In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics Book 1, Ch. 7 he proclaims “Man is born for citizenship.” This idea permeates the contemporary secular classical education movement. Great Hearts schools, among other classical charter schools, put great emphasis upon developing virtuous young men and women who make good neighbors and citizens. For many such institutions it is obviously their chief end. For this we can certainly be thankful and, insofar as it goes, supportive of their work (especially by comparison to most publicly funded educational programs and their goals).
What is striking to me, however, is that in classical Christian schools this is not our main objective. Or is it? You see it depends on the way you take Aristotle. In all fairness I think the secular classical schools take Aristotle pretty much the way he intended to be taken. They want to make virtuous young men and women who will be honorable, lovers of truth and beauty, who seek the common good of their geo-political people. Again, we can acknowledge this as basically good. But Christians realize that our citizenship does not ultimately belong to any earthly political body or national boundary. We too want to be good citizens (indeed are commanded to be) in our earthly country, but we realize that ultimately we belong to the city of God and not the city of Man. This will at times force us to depart from the kind of “good citizenship” that a purely secular view of Aristotle’s claim, “Man is born for citizenship,” might otherwise require.
In the end, though, Aristotle is quite right. Man is born for citizenship. But to which city do we properly belong? Who ultimately are my fellow citizens? Who is the Lord of this city?