To College or Not To College?

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. I am Philip.

Sean I’m Sean.

Philip And we’re here on the next recording. It does happen once a month. Maybe at some point it’ll happen more frequently, but you’ll have to keep listening to find out if that’s going to happen.

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Philip That’s right. Like.

Sean Yeah, like.

Philip Yeah, what is it? Five stars only. So it helps the — rip the code, the whatever it is.

Sean I’m wondering if I have actually ever followed those instructions that somebody gives on their YouTube video or on their podcast.

Philip Yeah, it’s kind of annoying. Sean and I were just talking a little bit about being salesy. And so we don’t want this podcast to be salesy. So do what you want. You are free — all are yours. If you want to do what’s right, you will subscribe, though. So there you go.

But we did want to talk a bit about higher education: the overall environment of higher education in America, and then the niche part of that regarding Christian higher education, and then the niche part of that regarding Comeford College and what we’re trying to do with Comeford College. Because Sean and I are both on the board of Comeford.

Sean Comeford — C-O-M-E-F-O-R-D. Not comfort.

Philip Yes, that’s right. It is not comfort. We’re not building safe spaces.

Comeford — that’s the last name of James P. Comeford, who was the founder of Marysville. And so maybe we’ll get into that a little bit as well, of even why Comeford, and how that connects to what we’re trying to do.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But maybe zooming back out regarding higher education. It does seem like the last maybe thirty years, the feeling, the direction, the trajectory that not just Christians but, like, right-wing people, conservatives — the direction that they’re facing regarding higher education has shifted, has changed.

I do think that guys like Doug Wilson and his work have contributed to this change in the winds, to this shift. And also a lot of other guys. I think like Ben Sasse had the —

Sean Yeah, somewhere in Florida.

Philip Yeah, the American —

Sean The Vanishing of Them. Yeah, that’s right.

Philip Mind, or something like that. Or Youth, or — anyway.

So he talked about young people being driven away. And so a lot of that has become very evident and clear regarding the evil intention and outcomes that higher education in America has produced. It has successfully been a tool, a weapon, in the arsenal of the left — or the arsenal of people who hate Jesus, people who hate Christians, who want to promote a woke, gay agenda. And they have even sabotaged institutions who were originally Christian. So our big schools: Yale, Princeton, Harvard. These big schools in America who were founded as Christian schools back in the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, are now the drivers of everything that we hate and despise.

And so a lot of the marketing — I’m just kind of laying a backstory — but a lot of the marketing driving into promoting people to go to higher education has been, you need it as a stepping stone to get a good job, a good paying job. And so it’s been connected to that. And so people end up going to college because they’re trying to find a job, and then they come out and see that that was actually not the case. It didn’t help them necessarily with the job.

And so now we have this pendulum swing of people thinking that college is all a waste of time, and even maybe rejecting the overall idea.

And so, even the show — what is it? Mike —

Sean Mike Rowe.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Dirty Jobs.

Philip Dirty Jobs, right. So his stuff is really good. He says a lot of good things, and he promotes blue-collar work and these dirty jobs that people should pursue — which is totally correct. And so that also feeds into the same direction of the wind, the change in the winds.

Sean When I was a kid growing up — and this would have been thirty years ago; I graduated from high school more than thirty years ago. Forty years ago? Can’t be that. Thirty years ago, yeah.

When I was growing up, my dad, who was a self-employed draftsman, he knew early on — like when I was still in elementary school, I think — that I was going to be going to college. And the big reason was because he could not get certain jobs. And one part of it in particular: as a draftsman, he had to take his drawings to an architect, like someone with the title of architect, to get them stamped or approved. And you couldn’t get your own stamp — you couldn’t do your own drawings and have them approved — unless you had a degree from a college.

Philip Right.

Sean And he was constantly frustrated, and probably actually a little bit bitter. He had done the work, he had done the drawings, but he needed somebody else who had this piece of paper to give him the right piece of paper, so to speak, to say that his drawings were good.

So he told me — this was long before I had any thoughts about being a pastor — he was like, you are going to need to have a college degree, in whatever, to actually have a better shot, not just at getting a job, but the privileges that would come with certain jobs. And I believed that.

And this was not trying to make me a teacher. Again, this was not trying to make me a pastor. This was blue-collar work. You were going to get a better blue-collar job if — the narrative was, if you’ve got five applications for one position, and some have gone to college and some haven’t, at the time, well, you’d probably start with the people who had gone to college, because at least, look, they finished something.

Philip Right.

Sean Whatever they studied, they completed their assignments.

Philip And that was probably true forty years ago, thirty years ago.

Sean Yeah. I mean, it was definitely a believable narrative.

Philip Right.

Sean So.

Philip Well, and I do think that a lot of the courses, classes, majors being offered a generation ago were much less — like, the amount of them being offered is much less, and they were much more focused on actually the objective. Your diversity majors, your socialism majors, your feminine studies or whatever — all this kind. Those don’t help in any capacity regarding actually doing the work.

So, yeah, if you’re trying to build bridges and you need an engineering degree to be able to get your stamps done, that makes sense. If you’re trying to perform open heart surgery, and so there needs to be some kind of formal education there, makes sense. If you’re practicing law. So there are careers, jobs, vocations where higher education totally plays a big role, an important role, in that.

Sean And the big root that was growing — however long ago this seed actually got planted in those places — was that, even in that best case scenario, like you’re describing thirty, forty years ago, even in that best case scenario, all of the engineering was still godless. Not necessarily trying to push ungodliness, but it was at least without reference to God, to God as creator, to giving him praise in our vocations, through our work and through our skill and through our ability to take dominion over a river and get our vehicles over a river, to build a bridge, or whatever it might be.

So that godlessness — which in my case, at least growing up, I mean, I went to public high school, and it was not that God was bad; it was that God was irrelevant. You could do all these things, and you didn’t need him. He was just not important. And maybe on the weekends, in your private time, you were allowed to go to church and you could worship God, but that had nothing to do with then what you’re getting in the classroom, or then what kind of job you were going to have after you graduated.

So that kind of godlessness then had no pushback for when some of the academic professors started bringing in, like you’re saying, the socialism, the actual ungodliness, the alternative idols. Not just the, well, we’ll just live here on earth without reference to anything beyond the sun.

Philip Right. Yeah, it’s all the social words. Socialism, social studies, social justice.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah, it’s — don’t be social.

Sean Which, ironically, we are made to be social because God is social.

Philip Maybe that is the hook.

Sean Yeah. So they’ve been trying to live that out without a reference point — for relationship, for genuine community and fellowship, and genuine diversity with equality, like the Trinity shows us.

Philip Right.

Sean So they have been trying to make that up from a humanistic standpoint, and that was bound to crash. There’s no reference point.

Philip Right. Well, and so, just like these big woke institutions — a lot of them, most of them, started off as Christian institutions. They were explicitly Christian, and that was even the point of it all.

Sean At least in having theology classes.

Philip Right.

Sean Whatever — because I don’t know that I’ve ever gone to find out what the engineering curriculum in an ostensibly Christian school was like. My guess is that a lot of it was dualistic or disconnected. But maybe not.

Philip Yeah. And so they not only drifted with the stream of culture, but now they are the drivers of wicked culture.

And so in the same way, even a lot of Christian universities, Christian colleges today are just Christianized secularism — like secularism with the Christian veneer. And so God is still irrelevant in the actual work. His name is just there.

Sean Yeah, you’re just not allowed to drink on campus.

Philip Right. But the actual substance of the matter is not Christian. And even, I think, the not drinking is a sign that they’ve already drifted.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But —

Sean Well, you’ve got to have something —

Philip That’s right.

Sean — that makes it seem Christian.

Philip That’s right. So that’s not even a real Christian veneer. That’s like fake on top of fake.

But so, most of the Christian institutions are not set up today to fight any of that either. And so that’s why, like, the average Joe who goes to church on Sunday and cares about Jesus, and he’s reading guys like Doug Wilson, he’s interested in living out his Christian faith with his family, with his work, and he has kids that are of college age — it’s like, well, why would I send them to any of that? So, definitely not any of the wicked institutions. And then the few universities or colleges that are maybe good — what’s the point? That’s not going to help them with their career, with their job. They need to go get things done.

Sean So, same story as my dad was telling me. Where the same last chapter of the educational story is, you go to college to get a better job. But we just think that there’s a different way to get a better job.

But we still, as a Christian culture, like you’re saying — we still see that, which, at least for my dad, it was about money, and to a lesser extent power, or freedom.

Philip Right.

Sean It wasn’t about image bearing. It wasn’t about God’s calling for your life and vocation. It wasn’t about being a good Christian, or being a good human being. It wasn’t about being a good citizen. It was about making more money.

Philip Right.

Sean And maybe, best case, making more money but not doing something that you hate. So you could choose more what job you wanted to have.

But my point is, we still are largely following that same arc.

Philip Right.

Sean We’re trying to get to the same end of making more money.

Philip Right.

Sean We just have realized, oh, there’s so many college graduates, and so many of them don’t know what to do. So I don’t need that, but I could still get to the same end.

Philip Right. Yeah, that false connection of college to vocation, or college to job — I would say, for the most part, that is incorrect. And so people who go to college for the sake of getting a job are going to college for the wrong reason. But then the people who don’t go to college because they think college is for the sake of a job are still in the same boat.

Sean Yeah.

Philip They’re just reacting to that same paradigm negatively.

Sean Yeah. It’s like the people who say money doesn’t matter. So, I’m thinking of like a missionary kind of story or testimony: money doesn’t matter, so I sold everything and I went to live in Africa. Well, ironically, you’re still defining your spiritual life by money. Just the opposite way.

Philip Exactly right.

Sean Money is still the reference. And in this education question, job is still the reference point —

Philip Right.

Sean — rather than who I am as a person doing the job.

Philip Right. Yeah, you’re still connecting college to the job, and you’re refusing to participate in that, getting to the job a different way. And so, yeah, I think that is —

Sean Which I think we would actually agree with, in terms of — if that is the story that you’re reading, then, sure, you don’t need to go to college. Most people don’t need — definitely not to go learn about how to read old white guys from a colored feminine perspective, lens or filter, or whatever those glasses are, lesbian thing. Like, definitely you don’t need that to go be an electrician.

Philip Right.

Sean Or to get a good paying job.

Philip Right.

Sean But is there more to what education could be, to higher education? And that’s why we’re talking about it.

Philip Right. Yeah. So if your objective is to get a job, college is probably a bad path for that. That is not the smartest way to become rich, to make a lot of money.

Sean Yeah.

Philip To get a job, to be self-sustaining. So if that’s what you’re after — yeah, college is not for that. That’s not the reason why to go to college. Don’t go to college for that.

And so, why then go to college? Why — I mean, apart even from a Christian college, or Comeford or whatnot — like, we obviously think that it’s a good idea.

So, a little bit about even my experience with college.

Sean Yeah, what is your college experience?

Philip That’s right. Why am I qualified to talk about this? In one sense, I might be the least qualified person to talk about it, but in another sense, maybe it actually qualifies me.

Sean You’re an education amateur.

Philip That’s right. Yes. Yeah, I’m totally an amateur.

Sean A lover.

Philip Yeah.

It’s — is it autodidact? It’s “self-taught.” But I say I’m not an autodidact, because I’m not self-taught yet. I’m still self-teaching. So I’m still in the process.

But yeah, so it was like freshman year of high school, like October, fall time, I felt like I was wasting a lot of time. So I was also in the government school system. And I didn’t feel like I was wasting time doing the work in the class — I was literally done with the work and had nothing to do. So, when we were counting like three and a half hours of every day, I just sat; there was no work to do. And so other kids, like, hang out and they just enjoyed their company. I was above that.

No. But yeah, so I got really discouraged. That was, like, I remember, October of my freshman year, so I was fourteen. And asked my parents if the following year I could do like a homeschool program, so that I could work instead of just sitting around. And so we did that in tenth grade.

Junior year, I reapplied to the government school so that I could do Running Start. And then by the time I was done in high school, I had my AA degree. So, from community college.

Sean You were ahead of the game.

Philip That’s right. So I did do some education. I have a certificate.

Sean And an AA is a degree.

Philip Yeah, a two-year degree.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah, it’s something. Put it on my resume.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But after that, I got accepted into UW at Seattle. And so I was trying to pursue the communications school there. I did two quarters; I was like over eight grand in debt, plus the books, plus all the money and time spent getting over there.

I found a girl that I wanted to marry. I didn’t have the job, though, so I started looking for work, and all the work needed experience. So the kind of work that I was trying to get into, in order to be able to provide for a family, needed experience — three to five years experience, some kind of degree preferred.

And so I thought, I’m going to be here for a few more years, I’m going to get out, and then I’m going to have to find some kind of entry-level job, still not able to provide for a family. And so I decided to jump ship and get some kind of work right now, building experience.

So I dropped out of UW after two quarters, and haven’t looked back since.

So, yeah, in that sense of trying to get a job and going to college for the job, that was probably the smart thing to do. Like I said, that’s not the path forward for that.

And even, yeah, some of the classes I had to take in UW, I remember, were like diversity, social study type classes. And at least that overtone was mixed into a lot of the stuff. So this would have been, I don’t know, thirteen years ago, maybe.

So then I got a job, started working, and I’m still there. So the job that I eventually got — now I’m a partner within that company. I’ve probably interviewed, I think it’s safe to say, over a thousand people.

Sean Wow.

Philip So over the last like twelve years. Maybe even more than that; I haven’t counted.

And when I see a college degree on the resume, that puts a red flag for me. So in interviewing people, people who are coming out of some kind of higher education program, I have to ask more questions. Specifically because, in our work, we really care about the kind of culture we’re trying to build, the way people get along, and we’re pretty explicit about our Christian faith and who we are and what we’re doing. And so, people coming out of universities, I want to be at least aware of who I’m dealing with. And so, is that going to be a problem for them or not?

So when I see that, I’ll lean in more on some of our worldview framework and just see how they interact, respond to that. For some people, they’re not interested at all in that, and that’s good, then I know from the get-go. Others are open to that.

But also, our work — a lot of it is, like, we hire those blue-collar, dirty job type things. We do welders, construction workers, machinists. And so a lot of college education isn’t connected to that work either.

So, yeah. So I am a college dropout. And now I’m on the board of a college.

So, I guess: why should people go to college, in general? Why is it not a waste of time?

I have thoughts. You have thoughts.

Sean Yeah.

Philip You go first.

Sean Yeah. While we still talk about how many people need to go to college — everybody does need to know how to be a good human being. And even, from a Christian standpoint, how to care about the things that Christ cares about.

And how do you get that? Well, usually by some kind of help. There are people who can — either because they have resources, books, or now, obviously, internet, you can get a lot of things. But there is a kind of care that, as human beings made in God’s image, a kind of care that we ought to have.

I mean, that’s been a big word that you have been using recently.

Philip I like that word, yeah.

Sean Capon’s book had a lot to talk about care. And Jesus cares about all the things that he made.

I have said it in various places before, but when I was a youth pastor, the name of our youth ministry was 128, from Colossians 1:28, where the goal is to admonish and teach every person to become complete in Christ.

And I used to think of being complete in Christ as pretty much a moral thing. Which it includes our morals; it includes being righteous compared to unrighteous; it includes being wise as opposed to foolish, for sure.

But even the setup for Colossians 1:28 is in the middle of Colossians, talking about how Christ is the head of all creation, and that from him and through him and to him were all things made, the visible and the invisible.

And I used to think, for a long time, that that was a setup saying, look, Jesus is so powerful that if your morals aren’t right, he’s going to punish you. He’s got ability to punish you. You better acknowledge him and live right.

And that is part of it. I think that it is true that under Christ, when we are united to him, we then are slaves to righteousness rather than slaves to our sin. True.

But if we’re going to be complete in Christ, then that means that we should be not just choosing what he chooses in terms of right over wrong, but we should also be interested in what he’s interested in — which would include all of creation. It would include everything that he has made and that he is sustaining by the word of his power.

So we have not actually just freedom to, or allowance to, have broad interests — or at least to say that a variety of interests are good. So, as finite creatures, I can’t care about everything equally, and I have specific interests. But I don’t need to poo-poo somebody else’s interests. I can actually acknowledge, well, that’s good, you keep running with that. You learn a lot about that and then tell me some stuff, and I’ll learn some more about what I’m interested in, and I’ll tell you some stuff.

And this is actually beyond just studying the Bible itself. The Bible is the foundation from which then we learn that we’re allowed to care about all these other things. So, Adam named all of the animals that God brought to him in the garden, and that was good work. God didn’t say to Adam, why did you do this? Why didn’t you just pray more? And, you know, prefall, whatever.

But we are not just allowed to care. We actually, in order to be more Christlike — if we’re ultimately predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, and if even part of the work of ministry is helping others be more like Christ and present them perfect, or complete, in Christ — then we ought to see them increasing in their care for the kinds of things that Christ has made, in their particular locations, in their spheres.

And you can’t do that — generally speaking, we’re not born, we’re not even born again, knowing all the things. We’re born again in our spiritual lives at a state of immaturity, and then we have to learn and become more mature. We have to read, study, think, talk, get taught by other people, and then try it out. And that’s how we mature.

And the same would be true for all of the different vocations. So, how can a person do that? Well, probably a lot of ways. We have an embarrassment of riches in terms of resources to learn and grow at things.

Do you need college to do that? Not necessarily. But it does actually turn out that a lot of people are benefited by being with others who are doing largely the same thing — where there’s a collection, or a community, of people that do actually raise the overall level of, we’re a people who care about these things, and we’re going to encourage you as you care about this part, and they’re going to encourage you back as you care about your part. And we have that sort of collective effort, to care about Christ’s things.

You know, like, before gas grills, when people would cook over charcoal. One charcoal can get lit — like one piece, one brick. Is that what it’s called? A briquette.

Philip Yeah, well.

Sean One briquette can get lit, but when it is combined in the bowl with a couple dozen briquettes, then they all feed off of each other.

So, it’s like — I love homeschooling. And also, I realized my limitations, my wife’s and my limitations, pretty early on, about what we were going to be able to give our kids if it was primarily us. So we’re like, well, what if it was us, but we convinced other people to join with us? And not just for the division of labor, like Adam Smith talked about — I think that that’s a reasonable concept — but just the joy, or the camaraderie, that comes along with doing the work together, sharing some of the difficulties and frustrations, but also then sharing the wins and sharing what we’ve learned with each other.

So, we have a lot to learn. You can learn a lot in a lot of ways, but trying to do it by yourself — the success rate on that is very low, and misses out on some of the other riches that come from having a community of people doing that. And a college has been a historical way to bring that about.

In fact, I feel like it was when visiting Oxford a number of years ago that somebody told the story that the original reason why you had a college was because the professors wanted an excuse to actually keep studying themselves. So college was for the teachers, in their own work.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And they needed a library so that they had access to resources. But in order to help sustain their lives, they figured, well, with our off time —

Philip Right.

Sean — we’ll get some students. And then they can actually support us while we keep doing our study and are trying to learn and grow.

Philip Right.

Sean So initially it wasn’t even about, well, we need students to grow up. It was about, we need an excuse. This is probably not how they described it, but: we need some money so we can keep reading our books.

Philip Right.

Sean Well, I guess we could tutor some people and let them pay for us.

Philip Have them shadow us.

Sean And we have missed out.

So, when we’re talking about a story arc — well, that arc, the end of that is, we’ve got stuff we want to know about.

Philip Right.

Sean How can we get ourselves into a position where we can learn about this? We want to know more stuff. And that is a different end than, we need to have a job where we can make good money.

Philip Yes.

Sean We’re still following that “I want to make money, that’s the end.” Not, how can I get enough money to actually learn more stuff?

Philip Right.

Sean Get enough money to make advances, potentially, in a field of study.

Philip Yeah.

Sean The ambition is for the wrong thing. The money is in both.

Philip Right.

Sean And money is fine — supporting ourselves and our families, like you said. You wanted to support a family.

Philip Right.

Sean Well, you’re going to need to bring home some bacon to make that happen.

Philip Right.

Sean But supporting a family is actually a different vision than living a comfortable life, or just having a big bank account.

Learning more things is the ambition that we haven’t successfully seen given to much of the next generation. I mean, our secular culture is not trying to learn more, and even the Christian culture is still largely, am I going to need to know this for the test?

Philip Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think everything that you said —

Sean Well, I went to college, so, clearly.

Philip There you go.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah, you went to, what, like four schools?

Sean I went to three colleges, but then to graduate school. So I do have a master’s degree as well as an undergraduate degree.

Philip So, total schools —

Sean Four.

Philip Four schools, okay, there you go.

Yeah, but everything you said — I think there’s like multiple hurdles that Christians need to get over in order to say amen.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, even — the way you presented it at the end there, the professors, the people who wanted to do their own studies, figured out a way how they could fund that effort. Well, they loved that topic. They loved that thing. They loved to know more about that thing.

And so, yeah, I think it was — at least I heard it from Capon — his explanation of amateur as the one who loves. So you called me an amateur in that way.

Sean From amo, which is the Latin word for “I love.”

Philip Oh, okay.

Sean Amateur is from the Latin “love.”

Philip There you go.

Sean So, a lover.

Philip Yeah. And I don’t remember what word he contrasted it with. Was it with, like, professional, or —

Sean Yeah.

Philip Or something like that.

But so there’s a difference, even for the professor, for the teacher, to be doing the teaching because it’s just their job, versus them doing it because they love this thing. They love this topic, whatever that topic is.

And so I think Christians — maybe even that first hurdle, maybe it’s somewhere there. So, what you said regarding our cares, and the things that Christ cares about: Christians, most Christians, would agree that we need to love God with our mind, right?

Sean Because that’s in the verse.

Philip That’s in the verse. Yes. And so loving God with your mind is necessary; must do that.

But then they limit the object of the love — so, God — to one sphere, maybe. And then the way that love looks is only in one topic. So, theology. Or anything that is connected with the Bible. Anything that’s connected with knowing God.

Sean Yeah, like you would know that you’re doing it if your morning quiet time went from fifteen minutes to thirty minutes.

Philip Right.

Sean You are really loving your God with your mind.

Philip Right.

Sean If you got half an hour.

Philip Right. Yeah. And then if you’re, like, big-time loving God with your mind, you will go to a Bible college and seminary. So that is the focus, and that is the end of loving God with your mind.

And so when Christ is presented as preeminent over all creation, over all the things, what that does is it opens up the object of our love to include much more than what we’ve limited it to. So God is not just caring about our soteriology, like our salvation proper; God is the creator of the cosmos. And the things he cares about are much, much broader than most Christians give to him, allow him to care about.

And so getting over that hurdle, I think, is big. It’s important, to be able to acknowledge that — so, where you said our cares, our capacities are limited because of our finite nature. God is not finite, he’s infinite. And so his level of interest, his depth of interest, goes deep in all the things.

And so when we are interested in something that is not explicitly Bible or explicitly theology, we are not lesser. We are not loving God less because our depth of interest is in mathematics.

Sean Right.

Philip Or in biology, or in literature and how to form words.

Sean Yeah. The pastors, probably in particular, who have made it sound like you are a better Christian when you are a pastor — you are more spiritual when your vocation is identified as a spiritual one: pastor, missionary, some kind of full-time vocational ministry, where you can spend a lot of time doing Bible-y things.

And without trying to demean the work of a pastor — actually the work of a pastor is not to make everybody else a pastor. It is to help everybody else be Christian in their work. And you can’t tell everybody else — which I have done in the past. So, like, I have failed at this, but repented. And needed to repent. Like, it wasn’t just a mind shift, it was a turning away from a sinful — and a lie, a false story.

But part of the job of the church, or the pastor, in his teaching and in his work, is to encourage other people to live by faith in their cares. And those cares are diverse, those cares should all be deep, and they are all good — as long as, if God says it’s good, then it’s good for them to care about it, and for them to get excellent at it.

Philip Right.

Sean And they ought to be encouraged to live by faith and get better at it.

Philip Right.

Sean And part of the reason for why some sort of institution like a college idea, is because a Sunday sermon is not probably sufficient to encourage people how to think as Christians, by faith, about math, or about science, or about construction, or about computer coding, or just even who we are as human beings and government.

I have been reading — and I’m really enjoying it, which I’m not sure what that says about me anymore — but I’ve been reading a book about the Italian humanist Renaissance in the fifteenth century.

Philip You’re at a point where you could just lean into the weird sides of yourself.

Sean I suppose.

Philip Yeah, so you don’t even need to worry about what people think.

Sean Yeah. Good. Well, so, I’m reading this book and I like it.

Philip There you go. Don’t be reluctant.

Sean Yeah.

And it’s about how the humanists, at that point, who are interested in what it means to be human — and in particular in how humans govern other humans — and why they needed to read the humanities. They needed to read what we have in our Omnibus curriculum at ECS. They needed to read the Greek and Roman great works, the great books. They needed to read those even if they were not explicitly Christian, because, you know, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, these are not written by Christians, or Christian things. But the Christian Italian humanists said, in order to really understand what it means to be a human being, and to then lead other human beings — so, the elite people in a collapsing culture needed to be reformed and refreshed in what it meant to be human, which would come for the sake of Jesus, by reading some of these things.

And there’s just not that many people who are going to, on their own. I mean, you have continued to do this. So, interestingly enough, though you dropped out of college, you are finding some time every day, or most days of the week —

Philip Having to make it.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah.

Sean — and try to now go back through.

Philip Right.

Sean And get some education.

Philip Right.

Sean And there have been different classes around here that you have participated in as well, but then you’re still trying to do it on your own. That’s actually probably pretty rare.

I am trying to think of the other people that I know, even in our church and school community — how many of them are reading The Divine Comedy on their own?

Philip Yeah, I’m done with that.

Sean Okay, well, good. But how many people have finished that without getting encouragement in that, or getting assignments, some accountability for it?

Philip Right, yeah.

Sean So, can you get it on your own? Yes. Can you watch a YouTube video about it on your own? Yes. Should you? I mean, maybe, depending on where you’re at. Listening to this podcast — and you’ve probably liked and subscribed already.

Philip There you go, yeah.

Sean In the middle of it.

Philip Yeah.

Sean But can you do it on your own? Yes. But is there a way to get people to realize who they are, where they have come from, what God cares about, and then be encouraged to keep caring about those other things themselves — in a class, in a college sort of environment? And I think, yes.

Is that the only way? No. Do most people not take advantage of the resources that are available to them without some sort of accountability? I think most people don’t do that.

Philip Right.

Sean And, on a K–12 level, you can introduce people to a lot of things. But if the goal of discipleship is to become like Christ, then it’s a never-ending process.

So, again: graduate K–12 with a classical Christian education. Is that good? I mean, hopefully it’s good. Hopefully you got exposed to a lot of things. Because — even if we had a typical four-year college degree, is that sufficient? Well, again, it’s a lot more. Still not enough.

Philip Right, exactly right.

And yeah, so that’s, I’d say, the second hurdle that I heard in what you were presenting. The first one is, Christ cares about these things, and we ought not limit the cares of Christ, right? And he cares deeply about them.

The second hurdle, I do think — and this is prominent even amongst repenting dualists, and maybe even amongst people who grew up not with that framework at all — is a certain kind of apathy. Is a certain kind of, like, weak cares. Your loves are weak. Your cares are weak.

Yes, you might agree that Christ cares about all this. You might agree that we should encourage people to care about it. But your cares are too weak to spend the time and resources to actually dive deep into it.

And so, having that mindset of “I’m done” is wrong. Like, you should think, I want more. How can I get more of Christ in these spheres, in these topics? How can I learn more about the way God has designed the world, and the way he has built people to interact with one another? How have people played that out throughout history incorrectly? How have they done it correctly? How has God unfolded this historical tapestry? What are the intricacies in the math formulas, in the cells?

Like, these are deep, deep studies that most Christians just don’t care enough about, are too apathetic about.

And I think that that’s this next hurdle. Which — I mean, both are, I guess, mental and emotional, but this one in some sense requires repentance that leads to action, like repentance that is visible in your action. You are going to focus on getting to know this thing deeply because you love this thing, you love the creator who made this thing, who designed it, who thought about it.

And so being able to have the mindset of, I want more. Even kind of the professors that you brought up, where they’re trying to figure out a way to learn more, to get to know about it more. And that is how we love God with all our mind. We are not apathetic about these things.

And so, yes, I think the kids coming out of K through 12 classical education at ECS, or anywhere else, however else that is set up, are way better off than I was — you said, than you were.

Sean Definitely.

Philip Coming out of government school, or even coming out of a Christian school that, like I said, is just Christianized secularism. So, we’re trying to embody all of Christ in their education, and equip them with that. And then they’re done with senior year. And if they have the mindset of, well, I’m done, I think that is the wrong mindset to have.

You should be coming out of it with, I want more — and whatever that looks like. So I don’t think I would be as rash to say that higher education is for everybody. But I do think that wanting more is for everybody. For some, that should look like going into formal higher education. For others, it should look like not doing that.

But thinking that you have arrived because you have finished a K through 12 classical education program is not just foolish; I think it’s wrong. Like, morally wrong. There is so much more that Christ is, that Christ has. And being apathetic, or bored by it, or thinking that you have arrived — something is out of place. Your priorities, your loves, are out of place.

And so building up that level of interest, to want more of God, to understand God more with your mind, I think is necessary.

Sean Yeah. It is easy, in apathy, to be very individualistic as well.

And I’m imagining a graduate, a high school graduate, who says, yeah, I do want more, but I’m just going to do it in the evenings on my own, and I don’t really need to participate or think about anything bigger than that.

Well, is that sinful? Maybe not. But, are you going to need a lawyer at some point to help you out? Are you going to need a doctor to help you with your physical problems? Are you going to need someone who’s a pastor to not just listen to and help you, lead you in worship, but perhaps even to be able to give counsel for your soul, or for some other kind of relationship conflict that you’re in later on?

Because those are, like, the big three — lawyers, doctors, and pastors were three big kind of vocational callings that used to be considered.

Philip Right.

Sean And, wow, I would really love a trained one of each of those.

Philip Right.

Sean Someone who is not lazy and apathetic in their understanding and their ability to put things together.

Philip Right.

Sean Including knowing that God loves life.

Philip Right.

Sean That God loves justice. That God loves life. And that God loves joy. So: justice with lawyers, life with doctors, and joy for pastors.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And we’d at least want those people to be trained. So — “but I’m just going to sit back here on my own and read some books.”

Philip Right.

Sean Well, so, again, fine. But we are going to need each other to keep caring about the things that God has called every person in the body to care about. As we’re interacting with our culture and society as well, in a way that is adorning the doctrine that should be in our vocation.

So, add to lawyers, doctors, pastors: businessmen, salesmen, builders — builders who are not trying to cut every corner, but who know how to be genuine craftsmen. Whether that’s genuine craftsmen on a bigger scale of production, or even on just making something beautiful.

Like, where are our beauty makers? We have very few beauty makers. Who even thinks that that is okay? Well, beauty makers come from people who care.

Philip Exactly right.

Sean And —

Philip Because it takes time. It takes time to build your craft before you even do it. Like, to get good.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, yeah, I think that one of the reasons why, in the arts, Christian art sucks — I mean, that is like a stereotype that —

Sean Current Christian art largely sucks.

Philip Sorry, yeah. This generation of Christian art. Historically, Christian art has been awesome, and Christians have been the ones even driving the standards for art up.

And so this generation is like — we’ve come down from the mountain into Narnia, right? And so there’s like so much goodness, but we are blind to it all. So our cares have gone down, our apathy has gone up.

But Christians just don’t care enough to become good at screenwriting, at writing dialogue that is interesting, that is intriguing, at building tension in a scene, writing subtext, how to do that. Forget all that — let’s just fast forward to presenting the gospel in this movie, and then that’s it.

To get good at brewing beer, or cooking well, making it beautiful, all of that. So, yeah: to care enough to spend the time getting good at it, and then actually to perform it. We don’t care.

And so, you mentioned where I currently am with my studies. So, I think it’s Franz Kafka. Um —

Sean That’s what I was thinking about. No, not kidding. Go ahead.

Philip Whatever you think about Franz Kafka. But he worked the day job, and he ended up having to write at night. So he was talking about his writing time. But I apply this to even my education currently.

He said: “If a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.”

So, that is my environment with almost everything, but including my education right now. So I love it, I want more of it, but I have to figure out where I could place those studies in the cracks of life. And so, like, I would have loved to be able to have a devoted time of two to four years where that is mostly what I’m doing.

And, yeah, one thing is regarding the community around it — so, not being alone in your learning. I think is great. It’s encouraging, it’s accountable. But then also having a teacher, a mentor, a discipler, who loves the thing so much that you draw from that.

So, like, me having to learn it on my own, I have to be able to produce those loves enough, not just to read the book but then also to draw out of the book. But to have somebody who loves this thing, whatever that topic is, that it’s just seeping out of him. Like, you prick him and he — you know, so, was it John Bunyan, or it was told of John Bunyan, that you prick him and the Bible flows out.

You know, you prick this math professor and just mathematics flows out, and he connects it to how God has created the world, and he loves it. Like, I do enjoy — I forget, the math teacher at NSA, I’ve listened to some of his lectures.

Sean Mitch Stokes.

Philip Mitch Stokes, yeah. He talks about it that way, where he’s very intriguing because he loves the topic so much.

And so to be under the wing of professors like that would be so awesome. I would love that. And so we need professors who are like that, but we also need students who care about being under that wing. So that’s what I think higher education offers as well: yes, the community, but also learning from somebody who loves this thing.

So, yeah, that’s just more love.

Sean Right.

Philip But so, maybe connecting that with then what we’re trying to do. So, yeah, we —

Sean Love the things.

Philip Yeah, that’s right.

Sean That’s what we’re trying to do.

Philip That is what we’re trying to do.

Yeah, well, and again, higher education is basically the two greatest commandments. That’s what it is. Love God and love your neighbor.

And so, what you presented regarding doing it on your own, on your free time, becomes individualistic. But how can you get good in order to love your neighbor? Through law, through medicine, through the pastorate, whatever that is. So it’s like, yeah, higher education is important because we’re supposed to love God and love our neighbor.

And so that’s where I would connect all that. And we thought it was important enough, at least, to come up with a college name. To plant, found, a college that we’re still trying to lay the foundation stone on. Like, it’s not that we’ve laid the — this is where I think we are: it’s not that we’ve laid the foundation stone and now are building on. We’re trying to make sure that it is plumb and level and straight right now.

Sean Or — I mean, I suppose if we want to say that Christ is the cornerstone, he is solid.

Philip Sure, yes.

Sean We’ve put a couple pieces up, and they’re not quite matching. Yeah.

Philip Yeah. Christ is the foundation stone for everything, yes.

And then, in our college, being able to then maybe even lay the groundwork for the next generation to be able to build on.

But maybe — big vision, I don’t know if “big vision” is the right word, but bigger reason — for why we thought we should start a college.

Sean Yeah. Because we want to get all those charcoals together, fired up, heated up, and burning hot with their desire to know more, learn more, be good human beings. And I don’t mean that as apart from Christ. I mean that as those who are saved by Christ to then live as those who reflect God, and are fruitful and multiply and take dominion and subdue the earth and learn stuff and make good things and bless other people’s lives. I mean, that’s like the tagline of your guys’ business — bless other people’s lives, love your neighbor. Those in many ways are synonyms, even though they have a myriad of applications.

So, both providing an opportunity for our young people who do catch this vision, let’s say. Let’s say we get a K to twelve graduate who is not apathetic, who’s like, I hear you, I want this.

Philip Right. Where do I get it?

Sean Yeah. And then we say, sorry.

Philip That’s right. “You really should care about this.”

Sean “We want you to love God, love your neighbor, love Marysville, love learning — and we’ve got bupkis.”

Philip That’s right.

Sean “So you’ll have to move away.”

Philip We’d actually mean it.

Sean Yeah. Which, there’s very few places that, even in that kind of scenario, that we could heartily recommend for a student in that kind of position. Like, we don’t have to — we’re not twisting their arm to make them want more education. They say they want it, for Jesus’ sake.

Philip They’ve gotten over those hurdles.

Sean Yeah. And it seemed like we should work toward being able to provide something for those people.

Secondly, I do think that there’s a unique part of how we understand the Bible, which we’ve talked about in previous podcasts — the taking God’s word for what it says. I’m not trying to take a shot at anybody; I’m just talking about what we are excited about.

So, how we, in a dispensational kind of way, think that God cares — not just because we’re bringing in the kingdom, but on behalf of Christ, who will bring in his kingdom at the right time, and still wants us to care about these things right now. That there is a way to see how that all fits together.

And I know of no other school, no other higher education school, that is explicitly trying to connect those things together. So, not only to be having something for those students that we have been a part of their lives already, to have a next step for them, but potentially even then to offer that to people in other places who kind of catch that vision and want more, but their local church or local options are not available to them — especially even with a theological distinction.

Philip Yeah. Because, like, we’re not going to be able to present all of the good reasons for why Comeford, but leaning on some of them: like you’re saying, there are some higher education colleges, universities that we could send our kids to — not many — but even those ones that we do, there are qualifiers, or things that we’re not as excited about regarding those schools also.

And so there’s a way to build something for our people here that we like all the way. So there is that, for sure.

But also — and I get that when you have a hammer, everything’s a nail. We had that episode about Doug Wilson claiming that postmillennialism will solve all your problems, type of thing. I know that’s not what he says, but just a quick summary.

But I do — I don’t know, I’m coming out of my cage a little bit here. So I am —

Sean There’s no locks. There’s no door on your cage, yeah.

Philip That’s right.

I do believe strongly that a consistent and contextual hermeneutic to the Bible, history, and reality — so, those three areas. So, reading the Bible consistently and contextually, reading history consistently and contextually, and looking at the world that way as well. As opposed to typologically. So, as opposed to: the Bible is typology, history is typology, reality is typology. So everything is a means to an end.

Sean Yeah. It all means something else.

Philip It all means something else.

Sean Which you can’t see or touch, necessarily.

Philip Yeah. So, contrasting those two views: a consistent, contextual hermeneutic to the Bible, history, and reality, versus a typological hermeneutic to those three areas.

I believe that that approach is — I’m having a hard time saying “key,” because I don’t think there’s actually one key. But I think it is crucial. Crucial, at least. That is me being tame. I’m holding back by using the word “crucial.”

Sean Well, what — I mean, go ahead.

Philip Yeah, I think it’s key. It is key to unlocking a life of faith through embodied joy, here and now, and living toward the future.

Sean Well, because —

Philip Key to caring.

Sean Right. If everything means something else, some other place, then my disconnection from that, my lack of care for that, is allowable.

Philip Right, exactly right.

Sean My apathy doesn’t hurt me as much, if actually the real thing is somewhere else.

Philip Yeah. I don’t even like the label dispensationalism. Like, just as a label, I think it is shallow, incomplete. It is a poor label to explain the framework. I’m good with the label Calvinism, or Kuyperianism — I think that’s, like, you can throw bad things under it. But just the word dispensationalism, I think, is very incomplete to explain the framework and worldview.

But what clicked into place for me — because, yeah, I’ve said this before, with fornicating with covenantalism.

Sean Yeah.

Philip I was a covenantalist wannabe.

What clicked for me, though, is that the kind of life that I saw in the Bible, the kind of life that I believe Christ wants for his people, the kind of life that Christ cares about — that life of care, and amateur love for all the things, of going deep — is not found in a typological hermeneutic. Again: Bible, history, reality. It is found in a contextual approach, where the means is the end. Like, the means to an end, sure, but the means itself is also the end.

Like, I will bake this pie and eat it because the pie is delicious, and glory to God. Like, the bread that I’m breaking does not always have to drive my thoughts directly to Christ. I could enjoy this bread and praise the Lord for it. It is unmediated joy.

And so that clicked for me, where what is called dispensationalism is the only framework, the only worldview, that offers that approach to living — to living in the here and now, and living for the future, in a way where you are not disconnected.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Those two things are together.

Sean I mean, I think we would say it’s the only one that consistently lets you do that, because we do value other people who are living largely like that. We just think there’s a disconnect in how they are —

Philip Yes.

Sean — getting there.

Philip Yeah, for sure. We’ve — there are other people who live like that, and live like that way better than we do, for sure, and we want more of what they have.

Sean So we’ve got to get deeper ourselves. We’ve got to get better at explaining it and embodying it. We need a whole group of people who are loving it and wanting to know more about it, and push it further again in their specific stream of vocation, like where their tributary runs off to.

Yeah — or does the tributary run into things? I don’t know. Or does it go out of things?

Philip I don’t know.

Sean Wherever they’re going out of.

Philip I’m Russian, so vocabulary is not what I’m strong to say.

Sean Yeah. We need people taking that, but understanding it, so that we can keep building on it and developing it — rather than so many dispensationalists building their bunker individualistically with their Bible.

Philip Yeah, right. Well, then, I mean, I might be — if I’m already being, you know, brash and —

Sean Yeah, what are —

Philip — provocative. Yeah, who even cares? Who’s even listening?

Sean Right.

Philip Right. But I do think that a contextual hermeneutic to all those things is where the Reformation fell short.

Like, praise the Lord for the Reformation, for Martin Luther, John Calvin, all the guys that followed them, that built on top of them. Praise the Lord. And I do think that contextual hermeneutic is where they fell short. And even with falling short, so much good was unleashed. Like, the floodgates were open. So much good was unleashed from what they did.

And I believe that if we can not just open, but realize with the depths of our heart, the value of a contextual hermeneutic in Scripture, history, and reality, so much good can come out of that.

And for me, that’s why I care about Comeford College, why I care about equipping the next generation with a consistent, contextual hermeneutic in those areas, and then giving them a way to dive deep into it. I believe, through a higher education institution, we could unlock so much good for generations to come by using this key.

And so, for me, kind of that big picture, big vision of Comeford, what we’re trying to do is to equip, to promote, to drive this worldview. And I believe that there can be a lot of good fruit that comes out of that.

Sean So, when we — well, we’ll be dead — if Comeford College becomes Comeford University and it has its own separate colleges.

Philip Yes.

Sean And so then we have the Jealousable Business College, and we have the Jealousable Bible Theology College. When we are Oxford West Coast —

Philip That’s right.

Sean — when we have professors who all love the specifics, and we can offer again — or not actually again — when we attempt again to offer like a four-year program. Or we have the different colleges where you could even get a different degree.

Like, because what, NSA is twenty-five years, maybe, and they’re still offering one degree. They’ve added now some, like —

Philip Master’s programs.

Sean Some master’s programs that are more specific, but they still are offering one degree. So they’re still New Saint Andrews College.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Great, fine. So, again, that’s why I say we’ll be dead by the time Comeford has its own multitude of colleges under its university.

But we have also realized that where our people are currently at — parents, and even young people, and our own teachers — is that we are probably not able to offer that four-year degree, like we started with in 2020. We had a few students, we had a four-year scope and sequence, and we had a couple students make it through, like, most of three years of that program. To which, at the end, they were going to get our pat on the back. Because we weren’t — a headshake. “Guys, good job. Way to go.”

But we have decided to, as under the Comeford College banner — so we’ll at least keep that name, and on behalf of the institutional encouragement, keep going — but offer some different classes.

And the first one is one called Jealousable Lordship, which is largely about how to read the Bible, and how to read the world, and how to read history. It is how the Bible and a right understanding of reading the Bible has changed the world already, and how we ought not to abandon that work; how we ought to see it, give credit to where credit is due, which is the gospel and God’s word and reading it like it is intended to be read; and how that actually then enables us to live, to recognize our blessings, and then be jealousable to other people.

So, Jealousable Lordship is recognizing that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus cares about all things, like we’ve been saying, that then we ought to care about all the things. And the Bible is that open lens into it — it opens up the world to us, earth and history, like you’re saying, our enfleshed lives. The Bible doesn’t narrow us down to its pages. It opens, from its pages, us up to all that God cares about.

So, a Jealousable Lordship class, to then get some explicit hermeneutic teaching and training, to get some examples of that lordship and Kuyperian sort of living. So, have a class detailing that and exposing people to some of those sources.

Philip Yeah, this is our worldview class, our vision casting.

Sean Yeah.

Philip This is the why, and the what, and the how to go about it.

Sean It’s the Weltanschauung.

Philip That’s right, yeah.

Sean And I think we’re allowed to say that without sounding pretentious and precious, because even Calvin and Hobbes talked about Weltanschauung. In one of the comic strips. So it’s where the blue-collar people are at.

Philip It’s where the teenage blue-collars are.

Sean Yeah. So we’ll read Lectures on Calvinism by Kuyper.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Where he’s talking about world and life view. He refers to that Weltanschauung as worldview, or world and life view. And we get that from the Bible. We get that because God is sovereign.

So we’re going to have that as a class. That’ll be a one-year class.

Then we’ll have what currently is being called Omnisteroids. There’s debate on what a good name for this would be, but “great books” is boring, and “humanities” has a lot of baggage with it.

Philip Right.

Sean And our K–12 program at ECS gets you to — when you hit seventh grade, we currently are still using a great books program called Omnibus, and it goes through Ancient, Medieval, Modern, twice. So, a six-year program, and you hit ancient history twice with some different readings, and then medieval, from like the time of Christ to the Reformation, and then Reformation to now is the modern period. So you get that twice.

And we want our students to love that. And that requires, in many cases, the support of their parents. And their parents are wondering why there’s so many pages to read, or their parents are wondering, perhaps, why this is such a valuable part.

So, Omnisteroids is intended to be a three-year class, a three-year program — ancient, medieval, modern — but where parents whose kids are in it, or who are going to be in it, could get exposed to it; or even some of our students who have graduated from it can go deeper in some of the things.

So, Omnisteroids. Both a higher level, but hopefully deeper level, that then gets our community exposed to. If they’ve taken it, they can go deeper. If they haven’t taken Omnibus themselves, they can start tasting some of the meat.

Philip So it’s not as much of a survey as maybe some of the Omnibus approaches. Less books, more time in each of the books.

Sean Yeah, hopefully. That’s the plan.

Philip That’s the goal, yeah.

Sean And then a third class, currently titled Pedagogy Prep. Because we want our teachers at ECS — or we want our homeschooling families, again, love homeschooling, there’s so many advantages of homeschooling, no poo-pooing of homeschooling — so whether it’s for a next generation of teachers at ECS, or the current generation.

None of our current teachers at ECS have received a full K–12 classical Christian education. So we have some teachers who got a few years of it and then immediately turned around and came back and started teaching.

Philip Right.

Sean But even teachers who are state certificated, they haven’t gotten this kind of education.

So we want to offer a class that specifically works through the unique pedagogy principles: the transferring not just of information but of culture. How do you pull along someone’s mental muscles and make them stronger? How do you pull up someone’s loves and get them out of apathy? What are the strategies for that, and what are they? How can you be more successful in that?

So, a class specifically devoted to those who are trying to teach it, and sharpen and increase their teaching game for that.

Along, then, with our community choir, which continues to be our most successful — not just in terms of the fact that it’s continued, but the skillfulness in that. One way: music is one of the ways that we can embody our cares and increase our skills.

So, three classes that have books and assignments, one class that is choir that has its own kind of requirements and skills.

But, pulling back — and who knows how long these will be the extent of the classes. Hopefully at least three years to get through this round of Omnis. I’m anticipating it could be longer than that, on the way to at least lowering the level of apathy.

Philip Right, yeah.

Sean To less apathy, more affection.

Philip Right.

Sean So, kind of switching that on the spectrum. Affection for the work, affection for the learning, affection for the community of people doing that together.

Philip Right.

Sean And then hopefully, as that keeps getting raised, then we could offer some more things again. We can get back to offering higher-level science classes, higher-level, more specific literature classes.

I don’t know when Comeford is going to have its own law school.

Philip It’ll happen.

Sean Sure. But that’d be awesome. Higher-level pre-med, maybe. I don’t know. Like, why not?

Philip Yeah.

Sean Why not be the best school, the best medical college? Christian, like, Kuyperian medical college. We don’t kill you on purpose.

Philip That’s right. We’re going to start with —

Sean — because of Jesus.

Philip Right.

Sean He thinks that your genitals as they were given at birth are good.

Philip Yes, that’s right.

Sean And should be kept private.

Philip That’s right.

Sean And all those kinds of things. Like, sure. Eventually.

It’d be awesome if people had this kind of worldview. Then we should have — like, Christians are the ones who started hospitals.

Philip Right.

Sean We are the ones who care about justice.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So, if you think of law and medicine, just those two — I don’t know, are there less Christian spheres of vocation than law and medicine currently in our culture? Like, less explicitly Christian ones.

Philip Education, maybe.

Sean Sure. Okay, education, yeah. Which, the Pedagogy Prep is entry level. Man, we’ve got to get this better so that we can make Christian lawyers and doctors.

Philip Right, yeah.

Sean Let alone building, art — the variety of good spheres.

Philip Right.

Sean With a good job to provide for your family.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Because we want young men of marriageable material who know what they’re talking about and know why they’re doing it.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So, this is the educational piece — the academic or intellectual or educational thing that we’re talking about today — is one thing, that’s a huge thing, that needs to get better.

Philip Right.

Sean And there’s at least opportunity.

Philip That’s right. Yeah. There’s work to be done.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But so, these — if somebody was to want to do all three: Jealousable Lordship, Omnisteroids, Pedagogy Prep — this would take three years.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Because the Jealousable is actually only one year, and the Pedagogy Prep is actually only one year. So you could potentially take — this is my understanding of how the classes are going to work — Jealousable is going to be on a different night than Omnisteroids.

Philip Right.

Sean Which is going to be on a different night than the Pedagogy Prep, which I think even many of them are going to be during the day and hands-on in some of the ECS classes. On a different time than even the community choir. So my understanding is that you could do all four of those things —

Philip Right.

Sean — in the same school calendar year.

Philip Right.

Sean But because the Omnibus — there’s so much there, obviously, that even a deeper dive in three years —

Philip Right.

Sean — is still, in its own way, a taste.

Philip Yeah, scratching.

Sean Yep. But that would require three years to finish that part.

So maybe somebody could take Jealousable, Omni, and choir. The second year they could take Pedagogy Prep, the next Omni, still choir. The third year they could do the Omni and just choir; they wouldn’t have to take any other classes. However somebody wanted to do it.

But we kind of see each class as — we’re going to try to celebrate it with its own award.

Philip Yeah, that’s right.

Sean So, if you only take —

Philip We’re going to care about it.

Sean We’re going to try. Well, we do. That’s right. We’re going to try to embody that care with parties and convocations and things like that.

Philip Yeah.

Sean But you take the Lordship class, and that’s all you do. Great. You get the Jealousable Lordship certificate. You finish one year of the Omnisteroids. Great, we’re going to recognize that. You take both Jealousable and Omnisteroids — we’re going to give you two. We’ll shake your hand twice at the final party, banquet thing, or whatever it’s going to be.

You finish all of these things that are part of this made-up program —

Philip Yeah. So, real quick on that: like, what isn’t made up? Everything that —

Sean Sure.

Philip — humanity does is made up. And so, like, any kind of degree, certificate, program that everybody has just agreed to acknowledge, that we like this made-up thing.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, like, we lean into making things up and caring about the things we made up.

Sean Okay. This is taking dominion over the educational sphere, of making up what we think is valuable.

Philip We do what we want.

Sean Which we do.

So, again, if — compared to the long-term vision of, you can graduate from the Comeford University medical school with your doctorate — compared to that, and what that piece of paper would mean.

Philip Right, yeah.

Sean Like, the education you would have received by that point would indicate that that piece of paper certified a different level of work than one year of reading some books on hermeneutics and Kuyperianism.

But, yeah, that’s good pushback. But it is all made up. So whatever the story that we’re telling ourselves is, it should be the right one.

Philip That’s all we have. All we have is to make things up.

Sean But so, trying to not be — maybe it’s okay to make it up; it’s not okay to be pretentious.

Philip Right, yeah.

Sean So we’re trying to be humbly excited about —

Philip That’s right.

Sean — what we’re making up.

Philip That’s right.

Sean But yeah, and then if you finish all of those things — so you do the Jealousable Lordship for the year, and the Pedagogy Prep for a year, and all three Omnisteroids — at least in terms of our K–12 school, we’re actually going to count that on our pay scale like someone who already got their bachelor’s degree.

Philip Right.

Sean So you could take a significantly lesser number of classes than the 120-whatever credit hours that are required to get a bachelor’s degree. We think that this would be more valuable — these amount of lesser hours would be more valuable for raising the kind of care we’re looking for — than just going to UW for four years, getting your teaching degree, and you know how that ranks on our pay scale.

So that’s only one way to value it, but we want to show that we do genuinely value it, even with dollars. So, not just with the time put into making the plans, or having the teachers and organizing the curriculum for these courses, or the banquet kind of thing, or convocation. But even with the — and maybe there’ll be more ways.

I mean, if we had a bunch of business owners in our church or in our community, it would be great if they could get a resume and they saw, well, okay, you completed this Weltanschauung sort of care training —

Philip Right.

Sean — and not have to be suspect, like you were saying earlier with the resumes that you read. Where they would actually value that. But we are creating that value.

Philip Right.

Sean Which means there’s work to do.

Philip Yeah. So, the way I see it: if Christ is the cornerstone, that is already there. So we did not lay the cornerstone, but we are building on that.

And so I’m kind of envisioning, we started laying the rest of the foundation in line with the cornerstone. And then things weren’t lining up as well as we would have liked them to. So where we’re at with Comeford is, we have removed the stones that we’ve laid down, and we have to work on the actual ground underneath the stones a bit, to level it out, add some more sand, kind of make it more manageable for us then to be able to come back and lay the stones properly.

Sean I like that.

Philip So that’s where we’re at right now. So where we’re at is not the end. And we also think it’s important and valuable. And there’s still a lot more work to do, kind of, with that big vision.

Sean Yeah. If I could choose between seminary — like the seminary that I got, which I loved — and this kind of program, I think I would be a better man, and actually a better pastor, if I had had this kind of program. Even though it’s the sand.

Philip Right.

Sean So, yeah, our kids hopefully get wall, get brick, or, you know, stone.

Philip Right.

Sean But we are starting from remedial levels of care.

Philip Right.

Sean We have not just not jumped those hurdles, like you said. We actually have run into those hurdles and have scraped our knees, or maybe broken a —

Philip Track.

Sean — leg bone.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Trying to get down the track. And so, getting that foundation laid is great.

Philip Right, yeah. So we do that by faith, and we look for it by faith as well.

So, all right, I guess that’s it. I think this one has gone long, but we’ve got to end it there.

And if somebody’s listening to this and they’re interested — last thing. “Hey, I want some of this better-than-seminary education.”

Sean I think we have a way to contact us on the college website.

Philip Which —

Sean — is comeford.org. C-O-M-E-F-O-R-D dot org. Comeford.org.

Interestingly enough, we got that URL because nobody else names anything Comeford.

Philip That’s right. Yeah, it was easy to do.

Sean Which worked out awesome.

Philip Yeah, that’s right.

And James Comeford was the founder of Marysville. He started the first school, he brought the post office over here, he named the city after his wife. And so that kind of mindset, of being a founder and caring about where you’re at and when you’re at, is what we want, what we like. So that’s where that name comes from.

Sean Yeah, so I think there’s contact information on the front page of the website.

Philip Yes, there is. Under Contact there’s the whole board there, and everybody’s email. Boom. And so the president is Mr. Jim Martin, and so his email is there.

So there you go. All right.

Sean Like and subscribe.

Philip There you go. That’s right. Rate well.