Secular vs. Christian Homeschool Curriculum

More than half of new homeschooling families now say academics, not religion, is their main motivation, and many go looking for a "secular" curriculum because it is the only label they have heard for "taught the way scientists actually teach it." It is not the only label. Here is the honest taxonomy, where Letters & Devotion actually sits in it, and how to check any publisher against it in ten minutes.

The kinds of curriculum

Faith-based curriculum teaches academic subjects through a religious framework, openly, the framework is a feature, stated on the box. Most faith-based publishers also teach a recent, six-day creation as science: a short, fixed timeline for the earth and its life, taught as fact rather than as one reading among several.

"Neutral" (sometimes "faith-friendly") curriculum avoids the topics where science and doctrine collide. It does not teach religious content, but it also quietly skips evolution, deep time, and parts of human biology, leaving the gaps for families to fill either way.

Secular curriculum teaches the academic consensus with no religious framing at all: evolution as the organizing idea of biology, an earth billions of years old, history from evidence rather than providence. It does not teach Bible, because it does not teach religion at all.

Letters & Devotion is a fourth thing: a faith-based curriculum that teaches six-day creation as Genesis says, and then lets the family decide, at signup, whether evolution is taught alongside it as what mainstream science says, and whether sex education is included at all. The choice is the parent's, not the publisher's, and a lesson you turn off is never shown to your child.

Where the differences actually show up

Three places, reliably: biology (is natural selection taught as the central concept, or mentioned briefly, or avoided?), earth science and astronomy (real geological and cosmic timescales, or a short, fixed one stated as fact?), and history (are ancient civilizations dated plainly, and are religions taught as historical and cultural facts about people?).

A curriculum that respects the family also treats Genesis honestly: it says plainly what it holds, and it says, fairly, that other Christians read Genesis 1 differently. Letters & Devotion holds the plain reading and says so inside the courses themselves, not only in marketing copy.

The ten-minute test

Ask any publisher three questions. One: show me the unit where you teach evolution, not a statement, the actual unit. Two: how old does your earth science course say the Earth is? Three: can I read the full scope and sequence of every course before paying?

The third question is the real filter. A publisher confident in its content publishes all of it up front; a publisher managing a constituency keeps things vague. Letters & Devotion publishes every unit, every skill and every learning objective of all 84 courses publicly, and you can try real lessons without an account. Ask us those same three questions and the honest answer is six-day creation taught to every child, evolution taught alongside it only when you choose, and a Bible course every single year.