This paper reviews Glen Schultz's Kingdom Education: God's Plan for Educating Future Generations, examining its ten biblical principles for raising and educating children and youth within a God-centered worldview. The review summarizes the author's key arguments, offers a personal critical response evaluating both the strengths and limitations of the framework, and explores how the book's principles can be applied within a Christian educational leadership role. The reviewer affirms the value of parental responsibility and biblical philosophy in education while noting that the approach is most applicable within explicitly Christian learning environments rather than secular or pluralistic settings.
Educational leadership is one of the most important roles in the modern education system, given its significance in establishing educational policy and processes that enhance the learning environment and outcomes. An educational leader therefore plays an influential role in motivating, challenging, inspiring, and affirming the educational practices, processes, and pedagogy of educators. This work requires the application of guiding principles that support strong learning environments and improved outcomes, and has consequently been the subject of numerous publications.
One book that offers principles directly applicable to educational leadership is Kingdom Education: God's Plan for Educating Future Generations by Glen Schultz, a foundational text in the field of Christian education. This review summarizes the author's key points, offers a personal critical response, and explores how the book's insights can be applied within a Christian educational leadership role.
Kingdom Education: God's Plan for Educating Future Generations was written to provide a biblical philosophy of education. The book, considered a must-read for Christian adults and educators, presents ten biblical principles that should be utilized in educating children and youth. These principles are grounded in the idea that the education of children and youth ought to be guided by a God-centered worldview. Accordingly, parents, church leaders, and educators must adopt this perspective in order to properly and fully equip the next generation (Schultz, 2003). The author suggests that failing to incorporate a biblical perspective in the education of children and youth hinders the ability of these adults to effectively prepare successive generations.
Schultz (2003) introduces biblical principles and philosophy as essential components of kingdom education in the modern educational setting. The call for a God-centered worldview is partly attributable to the nature of contemporary society, in which parents have become increasingly concerned about the education of their children. As youth violence increases across society, parents have grown alarmed about their children's education and development. In response, they are increasingly exploring whether their children should attend private, public, home, or Christian schools. Schultz postulates that the rise in youth violence is attributable to a failure by parents to follow biblical principles in the education of their children. These concerns, he argues, can be effectively addressed by adhering to biblical philosophy and principles in fulfilling kingdom education.
By setting forth biblical philosophy and principles to guide the education of children and youth, the book provides a suitable foundation for the use of a Christian-centered worldview in the modern educational environment. Schultz essentially argues that genuine education occurs when parents and educators utilize biblical philosophy and principles in educating the next generation. He also suggests that some of the major problems in today's society could be addressed through following biblical principles in educating children and youth. While this is partly convincing, kingdom education may not be the only answer to pressing societal problems such as violence. Nonetheless, the argument that parents bear a primary responsibility in raising their children and teaching them God's ways as part of kingdom education is well-founded and persuasive.
You’re 54% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.