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Classical Christian Education is experiencing rapid growth in China. Learn about this movement, how it began, how it differs from Western Classical Christian Education, and how the Chinese Education Freedom Fund (CEFF) is helping pave the way for underground Christian schools around the continent.
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.
Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us two people that I've known for a long time. One Bart Johnson in the blue shirt. The other will remain nameless for reasons of how he interacts with China and needing to be, a little bit more anonymous.
But, gentlemen, thank you. If you could give us, both a little bit of background on yourselves, I realize, that one of you will need to be a little bit more careful than the other. And I should say that these are people I've known for a long time. Bart in particular, goes way back. Has been a long time family friend. And if I told you some of the things that we have been through together, you wouldn't believe it. So I'm not going to bother. But, Bart, tell us a little bit about yourself first.
Bart Johnson:
Thanks. Hey, really, first, just say I want to say it's a delight to be, with you. And in this forum and with our brother. So yeah, my wife and I, Judy, have been married for 51 years. We've been here in Orlando for the last 41 of those. And, we've been privileged to be a part of a PCA church here.
I served as an elder there for about 35 years. I've spent most of my life in the technology world, but I've had a couple of forays outside that world vocationally. One of those. In the early 2000s, with a church planting organization that I helped to lead in to get off the ground, so to speak, and that, introduced me to, shall we say, a lot of different cultures and places around the world.
I was with that organization for a few years, and then a number of years later, I had the privilege of working for Veritas Press. Not in the mainstream of what my vocation had been in all those years, but Marlin asked me to join him as Vice President of International Services, and that's when I first got acquainted with China. And, we'll be telling more about that story later.
Marlin Detweiler:
It's good.
Bart Johnson:
That brings us up to date. I will say that it was during my tenure with Veritas that I was introduced to China. And during that tenure, thanks to very gracious support from Marlin, that I was able to participate in the formation of the Chinese Education Freedom Fund. And that's kind of why we're here today.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, to talk about that, now that you've introduced it, it will be known in this conversation as CEFF. And you can find that website online very easily. If this conversation provokes more interest from the listeners. Gentleman in the gray blazer.
Brother Z:
I’ve been alive about as long as Bart has been married to Judy!
Marlin Detweiler:
You can say to Bart, hey, I could be your kid.
Brother Z:
It has always been a joy for the last ten years of that time to to know the two of them and to get to visit them a number of times in their home in Orlando, where you were last night? I just heard that, Marlin. What a joyful, couple to know and interact with. Half of my life I've spent in mainland China, most most recently, my wife and I have been married for 20 years and 16 of those, up until just before Covid were spent in China together. And, a good bit of that time has been spent in this area of education, namely helping underground house church Christians start schools, and then most recently with, CEFF, helping provide them with curriculum and teacher training resources. I should also say I grew up as a missionary kid in northern China as well.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. And, I've heard you speak Mandarin, and it scares me because you sound very different than an American speaking Mandarin!
Brother Z:
I can pose as a fluent Chinese speaker. I'll put it that way!
Marlin Detweiler:
That's great. We mentioned CEFF part, Bart described it as Chinese Education Freedom Fund. Tell us about the vision and organization.
Bart Johnson:
I would like to speak to the origins of Chinese Education Freedom fundamental tell a lot of the story. First of all, I would start with what I would call a problem statement. Every good organization exists because there's a problem that needs to be solved. And CEFF exists because there's a massive problem in China, especially with the Chinese church.
Now, most everybody here knows that China is a big country with a lot of people, 1.4 billion of them. And most of us know that starting in about the 1960s and early 70s, the underground church in China began to explode. What's not as well known here is that the Chinese church now is probably bigger than the Chinese church here in the US. Estimates have it that around 100 million to 130 million Chinese Christians.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, you said bigger than the Chinese church, in the U.S., but you mean bigger than the U.S church, don't you?
Bart Johnson:
Bigger than the US church. Thank you.
Marlin Detweiler:
I just want to make sure we don't get to that fact. That's. Yeah, that's a huge distinction. Yeah.
Bart Johnson:
Yeah. Some estimates here place the US church at 100 and 150 million. But that's because anybody who checks a box atheist, Catholic or Christian, who checks Christian is counted as a Christian. And we think of Christians as those who are really following Christ. And in China, you don't identify as a Christian unless are a Christ follower, because it's a risky thing. It's a costly thing. It's not a socially acceptable thing. So it's the church in China is big.
The problem is that in China we probably have about 11 million children, Christian children of school age. And those children are forced legally and practically into the Chinese Communist Party school system. It is one system, one curriculum. It is committed to churning out compliant little communists who don't ask hard questions, who don't challenge authority, and who keep their heads down.
Marlin Detweiler:
Literally following the party line.
Bart Johnson:
They are taught from day one, literally obedient to the point. Yeah. Literally following all their allegiance to the Communist Party and not to any God. Because according to them, there is no God. So that's the one school system available to the Chinese people. That's the reason that CEFF exists. We exist to solve that problem.
Marlin Detweiler:
Would you like to add something to that?
Brother Z:
Yeah, I would, I would just say that there's a tremendous hunger among parents in China for something better, for an alternative. We were– astonished isn't too strong a word, when we helped a group of Chinese Christians in a large city in eastern China, in, 2011, starting in 2010, but culminating in 2011 with planting a classical Christian school there, we were astonished that not only did this model and these ideas appeal to our Christian brothers and sisters, but as they talked about it with their non-believing neighbors, there was tremendous interest among non-Christians for this model of education. And in fact, we the board of that school ended up having a tithe system where they would reserve 10% of the seats in each grade for nonbelievers to come in. And, as we had the great joy of, seeing that number constantly move, as many of those families became followers of Jesus Christ as they saw his love present in the school in a in a powerful way.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's incredible. But really, the way that you answered my question really leads well into what I wanted to ask next. And we'll get back to some things about CEFF in just a moment. But tell us why you think classical Christian education has become so popular in China.
Brother Z:
Well, I would just say I would first qualify the answer by, alluding to something that Bart mentioned a minute ago. Even at its peak before the current crackdown, which the Communist Party has taken on both house churches and Christian schools and really, any, attempt by Christians to move their faith more into the public, square.
Even before that began to really, you know, kind of gather its dark strength in, you know, 2019 and maybe a bit earlier even, at most only 1% of the children of Christian families were in, classical Christian schools. So while there's a great desire for something different, the supply is very limited.
And there's a very big cost that comes with choosing, an alternate, path of education. So, to get back to your question, more of why is there that desire; I would say, I would just point out two things. First, and this is something that CCE has in common, classical Christian education has in common in China with the movement here in the United States, namely, there's this deep sense that something of great value has been lost and needs to be reclaimed and, you know, we all know that education is extremely valued and prized in Chinese culture.
And that goes without saying. And there's something that kind of strikes at the heart of many Chinese families when they see their children just being turned into a cog for use by the party or the state. You can even look in Confucius, in the Analects and see sayings that diametrically opposed that “the man of virtue is not a tool,” is a line straight out of the Analects. So even non-Christian families, this system grates against something. That's deep inside them, culturally.
But I would say that, the second point is the other thing that is that the two have in common in the US and in China is that it's Bible believing Christians spearheading this renewal, this revival. And as China, particularly in the 70s and 80s, just emerging from, you know, a very dark time in Chinese history, and then now with the Communist Party renewing its persecution, the light of Christ shines most brightly when things are darkest.
And so there's a real sense that the appeal behind CCE in China, has to do with that as well. It's a wonderful pedestal for the light of the gospel to stand upon classical education.
Marlin Detweiler:
Bart, I know you've experienced some things too. And you spent some time in China on a couple trips while working for Veritas and and probably beyond with some of the speaking that you did. Talk to us about the response that you got that really speaks to the question I'm asking.
Bart Johnson:
I'm glad you asked that Marlin, because that's really what captured me. Yeah, I wanted to say earlier that my brother on this call is the expert on China, and he is an educator. He has all the qualifications that I lack to make any kind of contribution to an organization like CEFF. I'm largely ignorant of Chinese history and culture. I don't know the language, and I'm not an educator. And so in some sense, I'm the least likely person to ever do something like this. But in God's providence, while I was working for Veritas, he took me to China. And when I was there, one of the very first visit, Judy and I went together. We were invited by the mainland Chinese leader, who was helping to host a conference outside the country of 200 reformed pastors, and they put me up front to introduce these people to classical Christian education.
And most of them had never heard of classical education, and they were enthralled, so much so that we received dozens of invitations to come over to the mainland to introduce classical education to their churches and to some of them who were just then forming the schools. We went over the next few weeks to 11 different cities in China, made about 25 different presentations, and they all had two things in common regardless of the venue, they were packed to the walls and in every case, I've never seen audiences so wrapped in attention, so focused, so determined to learn and so enraptured with what they were hearing.
The meetings would go on for longer than planned, and we sometimes had to just tear ourselves away because the questions continued to come. The hunger for what we were describing, classical education was just intense. And it was it was life-changing. For I could see this is something we have to figure out.
Marlin Detweiler:
It's my sense with the thousands of students and, the sensibility I get from - and I don't have direct conversations with them or direct communication. So it's overseeing people to do and getting an anecdotal sense of what's going on that the Chinese citizen or the Chinese person, compared to typical compared to a typical American person, simply values good education more.
They're more serious about their education on average. And they care about it. And so I think they're attracted to the academic rigor that we see in classical education and the thoroughly thought out pedagogy. But I also think that there are people, as was said earlier, who are very serious about their faith, again, on average, more serious than the typical American evangelical.
And because of that, the fact that this is not only a distinctively classical education with the academic rigor that accompanies that, but a distinctive Christian education, the two just seem to resonate in ways that I can only dream would become typical in America, is that fair?
Brother Z:
I think it's accurate. My personal experience when we were first, you know, dipping our toes into the waters of helping Chinese Christians in mainland China start schools was very similar to Bart's. We had friends who we had been working with in our missions efforts come to us and say, you know, we really have this heart, this vision to start schools which have the Bible at the center of them but we've all been educated in the communist system. We have a heart to be involved in our children's education as parents, but that's not an option in in the state schools. What alternatives can you give us? And at that point, we had we had had some exposure to the classical Christian model, but not a lot.
Some of it was actually through very to us, through my wife looking into Veritas materials for our children. We did not know Bart and Judy yet at that point, I had a sister who, had been– two sisters, actually, who were in classical Christian schools in North Carolina at that time. And so we kind of did some digging, did some research, went back to some of our own personal experience and said, well, here's an idea, we’ll host a gathering in our, in our apartment, and see if there's interest.
Well, this apartment was about 100 and, you know, 100 plus square meters in size. You know, about the size of your average large garage in the United States, a little bigger. But the space is engineered great. You'd be amazed. That whole thing with standing room only shoulder to shoulder.
Marlin Detweiler:
Was it engineered well enough to handle the crowds?
Brother Z:
We said, you know, in fact, one of the guys in there was like, you know, we need to have another one of these meetings, but, I'll foot the bill, we’ll rent a hotel conference room. So we said, okay, let's get back together. You know, in a week or two weeks, I remember exactly what the time frame was.
And, you know, kind of secretly, my wife and I were saying, you know, probably nobody's going to show up. And, you know, this will be okay. We'll just pass on some books, pass on some ideas, say, you guys can do this, go for it. Because it's probably just going to be kind of like a, you know, maybe, maybe a homeschool group that's going to meet.
And we love homeschooling. We were homeschooling at that point, but not this kind of explosion into hundreds and hundreds of people gathering together for this. Well, the conference room was packed, too, and like, Bart was describing just electric in terms of the, you know, you've been at that meeting sometimes where people stand up to speak and you could hear a pin drop, but then as soon as there's time to chat, it's electric, there's there's no other way to say that except the Holy Spirit is present and working in a powerful way.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, it has been, of major impact. And it's really fun in my role at Veritas, to really do what we can to accommodate and to work with people who live in a very different time zone. For those that don't know, it's either 12 or 13 hours different on our 24-hour clock. And the difference of 12 or 13 is the difference of daylight savings that we have.
The other thing that's kind of fascinating to me, just as a little, detail is that China only has one time zone, even though its breadth is more than the United States. I always found that fascinating. I never knew that before getting involved.
Brother Z:
Oh, there's so many things about China that boggle your mind. I mean, geographically, basically the same size as the US. A bit longer, east to west, I believe if you add Alaska in there, we have a bit more physical space. But 1 billion more people fit into the same amount of space in China.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wow. Incredible.
Brother Z:
God loves that country a lot.
Marlin Detweiler:
Before we come back to CEFF, just a quick, comment from you all on, how classical education is different in China and what the typical American version might be.
Brother Z:
I'll start off, Bart, and then and then you chime in. Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, one one thing, that immediately comes to mind is that very frequently in China, Christian education, and this is true broadly, but also specifically for classical education, it's often connected to one single church. You know, the the vast majority of Christians in China worshiping right now worship outside the state controlled churches.
Good things still happen in those state controlled churches because the Bible is read and talked about and God's Word is powerful. So you have atheist pastors being converted and leading, people to the Lord in there. But by and large, those those churches are under the control, direct control of the Communist Party. So the vast majority of Chinese Christians, meet outside of those government controlled buildings and meet in their own underground networks.
When we say underground, we really just mean someone's home, someone's office in some cases, you know, they're, renting space in –
Marlin Detweiler:
Unpublicized location, maybe.
Brother Z:
Correct. No, you can't find them online or, you know, really, just through word of mouth. For the most part, but the education movement may be roughly paralleling. I don't know much about this, but maybe roughly paralleling the the kind of, early Christian school movement in the US. I would guess you had most of the schools directly connected to one church, although I don't know if that's true or not, but that's typically what you find in China, is that there's one house church which is trying to start a school, and those who kind of have, you know, people among their members who have the administrative chops, who can solve problems.
Those grow very, very quickly. So typically that's the first difference, I think. Whereas in the U.S., to my observation, you have definitely church involvement, but it's usually started by parents, educators, business people. This is how the schools, start in the US. That's the first one that I would say.
And then, you know, a second one, which is fairly obvious for anyone who's following the church at all is the persecution, which, yes, educated Christian educators, educators face in China, if you are leading a Christian school in China, it doesn't matter if it's ten students or 100 students, which that 100 student ones are very rare now. Not completely gone, but very rare. You know that today might be your last day of class. You might be taken away to the police station tomorrow or at the end of the day today. And every parent who brings their child to the school knows today, my child is receiving the Christ centered, high quality education that I long for. But tomorrow this institution might be closed. And that applies equally to those who are meeting in their own homes. There's no Bill of Rights in China. There's no, barrier between the power of the state, just the naked power of the state and Chinese Christians who long to give their children a quality education. One of my closest friends in China at one time said to me,”To be a Christian man in China, this would apply equally to women.
But he's he's saying to be a Christian man in China who's trying to step out and, bring your faith, to bear in a way that brings blessing to others. You have a sword on a thread dangling over your head every day. You never know when that sword of the government is going to come down on you.”
Bart Johnson:
And by way of difference, Marlin, what's probably obvious but merits saying anyway, classical education in China right now is largely, in their second language. If they have that language at all. That is to say, there are virtually no classical Christian curriculum in the Chinese language and virtually no Christian curriculum of any kind that is contextualized for China.
So think about putting your kid in a Chinese language school with Chinese context and hoping they would get a good education. That's again, the problem we're seeking to solve is to provide a Chinese language fully contextualized, Christ centered in classical curriculum as it doesn't exist.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, one of the real practical differences too, in this just this gets into curriculum and, an educational content as opposed to the political difference, which is the biggie on the eye chart of what the differences are. But one of the practical ones that we've had to deal with is the benefit of Latin is not the same for the person whose first language is Mandarin. And so we've made some adjustments because of that for our Chinese students. Have you all found that as well? Do you agree with that?
Brother Z:
Certainly, certainly. Now, I will say that, you know, some of the best Latin scholars on the to speak of scholar in the sense of middle school and high school, best Latin students at the school that we helped start, there were Chinese members of the Latin club. We did not make Latin a requirement, but we did in response to requests from Chinese parents offer it as an afterschool club and that same diligence and drive for learning caused many of those students to become very, very good in Latin.
Yes. But yes, as we were both at that school and then CEFF as well, basically Mandarin, the Mandarin language has its own form of Latin, namely classical Chinese. And so it makes sense for Chinese, particularly those who are studying long term in their own country to pour that extra language study time into Mandarin and Classical Mandarin as opposed to Latin.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, I approached the topic of Latin for Mandarin and a little bit, of a careful way. And I want to qualify something for our listener. I don't believe for a minute that a Mandarin speaking student doesn't benefit because of the what it does for the mastery of English and the understanding of what we call the Great books, which are primarily a Western rooted, collection.
They're valuable to the classical education that a Chinese student gets. And so in that sense, that language mastery of Latin can be helpful, but it doesn't have the same tool of leverage for making them a better student of their primary language. And so the benefits are simply different. And you have then some cost benefit analysis to consider when you have lots of things to cover in a short period of time for the young person. It's not an easy equation.
Bart Johnson:
It's very well said. And brother, if you would share just sort of one of the differences has to do with the issue of history. In Western classical tradition, history plays a major part in the curriculum. But in China, there's a problem.
Brother Z:
Yes. And I would say, again, this is part of the drive the heart among Chinese parents to look for alternatives. Because if you go back before 1949, when the communists took over, certainly, an understanding of history and understanding of Chinese history and understanding of the great books of eastern civilization and Chinese culture, had a place of primacy in Chinese education.
In order to pass the highest level of examinations, you would have to recite from memory extensive passages from these great works from Chinese history, very, very, very much, you know, in keeping with classical pedagogy. But that has been lost. My favorite, author about China, a Belgian, man named Simon Leys.
He passed away probably ten years ago or so. He said what the Communist Party has undertaken is nothing less than the forced cretenization of the world's most intelligent people, the forced cretenization of the world's most intelligent people, because they know that those who create an environment in which, as Bart said earlier, you have highly specialized engineers, highly specialized technicians, but you have spent 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 years teaching them not to think for themselves. Yeah, those are people that can bring tremendous power to the state and not not as much of a threat.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's being cultivated, we have found in our live online class is Chinese students really need to be encouraged to get out of their shell. They're not just there to take notes and listen. They're there to interact for the sake of their learning. And that's a countercultural thing for them today for the young people.
Brother Z:
That's right. That's true today. Marlin, if I could just add one more thing there. To develop this curriculum, kindergarten through grade 12 curriculum that puts that power back into the hands of parents, back into the hands of Chinese Christians to say, yes, there is a pathway forward that not only can my child become skilled technically, but they can have a foundation to stand upon that says, I will use those skills for the good of my family, for the good of my neighbor, for the glory of my Lord. That's at the heart of this initiative.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well, getting back to that, we've run out of time. But I have got to have you answer these. I'm going to combine my last two questions into one. What needs does CEFF have and what does success look like for CEFF over an intermediate period of ten years?
Brother Z:
Yeah, well, the needs are many. We have needs as far as, you know, the finances to fund, the, 90 or so remaining curriculum units that we still are developing and the manpower as well, those who listen to this podcast and are themselves Mandarin speaking educators or those with a heart to participate in this bold initiative. We want you to go to our website and contact us. Please do that. And then I would say the greatest need is prayer. We serve a God who hears the prayers of his people, who acts in response on behalf of those who wait for him. So join us in prayer that this audacious project will be fulfilled.
And I would say that in the intermediate timeframe, it's getting those curriculum pieces and teacher training resources into the hands of our brothers and sisters working together to do it. It's not as if we're downloading something to them. The vision of CEFF is to equip and come alongside the Chinese Christian educators in such a difficult situation that they face and equip them for this task at hand.
Marlin Detweiler:
Very good.
Bart Johnson:
If I could summarize Marlin, we do strategically plan to finish the task over the next 8 to 10 years, that is to say, have a complete body of work and a critical mass of Christian educators trained to train others to deliver this material in, in the right way. And it's, I'll just say it's a God sized undertaking.
I've done a lot of hard things in my life. Nothing comes close to how complicated and difficult this is. It's crazy hard. It's a God sized project. It's the most important thing I've ever done. So anybody who's willing to join us with their money, their prayers or their skills, please come aboard https://ceff.us/
Marlin Detweiler:
Easy to find, if you know what you're looking for. Thank you so much, guys. folks, thanks again for joining us on another episode of Veritas Vox. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, guys.
