Sometimes strong words are the only words. Softness dilutes the message and covers up the problem, encouraging people to tuck the issue into the far recesses of the mind where conscience never ventures. This is a message for all Christians, but especially for those in leadership positions — those who lay claim to a special call from God to lead others in the paths of righteousness.
By Tammy Drennan
The Christian community’s approach to childrearing:
1. Turn children over to state for the molding of their worldview and social development.
2. Cry foul when secular state schools act both secular and state-like.
3. Develop ministries and missionaries to win back children, but do not remove children from source of the problem.
4. Develop organizations and campaigns to pressure and force state schools to promote Christian agendas.
5. When criticized for keeping children in state schools, claim children are actually there as missionaries.
Of course, this isn’t the approach of all Christians with children in state schools. Many say they are happy with their particular schools, which actually have some Christian teachers who, while they obviously can’t teach a Biblical worldview, nevertheless are very nice people who can be counted on to at least not mention some of the more egregious unmentionables.
Some are bold enough and honest enough to admit that they’d rather apply their money to uses other than their children’s education.
Some truly cannot afford alternatives, and they’re pretty sure that their churches would rather spend on high-tech equipment, beautiful buildings, and missionary outreaches to fallen children of Christian parents than on Christian education.
The education of children from Christian families by the state is the greatest shame of the church today. There’s no soft way to say it, no warm, fuzzy, no-commitment way to point out that it’s wrong.
The Christian world has the resources to rear its children as Christians but chooses not to. Further, it has not one compelling argument for its choice.
If Christians were to turn their hearts toward the most precious gift and the most solemn responsibility God has given them, not only would they redeem their own future, they would have something of true worth to offer a world hungry for meaning and direction. But for now, Christians are followers, not leaders.
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Tammy Drennan is a veteran homeschooler with two grown sons. She has helped many hundreds of families start homeschooling [actually, it’s thousands, but people might find that hard to believe] and is a defender of free market education. You can find her work at www.educationconversation.wordprerss.com and www.homeschoolstarter.com.
