The Heritage Christian School & Principal Tim England

John Milton is known to most of us as writer of the epic poem Paradise Lost, but Milton also wrote excellent and thoughtful prose. In some ways, he was a progressive Christian, centuries before Progressive Christianity became a popular term. His work Areopagitica is a classic defense of intellectual freedom—one which had a strong impact on the framers of American Constitution and the ideals they held most sacred.

We were reminded of Milton and his Areopagitica on hearing about Tyler Frost. Tyler is the student at the Heritage Christian School in Findlay, Ohio who was suspended by Principal Tim England for deciding to attend his girlfriend’s prom. England justified his decision by saying: “At a prom there will be many young ladies who will be dressed in the current styles, which would be low cut dresses and things like that, and there will be dancing. How does a young man protect his mind and not have wrong thoughts or lustful thoughts in a situation like that?”

Milton, not to mention folks like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, would have a simple answer to Tim England’s question. In Areopagitica, Milton teaches us that the lesson of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden is that today our knowledge of what is good is dependent on our knowledge of evil—and that a cloistered virtue that never ventures out to see its adversary is unworthy of praise.

If Milton were to play along with Tim England’s dubious claim that dancing and popular music are inherently evil, he would say that by trying to keep Tyler Frost from attending the Findlay High School prom, England is bringing impurity into the world, not innocence. True virtue is purified by the trials it confronts, not by the trials it avoids.

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