Redeeming the Six Arts: A Christian Approach to Chinese Classical Education

by Brent Pinkall

Christ does not erase our cultural identities. He redeems them. As Classical Christian Education experiences a renewal in the West, more and more Chinese Christians are eager to participate in it—but they face a dilemma. Contemporary resources on classical Christian education almost unanimously define it as a Western tradition rooted in Western languages, Western literature, and the seven liberal arts. Does this mean that Chinese classical Christian schools must also adopt a Western curriculum? Or might they draw from their own Eastern tradition, one characterized not by men such as Plato, Herodotus, and Shakespeare but by Confucius, Sima Qian, and Li Bai? In Redeeming the Six Arts , Brent Pinkall argues that classical Christian education is not fundamentally a canon of fixed texts or subjects but rather an approach rooted in the Fifth Honor thy father and thy mother. Insofar as our ancestors differ, the languages, literature, and arts we study will also differ. Although Chinese Christians share the same “spiritual” fathers as their Western counterparts, their “earthly” fathers are different, and therefore their curriculum must reflect not only a shared “Christian” heritage but also a unique “classical” heritage. In Part 1, Pinkall surveys the 4000-year history of Chinese classical education, a tradition rooted in the “six arts”: rites, music, charioteering, archery, script, and calculation. In Part 2, he explores the common grace of God in this rich but pagan tradition and considers how Chinese Christians might redeem it to his glory while avoiding attendant pitfalls, just as the church in the West redeemed the “seven arts” tradition inherited from their pagan, Greco-Roman ancestors. As readers compare the two traditions, they will find both glorious distinctives as well as remarkable similarities. They will discover that God reveals himself not only through the Logos but through the Dao .

Genres: Education, Philosophy

332 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2022

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years I have received the question as a publisher of classical Christian education: "Why these old Western books?" And it's really three questions.

Why THESE old Western books?
Why these OLD Western books?
Why these old WESTERN books?

And one of my favorite replies is to answer with the 5th Commandment: Honor your father and mother.

The motto of Roman Roads Press is "Inherit the Humanities." Embedded in that phrase is the assumption that the classical tradition (the humanities) is ours to inherit. It is our birthright, handed down to us over centuries by our Christian forefathers and even pre-Christian forefathers before them. It has shaped who we are as a Western culture.

So the answer to "Why these old Western books," why "old Western culture," is that it is our inheritance to receive with thanksgiving, our birthright as both Christians and Westerners.

Brent Pinkall has been a missionary to China, and involved in classical education in China. Chinese Christians, seeing the Christian and classical inherence in the West, are often tempted to embrace our Western inheritance at the expense of their own. In Redeeming the Six Arts, Brent Pinkall makes the case that Chinese Christians should not honor their fathers by honoring ours, but rather apply the principles of classical education to their own culture. In doing so, he also provides a beautiful example of the principles of classical education applied to any culture. These principles are a fantastic way to push aside some of the distractions that modern social debates about classical education often bring to the table. Classical education is not about Western "dead white guys" except when they happen to be our fathers. We honor our father and mother, as the Chinese ought to honor theirs.

I highly recommend Redeeming the Six Arts to anyone involved in the renewal of classical Christian education, whether Western or Eastern or other. If you are a Westerner, you will be given the principles of appreciating your own Western culture all the more through the eyes of seeing those principles applied to another (beautiful and rich) tradition, and if you are a non-Westerner, and especially if you are Chinese, you will see a glimpse of the riches of your own tradition, and a practical guidebook for honoring your own fathers and redeeming those arts.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. You may think this book is a niche look at Chinese classical Christian education but there were many wonderful insights for those in the CCE movement in the U.S. We are to honor our fathers in the West with our tradition and so should Chinese Christians. The style and content of education may look different in some respects while overlapping in many others but in all of it, Christ is central.