Posted on 07/17/2002 9:18:54 AM PDT by Right_Wing_Mole_In_Seattle
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
| Salt and Light in School Jim Babka | Who am I to tell Christians that they should stop supporting government education? |
One Christian mother from Florida wrote to tell me that, because her sister home-schooled her children, she had prayerfully re-evaluated whether she should do the same. Both she and her husband felt that God was clearly leading them to leave their children in the government schools. In her words:
one of the paragraphs in your article really angered and offended me. You stated, "and those Christian parents who insist on deluding themselves about the wonders of public education will remain where they are." Mr. Babka, if I am being "deluded" about the education of my children, then it is God who is doing the deluding, because it is His voice to which we are listening.
She “shuddered to think of what our public school system, and the children in it, would be if ALL Christian parents pulled their children out.” She went on to point out the wonderful impact Christian kids have in government schools. Then she asked me, “How can my children be salt and light if they are doing their studies at the dining room table and not in a classroom full of kids who may have never heard the gospel?”
I understand her point, and appreciate her feeling that God is leading her, but we must remember that other parents likewise feel that God is also leading them to abandon the government schools. I would urge her to more prayer, because there are other issues to consider, and more than one way to provide salt and light to the world.
Young children are impressionable. They lack the experience for discernment. And it's a well-established fact that you only get back what you put in. The state has her children for more waking hours than she does. She can’t control whom they associate with, or what they hear, see, and read. Perhaps, because her children are teenagers, they’re already prepared to prosper in an atmosphere antagonistic to her values. But it seems risky to expect the same from an elementary school child.
More importantly, we must consider what would happen if all Christian parents removed their children from the government schools. I believe the system would fold for lack of business. Would this increase or decrease the salt and light we provide to the world? And what would be the state of our nation’s children?
Education would still continue, but now it would thrive—as it did before public schools were created 120 years ago (when having an 8th grade education meant that someone was ready for college). It would also cost far less and teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, and other social ills would almost certainly plummet. I believe this would add a great deal of salt and light to the world.
We also need to remember that schools teach according to their own institutional interests.
So, what should we expect government schools to teach?
My thoughtful correspondent from Florida believes she is able to control what goes on at her local government school, because she is heavily involved in it. But she is just one person, and the stories of school districts thumbing their nose at parents are legion. Just because it's never happened to her doesn't mean it won’t. And given the power of teachers unions, does she believe she could force the school board to change its mind (especially in a major city)?
Now I'm not disputing that her children can be a godly example in their government school, but I do believe that the costs and the benefits don’t add up to a net increase for salt and light in the world. Quite simply, I don’t believe children are qualified to be missionaries, and they are therefore more likely to be corrupted by the godless environment of the government schools than to effectively change that environment.
Missionaries must meet certain qualifications before they're sent into a mission field. Children do not meet those qualifications. I would like my Florida correspondent, and other concerned parents like her, to seriously consider whether their children will be able to detect when they’re being brainwashed by environmentalism, drug-war propaganda, relative value systems, sex-ed, and diversity training.
Government schools naturally teach children to trust government, and learning to trust government means learning to question parental authority, worship Mother Earth, worship the state (hence the Pledge of Allegiance), and accept as normal that Heather Has Two Mommies.
It seems clear to me that home-schooled and Christian-schooled children can provide more salt and light to the world than government-schooled Christian kids for the simple reason that they are being trained all day, every day, to do exactly that.
Finally, we need to recognize that government schools are based on compulsion. They confiscate the wealth of people without children, and even worse, those who have kids but who are not using the system. In other words, Christian parents who feel God is leading them to teach their children elsewhere are forced to pay twice! The compulsion and confiscation of the government schools violates everything we Christians are supposed to believe in.
How can we end this immoral system? If all Christian parents would remove their children then the system would collapse, and the money confiscated by the government schools would instead flow toward private, and godlier alternatives. This sea-change would be a sign that Christians have truly accepted their calling to be salt and light, and that God has jurisdiction over both the rearing of our children and our pocketbooks.
And until public education experiences a major reformation, I personally oppose every bond measure meant to increase spending on public education. I have no other voice of protest other than my vote.
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