Presbyterians: Pull kids from public school

WorldNetDaily ^ | June 15, 2005 | Ron Strom

[blueberry12]

Pastor follows Baptists' lead in presenting resolution to denomination

Following the lead of Baptist activists, a Tennessee pastor from the Presbyterian Church in America today is scheduled to introduce a resolution to the denomination's General Assembly to urge members across the nation to pull their children out of public school.

As WorldNetDaily reported, a group of Baptists last year presented a resolution to the Southern Baptist Convention that eventually was killed.

Noting that "the millions of children in government schools spend seven hours a day, 180 days a year being taught that God is irrelevant to every area of life," the resolution said, "Many Christian children in government schools are converted to an anti-Christian worldview rather than evangelizing their schoolmates."

Similar in tone, the Presbyterian resolution is considerably shorter than the Baptists'. It states:

Whereas, The Bible commands fathers to bring up their children in the training and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), and all parents who have had a child baptized in the Presbyterian Church in America have taken a vow to strive by all the means of God's appointment to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (BCO 56-5), and A truly Christian education begins with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10), and teaches children to think biblically about all of life (2 Corinthians 10:5; Romans 12:2; Deuteronomy 6:6-9), and

Whereas, The public school system does not offer a Christian education, but officially claims to be "neutral" with regard to Christ, a position that Christ Himself said was impossible (Luke 11:23), and

Whereas, The public schools are by law humanistic and secular in their instruction, and as a result the attending children receive an education without positive reference to the Triune God, and

Whereas, Some courageous teachers in our congregations disregard this law. Obeying God rather than men, they try to give their students a truly Christian education (Acts 4:18-20). This resolution should not be construed to discourage these adult believers who faithfully labor as missionaries to unbelieving colleagues and students. However, these rare exceptions should not lead anyone to believe the public schools are regularly giving children a truly Christian education.

Whereas, Sending thousands of PCA children as "missionaries" to their unbelieving teachers and classmates has failed to contribute to increasing holiness in the public schools. On the contrary, the Nehemiah Institute documents growing evidence that the public schools are successfully converting covenant children to secular humanism, and Whereas, We are squandering a great opportunity to instruct these children in the truth of God's word and its application to all of life;

Therefore, be it resolved that the 33rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America encourages all her officers and members to remove their children from the public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education, for the glory of God and the good of Christ's church.

The leader of the resolution effort is the Rev. Steve Warhurst, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tenn.

He explained that the Presbyterian Church in America, or PCA, General Assembly has three options when a resolution is introduced. It can vote on it immediately – an unlikely choice; it can refer it to a committee that will debate the issue and refer it to the Assembly floor with a recommendation; or the committee can appoint a "study committee," which would research the issue and bring it forward the following year.

Warhurst says he expects something to be decided by the end of the Assembly Friday.

The General Assembly normally consists of about 1,000 voting members. This year's gathering is being held at the Chattanooga Convention Center in Chattanooga, Tenn. The denomination consists of 1,248 churches and about 350,000 total members.

PCA left the larger Presbyterian Church USA in the early '70s due to disagreements on doctrine. Warhurst's denomination is more conservative.

The pastor says those who started PCA "weren't pleased with the liberalism in the bigger denomination."

Warhurst says he knows the men behind the Baptist resolution and was inspired to make a similar move at his denomination's annual conference.

Though many are pessimistic about the resolution's chances, Warhurst is hopeful.

"Almost everybody I talk to says it doesn't have a chance," he told WND, "but I'm more optimistic.

"There are a lot of folks who support Christian education in the PCA."

Warhurst says the denomination stresses that there is a difference between the education offered at its college, Covenant College, and secular institutions, and the same argument should hold for K-12 schooling.

"They want people to come to their college, so they say it has something preferable to a state university," he explained, "particularly a Christian world view."

Continued Warhurst: "It's really pretty basic that Christian people would want to give their children a Christian education. … I don't know what has happened to us over the past century or so, but for some reason people don't think they have to give their children a Christian education anymore, but I think it's biblically required."

Warhurst homeschools his own six children.

One of the PCA pastors that has signed on to the resolution is the Rev. D. James Kennedy, pastor of the nearly 10,000-member Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and host of the "Coral Ridge Hour" national television program.

Also supporting the resolution is Joel Belz, founder of World magazine and a PCA elder.

Meanwhile, a new Baptist resolution that urges churches to investigate the level of homosexual advocacy in their local school districts is in the denomination's Resolutions Committee and could be considered by the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole at its gathering next week.

Yesterday, proponents of the resolution issued a letter addressed to Dr. Gene Mims, chairman of the Resolutions Committee, signed by almost 50 statewide pro-family groups from around the nation urging him to move the proposal out of committee.

Related Stories:

Baptists revive anti-public-school resolution

Christian-education push goes to states

Baptists kill anti-public-school resolution

Fate of Baptist resolution revealed today

Baptist resolution gets critical endorsement

Baptist activists: Pull kids out of school

[Vor Lady]

Veritas Press is a good place to start!

[Archon of the East]

Can't say it doesn't make sense.

[Zack Nguyen]

Also supporting the resolution is Joel Belz, founder of World magazine and a PCA elder.

I always enjoyed World. A bit dramatic at times, but good info.

[msnimje]

I already did! On the third day my son was in the fourth grade I just went up there at lunch and took him out.

[Ichneumon]

Noting that "the millions of children in government schools spend seven hours a day, 180 days a year being taught that God is irrelevant to every area of life,"

Ooookay... I went to public schools, and not only was there not nonstop "teaching that God is irrelevant to every area of life", as this quote implies, I can't even remember that happening a single hour out of an entire school year.

There are many good reasons to switch to private schools, but wild-eyed overblown claims like this one don't add anything of value to the debate.

[InvisibleChurch]

what happened?

[IndySecurityMom]

Noting that "the millions of children in government schools spend seven hours a day, 180 days a year being taught that God is irrelevant to every area of life,"

The above statement may contain hyperbole, but when did you last attend PS? Spend some time reading the objectives set forth by NTA and the NEA. It's chilling.

[msnimje]

what happened?

It was a "Straw that broke the camel's back" situation.
This teacher obviously did not like children or her job as a teacher. My son asked her during a Math Quiz if he could go to the restroom.
She asked him if he was done with the Quiz and he said no so she denied him the right to go the bathroom. As a result he wet his pants.
The embarrassment of wetting his pants I knew he could deal with but I could not stand the thought of such people being "in charge" of my child.
Homeschooling has been fantastic for both of us and he LOVES learning now.

[metmom]

We've home-schooled our children from kindergarten and moved to a great small town and are now sending the two oldest to high school. The graduating class size is about 80 and the soccer coach will not let the kids practice or play unless they have all their homework done for all their classes and he's keeping in touch with their teachers on it. They will even let the kids carry their allergy medicine with them. This is a trial for us but I feel at this point that the kids are very well grounded in their faith, they know who they are and what they believe and we thought this would be a good place to start with dealing with the real world. Any problems from the school, though, and we'll yank them faster than they'd believe possible. Homeschooling is great and I don't regret a minute of it but I will be so glad when we're done. It's a lot of work.

[msnimje]

what happened?

Also, for a couple of years previous the had a "team" ganging up on me trying to force me to put him on Ritalin and I refused.

[Mont-3-7-77]

Just a quick comment: the article posted is from the PCA - Presbyterian Church in America. However, the logo posted is from the wooly-headed-Liberal PCUSA - Presbyterian Church USA - a denomination about to implode.

I believe that you may draw some other, less grace-filled, comments from our brothers in the PCA 8-}

[liliesgrandpa]

We send college educated missionaries into the jungles to deal with uneducated natives, but we send our little children to engage in intellectual combat with college educated atheist.

[InvisibleChurch]

I homeschooled my kids for two years. We had them enrolled in a Lutheran school in North Carolina. It was run by Jesse Helms' daughter, of all people. Anyway, they had pulled the plug on theatre and girl's basketball and wouldn't allow prayer in the school (yes, it DOES say Lutheran school earlier in the paragraph, doesn't it?) ... any way, eventually, they disallowed parents permission to go past the front office and visit classrooms during school hours... you figure it out

[Hischild]

Sadly, the public high school here provide more of a Christian environment and education than we found in the Christian high school. We've found more discipline, respect for our beliefs, and Christian teachers who really live their faith (think high school science teachers who refuse to teach evolution as fact)in our public school than we did in the Christian school. Just because a school is called "Christian" doesn't mean that it necessarily provides a more Christian education.

But, I live in a conservative county - a blessing that I continue to be thankful for.

[EverOnward]

public colleges are worse....

[BallparkBoys]

This article is almost THREE MONTHS old....Why post it now??? It was voted down at General Assembly by an overwhelming percentage.

[hermgem]

This Baptist pastor has an empty church all weekdays long, just as other churches have.
Bush wanted to start faith based support groups as he rightly concludes that these groups are far superior in providing help for the needy.
Schoolchildren are just as needy to learn not only about Christianity but equally important about getting an education.
Start using these no child left behind monies towards educating children in churches during the week.
Teachers resent this money anyway as they are held accountable to reporting progress.
I'm sure this pastor will find volunteers such as
Ms. Washington to keep order in class and enable the teacher to do, what else, teach.
Just figure this: At the going clip of $5,000 per student, a church group besides educating these kids, has lets say 50 students and an income of 50x$5,000- or $250,000 of gross income.
Testing for progress is mandatory, funds will be withheld should results stay below a standard level.
Brake this cycle of a forever uneducated minority, open the world to these children held back by a sup-par education.

[PAR35]

You should have at least posted an update to this old story. The proposal flew about as high as a lead balloon.

[AZhardliner]

That's old news and the WRONG Presbyterian logo.