I'll just give away the answer: it's fiction. But read on anyway!
In the previous post, I already demonstrated from scripture that moral neutrality is fiction. Also, I had mentioned in passing that a pretense of neutrality results in a corrupted view of educational options for Christian parents. And here I shall go into more detail about what I meant. It will seem like I'm changing the subject for a paragraph or two, but I promise to return to the point.
As Christians, we look to scripture for guidance for all of life. But scripture is clearer on some issues than on others. In the last post I mentioned the issue of infant baptism, where I believe one position and IBC believes another. Now I grant that, despite the claims of some, the Bible does not plainly say that infants should or should not be baptized. One sentence from Jesus or Paul would have easily settled this debate. But because scripture does not explicitly say somewhere "Thou shalt baptize infants" or "Thou shalt not baptize infants," the issue is not perfectly clear at a first glance of the scriptures. A consistent theology incorporating other parts of scripture exists on both sides of this issue, and I have measure of respect for the opposing position to mine, as we all should. So this is an example of an issue on which scripture is less clear than some. It's still an important issue, but Christians shouldn't divide over it.
Now let's look at education. By contrast, there is nothing remotely ambiguous in scripture about how this topic is presented. That Christians are to provide children an explicitly Christian education is as plain as day when one reads Deuteronomy 6. This is reinforced throughout the scriptures, including the book of Proverbs and in various parts of the New Testament. All Christians who care what the Bible says (is that redundant?) should be agreed on this. I won't spell out all the details here, since we don't want this blog post to be a mile long; but this would be a great time to actually go look it up!
Parents need to consider how the objective of training children to love God and obey his law with all of their hearts, minds, souls, and strength relates to educational options before us today. Deuteronomy 6:7 is worthy of particular attention. When should we teach our children this stuff? All the time. By extension, is it a grand idea for our children to spend 35 hours a week in an environment where they are not explicitly taught to love God and live according to his standards? Hmm, let me think. That would be a no. Parents need to ask how the education their children are receiving is supporting and reinforcing these goals. And why any parent, wanting the best for their children, and wanting to themselves be obedient to the instruction in God's Word, should settle for less than an education that explicitly teaches their children to love God.
So here's where the "neutrality" issue comes in. Public education is often viewed by Christians as a "blank slate" of sorts, to which any religious or philosophical perspective may be added. And this is the pretense whereby many Christian pastors find public education to be an acceptable option. I believe this is a grievous error, because it should be plain by now that children in public schools are recipients of an education that is anything but neutral, and often by the schools' own admission. Students are indoctrinated with a particular ideology that is generally hostile to Christianity, which includes aspects of socialism, Darwinism, humanism, hedonism, feminism, environmentalism, and moral relativism. Those are not neutral philosophies, and they often take on a religious character of their own (just ask anyone who wants to defend global warming). To a large degree God is neither welcomed nor acknowledged on campus, as any teacher will quickly find out if they want to say a prayer to Jesus Christ in front of the class.
Then there's the whole bathroom issue, and Obama's edict that public schools ought to let students use whatever bathroom they like. I'm not so sure why anyone is shocked at this sort of thing; once you have blocked God out of education in favor of conflicting ideologies, this kind of ridiculous nonsense is just what you will get.
Now this is not to say that Christians who can't get their children into a Christian school or home school for legitimate reasons (i.e. money is tight) ought to be treated as second class Christians. We just all need to be doing our very best. We need to acknowledge that a Christian education is the ideal type of education for our children because the Bible says it is. The lives and finances of parents ought to be prioritized around Christian education. Families that are well off need to be financially assisting those that are not. Hey, the Bible says it's important! Read Deuteronomy 6:3-4 again. "Hear, O Israel" means PAY ATTENTION!!! This is big. And Christ himself reiterates loving God with all we have as The Most Important Commandment. Should we not do all we can to make sure our children get it?
In a future post I'll go into why such a great number of Christians, and especially pastors, seem to ignore this scriptural imperative, or get muddled on it, and why their reasons for doing so are ill-founded. And I haven't even touched on numerous other subtopics, such as what a financial disaster public education is, but this is getting long so I must stop somewhere.
Some good reading on education is to be found at the American Vision website. This recent blog post is a good starting point. I don't claim the expertise to know that all the history here is 100% accurate, but it is certainly thought provoking and challenges our assumptions about public education.
Still not convinced? Next time some creep is peeping in on your daughter in the public school bathroom, just ask yourself, how's that "neutrality" working out for you? Because yes, that is exactly what this is about.
No comments:
Post a Comment