Our Core Beliefs

by | Sep 6, 2019 | Bill Brannan, Fortis Blog

As a multi-denominational school, Fortis Academy has agreed upon a small set of beliefs that we all agree upon and explicitly teach in the classroom:

  1. The Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God.
  2. The Bible has defined marriage.
  3. The Bible has defined gender.
  4. The Bible has defined the beginning of life.
  5. We subscribe to the Apostle’s creed.

Outside of these beliefs, we expect the parents and churches of our students to determine the rest of their Christian doctrine.  What we are looking for as a student progresses in their education is that they are able clearly express what they believe using persuasive and sound arguments.

In addition to the beliefs stated above, we do promote the cultural mandate, and have decided to explicitly teach the Creator and creature distinction while not taking a position on the age of the earth.  The reason is that there are a lot of sincere and thinking Christians who differ on their convictions on the age of the earth but agree that there is a God who created all things who holds all people accountable to His moral standards.

Our goal as a school is to train our children to think for themselves from a Christian worldview grounded in scripture.  This is very different than telling our students what they should believe.  A very simplistic explanation of progressive education is that it treats humans as machines that need programmed to fulfill a function.  We input into them what they should know and assess that they can accurately output it.  The classical tradition, beginning with the assumption that people are created in the image of God, aims to develop the image of God in man by training them to think and to love that which is good, true and beautiful.  What is at stake here is a college and life ready education.  If we train our children to believe whatever they are told on authority, then we run the risk that they will continue to do so when they move on in life.  If we train them how to think and to love what is good, it gives them a much stronger foundation for life.  That is one of our goals at Fortis Academy.