Posted on 01/01/2005 7:47:36 AM PST by Theodore R.
Religion in the Classroom By DUNCAN MANSFIELD Associated Press
SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — Frustration with public education seems to be growing among the nation's Southern Baptists, with supporters of Christian schools and home schooling arguing that if God is absent from the classroom then their children should leave, too.
"What has happened is not so much that the Christians are leaving the public schools as that the public schools have left the Christians," advocate Ed Gamble said.
Gamble is executive director of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, an Orlando, Fla.-based group that supports the more than 600 Southern Baptist schools created in the past eight years.
"As the public schools have become increasingly secular and increasingly intolerant of things Christian, people who are openly Christian have said, 'I guess they are not part of our team anymore,' " Gamble said.
The number of conservative Christian schools grew by nearly 11 percent between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, to 5,527, according to the U.S. Department of Education's latest statistics.
At that rate, Christian schools are growing faster than private schools as a whole, and they have increased their share to nearly 1 in 5 private schools in the country.
Last year, a resolution proposed at the national meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention — which guides the nation's largest Protestant denomination — urged parents to withdraw their children from "officially Godless" "government schools" in favor of religious education.
While the measure was rejected, interest in faith-based schools has continued to spread among Baptists at the state level, particularly in Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, California and New England, according to Exodus Mandate, a Columbia, S.C., group that promotes private, Christian and home-school education.
A recent resolution promoting Christian schooling easily passed the Missouri Baptist Convention but was quashed in committee at the Tennessee Baptist Convention meeting in Sevierville last month.
The Missouri resolution talked about the "inherent dangers of secular educational philosophies that now permeates America's public education system" and affirmed "the importance of systematically training ourselves and our children in the ways of authentic, biblical Christianity."
"What we are saying is that God has given us some very specific commands that we are to train our children in the ways of the Lord, not in the ways of the world," said the Rev. Roger Moran, of Troy, Mo., the resolution's author and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee.
That means teaching creationism over evolution, that life begins at conception, and that homosexuality is immoral, as is sex outside of marriage.
But it is more.
Glen Schultz heads the Baptists' LifeWay curriculum program for church-based schools and home schoolers.
"It hits everything, when you realize the reality of life is (that) life was created by God and the entire universe is his creation," Schultz said. "Therefore, everything has meaning and reflection on his nature, whether it is math or history or science. Two plus two equals four because God created them that way."
The Tennessee resolution came one step short of asking Baptist parents to pull their children from public schools.
"I wanted to be positive in promoting Christian education," said the Rev. Larry Reagan of Dresden, who wrote the measure. "I didn't want the resolution to be portrayed as attacking public education."
But the Rev. Mike Boyd of Knoxville, outgoing president of the 1 million-member Tennessee Baptist Convention, worried about the divisiveness of the issue. And the Rev. Grover Westover of Whiteville, chairman of the resolutions committee, said, "It was not wise, is all I am saying."
He said Reagan's resolution would have promoted more "Kingdom education" schools following LifeWay's lead.
Schultz said the program has reached some 150 churches since 1996.
"We encourage our members to pray for this ministry, and we encourage the promotion of an adequate system of Christian schools," Reagan said.
Boyd agreed there were "some serious issues in the public schools" to resolve but said the focus should be on supporting the teachers working in them, including many Baptists, and parents.
"Historically, Baptists have been pretty staunch supporters of the public school system, and they still are," said Gamble, who was not surprised to see the convention resolutions fail.
"But this is a bottom-up movement, as it is a bottom-up denomination. This is not a movement that is being led so much by pastors as it is being led by moms and dads who are frustrated.
"And some day, I don't know how long it will be, most of the kids will be educated in Southern Baptist schools or in their homes."
We pay up, complain every chance we get, and keep leaving the schools. I don't know what else to do.
Because a Muslim or a Hindu never created a free nation. This country and the US Constitution was created by Protestant Christians.
The very fact that you suggest a parity between Muslim, Hindu and Christianity is proof positive that you have been brainwashed by public schools and popular media.
By your fatalistic and defeatist logic you personally are incapable of believing in the superiority of one religion over another for your own family, or for you personally.
Your logic susgests you should be equally "worshipping" some conglomeration of all faiths in your iown personal everyday life.
If you do not then the comment you posted is purely anti-Christian and hypocritical.
I have the right to practice the religion that is true and good, Christianity.
I have the right to associate ONLY with Christians if I so choose. I have a right for my children not to be attacked for their Christian beliefs.
I have a right to believe that Christianity has done more to advance the general welfare of mankind than any religion in the history of mankind (and that is a readily provable fact).
The principles of this nation are Christian. Anybody who tells you otherwise are bald-faced liars attempting to destroy Christianity in order to advance there own personal unChristian philosophy.
Here are a few quotes that will never be published in the anti-Christian public school textbooks.
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." -- Patrick Henry, American Revolutionary Leader, ("Give me Liberty or give me death!")“Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its claims.” -- Alexis de Tocqueville
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was siting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favour. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man." -- Alexander Hamilton, "Ratifier of the Constitution"
"We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come." -- Samuel Adams, statement as the Declaration of Independence was being signed August 2, 1776.
In 1774, before the revolution began in earnest, "the colonists grew in resilience and confidence in God, to the point where one Crown-appointed Governor wrote of the condition to the Board of Trade back in England:"
"If you ask an American, whos is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ"
The Committee of Correspondence soon began sounding the cry across the Colonies; "No King but King Jesus!"
You're going to have to deal with the products of public schools in either case...
At least with home schooling or Christian schooling, young impressionable minds will be guided in a truthful, loving direction.
"collective"...let's see...that word has the connotation of communism in my mind.
You may want to access the DU site for a warmer reception.
See post #22
They do and have for a very long time.
Thank you!
I think Daniel went to a fairly secular school and he did ok.
"Allow me to quote (our?) First Amendment
Congess shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"...etc."
To OUR knowledge here, Congress has yet to make a law respecting the establihment of religion.
What to Spin some more?
If you stick around long enough, you just might get some education in the truth...
...really, it won't hurt anything but your EGO...
Not necessarily. Here in California at least you can transfer into a 4-year college after you've done 50+ units at a junior college - no test scores required.
The colleges are much more interested in how you did in those classes and whether you could succeed in that environment than what any test score was.
In fact, I've been told that colleges prefer the older transfer students to the newbie 'tested' freshman because they former has a higher rate of 'serious' students and more often than not perform better.
85% of Americans are Christian. The point I think is NOT that Christianity be taught in the public schools, but rather that those schools STOP promoting anti-Christianity.
I do not want my child to be taught that homosexuality is acceptable in the name of "diversity"; the schools have no business in addressing such social issues AT ALL. I want the schools to teach math, science, english, history, and foreign language. Music, art, and gym. Not fisting and anal intercourse.
And I want history taught in such a way that the students are presented with the essential goodness of our Nation. The United States is a wonderful haven of opportunity, freedom, and the will to do the right thing. Any teacher who does not feel this way has no business teaching in a public school, and should be ushered to the door post haste.
INTREP - Education - Survive
Baptists were persecuted at the time and many had been imprisoned for their faith. The First Amendment would not exist but for the Baptists. Now to answer your questions;
How do we reconcile our Nation's interest in allowing all religions to practice freely with the common notion that Christianity is superior to all religions?
They are free to practice their religion, as always. Nobody has ever stopped them practicing their religion. But they are not free to change the principles upon which this great nation was founded. Christian principles.
The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights are founded upon Christian Principles.
Muslims, Hindus or others cannot defend the US Constitution because their religions cannot support the underlying principles.
Muslims believe Shariiah law should replace the US Constitution, for instance.
‘Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth’ --Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
I will fight to the death to prevent Shariiah law from usurping the US Constitution.
get it? If the fight is in this land then so be it.
There is no such thing as an absence of "religion". Secularism is a religion, a creed, in so much it is a common system of beliefs. (It is a very weak system of beliefs that cannot withstand strong religious beliefs, which is why secular Europe is becoming Muslim Europe) Popular secularism today is a common set of values upon which decisions are made. They are values created by arrogant men and proven by history to be the basis of tyranny, until destroyed by a prevailaing religion.
Secularism did not create the liberties you enjoy today. God did, and Christians created a government to defend them. Christians believe those liberties should be protected with their lives.
Christians created a nation free for all. If you destroy the Christian basis of this nation you will destroy the liberty that Christians protect. (It's like being invited into a wealthy home and then kicking out the owners of the home who created the wealth to build the house in the first place. That home is soon trashed and destroyed.)
Just look at the ever more secular nations of Europe. They have liberated nobody, and they are unable to defend their own freedoms.
They arrogantly believe governments of men grant liberties, not God.
Because of their arrogance Europe is now a Muslim land. In 5 years more Muslims will attend mosques than Brits attend Church in the UK.
Muslims do not believe in secularism. Muslims do not believe in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
The fact that you would give them an opportunity to destroy those liberties speaks volumes about your brainwashing.
How do we exclusively teach Christianity in our public schools without making it an "establishment of religion"?
Simple. You let the schools be free and responsive to the local families. Each school should be free to reflect the predominant community values. That means if a community is 70% Jewish then the local school should heavily refeltc those values. etc etc
Compulsory education laws must also be eliminated. They are slave laws for children. (Imagine forcing children into government buildings at gunpoint for most of the working hours of a week).
Refusing to recognize the religion of a community is a direct insult to that community and arrogantly presumes that the values that remain in the school, as defined by the government, are far superior to that childs religious belief.
Secular values are inferior and destructive to the human condition. They are evil. Evil exists where God is rejected.
Nowhere in history can you prove otherwise.
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