June 19, 2006
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public schools
"Leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention chose not to support a Resolution that would have formulated a strategy to encourage their families to educate their children other than at government schools. Among other reasons, Resolution supporters were concernced about how homosexuality was addressed in the classroom. Instead, the Convention decided to "engage the culture of our public school systems" and apply "godly influence."" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,199440,00.html
What do you all think about this? Which is better for Christian parents and children - going into public schools to "apply godly influence", even if it means "imposing" Christian standards on other non-Christian children, or "withdrawing" to educate one's children at home or in a religious school?
Comments (16)
This is not a new question to me, although I am still working on an answer! In the world, but not of it...how does that figure into this question? Can we work with our children at home so that they can understand what they see in their non-Christian school from a Christian world view? Is there an age or level of maturity at which it becomes reasonable to expect our children to do this? Does the answer depend at all on the school district that you're living in? (Probably yes, if you're homeschooling/Christian schooling to avoid some evil in your local public school. Probably not, if your choice is based on a belief in or commitment to home or Christian schooling.)
What if the Christian school that you select admits non-Christian families? What about sin in Christian schools? Is it better to have to explain to your child hypocrisy in a Christian school or unbelief in a public school?
Let me know what you know...I'd love to have the "right" answer to this question before I actually have to make the decision about what to do for my family!
It's a tough call, but you know what we think is best!
education is the parent's responsibility. but your language of engaging and withdrawing is begging your position.
either way, it's mostly dependent on the child and the situation.
ps. what were you loling about?
This seems like kind of a simple question to me. We have separation of church and state. If a school is state funded, no church, aye? I think that Christian parents should spend a very large amount of time with their kids teaching them about Christianity. I do NOT think that things that suggest a contradiction to religion (such as evolution) should be taught in school until such time as the kids are capable of dealing with it - at least seventh grade, possibly higher. But adding a religious element is irritating because, well, I don't want my kids growing up with Christian influences mixed in with actual proven information (please don't use this to try to debate that the Bible IS proven, that's not really the issue at hand). This would be like having teachers in school say "No, there is no God. None. Nope." If you have some concept of how that would make you feel, then you have some concept of how "Yes, there is a God. Christian God. Yep." would make me and other atheists feel.
~Sol
I'm not reading the other comments yet, so I may duplicate something...or directly contradict someone. Sorry.
I think it depends very strongly on the child, the parents, and the school in question. I don't think that younger children (say, K-5) really have the reasoning skills and critical thinking abilities necessary to sort out what they're being taught by worldview. (Some adults and college students, myself included, even have trouble with this sometimes.
) So, I'm not sure it's fair to them to throw them into a pile of junk, and then expect them to be a good influence. Some of the counterfeits are very subtle. Older kids--I'm not sure; it depends on how likely they are to influence rather than be influenced, and that varies by kid and by influencing factor. Schools are going to teach different attitudes in a small town in Alabama than they do in DC. Even so, there's a lot that teachers can't say. I have a friend who teaches kindergarten, and when one of her students' baby brother died, she had a lot of little five-year-olds asking questions that she legally couldn't answer.
As another factor, it's sometimes not even the perspective/information being taught that's the problem, but the negative attitudes picked up from other students. I have a complete lack of experience in this area, but it seems to me that it would be difficult to teach a 13-year-old girl to love her family, obey her parents, respect herself in her attitudes towards modesty and boys, to value knowledge, and to love God if it ran completely counter to the attitudes of the company she kept for at least 1/3 of the day.
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone...
Sol, I appreciate your emphasis on the 'separation of church and state'... that people should basically not be forced by the government to participate in activities that violated their conscience in religious matters... Unfortunately, this is exactly what many people feel is happening in many public schools, with a state-sponsored "religious humanism/pluralism" that imposes (such things as Sagan's naturalism, religious pluralism, and "normative" sexual ethics which include promiscuity (aka "safe sex") and homosexuality) upon the conscience of schoolkids and their parents.
Sol wrote: "This would be like having teachers in school say "No, there is no God. None. Nope." "
Yes... or like watching a PBS TV special by the late astronomer Carl Sagan in which he states "The cosmos is all that ever was, is, or will be." Neither position (telling kids there is no God, or telling kids that the Christian God exists) is desirable in public schools, but I think the Southern Baptist folks referenced above are merely trying to bring the status back to "neutrality".
Joel, actually I wasn't trying to stack the question... I honestly see powerful rationales on both sides, and I tried to write the question that way too... "withdrawing" does sound negative and cowardly when I use that word, but "applying godly influence" sounds bossy and arrogant (to our postmodern culture's ears), so both sides have their drawbacks....
... and I appreciated your pithy anti-gender-neutral comment on your site... 
JerseyFam and others... when I consider where I stand on this question, one thing that comes repeatedly to my mind is the "results", or "fruits" that I've seen from both... i.e., when I look at kids who have been homeschooled, private-schooled, or public-schooled, which kids would I rather have my own kids look like? For me I think this is the most decisive piece of evidence (as I have seen lots of kids in action, with teaching and all), though as you all have mentioned, when it comes time for me to decide with my own kids, it will depend on the local situation and on the kid's personality...
Every parent has to decide before the Lord what He would want for their children. Both options ("withdrawing" or "applying godly influence") are Biblical...the question becomes what does my kid need now? Kids obviously need to have a Godly foundation for their lives, but they also need to be prepared to think critically about the objections that the world offers to their faith. I think that there has to be a balance, otherwise, kids will not know how to be a witness to the world when they become adults. If all of their lives they have been sheltered from the world, how much harder it will be to leave that shelter as adults! There has to be a point in their discipleship where they are trained by experience to be "salt and light".
To start off, let me begin by saying that I do not take a specifc side in the relevant "homeschool" debate. I believe there exist numerous advantages to homeschooling your child, as well as various different advantages and opportunities that arise from sending your child to public or private school. That being said,
I feel the notion of the southern baptists formulating a resolution to "withdraw" children from the public school system is rather (dare I say?) dangerous....for several reasons. Aside from the relevant debate surrounding the children themselves, I think there are several larger, unforseen consequences with grave implications.
The first of which being an official declaration of an organized church dictating the social lives of its congregation. Regardless of the actual content, I believe this can be viewed as a subtle shift towards control as demonstrated by the catholic church during the height of its power and influence. While I unequivocally support the Bible and it's inspired content, I feel congregations should refrain from absolute declarations of social issues largely devoid of hard doctrine. Though I advocate a logical fallacy, i will say that empirically, this mentality snowballs into strict legalism. (Puritans anyone?)
I believe the largest consequence would be the direct result of the ensuing isolationism. While I realize the term "withdraw" given the context does assume a slightly negative connotation, I believe the resulting isolationism advocated through the resolution would have profound long term consequences. For example, in the early 40's and 50's there was a strong movement within the broader Christian community against the political sphere However, it was this movement that left American politics devoid of the traditional Christian influences and allowed for numerous anti-christian decisions handed down through congress as well as the courts. While not entirely the same, the principle still stands that isolationism robs the Christian community of not only witnessing opportunities, but in many ways the freedom to participate in those witnessing opportunities. In the macro sense, isolationism will not work. It is a flawed concept with no gauruntee that the child who is homeschooled will turn out any "godlier" then his or her public school counterpart.
Ultimately, I believe the decision should be left up to the individual family. I feel that the resolution that was brought up by the southern baptists, to some degree, reflects a shifting of responsibilities (and blame) from the parents to the public schools, which is simply not the case. We must realize that while the public school system does exert influence over the actual educational material children view, the parents have the largest influence as to how their child views that material.
Good points Nick and Dan...
Dan, I agree with you that the parents bear ultimate responsibility for their children... (though of course that would include their choice of education - the "worldview-input between 9am and 3pm every day, 180 days per year, for 12 years"
... Also it's interesting that you bring up the 'call for withdrawal of Christians from the public sphere' in America a few decades ago... It comes to my mind that the secular media is very antagonistic toward "Christians getting involved / exerting their influence / imposing their morals upon others" these days (for example, we notice in this well known article their fear of "Christians gaining power through rhetoric" in the nation... 
,.... so perhaps if I take my cue from what the media is saying (and subsequently take the opposite point of view 
, then I would definitely support Christians moving into the public sphere (as you said, to "preserve" those freedoms we have). ...though this is still something I'm wondering much about... especially - what is the Bible's recommendation on Christians in the public sphere / in politics? I have friends on both sides... some say we should get heavily involved, as "salt of the earth", while others say "Christ's kingdom was not of this world" and "the active-duty soldier (2 Tim 2:4) doesn't entangle himself in" such things....
But anyway, I appreciate all of your thoughts, all of you... and feel free to keep sharing more as they arrive...
I anticipate learning more and more from our discussions....
If you only how much undue stress that times article was the cause of lol, although i will admit, Zev is a very professional, classy guy.
dependent on the situation. I would select the school that is best for my child, within the constraints of my geo/financial situation. Sometimes a Christian school might be best, but other times a public school might be best. For instance, if I were a parent in Erie now, I would definitely want to send my kid to Academy, the high school my mom teaches at. A quality school. Also, I would definitely NOT want to send my kid to the Christian school there, because I think they would get an inferior education and have legalism thrown in their face constantly, which I think will have much more of a chance to warp their worldview than a public school that for the most part tries not to comment on disputable matters. However, there are certainly public schools I wouldn't want to send my kids to, and Christian schools I would like to send them to. (Dayton public schools vs Dayton Christian)
Context dependent.
Personally? I'd recommend homeschooling your child for the first few years, sending them to a private Christian school for late elementary-juniour high. After establishing a solid Christian foundation for their life, they can then be sent to a public school for high school (or at least Grade 12), where they can get accustomed to the outside world and hopefully learn to serve as a witness there.
This seems to me to be a reasonable compromise, and doesn't impugn upon the separation of church and state. Naturally, I'd be in favour of the "private Christian school" in question being a Seventh-Day Adventist one.
In Christ, and for the gospel of the kingdom,
Brett
Brett, good idea... that is actually pretty close to what I experienced (tutoring/reading at home, K-4 at Christian, and 5-12 @ public school. I liked it.
Tim:
The lies of the "liberal" media will be exposed, but so will the lies of the Bush Administration- if they aren't fully exposed in this lifetime. Ray McGovern already confronted Donald Rumsfeld about it; the potentiality of an impeachment gives me hope that the man himself will also be called on the outright deceptions used to justify the farce in Iraq and the questionable accuracy of the 9/11 Commission Report.
In Christ, and for the gospel of the kingdom,
Brett
I am thankful to God for allowing me the opportunity to lead many of my friends to Christ as a result of being in public school. I know this was God's plan - but what if ALL the SBC kids left public school - how much more brainwashing would take place on these issues - there would not be the kids that can stand up for what God has revealed to them so young........
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