Writing Instruction: DIVERSITY – the Western Canon, Christianity, and Other Cultures

We often get questions like, what is Classical Writing like? Do you use this approach? Do you align with that approach? What do you do with Great Books? Do you study the Bible?

Classical Writing’s focus is on teaching writing well. Our method is based in the ancient Greek progymnasmata, a series of ancient Greek and Roman writing exercises.

Though Christians have used these exercises through the ages, these exercises do not have their origin in Christianity nor in the Bible. Christianity did not have a philosophy of education when it started. It adapted the philosophies around it. Most Christian education approaches are rooted in pre-Christian practices and adapted by Christians where they think it sound practice to do so. And there is not one answer to what a Christian education looks like, there are several and some conflict.

“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” asked Tertullian of the early centuries of Christianity. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm 

To Tertullian Greek learning was suspect precisely because it was pagan, but not so with others like St. Basil the Great http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm who was highly educated within the Greek educational system of the time.

There is more than one way to teach writing, just as there is more than one way to view the world. Some prefer to shut the world out to become uniquely and protectively Christian, others prefer to engage the world to become neighborly and reach out. It all depends, philosophically, on one’s perspective as to how much pollution one with have to deal with if one engages with the world.

The subject matters we engage with in Classical Writing — the literary models we analyze — are often, but not always, traditionally Christian and traditionally Great Books of (mostly) the Western Canon.

We are keenly aware that there are wonderful noteworthy non-western literary traditions in the world that should be studied and honored and understood. However, our strength and training lies in the Western Canon, and that is the chief reason we put the majority of our focus on the West when we wrote the series. That being said, the authors of Classical Writing have roots/citizenships in both the US and in Europe, as well as family members with roots in East Asia.  Between all of us, we have Christian roots in Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Churches. In short, from the outset we have been, we hope, at least a tiny bit diverse.

Because every instructor has different tastes, different emphases, and different interests, all our books are written such that– should you (the instructor) have the time and inclination– you may insert your own choice of texts (in place of ours)  into our program. You may do that with every single text we use, or just with an occasional text as you see fit.. The program is flexible in that way.

We see the Western canon as so much more than the writings of imperialist dead white males. It is worth studying, and we are enriched for doing so.  And yet, we, at Classical Writing, reject in the strongest possible terms any  reading of that Western canon that would in any way lead to the embrace of  White Nationalism or White Supremacy.

Over the years our studies of the Great Books and the Western Canon have informed us of and helped us understand the rise of the Western world with both its strengths and its flaws. Such studies still help us understand our own familes and their value systems, as well as the particular flavors of  Christianity that arose in the West, accompanied by Western colonialism, slavery, and Western dominance in the world. All this, for better and for worse.

However, study of the Western canon should never result in the kind of a navel-gazing white smugness that leads to contempt for non-Western cultures, or for persons of color, or for anyone who happens to view and interpret the world in ways we do not agree with.

Our Lord was born in Asia to Jewish parents. He calls us to be humble and think others better than ourselves. We are servants, not masters. We are flawed, as is our culture (along with every other human culture on earth), and so–likely is the version of Christianity we try to practice flawed– not fatally flawed perhaps, but since we are less than perfect, so is our practice of our faith less than perfect.

“Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.”

—Matt. xi. 29.

“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came to serve.”

—Matt. xx. 27.

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”

—Phil. ii.3.

We are His servants. We are to be His witnesses. We must do so with humility.