Our Mission
Coram Deo Classical School exists to help students become fully alive in Christ through transformative encounters with the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.
Following the two greatest commandments of our Lord, we believe that becoming fully alive in Christ requires loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself:
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One of the principal lessons of Scripture is that we become like what we worship. Man is a worshipping being, and we are far more loyal to the things we love than the things we merely know. As James K.A. Smith put it, we are what we love. It is not enough for students simply to know the right things; they must learn to love them as well. Coram Deo, then, centers on training the affections and rightly ordering the student’s loves.
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The classical conception of the soul included three distinct compartments: the mind (that which calculates), the will (that which chooses), and the appetite (that which craves). An education that caters merely to one of these is an insufficient education. Man is not just an intellectual thing (like a computer), nor is he simply a creature of instinct (like an animal). He is what C.S. Lewis called a man with a chest, able to balance the extremes of cool reason and indulgent passion with a virtuous will. Coram Deo, then, aims to turn the souls of students toward virtue through transformative encounters with the true, the good, and the beautiful.
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The life of the mind may be the first thing we think of when we hear the word “education.” Scripture tells us it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and it is the glory of kings to find it out (Prov. 25:2). In other words, God is honored when we try to figure out the world that He has made. As we strive for knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, we draw closer to Him, having our minds renewed and our worship of God deepened. Coram Deo, then, invites students into greater understanding, greater complexity, and greater mystery as they mature in scholarship from the milk of youth to the strong meat God offers.
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Though Scripture advises that godliness is of greater value than physical training (I Tim. 4:8), we are also counseled to persevere, to endure, to run the race of faith with our eyes fixed on Jesus. These injunctions demand courage and faithful stewardship of our bodies, for spiritual disciplines can most certainly be reinforced by physical disciplines. As one sage said, every time we put our feet to the starting line, we’re given a chance to say no to the coward within. Coram Deo, then, strengthens the student spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and physically through constant opportunities for sacrifice and courage.
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There is no such thing as a self-made man. We are made in community and for community. As we are made in the image of God, who is Love, we reflect Him in loving one another (John 15:9). Contrary to the current ideology, we are not atomized individuals or completely disconnected, autonomous selves. We share our humanity with one another; we are members of one body, the body of Christ. Coram Deo, then, functions not as a transactional supplier of a service but as a relational body of like-minded believers who share our gifts, our time, and our lives with one another as acceptable acts of worship to God.
Statement of Faith
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We believe the Bible alone to be the Word of God, the ultimate and infallible authority for faith and practice.
We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is omnipotent; that is, He can do all things. He is omnipresent; that is, He is present to all creation, and has under His immediate authority all things which are in Heaven, in the earth, and under the earth. He is omniscient; that is, He knows all things. He readily exercises His power which is present everywhere, and to Him there is nothing that is impossible or unknown, that is, He knows what has been from eternity, what now takes place everywhere, and what will be to all eternity.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that, for the salvation of lost and sinful men, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary.
We believe that salvation is by grace through faith alone.
We believe that faith without works is dead.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost: they that are saved to the resurrection of life and they that are lost to the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe that God wonderfully and immutably created each person as distinctly male or female (Gen. 1:26-31; 2:18-25; 5:1, 2). These two distinct and complementary genders together reflect the image and nature of God. To reject one’s biological gender is a rejection of the image of God within that person and is a sin against God.
We believe that marriage was created and sanctioned by God in which God joins one man and one woman in a single and exclusive union (Gen. 2:24; Matt. 19:4-6).
We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. Any form of sexual intimacy outside of marriage is immoral and is a sin against God (1 Cor. 6:15-7:6; Eph. 5:3-7). Sexual immorality includes, but is not limited to adultery, fornication, homosexual conduct, and pornography.
We believe that all human life is sacred and created by God in His image. Human life is of inestimable worth in all its dimensions, including pre-born babies, the aged, the physically or mentally challenged, and every other stage or condition from conception through natural death. We are therefore called to defend, protect, and value all human life (Ps. 139).
This statement of faith does not exhaust the extent of our beliefs. The Bible itself, as the inspired and infallible Word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality, and the proper conduct of mankind, is the ultimate source of all that we believe.
