Is It Christian Curriculum?

After being away from a major Christian education publisher for a few years, I've had a fresh look at the examples given in the curriculum. The A Beka grammar books provide an excellent, traditional approach to the subject. Our oldest told me the lessons gave her a solid foundation for college writing.

Baby Samuel "helps" brother Isaac with math.

This year marks my first year using their language arts materials with Samuel and Uriah. During the first two weeks of school, a slight uneasiness crept into my mind, but it wasn't until the end of last week that I could identify the problem.

The textbooks give random selections of scripture quotations in the artwork. (I have to say in passing, that the books are very attractive and appealing and these attributes are a major selling point for us.) Sentence examples often draw from Biblical characters or use modern evangelical jargon: "Suzy Smith accepted Jesus as her savior."

None of these things by themselves are a problem. But I have a sense that these materials are presented as "Christian" because of the use of this language. In other words, if the examples or poetry side-notes were not specifically quoting from the Bible or using scriptural examples, they would no longer be "Christian." If you scatter enough Bible in, you've made the curriculum "Christian."

This contradicts what we teach our children. All of life is under the dominion of Christ. When they draw pictures of flowers it reflect as much upon their faith as diagramming a sentence with Noah as the subject. A formula in math reflects the orderliness of God's creation as much as a reflection on the Genesis narrative. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against quoting scripture in textbooks or anywhere else. But I get uneasy when I sense a divide between our faith and the so-called secular world. We will continue with these books, but I will need to make sure that the children aren't lulled into making the same distinction.