Register Now for Spring Classes
October 1, 2024
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Registration is now open for Greek and Latin classes with the Institute for Classical Lutheran Education. Classes
What is Lutheran about classical Lutheran education?
What is the most important, universally binding principle that is embraced by classical Lutheran educators? Without question, it is our confession of faith.
Classical Lutheran educators hold to Mark I, which states:
“The school confesses and incorporates a commitment to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in all aspects of its educational mission as it is taught and confessed in the inspired sacred Scriptures and the confessional writings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.”
This shapes the way we worship, teach, and live daily in our classical Lutheran schools and homeschools.
The following excerpt from Adopting Classical Lutheran Education puts it this way:
Holy Scripture is supreme in classical Lutheran education. The Scriptures maintain their place in the Lutheran tradition as the norma normans, the norming norm. Lutherans view the Book of Concord as the norma normata (the normed norm)—the authoritative and faithful exposition of the Scriptures. Lutherans reject interpretations of Scripture that do not align with the Book of Concord. This makes classical Lutheran schools distinct from generic evangelical or ecumenical Christian schools, which may represent and accept many different theologies and confessions among faculty members and within curricula. It also sets Lutheran schools apart from those that hold more strictly to doctrines that are specific to other denominations.
—Adopting Classical Lutheran Education, 25.
And in the words of Martin Luther,
I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s Word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.
—Martin Luther, LW 44:207.
—Martin Luther, LW 44:207.
Classical Lutheran education is founded on the Word of God, acknowledges God as the source of all knowledge, and establishes Scripture as the foundation on which to build this knowledge. If our doctrinal foundation is not strong, the Scriptures will not be supreme in our schools, and our students will not be equipped to confess and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Classical Lutheran educators value above all else the sound teaching of the Scriptures. For in the words of Martin Luther’s pastor in Wittenberg, Johannes Bugenhagen,
“If you know Jesus well, it is sufficient, if you do not know other things. If you do not know Jesus, it is nothing, if you learn other things.”
—The personal motto of Johannes Bugenhagen
—The personal motto of Johannes Bugenhagen
Why Latin?
October 22, 2024
People often ask the question: “Why Latin?” Classical Lutheran schools typically start formal Latin instruction in third grade or younger. Latin is considered a staple