The Right to Education? (Pt. 2)

Last time I opened up our discussion of the right to education with a couple of quotes from Ron Sider:

Access to quality education is morally right and is in the long-term interest of everyone.

Making each child’s access to quality education dependent on his or her family’s economic status condemns the poor to inferior education is in blatant defiance of biblical norms.

Over the next few days we will take a look at how a philosopher and a theologian understand the right to education. But first let’s meet the contributors to this discussion.

Michael Walzer

Michael Walzer is Professor Emeritus of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He is an American Jewish Philosopher whose work is done primarily in the sphere of justice and public issues. His work in the area of justice and politics is influenced by his Jewish upbringing. Throughout Spheres of Justice, we see that his basic convictions are grounded upon his understanding of God and Man as found in the Old Testament and Jewish Tradition.

Wayne Grudem

Wayne Grudem is Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary. He is the author of one of the most popular Systematic Theologies written to date. As a professor of theology and biblical studies, he claims to ground his politics upon his basic convictions about God and Man as found in the Old and New Testaments. The cover of the book claims that Politics According to the Bible may be the most important book you can read on how the Bible supports conservative political positions.

In approaching the issue of rights to quality education, we must keep in mind the backgrounds of the authors for this will influence their take on the right to quality education. Next time we will take a look at what each respective author understands to be the problem with the education system today.