Joseph Woodard
America’s Christian culture began to erode at the turn of the 20th century, with the rise of bureaucratic public schools. The belated Christian reactions to this were homeschooling, parent-led Christian schools, co-ops and pods, and now classical charter schools. Yet, when set alongside their agnostic fellow citizens, Next-gen Christians have proven equally susceptible to loneliness, anxiety, family breakup and divorce, voluntary infertility and tiny families, warehousing seniors and “Bowling Alone” levels of civic non-engagement. Supposedly safe, Christian secondary education hasn’t been enough.
Why? Because Christian formation isn’t finished at age 18, says Nicholas Ellis, the community developer at Christian Halls International. Having carefully shepherded their kids through high school, Christian parents then ship them off to distant universities and colleges, where they’re educated, at best, by Christian scholars, detached from any local community, or at worst, by atheistic socialists. The undergrads may cling loosely to their faith, meet a marriage partner from a yet more distant town, and then try to raise a family, far from any grandparental help. (And given how hard that is, they will likely have fewer kids.) Or their atheist professors may seduce them into lives of nihilistic despair and shallow skepticism. Meanwhile, back home, their local communities and governments are abandoned to the faithless, avaricious and radical.
Private Christian schools can be the worst for encouraging this rootless education, says Ellis, an Oxford PhD, because they think they succeed only when they ship their grads off to distant, prestigious, and expensive universities or colleges, as if training a professional nomad is more worthy than nurturing a faithful, cultured, and engaged community member. Then they complain about a collapsing society? Christian society is first and foremost a family of charity, love, and trust. This happens only if those bonds are nurtured between generations—mentors and elders, grandparents and parents—more than with some random varsity peer group.  » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2025/02/christian-halls-international-next-american-renaissance-joseph-woodard.html