A Christian Approach to Chinese Classical Education

prosperity, but its prosperity will be found in righteousness.”10 Many self-professed Confucians strayed from their master’s teaching on this point. They pursued learning simply to impress those around them and to attain high seats of power in the government. “Men of antiquity studied to improve themselves; men today study to impress others.”11 Christian schools should recover the original Confucian emphasis of learning as pursuit of the Dao. Confucius elegantly sums up his educational philosophy as follows: “Set your heart on the Dao, base yourself on virtue, lean upon ren, and journey in the arts.”12 First and foremost, learning is the pursuit of the Dao. The ancients understood the Dao as that creative Force or Principle underlying all reality and the ultimate Way or Truth toward which we all must strive. It is the very telos of education. In Christ, however, we learn that the Dao is not just a force or principle, it is a person:

In the beginning was the Dao, and the Dao was with God, and the Dao was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men…And the Dao became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:1–4, 14). 13

国不以利为利，以义为利也 ” Daxue 大学 [The Great Learning] in Liji 礼记 [Record of Rites] 大学 1.16.1603, trans. James Legge.

10 “

古之学者为己，今之学者为人。 ” Confucius, Lunyu 论语 [Analects] 14.24.195, trans. D. C. Lau.

11 “

志于道，据于德，依于仁，游于艺。 ” Confucius, Lunyu 论语 [Analects] 7.6.85, author’s translation.

12 “

13 The Chinese Bible translates Word ( Logos ) as Dao .

In Christ, Confucius’s call to “set your heart on the Dao ” takes on a deeper meaning. All learning becomes a striving after knowing and enjoying Christ. In the words of Augustine:

You are to concentrate all your thoughts, your whole life and your whole intelligence upon Him from whom you derive all that you bring. For when He says, “With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” He means that no part of our life is to be unoccupied, and to afford room, as it were, for the wish to enjoy some other object, but that whatever else may suggest itself to us as an object worthy of love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole current of our affections flows.14

But how do we pursue this Dao ? The first step, of course, is to believe the gospel. We are united with Christ by faith alone in His death and resurrection for us. But the Christian life does not stop there. We continue pursuing Christ by pursuing holiness. The Bible describes this process of sanctification in many ways, but in short it entails being transformed by conforming our thoughts and actions to those consistent with Christ (Eph. 4:17–23).

The ancient Chinese similarly viewed pursuit of the Dao as a process of becoming a “sage” (literally “holy man,” shengren 圣人), or the more easily attainable “gentleman” ( junzi 君子), through self-cultivation. “The Dao of Great Learning lies in making bright virtue brilliant; in making the people