your parents thought this was worthwhile? Why the board, faculty, staff, and administration would sacrifice their golf games to be sure this education was passed on? We are part of a long history of faithful men and women who have passed on what they knew, regardless of the cost, and you are the next link. We are hoping that you will embody what is truly great about the West – that you will be a group of people with a command of language, and a command of the Scriptures. Then, armed with the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide you, you might be equipped to live out the gospel, and be witnesses to God’s work of redemption in the world. It is not by accident that you have been trained this way -- you have been chosen too, just like Paul – you have been educated for a reason. You are going to be ready to speak and write when the Lord says, “not this way, that way” – and the result of your faithful choices will echo through the future generations just as Paul’s have, should the Lord tarry. But always remember that without the leading of the Holy Spirit, your education is of no value at all. In fact it could make you quite proud, which is deadly. It required a conversion, not a diploma, for Saul to become Paul.

At this point in the speech, most commencement speakers tell you that this is an exciting time – the beginning of your careers, you can be anything you want to be, just believe in yourselves. What a load of nonsense! This IS an exciting time, but it is not because you can be anything you want to be – for example, I can say without too much fear of contradiction, that none of you, save perhaps your valedictorian, will have much of a future in the NBA. You can’t be ANYTHING, but you weren’t built to be anything – you were built to do the specific work that God has called You to -- “you are God’s workmanship, created for good works in Christ.” You will embody the faith, communicating it to your watching pagan/barbaric neighbors through your academic work, through the way you raise your children, through your writing, artwork, science, through the businesses you start, the churches you lead, through the way you spend your leisure time, through your carefully chosen words, and most of all, through the way you love one another – in short, the Lord will be made visible through the WAY you “do” culture.

Through you we hope to see a genuine turn back toward civilization again. It is a mighty burden to place on such a young and small group – and it may be that it will only be possible through your great-grandchildren, but it will be accomplished, if it is accomplished, through a million little faithful decisions day-by-day, week by week by a growing community of believers who reveal the truth by their actions. If we are each faithful in our own generations, God will use us for His glory, and what better thing is there than that?

May God bless you each and keep you safe as you enter into the world of college academics, and give you great joy as you stand with Him there. And now I want to ask you to promise me something: promise that you will never apologize for holding both to revelation and reason – they are your inheritance as godly men and women of the West.

Overview of Year Program

We are planning a Aug-June program that addresses two things: a Christian worldview, and the history of ideas in the West through a great books reading schedule. We’ll start the last two weeks of August, do 7 weeks on the Greeks and Romans, and then take two weeks off to attend the Rochester, MN L’abri branch. Then 7 weeks on the medievals, and a month plus off for Christmas. Then 7 weeks on the Renaissance and Reformation, 7 weeks on the Enlightenment and Romanticism, 2 weeks off to go to England and France, then back home for 6 weeks on the 20th century. In the end, the students will have a sense of the flow of history through ideas that have shaped our civilization, read from original sources. The hope is that this will prove to be a “clothes line” that the students can add to as they each go through college and for the rest of their lives.

We have 3 faculty members, myself dealing with art, music, theater, and general reading, Keith Callis, PhD in Romantics and also in Shakespeare, and Bill Jenkins, PhD, who is a 20th century fiction specialist and who also specializes in writing. We will also have guest lecturers here and in England (I have a couple of friends at Cambridge who we plan to meet with when we travel there).

Weekly schedules will include a lecture or two, lots of reading, tutorial time (one-on-one), group discussion time, and some sort of cultural event (play, film, concert, gallery showing, et c.) with discussion afterward. Some of the lectures and events will be opened to the public too, and perhaps the trip overseas too.

We are setting tuition at $12,500 for the year. It includes the expenses on the trip to Europe – not included are books, food or lodging during the regular year.

Also, we have connections with Belhaven College in Jackson, MS, and they are willing to give college credit for the work we are doing. (I have taught for Belhaven before.)

If you are interested in this program, please let us know, and we will be pleased to speak with you directly either by email or phone.

The lamp post

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

GK Chesterton, from "Heretics"

Once upon a time there was a horse...

Once upon a time there was a horse. It was a marvelous horse, tall in stature, proud in character, rich brown in color. People came from miles around to see this horse, as it was the only one in existence.The horse was strong, graceful, proud, beautiful. People were so struck with awe at the combination of rippling flanks, the snorting, the stamping, the swishing, the power, the gentleness, they decided to study the horse to see what could be learned about it, but there was so much to the mighty creature they decided to each address a portion of the horse to save time. So one studied the nose, another the flanks, another the hoofs, another the ears, and together they marveled at the details they uncovered and shared their discoveries with each other. The one who studied the nose spoke of its shape and nostrils, the one who studied the hooves spoke about the curve of the hoof, and the difference between the hoof tissue and that of the rest of the leg, the one who studied the ears spoke of their ability to turn in various directions and the cartilage he could feel through the flesh on the outside. Each was amazed at the living breathing creature, and how many facets it had.So much so, that when they went back to their own homes, they tried to describe this animal to their friends. These descriptions were so astounding for those who had never seen the horse that others wanted to come and study with the scholars about this horse they had inspected. The one who had studied the nose could describe the nose in detail, but the details about the rest (since it had not been his specific area) were more vague in his mind. Likewise, each of the others found that when they were apart they could describe the area of study they had each undertaken, but it was difficult to describe the whole horse, and even harder to describe the awe they had found in its presence.The scholars decided that they should band together to properly communicate the entirety of the horse to their individual students, all in hope that they would be able to recreate in their students the awe they had each felt. But to do so, they needed each other's expertise. The one who studied the hoof was in need of the one who studied the ears, and the one who studied the tail needed help from the one who studied the flanks, et c. The horse was too much for anyone to grasp completely, so they followed their studies in the various horse-disciplines, but always with an eye to make sense of the whole of the parts, and even more, the life that that whole seemed to contain.So the scholars began a school for students to learn about the horse. There was no real point to this study apart from the amazing knowledge itself. It would not directly give anyone special advantage in the pursuit of wealth or power, but they found that when you got a glimpse of the living breathing horse itself, you were astounded and awestruck. This experience became a motivator for the scholars to continue to learn and grow in all areas of knowledge, and as a result, knowing about the horse as a whole seemed to give one a better understanding of life in general. Employers began to look for people who knew about the horse because those people always seemed to be in awe about life in general, and this made them more interested in learning other things, like how to market products or design Powerpoint presentations, and those seemed to guarantee sales. (oddly, as the years went by, the more marketing and presenting these horse-scholars-turned-businessmen did, the less enthusiasm they had for horse-studies, but ironically the less interest they had for business practices too, and most ended up watching a lot of cable television and muttering to themselves, but that is another story.)As the generations went by, the students grew and began to teach about the horse themselves, and, as might be expected, they mostly discussed the aspect of the animal that their individual teachers had studied the most. So there came to be schools of thought about the horse. The “students of the nose,” as they were called, came to believe that their part of the animal was the most important, as did the “hoof scholars” and the “mane institute” – and they passed their best information on to the next generations of students as best they could, writing in the “New Albany Journal of the Horse," all about their individual studies, and about how each thought his study really got to the most fascinating and essential parts of the horse.After several more generations, the various schools decided to separate to pursue their respective studies. This came about because each scholar began to think that his individual area of study was not only the most important in knowing the horse, but was also somehow limited by close proximity with the scholarship of the department nearest him. One can’t study the hoof completely without constantly running into the “leg scholarship” guys, and one can’t study the mane of the horse without always having to keep the nose, mouth, and eye guys “out of your hair.” (which is, of course, how that phrase came to be).So, the various schools broke the tenuous connections they had held through inter-school communications, the New Albany Journal, and the National Horse Conference, to pursue their study of the horse without the limitations of the others. They each founded their own journals, started conferences specifically for their individual area of study. This made it possible to really dig deep into the details of the various aspects of the horse. The mane scholars found that there were many different lengths and widths of hair in the mane, and the hoof fellows found that there were all sorts of diseases that could be addressed by proper care for the hoof, and the flank guys studied the ribcage showing through the thin skin on the flanks, and speculated about what could be found underneath the ribs.So the awe for the life of the original horse was slowly transferred to the awe for the details the scholars could show, and then eventually awe for the scholars themselves. Just look at the insight, the detail, the well-organized facts about the various aspects of the horse! The schools even began to compete with each other over how many details they could catalogue. Also, in their free time they established football teams made up of students from the various schools to give them momentary diversions from their studies. These teams built huge followings and in some ways overshadowed the original purpose of the horse studies, but that is another story.Eventually the horse studies became known simply as “the studies” since everyone had nearly forgotten about the horse, and the various schools became known by the specialty they each offered. The Nose School, the Tail Way, the Hoof Gymnasium, the Mane Institute… and each found that by studying a particular aspect, students became quite good at certain aspects of life. Those who studied the nose became skilled at predicting diseases in people, those who studied the tail found that they could build great violin bows, those who studied the hoof found their way as manicurists, and those who studied the mane seemed to become experts in cosmetology.As centuries went on, an entire culture rose up around those who were doctors, musicians, cosmetologists, et c., and a certain demand sprang up for these abilities. Eventually scholars simply taught medicine, music, and hair-styling without bothering to make reference to the parts of the horse at all. The courses that connected the vocations to the horse itself were ignored or discontinued in hopes of making the students’ years of study as efficient as possible so that they could enter into their desired jobs as quickly as possible. Eventually, there were so many schools cropping up, the competition among the various schools became quite fierce. The schools who received fewer students found that they were not able to pay all their faculty, so since they did not want to shut down, they hired marketing firms to bolster their images and attract students. As soon as one school went this route, others had to follow, since their market share was becoming threatened. So they all turned to advertisers and marketers who would write ads and marketing slogans for each school, and be paid by them all. They would get paid huge sums for, “We noses can get you a better job than those ear guys.” and other witty aphorisms.There were still some schools that attempted to connect studies to the parts of the horse that originally inspired them, even though these schools were considered out-of-touch with the mainstream, and taught useless information. One day, at the Mane Institute of Technology (at this late date, few knew anymore what the word Mane actually referred to -- the Institute, or MIT, was now most highly regarded for doing the physics and chemistry work needed to produce acne products), a graduate student, deep in the recesses of the library was going over ancient references to hair follicles and discovered the definition of something called "the mane." He asked his study partner, “just what is this "mane" anyway?” The partner, a junior, had no real idea. "And it is in the name of our school, too." And the two of them began to wonder why they were studying follicles, hair thickness, and length, and began to ask what the mane was, and what it had to do with anything important. Their faculty at first resisted their questions, but then began to be curious as well. One called over a scholar from the Left Ear Institute at a football game their teams were playing, and asked, “What do the names of our schools have to do with education?” “Who cares? Go Earholes!” he shouted as they scored.But the Mane Man was not daunted – he began to imagine what the field of study would look like if all of them gave up for a moment pursuing the studies of music, medicine, law, and glue manufacturing, and got together to pool their knowledge about the ancient and lost arts of nose, ear, flank (no one studied this one anymore), hoof, tail, etc. He formulated a conference and invited the top scholars from each of the present schools, and these debated the differences among their various fields. After some time they were able to piece together on paper a picture of their combined subjects, and make educated guesses about which parts were missing. The result was a very awkward and fractured picture of a four legged creature with a long nose and pointy ears. They were each amazed and a strange awe swept over them all. Could this be what the ancients were about? It was an amazing sight, one that none of them had ever seen before. “It’s beautiful,” said one, and all agreed. “But what use is it?” asked another. There was silence around the room.

Interested in an outside-the-box education?

The Humanities Project: The Center for Western Studies.


Introductory remarks:
It has become increasingly clear to cultural critics that we are declining as a civilization in the West. Once, long ago, Western civilization imagined and created universities, hospitals, cathedrals, great art and music, as the result of the unique combination of Greek and Christian thought that formed the basis for the Western mind. Today, while we may sustain the outward appearance of these institutions, our culture has lost the general Christian convictions it once held, and the result is that these institutions are becoming hollowed-out shells that still resemble the original institutions on the outside but inside are increasingly confused within. Universities that once touted mottos like “Veritas” now teach that there is no truth; hospitals that once only employed those who took the Hippocratic Oath now embrace abortion as a matter of course; cathedrals built by the people themselves over the course of generations now stand nearly empty; transcendent art and music that once was a part of daily life has been relegated to museums; and the dynamic and profound relationship between reason and revelation that brought all this culture to fruition has been dismissed as irrelevant. We are living on borrowed capital from that earlier age, and more than one pundit is predicting that we are in the last days of Western Civilization. While none would want to go back to a world of plagues, feudal warfare and no plumbing, we would like to regain any truly timeless thinking that past generations have done, and find ways to apply those ideas to life as we do the human work of writing, composing, painting, designing, discovering, and studying in order to know the truth about ourselves and our human situation.

Walker Percy once wrote that learning has lost its sense of wonder. Learning should be, he said, like the experience of that first explorer who stumbled into the Grand Canyon. What a dangerous and profound experience that must have been – quite different than the experience a tourist might get today: secure fences all around it, buildings with air conditioning built on its rim, park guides who will take you on a well-worn path to see the aspects they think the most impressive. Learning, Percy said, should be like that first discovery – fresh, alive, dangerous, not-for-the-squeamish. It requires hard work, hardship, and a sense of adventure. The Truth is a prize fought for and won, not pre-packaged, delivered as efficiently as possible, and graded on the curve all within an hour’s class time. That’s not the way life is, and we underestimate our students when we suggest that an education should be efficient – we are implying that it is a commodity that is purchased before getting a job (which itself is only a means toward self-definition – “and what do you do?” we ask each other.)

Learning to think well means that you will be able to see today’s problems in the context of history. Who will you vote for in the coming elections? Why? Has there been a time in the past when we have had a similar field of candidates? Have they been asking the same questions? Have you heard these answers before? How did we do in the past? And more than all that, what role should politics play in the "good life"?

Learning to think well means that one should be able to make sense of human artistic activity – that creativity is not just a means of self-expression, or of audience entertainment. How do we see the worldview of a painter? Can instrumental music express content? What does the church architecture of our day say about what we believe? What does it mean when a culture’s literature (in film, novel, television, theater) reduces the timeless themes of love and death to discussions of genitalia and torture?

Learning to think well means not that you learn everything there is to know about one sub-specialty, but rather that you learn how to begin to address any subject. How does this subject fit into the universe that God has created?

What we are proposing here is a year of discovery. A year to get two things firmly in hand: first, the elements of a Christian world-view, and second, a foundational sense for the history of ideas.

The worldview part would begin with theology and establish a vocabulary and roster of questions that can be asked that will serve to unlock the presuppositions of any position. What can orthodox Christianity tell us about questions of God’s person, plan, works of creation and redemption; what is a human being, and why is he here; and how do we know what we claim to know about truth, beauty, goodness, and history? We would read extensively in the bible, and in various writers from the past and present who have addressed such first questions.

The history of ideas is accomplished through extensive reading in the great books, following the conversation through the centuries about God, man, and the world. What does Homer have to say about what a virtuous man is like? What does Augustine have to say about the relationship of soul and music? What do the medieval writers have to say about the nature of beauty? How do Bach and Mozart approach composing music? Why does Beckett despair while waiting for Godot, if he doesn’t believe there is a God(ot)?

We are proposing a year of study of Western civilization from a Christian view as a foundation for any learning any one would want to do in any subject. It would be an on-going, in-depth tutorial with a small group of students who are interested in an outside-the-box education, culminating in a trip to Europe to study various aspects of our subject. (I have taken several groups of students to Paris, and my colleague has taken students to England).

Tuition would be well under the norm for a year at college (around $12,000 including books and the trip’s travel costs) for a September 08 to May 09 program. There would be 3 main faculty, several additional guest faculty, and a lot of interactive discussion around our various readings from great books. We would keep the group small – less than 15 students. Food and housing would be on your own, but we will provide a meeting place with a fireplace, good coffee, and space and time to think.

Due to a good relationship with Belhaven College in Jackson, MS, we also have the opportunity to give college credit for some of the work we would do together, credit that could be transferred to another college if you should like to do so. There would be an additional per-credit fee that Belhaven would charge for that, but it is not high.


Read this talk and make your comments – and let us know if you would be interested in joining us. We already have folks in Atlanta and Santa Cruz, CA who have shown an interest, as well as some in Memphis. If you are interested, please let us know and we’ll let you know more details and answer your questions.

Thanks for your attention, and may our Lord bless your decisions for studies!