116 Chapter 3 As a (w)holistic approach to education WCD is not a Biblically holistic approach. There is considerable overlap between the two, but there are also differences. Evaluating WCD from the perspective of Christian anthropology, this chapter argues for the clear telos that WCD lacks, as an overarching (spiritual) goal connecting its ideals and intentions. Furthermore, it argues for a clear focus on the heart, as the root entity of the undivided human being connecting it not only to the world (creation) but also to its Creator. This chapter adds these two notions and defines a Biblically holistic approach to education as an approach that ‘values and seeks all dimensions of human development from early childhood on, including physical, social, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and values-based learning, aiming at the person’s heart as the undivided principle of its existence that precedes head and hands, placing it with pedagogical optimism based on Christian hope before God, to seek its restoration and the longing and ability to serve in all the organic relationships God placed him into; with the self, the neighbour, and nature as a whole’ (van Olst, 2023a). To arrive at this definition, the first part of this chapter will be dedicated to the evaluation of insights concerning WCD from the perspective of Christian anthropology (Section 1). To accomplish this, three scholars from the broad Christian tradition, who each lived on the brink of a new sociocultural era, are selected. Church Father Aurelius Augustine (354–430) lived at the start of Christendom, historic pedagogue Ján Amos Comenius (1592–1670) just after the Middle Ages at the dawn of modernity and philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) at the end of Christian Europe and the start of pluralistic society. It is especially interesting for this study that each of them has a contemporary advocate who has pleaded for a more holistic approach to man(kind) and education. First, Comenius will be considered alongside his contemporary advocate Jan Hábl (1.1), then Dooyeweerd and his contemporary advocate André Troost (1.2) and, finally, Augustine with James K.A. Smith as his contemporary advocate (1.3). In a short synthesis, the accents and insights of all three famous scholars and their advocates will be brought together, leading to the previously mentioned definition of holistic Christian education (Section 2). After that, the idea of educating for shalom, as proposed by the American philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff (2004), will be presented as the motivating teleology that WCD, when evaluated from a Christian perspective, is missing (Section 3).
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