I Don't Like Math

I have heard the phrase “I don’t like math” from both young and old people, people with no college education and from people with doctoral degrees. I’m just now starting to understand how the enjoyment of mathematics or lack thereof, is influenced more by a person’s perspective on mathematics than their God given interests or intelligence.

Our culture has been seriously secularized into thinking that subjects can be productively taught and used apart from acknowledging God. This separating of the Christian faith from mathematics is the root cause for the epidemic dislike for mathematics. So the good news is that there is hope to enjoy mathematics by reuniting mathematics with the Christian faith!

But how do we begin reuniting mathematics with the Christian faith? One place to start is to read a good book on the subject such as “Mathematics: Is God Silent?” by James Nickel published by Ross House books. The Mathematics chapter in “Advancing the Kingdom” by Donald Schanzenbach and published by River City Press is my favorite briefer treatment of the subject.

Loosening our grip on mathematics curriculums may be another key to reuniting the Christian faith and the leading of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14) with mathematics. I have been a bit suspicious of how mathematics is taught, knowing that the secular motivation for mathematics achievement is for the global competitiveness of multinational corporations and managing of big government projects.

After reading 1 Thessalonians 4: 11-12 to our family this morning and discussing the Biblical commands to study, live a quiet life, mind our own business in both senses and work with our hands, we discussed how mathematics helps us do these things.

Mathematics is not merely the manipulation of numbers, letters and symbols. I explained to our boys that making their bed is doing mathematics because the essence of mathematics is simply organizing things. Likewise organizing their desks, baking a cake, troubleshooting a mower and operating a market garden are all organizational and therefore mathematical activities.

We then discussed how God rewards diligence and how getting organized in a record keeping way leads to a greater understanding of the status of an activity, better decision making, and motivates productivity in the kitchen, shop, market garden and beyond. From there it was easy to show how mathematics, from the simple physical organizing of space and things to the mathematics for optimizing manufacturing and social systems gives Christians a tool for taking godly dominion of the physical and social world (Genesis 1:26). Somehow, after this devotion we were all motivated to get our respective areas better organized so that we could be more productive. I found the joy of the Lord and the Holy Spirit leading as I organized our storage area and later watched the boys use mathematical manipulations to calculate how much money mom could make selling her raspberry jam this weekend.

Later in the day, our 16 year old came by my desk reading the “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew, which taught how to garden with less water and less time with more organization. Our son was comparing our current row method with the square foot method, which was a nice example of how increasing the use of mathematical organization in gardening can increase productivity!

So, with regard to the dislike of mathematics, it probably isn’t the mathematical activity itself, that is connected to a real Christian life that is distasteful, it is the secularized, disconnected (from real life, history, philosophy, creation, and God’s word) textbook mathematical manipulations that cultivate the dislike of and even fear of math.

Implementing Christian thinking in mathematics simply keeps mathematics connected to daily reality while encouraging the student in their knowledge of God, experience in being led by His Spirit (Romans 8:14), and discerning the times through illustrations of history and philosophy and truth in mathematics. Catching onto the mathematical wonders of creation and the cultural implications is not boring but very exciting!

Dr. James Bartlett is an engineer by training and teaches Christian Thinking in Mathematics for the Biblical Concourse of Home Universities. Dr. Bartlett and his wife Lynn homeschool four boys in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota and can be reached at 701-263-4574 or by visiting www.biblicalconcourse.com .