#MillennialMonday Jesus-Free Zone, Part II (I recommend reading the whole article as I make a couple of points that dont make sense unless you finish. Also, Id be very interested to read feedback. - JW) In last weeks Millennial Monday article we looked at the reasons why Christian families cant settle for education that either shuts God out entirely or allows a single prayer or mention of God in limited, controlled occurrences. We discussed how such education teaches the indirect lesson that the Bible can be put into a box or written into a particular part of the schedule and that its perfectly acceptable to have areas in life where God is not welcome. Therefore, the conclusion drawn was that we have to fight for Christian education. Not many will disagree on that point. However, thats just one part of the process, the theory aspect. What about practice? How does that apply to the Christian family and government education? There was a time when Christianity was allowed in every public school, and going back even further in our history there was a time when the whole point of schooling was to educate children for biblical literacy. Due to a series of court decisions over the course of about 40 years from 1950-1990, those days are gone. Now we have atheistic families suing schools for opening the Bible or saying prayers to open the day. We have students refusing to say the under God portion of the Pledge of Allegiance. Heres the twist in this article: I see their point, and I almost, kinda-sorta agree with them. No family wants their children being exposed or indoctrinated against their own belief system by people practicing an opposing belief system. Our standard response is usually something like, Come on, like they cant sit through one prayer a day. Saying under God isnt going to kill them. By the same token, though, most Christian parents dont want their children being forced to speak Allahs name or sit in classrooms that observe the Muslim call to prayer. Atheist, secular humanist parents dont want their children being forced to say Gods name or sit in rooms that participate in Christian prayer. Its pretty simple, really. Before you report me to Facebook for heresy, let me clarify my point. Heres what Im NOT saying: Im not saying its right that people should be atheists or that their false concept of separation of church and state is legitimate or that schools should stop saying prayers or the pledge of allegiance. Heres what I AM saying: this conflict of worldviews illustrates perfectly why the idea of government schooling is fundamentally flawed. We all (Christians, atheists, and everyone in between) bought into the idea that religiously neutral schooling could occur. This is still the view of education that most families assume to be true. School is compartmentalized as the part of the day where kids learn The 3 Rs and each family is responsible for teaching their own religious beliefs. With the rise of atheism, were seeing why that doesnt work. Every family has different religious beliefs, and there is no possible way for the school to represent everybody. Indoctrination occurs one way or another while some set of parents will be happy and the rest will be dissatisfied. Atheists have long viewed education as a way to indoctrinate children from Christian families. Some Christians view education as a way to teach God to children from families with no interest in God. The problem here is that both sides are forgetting the truth that has existed since Adam and Eve - God gives children to families and THEY get to decide what their children are taught. This is precisely why I said I almost agree with atheist families who get angry when their children are exposed to Christianity, and why I almost understand Christian families who are upset when their children are taught things like evolution or Islam. Its your God-given right to ensure your children are taught what you believe, but giving them to someone else for 14,000 hours over the course of 13 years completely signs that right over and parents have no reason to complain when opportunistic educators use that influence to teach what they want. Remember, the founder of compulsory schooling in America noted that parents were surrendering children as hostages to the cause of education. To quote Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr.s excellent book on education once more, Because all education is inherently religious, every school will always pass along the moral convictions of the sponsoring organization. You dont have to be a Christian to see this. The state passes on its moral vision, the church passes along its moral vision, and the family does the same... The notion of neutrality is a fraud, a scam. So we come back to the parents. Doesnt it make sense that since we cant all agree on a moral standard, parents should pass on their own convictions to their own children?* You cant hand children over to people with an entirely contrary worldview and expect worldview to stay out of the equation when it comes to intellectual development. (Let me assure you, between the teachers, administrators, textbook writers, bureaucrats, lobbyists, politicians, and your childrens peers, the overwhelming majority will not share your worldview.) This is the flaw that has always existed in government education, and it always will. More than anything, this speaks to our narrow view of religion and Gods Word when we think Christianity can be muted for such a large, crucially influential portion of a young persons life with no ill effect. We all agree that Christian education must be pursued. Beyond that, we must agree with the biblical truth that parents are charged with passing the truth down to their children. What does that understanding do for our view of government schools? - Jack Wilkie
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 20:02:39 +0000
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