Biblically Speaking

The question of Christians sending their children into schools which as an institution deny Jesus Christ, deny Christianity, and deny God's real presence and guidance in history must be approached from several directions. We must understand our responsibilities before God regarding our children. We must understand the antithesis or the lack of neutral ground between the Christian approach to the world and any other approach. And, we must understand that public (i.e., government) schools are explicitly anti-Christian.

First, as modern evangelicals we might tend to view our responsibility to advance the kingdom of God primarily as the act of witnessing or leading individuals (strangers, co-workers, or friends) to Christ, but too often we forget that our God is an intergenerational God. We are to lead people to Christ, and the people that we are to first lead to Christ are our children. How can we expect outsiders to turn to Christ while our children turn away? If our message of hope isn't good enough to keep our own children, how can we expect to attract others?

The Christian understands that everything that he or she receives in this world is a blessing from the Lord with definite, particular responsibilities associated with it. We are given finances, and we are instructed to tithe and give to the poor. We are given abilities, and we are instructed to perform in our job as unto the Lord. We are blessed with children...not our children, but God's children entrusted to us...for one purpose only. We are to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Every time we allow children to go somewhere or do something, every time we discipline them, every time we set them in front of a teacher we are evangelizing our children. Either we are evangelizing them in righteousness and the fear of the Lord, or we are evangelizing them in disobedience and contempt for God. We are required to raise our children in a way that guards their soul from corruption and that makes them ready to one day live as steadfast trees planted by rivers of water.

This leads to the second point. There is no such thing as neutrality in the world. Christ himself said that whoever is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30). The world is divided by Christ who says he didn't come to bring peace but a sword. He is the seed of the woman whose heel was bruised. There is enmity between the seed of the serpent (i.e., all that is not explicitly Christian) and the seed of the woman (i.e., Christ and all of His kingdom). Too often we think of the world as a vast neutral DMZ where we go about blissfully seeking heaven, but in reality every single person, action, institution, etc...is explicitly for Christ or is explicitly against him. There are only 2 gates...the narrow one that leads to eternal life and all other ways (the wide gate) which lead to damnation.

Let me give you an example of the lack of neutrality: If someone tells you that Christianity is ok for you but they prefer to believe something else, are they attacking Christianity? Of course. They are committing an all out frontal assault on the claims of Christ. They are saying that He isn't the one and only way. They are saying that the Bible is not the breathed forth word of God. They assert that Christianity is just your particular crutch that you use to deal with a harsh world. This is tantamount to shaking one's fist at God and denying His right to rule and reign supreme. There is no neutrality.

So, finally, are public schools explicitly Christian? No matter how accommodating a public school might be to Christianity by allowing Bible studies before or after school or during lunch they never present Christianity of the one and only truth. Christianity is allowed to exist as one possible way of approaching the world. The schools teach that truth is what we make of it and right and wrong are relative. In reality, the humanistic relativity taught in public schools asserts that man is God...the opposite of Christianity.

In a Christian school, the curriculum will begin and end with Christ since we know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If this is really true, if the Bible is really true, then children in public anti-Christ schools are not grown in wisdom, but rather just a more complex foolishness. How many so called Christians don't seem to really believe the Bible and think that an elegant, anti-Christ education is as good as or better than the fear of the Lord? Of course, one might say that the children take the fear of the Lord from home with them to school. So, the children are exposed to 7 hours a day, 5 days a week of anti-Christian thought, and how much instruction in the ways of God at home? Is it any wonder that we are raising little pagans when we instruct them in the fear of the Lord through a half-hour Sunday school class once a week!

I would encourage every parent who sends their child to a public school to get and read John Dewey's writings. Dewey really is the architect of the modern public school, and interestingly, Dewey was an avowed, unabashed God hater. Dewey's goal in life was to rid the world of Christianity...to this end, he worked to establish the modern public school system.

For Christians to contend that they should send their children to public school, they must provide evidence that sending their children to public school is necessary to fulfill their responsibilities before God for their children. Iit is incumbent upon them to prove that public schools nurture the souls of their children and build the kingdom of God. When given a choice in life, the Christian always chooses the most explicitly Christian and righteous approach...that is our duty before God.