Shakespeare’s Tragedy was CAW’s Success!

The curtains opened and students took the stage to an audience of nearly 100 for the One Night Only performance of Hamlet! A ghost walked the boards, fog drifted amongst the lights and swords flashed in theatrical triumph. Congratulations to the Phoenix Players on a job well done!

Why It’s Time for Lutheran Classical Education

by Dan Snyder, Headmaster

We live in a time when communication is so easy that most people only pay attention to about twenty percent of the emails and messages that are flying across their screens. Screens, an idea whose time has apparently come, are banishing an idea that we once all agreed upon. This idea that many would regard as fundamental to what it means to be a modern American, is the idea that the written word is important; that reading is the sign of an educated person. Nowadays, we are encouraged to communicate in short bursts, browsing around for information, even avoiding conversation in the pursuit of this browsing. How often have we seen pairs of people, even newly-wed couples, staring at their devices silently as they sit ‘together’. Distracting words, rather than clarifying wisdom, seems to be the result of our rapid communication style in this breathless and perhaps shallow time. 

What does Lutheran education, and in particular, Lutheran Classical education have to offer in a time like this? While we may be on the way to cynicism concerning the welter of words that we have unleashed, it is important to remember that the revitalization of the Church, and even the western world was the prize of students who studied classical languages, and applied themselves to discourse through the written word. We have the artifacts to examine: Luther’s tractates of 1520, the 95 theses, the Augsburg Confession, the resultant profusion of pamphlets and tracts leading through the great novels and philosophic works of the following decades. This blizzard of words was unleashed in those days, and continues to be a feature of our own times. Reading the Scriptures, publishing written research and conversation, translating the Scriptures and sending them into the world; these are the contributions of those days of high classical education.  In those days, we realized that the fruits of education were for all humanity. This education served the world and the Church, and it still does today.  

Lutheran Churches are in part the result of the classical renaissance, and Lutheran schools keep that tradition alive. Our times can benefit from the studious retrieval of and commitment to the preservation of ancient wisdom. In our student’s lives this results in modern men and women who understand how they came to be where they are, and how their own days may further the good of their neighbors to come while honoring their neighbors of the past. 

We sometimes seem to live in a flat earth of equal values and one-dimensional speech – speaking constantly of the acquisition of power and security. This is a kind of education that is like combat. The nature of truth, however, only reveals itself to those who are in love. The Word who was in the beginning still speaks in and through us, revealing to those grounded in love the “breadth and length and height and depth” (Ephesians 3:18) of that love. We build the strength among us to say these things, revealing things in their full dimension.

Coming up at CAW

• March 10 – dine at Chipotle at Central and Hillside in Wichita between 5-9pm, mention Concordia Academy and 25% of all event sales benefit our Student Activity Fund
• March 13 – Student Field trip exploring Aviation in Wichita
• March 14 – CAW Board Meeting
• March 15 – State Chess Tournament in Emporia
• March 17-21 – Spring Break, No Classes
• April 3 – Frank Lloyd Wright Allen House Field Trip
• April 6 – Afternoon of Music & the Arts at CAW, 3pm