January 2013 Member Spotlight: Regan and Amy Barr of The Lukeion Project

Archaeologists Regan and Amy Barr have uncovered an old but real need in education: classes on the Classical world.

The Lukeion Project, which the Barrs started in 2005, offers live, online classes in the languages of Latin and classical Greek, as well as classes on ancient world history, literature, and archaeology. They also offer a variety of enrichment workshops each semester as well as seminars. The classes are high school level and mainly used by homeschool families, but open to anybody.

Classical studies are valuable for a number of reasons, the Barrs say.

• They help 21st century people understand the world of the New Testament better.
• They teach students the underpinnings of Western civilization.
• Ancient language studies help students to “experience some transformative intellectual changes.”
• Greek and Latin students routinely outperform other students on SAT verbal exams, typically have higher grade point averages, and can perform better on subjects like math and history that require logical and analytic reasoning, Regan says. “If you’re going to pick one language, Latin or Greek gives you the biggest bang for the buck,” he adds.

While the Lukeion Project isn’t Christian in name or identity, there’s no doubt about the Barrs’ worldview.

“We don’t try to hide the fact that we are Christians,” Regan says. “We don’t serve an exclusively Christian audience, but that is by design. We don’t believe our influence should be limited to those who already profess Christ. We seek a balance of being openly Christian in our beliefs, but not driving away those who do not yet share our worldview. We seek to demonstrate that faith in Christ is compatible with high academic achievement.

“We don’t apologize for our Christian faith at all, and we do have people who come to us from time to time who say, ‘I didn’t think a person could be an archaeologist and a Christian,’ and we’re here to tell you they can be. We’re open and honest about our faith.”

The credentials page at lukeion.org testifies quite clearly to the Barrs’ faith background by detailing their studies at schools such as Ozark Christian College and Cincinnati Christian University. Their mentors include respected Christian academicians like Dr. Lewis Foster (Cincinnati Bible Seminary, New International Version general editorial committee), Dr. Reuben Bullard (Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary, University of Cincinnati), and Dr. Edwin Yamauchi (Miami University in Ohio). They also offer annual workshops on such topics as “Archaeology and Apologetics” and “The Crucifixion Week.” Past workshops have covered the seven cities of Revelation, Paul’s journeys, and Jerusalem archaeology.

The Barrs’ 10 years of archaeological experience in the Mediterranean region demands respect, too. For instance, they are two of only a small group of people who have excavated sites on both sides of the Trojan War, in Turkey and Greece. They also have worked at sites in Jordan.

Through the Lukeion Project, they strive to give students a solid foundation in classical Western history, including an understanding of the world that Jesus and the early Church lived in.

“It was a world in which Greeks and Romans had a powerful impact,” Amy says. “For example, Acts 14:8-18 tells about the people in Lystra (Klistra in modern-day Turkey) witnessing the healing of a lame man. Instead of going, ‘Oh, marvelous, it’s a healing,’ they believed they were witnessing a visitation by Zeus and Hermes. If you had an understanding of classical mythology and how pagans believed they were tested by their own gods, then you understand the context and why they might think that.”

Amy also says that she and Regan don’t believe exposure to ancient mythology is dangerous for Christians. Greek and Roman gods are fictional characters, the Barrs say, not real entities with any power.

“We teach epics like The Iliad and The Odyssey, which are great works of literature in and of their own,” she says. “They had a profound influence on Western civilization. If we’re not able to read these things, these epics, we have almost no clue as to how the ancient Greeks and Romans functioned.”

The Barrs also believe that archaeology and classical studies can enhance understanding of the Bible.

“The foundational events of the New Testament happened in real time with real people,” Regan says. “They were historical events. Jesus’ trials in the Gospels, for instance, are historical events. They involved real people like Pilate, Herod Antipas, and others. We know about all these people from documents and references from outside the Bible as well. The life of Paul is just packed with places and people.”

The Barrs’ own history didn’t seem headed the way of The Lukeion Project at first. They were both professional archaeologists who suddenly found the need to support a family when they started having children. Regan went to work as a quality assurance analyst for a corporation, and then as a programmer in Cincinnati, while Amy stayed at home raising and teaching the young Barrs. Seven months after Regan took a job at a Christian software company in 2005, though, he was laid off.

It was then that they felt led to combine their considerable background in archaeology and the classics with Regan’s training in online conferencing and Amy’s experience in graphic design to create an educational resource primarily aimed at homeschoolers. The Lukeion Project was born.

“One of the things that kept coming back to us was that God had not given us these really extraordinary experiences for no reason,” Regan says. “We had unique experiences that we felt like we needed to be using, because we didn’t think God had given those to us just so that we could have a good time. So the Lukeion Project was born out of a strong sense that God wanted us to use the education that we had.”

“Lukeion” was the name of the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s roving school. The Barrs chose it because it reflected their “mobile, flexible, cutting-edge” project that reflects their passion about the ancient world.

The project specializes not just in a “dust-free” presentation of the classic Greek and Roman world, but also in its digital presentation. The classes are held live online, offering students the chance to interact with their instructors and fellow students during the class. The presentation is a combination of audio and graphics, keeping the internet service download requirement low. The classes also include web pages that feature review games and activities, as well as quizzes and exams. About 275 enroll each semester for the high school-level classes, which average 20 members each.

Being web-based also allows for a mix of students from around the world, another way to have influence for the Kingdom of God. For example, an upper-level Latin class recently went through lengthy passages from the Bible. In the “classroom” were two young Hindus, “a couple gentlemen from a Jewish background,” a secular couple, and several Christians.

“We’re thrilled to be able to read these things together,” Amy says.

But what’s also happening is that friendships are developing among the students that may last a lifetime and may lead to salvation for some of the unbelievers.

“Even more than what we’re teaching, we’re bringing Christian homeschoolers into contact with people they desperately need to be in contact with,” Amy says. “It’s a real thrill to do what we do.