On Educating Our Children

Education: Secular School, Christian School, or Home School?

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I recently received this information which was apparently pulled from the following website: http://www.exodusmandate.org/. It was posted in part, as an argument against Christian children attending public schools.

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"The research data on the success of the public schools in indoctrinating Christian youth with humanistic or neo-pagan worldviews is overwhelming. The Nehemiah Institute's worldview PEERS test shows that 83-percent of the children from committed Christian families in public schools adopt a secular humanist or Marxist socialist worldview.

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At the SBC's 2002 annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported, among other disturbing things, that 88-percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at age 18.

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Barna Research reports that only 9-percent of born-again teens believe in moral absolutes, and more than half believe that Jesus sinned while He was on earth. We believe the fact that 80-percent of Christian families send their children to public schools is a prime reason for this lost legacy.

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A Response:

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We (my wife, actually) home-schooled our two girls for all but one grade with our youngest and with the exception of kindergarten, 6th and 10th grade for my eldest daughter. I went through the public school system as an unbeliever. I have served in pastoral ministry in three churches that had Christian schools—and was Senior Pastor at one of them.

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Both of my girls took Junior College courses at a secular school while in their high school years, and both graduated from a very solid, theologically sound Christian College.

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My elder daughter is now in grad school at a secular university, likely headed toward a PhD in Literary Theory, English Literature, or Philosophy. She also teaches two undergrad courses in argumentation and while being in a very secular, liberal, academic environment requiring carefulness on her part, she is having great opportunity to challenge the beliefs and worldview of her students in the classroom. Admittedly, she is not proclaiming the gospel in the classroom, but she obliterating the philosophic and cultural presuppositions of many of her students. And that’s a good thing.

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Regarding Barna’s research and that of others, I am reminded of Mark Twain’s comments about statistics. But more significantly, if those statistics are indeed accurate I would attribute them more to deficiency’s in the evangelical church and family, than to the effectiveness of the educational system. Acclimation to typical evangelical church culture is ostensibly much easier to achieve than is developing mature, discerning (not judgmental) Christians.

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Just as attending an evangelical church does not necessarily result in one being either a Christian, or a mature Christian, so attending a public school does not necessarily mean one will become a raging secularist. Neither does attending a Christian school necessarily result in the profound embrace of a Biblical worldview and the ability to both articulate and live according to it. Each individual situation will present advantages and/or challenges, but there is no panacea that blankets the discussion.

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It could be that the chickens of the evangelical church’s occupation with politics, with our insulation or isolation from the culture, with the satisfaction of outward appearances, and shallow theological understandings have come home to roost. The current, and the next generation of young people often—but thankfully not at all always—seem ill-prepared by the church and/or Christian school, and/or home-school to become stable, mature, engaged believers who can function in the world, and minister to it while not being of it. There is much more to this issue than the means of education.

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How one chooses to educate their kids is the parent’s choice. And the children’s age and particular understandings, and abilities are crucial considerations when choosing the means of their education. Protection while they are defenseless is critical. But regardless of the means and/or place of education, parents must own the responsibility to model genuine spiritual maturity and theological and philosophical discernment as they engage lost people and the culture in which they live—then hopefully, the children will embrace both orthodoxy and orthopraxy—as a result of their parents teaching and example.

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Could Pogo be correct? Maybe we need to examine what it is we want to achieve and how we are going about it, and make the necessary corrections while we can.

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Pat Howell