Baptists turn from public schools [NC]

News & Observer ^ | Aug 26, 2007 | Yonat Shimron

[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,"

[shield]

Great idea...scriptural this is extremely sound...your not to let unbelievers mess with your kids minds...

[metmom]

Baptist ping

[uptoolate]

It’s a good start, but I’d rather like to see the church train the parents to disciple their own children in their home.

[pcottraux]

Never thought I’d say this, but...

Church of God, take note of what the Baptists are doing.

[beezdotcom]

It’s a good start, but I’d rather like to see the church train the parents to disciple their own children in their home.

pssst...parents should be doing this regardless of where their children attend school.

[Humidston]

GOOD JOB!

And welcome to FR.

[uptoolate]

pssst...parents should be doing this regardless of where their children attend school.

They won't be able to while the kids are being discipled for those 8 hours under someone else's mentoring in the brick and mortar schools.

[thedilg]

(It’s a good start, but I’d rather like to see the church train the parents to disciple their own children in their home.)

With some experience as a teacher — parents are at a huge disadvantage. Their kids spend 7 hours a day every weekday in a propaganda work shop. The few hours spent in church and in moral teaching in the home per week is out gunned at least ten to one. You lose. The kids will be NEA indoctrinated.

Godspeed,

[CindyDawg]

My grandkids go to a non denominational school. The doctrine is the same as Baptist though.

[John Leland 1789]

“They’ve been turning a blind eye to it for a long time and they’re just now beginning to deal with it?”

---

Well, we had better wait and see if they really get around to it.

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?

If Southern Baptists are just waking up to this, they are 30 to 40 years now behind other Baptists (independents, Free Will, other). Not all independent Baptist churches have their own schools, but the Christian school movement is VERY strong among them, and has been for 40 years. Not only independent Baptists, but their doctrinal counterparts in the Bible Church movement have had access to very highly developed Christian school curricula for a whole generation. The most popular standard ones appear to be:

A Beka Book, Pensacola (Baptistic)
Bob Jones University (Baptistic)
Accelerated Christian Education, Texas (Generic)
Liberty Baptist Curriculum, Indianapolis (Baptist)

Then, there is the home school movement in which Baptists have also been heavily involved in for a whole generation now. Baptist folks who home school their children often use one or more of the above sources, along with Mennonite (Rod & Staff Publishers, etc) and others.

Southern Baptists have their own publishing facilities (Nashville), and could easily, I’m sure come out with their own curricula to encourage Southern Baptist churches to establish schools.

There has been a problem with many church schools which is that the schools are often used more for REVENUE for the church more than for the instilling of spiritual principles in young people. That is a wrong motivation, in our view.

I will be interested to see what the Southern Baptists do (their churches are said to be autonomous). I suspect that the result will be rather liberal in nature.

[Salvation]

**”Southern Baptists see the new religious establishment in this country as secularism,”**

I think they have thought that for a long time.

Catholics, too, fight secularism and the views of the media each and every day.

Choose homeschooling, parochial schools. Take the children out of the public schools!

[gondramB]

>>here is a website that has supplements tailored to each of the “big three” biology school textbook’s sections on evolution. A student can just click on the picture of their textbook and it will take them to a series of word documents that can be downloaded, printed off, stapled together, and placed in their textbooks. That way, as each section is brought up in class they have material that gives the other side of the story...

http://www.textbookaccuracy.org<<

I’d be cautious before recommending or using that site. I only did some spot checking but found inaccuracies and misleading statements above th frequency I would expect or tolerate in a high school resource.

[Irish Rose]

I consider homeschooling the ideal, but I’m always glad to see parents taking responsibility for their children’s schooling. When this leads them to take their children out of government schools, it has the happy side benefit of reducing the government’s power.

[beezdotcom]

They won't be able to while the kids are being discipled for those 8 hours under someone else's mentoring in the brick and mortar schools.

I'm always a little bemused by comments such as these. It often seems that the presumption is that parents like myself blindly abandon little Johnny and Susie unprotected to the arms of avowed Satanists - or worse, KNOWINGLY do it.

Perhaps that hyperbole is a bit much, and I know that there are indeed parents who DON'T guard against rogue indoctrination. However, WE make it a point to know each and every teacher, where they go to church (or IF), what axes they seem to want to grind, and which of their classes actually provide that opportunity (not so much in band and math, more so in science and history). This is made much easier by the fact that my wife has volunteered and worked in every school the kids have attended.

You and I probably don't disagree much on the principle of who should be first and foremost in teaching our children - the parents. We probably DO disagree on when to teach them discernment, and when they are old enough to start sorting some of the wheat from the chaff on their own. If I actually let strangers talk to my children, I'd let you hear it directly from them how they handle it on those (rare in our case) occasions where instruction gives way to indoctrination. Suffice it to say, a little rhetorical instruction goes a long way.

Homeschooling usually has great results. Among my friends and family, we've also had great results with private and public schools. Of course, that has less to do with the school, and more to do with parental involvement. (It could also have a lot to do with the region, since we're in a semi-rural, 'red' county.)

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Yep, it’s time to get the hell out of the pubic schools!

[WKB]

Baptist ping:

What to do, What to do?
How can you be the salt of the earth if you
are still in the shaker. And how can you
provide the best education for your kids
in govt schools at the same time?

[veritas2002]

You’re pretty uninformed. The ‘Hail Mary’ is derived directly from Sacred Scripture which most Baptists accept as unerring truth.

[BlackElk]

bump

[fredhead]

Tomorrow is the first day of school for my daughter. Last year she attended kindergarten in the public school. Tomorrow she starts first grade at Norfolk Christian School.

[sr4402]

You’re pretty uninformed. The ‘Hail Mary’ is derived directly from Sacred Scripture which most Baptists accept as unerring truth.

Remember we are talking about Baptist here. So which book out of the 66 books and verse out of the bible are you referring to here?