Category: Government Schools

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkv6miGIcTU&eurl=http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2008/10/proposition-8.php

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The philosophy in the classroom in one generation, will be the philosophy of the government in the next generation.

I teach at a Christian school, and I have contact with others at both Christian and public schools. When parents ask me, “What do you recommend — public, private, or homeschool?”, I respond, “It depends on the kid.”

I am sincerely sorry that you give such bad counsel. May I advise you in the future to say …. “Why, naturally you should be homeschooling your children.” What a wonderful opportunity you will have to really keep your Baptismal vows when your children were baptized.”

Bret, let’s grant everything that you’ve been saying about the public schools.

If everything I’ve said about government schools is granted, no argument remains.

For the sake of argument, we can accept the metaphor that public schools are temples of humanism with festivals and priests.

Ok, that means those who advocate children attending government schools have accepted the idea that God desired the children of Israel to send their children to the schools of Canaan. It means that they accept the idea that God approves of the children Israel taking classes in Canaan on “The social theory behind sacrificing children to Molech,” and “How luck guided Israel to this land,” and “Economics that don’t take account of God.” Among other classes.

Does it follow that attending a public school *is*, by definition, participating in humanistic religion?

Yes. Schools teach what to think. Scripture teaches as a man thinketh in his heart so he is. Sending children to a school that teaches humanistic religion produces humanistic children. Now, surely we all agree that God is gracious and that God can providentially pluck children from such saturation but we should not put the Lord thy God to the test.

To borrow from 1 Cor, are the children in public schools drinking the cups of idols, OR, are they eating the meat sacrificed to idols? The former, as you recall, is incompatible with being a Christian. The latter is permissible as long as the conscience is undefiled.

Interesting framing of the issue Jeff. I would instead say that putting the covenant seed in government school is to cause a little one to stumble. Now, again, I want to make it clear that I fully recognize that not all covenant children who attend government schools end up apostate just as all children who are aborted don’t end up being born dead.

I would argue that the latter is a more apt analogy. Teachers in public schools may advocate humanistic ideas, but that doesn’t require students to accept them.

Sure, you can soak a million rags in oil 40 hours a week for 13 years and it is possible that some of those rags won’t become oily rags.

It’s entirely possible for a well-trained child pick up skills like mathematics and writing from entirely secular teachers — to “plunder the Egyptians” — and engage in the spiritual battle in the situation he finds himself.

And it is possible that a children’s crusade to the Middle East would result in a few children actually attacking the citadel of Islam.

Still, I quite agree, that in what are styled the “hard sciences” a student could learn in government schools. Of course this does not take into consideration the destructive peer dynamics that occur in government schools. Considerations quite apart from the humanism in the classrooms.

I think you recognize this fact, Bret, which is why you allow for “adults” ages 18-22 to attend secular colleges, despite the fact that the atmosphere on college campuses is far more perniciously anti-Christian than in public secondary schools. In your view, an 18-year-old can attend a college without participating in its worship.

No, Jeff, this is a mis-characterization of what I said.

First, there is no such thing as secular.

Second, I do not accept the premise that Colleges are any more humanistic then secondary schools.

Third, I made it clear that the reason I find it acceptable for a 18 – 22 year old to attend college is that I believe by that age they should be trained to be a burr in the saddle of humanistic college professors. They may be in the temple of Molech, but while there they are giving Molech an enema.

Well, if an 18-year-old can do that, what about a 16-year-old? Or 14-year-old? *It depends on the kid.*

See first response to Darryl today. I already answered that.

In other words, what we’re talking about here is matter of wisdom rather than an iron-clad rule, “Thou shalt not participate in public secondary education.”

I think it is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

That’s one of the ironclad ones isn’t it?

Yes, secular schools are intent on inculcating their value system. We would be fools not to recognize this. For many, the better part of wisdom might be to stay away.

Well, I suppose if your children are child savants and are courageous as lions and are not intimidated by adult blowhards foisting humanism, that in such a case we certainly might have an exception. Do you know any children like that?

But many may not be able to. You spoke earlier of those who drive $20k cars, but there are millions of Christians in America who can’t afford those kinds of cars to begin with.

Must have me mixed up w/ someone else. I never said that.

And still others may have students who are spiritually trained and able to be in the school without being of the school.

Just as there may be children who could join the Marines and make the cut.

We need wisdom to determine which ideas from secular education are truly compatible “all the way down” with Biblical theology, and the wisdom to know whether our children are vulnerable to being corrupted by the false ideas. We can’t just throw down a blanket rule, any more than we can create a blanket rule like “Thou shalt not watch R-rated movies.”

You watch R rated movies?

Just kidding.

Look, Jeff, children are children. They are to be protected. I fully grant that rare exceptions might occur. But the idea that we can make policy on those rare exceptions is unwise.

The same wisdom is likewise needed to determine whether a given *Christian* school is a good fit for our children. Christian schools aren’t given a magic talisman that keeps them from error. On the contrary, Christian schools are often the promoters of errors at least as pernicious as those in public schools — legalism being the most common.

I quite agree and would say that potential dangers exist for homeschooling. Still, a child would be better off growing up without education at all then to attend government schools.

In fact, I often steer students *away* from Christian colleges with Bible departments that are known to have a low view of Scripture. For many Christian young adults, it’s better to attend a secular university where the enemy is obvious, than to attend a “Christian” university where the enemy is trusted because of his Christian label.

I agree again.

The same wisdom is required of parents who wish to home-school. In some cases, the kid needs to be home. But in some cases, being at home with mom and dad will simply exacerbate sin tendencies already present in the family.

Well, in an ideal world, the Church would involve itself with those familial sin tendencies.

Or perhaps Mom and Dad weren’t the sharpest students in the class; is it loving to the child for them to pass on their substandard knowledge to their children when better teachers are available?

Teachers that are humanistic in their worldview are by definition not better teachers.

Training? Yeah, absolutely. All parents need to be training their children on a regular basis. Mandated private- or home-schooling? That’s turning what may be wise for some (or even many) into a rule for all. I don’t think that works.

Well, Jeff, you’re entitled to be wrong.

I suspect, Bret, that you might agree with me. After all, if you really believed that sending kids to public schools was idolatry, wouldn’t you be pressing charges against those parents, just as if they had taken them to a Buddhist temple for services?

Not having any parents whose children attend government schools I couldn’t speak to that.

Second, even if I did, I’m wise enough to know that some things need to be done incrementally, even if that means that some covenant children will suffer as a result.

Though it had the natural sentiments in it that all mountain fresh water contained the mountain fresh water was perfectly safe, and yet despite its natural purity the community folk refused to buy it. They drank instead the water they had quaffed for years that they bought from one of two long established fountains. Water, from the first fountain had been laced with cyanide for decades. Water from the second fountain had been laced with strychnine for even longer. Both of these popular fountains were killing the folk, but as ingrained habit is a relentless force they just kept supporting the foul fountains.
All pleading with people to drink the water that was healthy for them fell on deaf ears — even on the ears of people who were by all accounts concerned about their health and the health of their children and neighbors.

The community folk reasoned that since the mountain fresh water would never become the most popular water they needed to drink from the other fountains. They insisted that only by supporting the foul fountains could they influence the amount of cyanide or strychnine that were mixed into the water of the foul fountains.

“Why, if we elected to drink the mountain fresh water who knows how high the level the poison could go in the other fountains,” they said. “Besides” they offered, “if we give up electing to drink from the lesser foul fountain everybody will end up having to drink from the greater foul fountain.”

When it was suggested that they would be better off to drink the mountain fresh water and just break the poisonous fountains altogether if that was necessary they blanched at what they considered a radical idea.

“Better to have some water source, even if poisonous, then fight for pure water,” they said with one voice.

And so time went on and eventually even those who styled themselves health nuts developed a taste for the poisonous fountains, insisting that they weren’t really that bad. Indeed, so ferocious was their loyalty to the poisonous fountains that they heaped opprobrium upon anybody who dared to suggest that the the folk were killing themselves and their community.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear the parable of the foolish fountain folk.

Gary DeMar at the following web site http://74.255.56.30/blog/?p=113 is asking that home schoolers leave stories about their successful adventure in homeschooling. It seems Gary has an antagonist who hates God and His Christ who has written to Gary suggesting that Christian homeschooling is only good for providing hewers of wood and drawers of water (toilet cleaners) for our culture.

Note here that the anti-thesis is becoming increasingly clear. Those who educate their children in a decidedly Christian fashion are hated by those who are epistemologically self-conscious in their support godless government education.

In our situation of homeschooling we have graduated all three of our children with GPA’s between 3.8 and 4.0. My eldest daughter did her first two college years at the local community college and received her Associate degree with a GPA of 3.95. She now works as a private tutor for an area family who is homeschooling their children. She has traveled all over the country in this capacity. She is now making plans to finish her last two years of college.

My second daughter worked last year with developmentally disabled children. Currently she is overseas doing missions in Romania and Ukraine. She has excelled in music and when she returns from his missionary work she will start her college through online accreditation

My youngest son just graduated high school. He has been hired by NASA in order to find mistakes in the engineering trajectory formulas for lift off fuel implosion. He will be splitting his time between that and serving as a junior adviser on the McCain campaign for under twenty voter issues. OK… so Anthony isn’t working for NASA nor is he advising the McCain staff. He is however working diligently this summer to earn money for college.

The most important reality though about my home schooled children is that they don’t think like pagans. Whatever Christ calls them to they will be equipped to re-interpret their field Biblically. My children aren’t perfect. They remain sinners, but they are sinners trusting in Jesus who seek to think God’s thoughts after Him.

God’s word teaches us that we are to teach our children in the ways of the covenant. In Deuteronomy 6 the description of that teaching process clearly communicates that this teaching is to be intense, thorough, and deliberate. Clearly God understood that He made us in such a way that if we were to eventually be adults that loved Him and walked in His ways we would have to start as children who were taught to love Him and walk in His ways. Clearly God understood that covenant community survives by passing the tradition down to the children.

So what do most American Christians do? They do all they can to make sure that the covenant community survives by exposing God’s covenant seed to a teaching process that is intense, thorough, and deliberate. Most American Christians expend great energy to make sure that the covenant community survives by making sure the traditions and ways of the covenant community are passed down to their children. The problem, of course, is that the covenant community that American Christians are concerned with maintaining is not the covenant community of God’s people but rather the covenant community of an alien god. Christians send their children to government schools and what happens to those children at Government schools is precisely what is explained in Deuteronomy 6, with the minor exception that instead of being taught the ways of the God of the Bible our covenant seed is taught the ways of some molech god.

Step back and think about it. When we send our children to government schools we are effectively dipping and saturating them into an alien covenant that is dedicated to not allowing the mentioning of the name of the Lord of the true covenant. If you include transportation time we do this at the tune of 40 hours a week. If you add extra-curriculum school activity the hours go up proportionally. Now add the factors of how all that they are learning in the government schools is being reinforced by the culture swirling around them and how they are anchored into the false covenant through the roots of the friends that they make in the government schools — friends who share their training — and it is not a wonder that God’s covenant seed grow up pledging allegiance to a god who is not god.

So, we dip and saturate our children in an alien covenant by sending them to the schools of foreign gods. We never explain to them, because most don’t know themselves, the whole idea of Worldview and critical thinking. After dipping and saturating them in the covenant of an alien god we roll them in the breadcrumbs of a culture that is opposed to God and then we deep fry them into this god hating life and worldview by allowing their affections to be anchored in relationships with other believers of this faith we have forced them to embrace.

Then, in order to speak good things to ourselves about what godly parents we are we force them to go to Church with us on Sunday where, in most cases, the message that they are receiving from the government schools and from the culture is again reinforced only this time with a shiny Jesus wax coating to cover it all. As the children get older they begin to wonder about the whole relevance of this ‘Church thing,’ and so 50-80% of them leave when they graduate from High School never to return. And many of the ones who stayed probably should have left with their compatriots.

People, all of this can’t be fixed or balanced by 20 minutes of family devotions around the table in the evening or even by an hour of Bible reading before bedtime. You don’t cleanse a fine cloth that has been dipped and saturated in oil for hours and hours by dipping it briefly in clean water only to put it back again into the oil solution.

Let me say it as plainly as I can. If you dip and saturate your children into the false covenant of an alien god they are going to grow up and be the adherents of that alien god. Sure, the God of the Bible does rescue some but to count on His rescuing some of our covenant seed when we raise them in plain disobedience by placing them into the hands of false priests (School teachers who are not epistemologically self-consciously Christian)is to ‘tempt the Lord thy God.’

And the real kicker is, is that some Christian parents after they have done all this to God’s seed are genuinely shocked and mortified when their little Suzy gets knocked up or when their Johnny gets busted for bumping off the corner gas station or when little Bobby couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Christianity or when little Dot goes on to college and comes home and approvingly tells her parents about her Lesbian suite mates, or when little Alex raises their grandchildren on Nightmare on Elm street movies and Brat dollies or when little Lydia spends her life trying to earn God’s favor.

We can wail all we want about this culture but until we start training and keeping our children it is all wailing into the void.

Postscript — I think one reason (there are many) that we have arrived at this point is because of revivalism. Revivalism communicated that God could do in one jolt what He commands us to do throughout the raising of our children. Revivalism, with one Holy Spirit jolt, could instantly make up for our failings as parents to raise our children in the way of the covenant. Revivalism disconnected in our thinking God’s cause and effect. Whereas God said, “Train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it,” we said, “Let just anybody train up our children and trust God to give them a Holy Spirit revival jolt when they get older.” Through revivalism training was disconnected from conversion.