Posted on 08/26/2007 7:53:03 PM PDT by jern
Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum.
Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation's largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members.
Rather, they talk about alternatives to public schools capable of educating a new generation ready and willing to advocate for biblical principles rather than popular culture.
"In the public schools, you don't just have neutrality, you have hostility toward organized religion," said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. "A lot of parents are fed up."
Southeastern is leading the push, sponsoring a Christian School 101 workshop Monday and Tuesday. The program is designed to train church leaders to open private schools.
At Southeastern and elsewhere, Southern Baptists have become convinced that fighting to change the system is futile. They say public schools have long demonstrated a commitment to teaching evolution over creationism, world faiths over Christianity, sex education over abstinence, moral relativism over Christian claims of truth.
A history of alienation
The denomination's disenchantment with public schools is not new. It dates to the 1920s, when states debated the teaching of creationism vs. evolution. Evolution increasingly won, despite the famous Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, which gave the victory to creationists. The 1962 and 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decisions banning prayer and devotional readings from public schools only increased Southern Baptists' ire.
Since then, alienation with public schools has grown alongside the nation's culture wars, pitting evangelical Christians against secularists.
"Southern Baptists see the new religious establishment in this country as secularism,"
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
Your approach sounds really wonderful. And this must be what God called you to do. A woman in our church had this vision for the school and she went ahead and moved on that vision. That’s what all of us need to do. Each ministry will differ.
We will stay open until God decides to close it down. It’s been a blessing to so many. We were a big part of the planning of a larger school which will start this next year but we decided that God wanted us to stay where we are, through much prayer, believe me. Thanks for the encouragement and those prayers.
Thank you. Hubby and I have tried to help out with the school as much as we can financially and otherwise. We’ve seen the young people who graduate from there go on to college or in the armed forces, Elim Bible Institute, on the missions field, and they’re a mighty force for God.
Every public school, by government mandate, is anti-Christian.
You may just have found some that are willing to break the law.
They went to school like this:
Deut 6
Proverbs: "My son, listen to my words, give an ear to my teaching"
Eph 6:4
Your post and half of your bio sounds like Voddie Baucham. Ever hear of him?
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
It is time that we start asking parents who send their children to government schools some very pointed questions.
Why would you send your child to a school where you need to ¨deprogram¨ them every night?
Why would you use a school where you feel the need to have the mother volunteer just to keep on eye on their teachers and the other kids?
Why would you use a government school whose textbooks need supplementation and ( even worse) parental correction?
Oh,,,,Do have full control over the socialization they are receiving from the other kids? Please explain to me why it is a good thing that kids sit next to other kiddie drug dealers?
Are you absolutely certain that your child is not being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused by their teachers or other students? Are you certain they have never witnessed this abuse of other children?
Why are you doing this to your children? What is so dysfunctional in your family that you would be forced to do this?
Well.....I could go on an on, but parents of government schooled children have ··PLENTY·· to defend and explain.
No, Friend. Who is this Baucham?
What is the SBC waiting for?
A Strange Faith -- Are Church-Going Kids Christian?
Your entire essay is very informative, but the excerpt above is a little off the point I am trying to make. I do not see the breakdown in orthodoxy (as expressed in broken families and the rise of liberal church support for gay marriage, etc) as a direct cause-and-effect result of the rebellion against Rome. That spirit of rebellion was, as you noted, part of the age which included the Enlightenment movements; it was one element among several which, when they met in America, combined to contribute to the current dilemma. Political power became conflated with arrogant self-righteousness in the Protestant establishment, in turn contributing to the rationalizations of liberalism and the drift towards "social work" instead of obedience to law in jurisprudence and theology.
We’ve supported the school ever since it began. I only wish we could reach more kids (we’ve had up to a hundred and average around 65-70 lately). Wish I were rich instead of beautiful (smile).
http://www.gracefamilybaptist.net/Podcast/4B50BCF2-09AF-4153-A8A1-57D434FD5558.html
http://www.gracefamilybaptist.net/What%20is%20an%20FIC.html
http://www.voddiebaucham.org/Home.html
Not to mention the quietistic Amish and Mennonites.
You could start by reading the New Testament. It's called the Holy Gospel.
Family centrality is definitely in my view.
Marriage and the home is the first institution God created; before civil government and before the Church.
A “republican” church government in which heads of households (NOT one-member-one-vote) represent their families in the governing the practical matters of the church is something we teach. I don’t know if Voddie teaches that particularly. We don’t have church-wide business meetings. We meet with the heads of households and mature single male adults. The needs of the widows and and other unmarried women are considered by the other households.
I don’t know that our views of doctrine of separation from worldliness would correspond.
Wow...amazing you can speak so ill of my children, never having even met them. But it speaks volumes about you.
Catholic schools have been turning out excellent graduates for more than 150 years...
Baptists can do the same..
Of course, it occurs to me to ask, “why not lock your children up in a little box so they are never exposed to the evil, evil world....”
“The Southern Baptists have “Bible” colleges and Cemeteries (I mean) Seminaries, that have infidel professors who deny the biblicist fundamentals of the faith. Would their Christian day schools have higher standards?”
I cannot address the issue of “Baptist” Colleges because most are that in name only - they are not under the control of SBC churches or agencies. However, you are obviously ill informed about the state of Southern Baptist Seminaries. They are all now in the trully conservative evangelical circle. Some are more conservative than others. Southern Seminary which used to be extremely liberal has been completely purged of them. It is now the most conservative of SBC seminaries. Their president, Albert Mohler, has been used greatly by God to clean up that former mess. The SBC halted its liberal slide back in 1979 and has been growing more conservative since. All the “liberals” have left the convention. Their are some so called “moderates” that remain, but they have all but separated themselves from the SBC in a competitive organization called the CBF (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship) which will eventually become a new denomination.
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