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Training Your Children For Christ

by General William Booth

Edited and paraphrased by Martin Bennet

 

There are certain things that parents must do – indeed, that only parents can do – if their children are to become true servants of God. I don’t want to hide the fact that what I’m setting before you will not be gained without considerable difficulty, carefulness, and work. However, nothing truly good or great is ever accomplished without trouble. I am certain that for every intense hour and patient effort this work demands, parents will be abundantly repaid if they succeed.

 

Things Parents Should Do

 

First, there are some things that must be done if you want to reach the great goal in the training of children – for them to love and serve God with a pure heart.

 
1. You must keep your goal constantly before your mind. Look it in the face and firmly determine to accomplish it. Don’t let the seductive charms of the world or the temptations of the devil or the promptings of ease and pleasure turn you aside. Oh, fathers and mothers, you must make up your mind to do or die!

 
2. You must believe in the possibility of success. What you desire has been done with glorious results, and what parents have done before, parents can do again. Don’t be deterred by the failures of others, though such failures are sadly too numerous. Say to yourselves in the face of the breakdowns, “Just because the children of some professing Christians haven’t turned out well – even if some have gone bad altogether – that’s no reason why ours should be lost. God has said, `Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.’ (Proverbs 22 6) We believe Him, and we are going to do the training as well as we can, and trust Him to see to its success.” Have faith in God, and He will come to your assistance.

 
3. Be a holy example. Create and confirm in the hearts of your children the assurance that you yourself are what you want them to become. Practice daily the same unselfish love and righteousness you ask from them. Without this, you will never accomplish the goals you have set your heart on.

 
4. Teach your children what real Christianity is. Make them understand it. Make them admire it. Explain it as soon as they can take it in. Base your teaching on the principles and examples in the Bible, especially in the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ and the examples of His disciples, but don’t limit it to them.

 
5. Help your children understand that everything you ask from them is right and reasonable. Appeal to their judgment and conscience rather than to their feelings, although you must not neglect their hearts. It is important for them to understand you. Come down to the level of their capacity and intelligence.

 
6. You must make following Christ a part of your everyday life. Your children must feel that you are as religious at home as in meetings, on Mondays as on Sundays, in your work as on your knees. Without always talking at them about it, your faith in God should be the atmosphere of the house, so in that atmosphere they can “live and move and have their being.” (Acts 17:28)

 
7. You need to aim at a distinct experience of conversion in your children. A line divides the righteous from the wicked. God’s own fingers have drawn that line. There is a moment when human beings, adults or children, cease to be the servants of the devil, and become the servants of God. That line and moment may be approached so gradually as to be crossed almost without notice. But with all who become the children of God, that moment does arrive and that line is crossed, and then they pass from darkness to light, from death to life. In other words, they are saved. You must aim at that distinct experience for your children. You must explain to them its nature and necessity as soon as they can understand. Pray for it in your own bedroom, and hand-in-hand with them also. Lead them to expect their own conversion, either at the meetings or at home. By-and-by you will have the joy of knowing the great change has actually taken place, and of hearing them testify to the fact: a joy which is nearer to the joys of the angels than any other that can come to a father’s or mother’s heart.

 
8. You must make your children kind. Don’t allow cruelty of any sort in them. The lack of thought and sympathy for others, which is so painfully visible in the vast majority of people, is nothing more than a result of their early training in this area.

They were practically encouraged – that is, they weren’t corrected – in little acts of unkindness as toddlers. They pinched the kitten, frightened the bird, or threw down their toys for some tired mother or weary servant to pick up. By-and-by they pulled the legs off of spiders, threw rocks at dogs, and went into fits of pleasure in chasing some poor creature found wounded on their way from school. From that it was only a step to sneering at the beggar who asked for a piece of bread, or mocking the poor and the crippled.

And now, they are all around us in their thousands, never having a thought of kindness or a desire to do a kind thing that costs them any trouble or self-denial. Set your face against such things, and against the spirit which makes them possible.

 
9. Do everything you can to promote the health of your children. Their diet and exercise will affect them in adulthood.

 
10. Do all you can for the minds of your children. You want to make them wise and thoughtful. However poor and humble you may be, a simple education is within your reach. See that your children get it, and be sure to take interest yourself in what they learn.

 
11. Strive to make your children good workers. Give them a chance to contribute work around the house, in the garden, or in the workshop – something apart from their studies. Never let them be unoccupied. Keep them working or playing all through their wakeful hours. Idle hands are the devil’s tools.

 
12. Rely on the Holy Spirit to bless all your efforts. You can depend on the promises in Scriptures that He will rejoice to help you.

 
13. Insist on obedience to all you ask. You must have this obedience or all your other efforts will be thrown away. It’s impossible to overestimate its importance. Forming the habit of ready and willing submission to your will prepares them in forming the habit of obedience to God, which is more important than anything else.

Settle it, therefore, from the first vision of your infant child, from the first kiss you impress upon its little cheek, that, before all else, you will create in this young soul the habit of obedience. How do we do this?

 

The Habit Of Obedience

 

1. Begin early. “Unless you get the dye into the wool, it will be hard work to get it into the cloth.” It’s astonishing how soon the infant in its mother’s arms can be taught that it must do her will, and not its own.

  
2. Don’t give too many commands. But take the trouble to make sure they obey your commands, or the commands you permit others to give on your behalf. How often parents tell their children to do this or that, without even waiting to see, or apparently caring, whether their wishes are carried out! This inevitably leads children to think it doesn’t matter whether they obey at all.

 
3. Be careful that every command given is within your child’s ability to carry out. It’s cruel to ask children to do what is beyond their power, and yet, I’m afraid many parents are thoughtlessly addicted to the practice. They would never dream of requiring their children to carry a huge suitcase they couldn’t lift, or read in a language they hadn’t learned – but they will require a little child to sit motionless and silent for an hour; or forbid it crying when it has pain; or insist upon its going to sleep when it is excited – requirements far beyond its ability, if not actually impossible. Be tender and considerate in the commands you give your children.

 
4. Be careful that your orders are good and lawful; otherwise, how can you insist they obey you?

 
5. Be careful that your commands are understood. Some people talk quickly, others don’t take the time to explain their wishes. This is especially important when you ask your children to do something out of the ordinary. In those cases it’s wise to ask “Do you understand me?” particularly if your child shows any hesitancy in obeying you.

 
6. Be sure to show your child, in a way he can understand, your strong disapproval of all disobedience. You cannot pass disobedience by without notice. To do so is one of the surest methods of cursing your child for the present and the future. In a very real sense, you are teaching them what their heavenly Father thinks of disobedience.

 
7. Give suitable punishment to your children when they disobey.It’s not likely that you will be favored with children so truthful and obedient as never to need punishment. Therefore, it’s important that you have the right idea on the subject of punishment.

 

Things Parents Should Not Do

 

1. You must never set things that are earthly and temporary above things that are heavenly and eternal. If you do, you can’t complain if your children grow up to prefer the world and its charms, to following Christ in a life of holiness and self-denial. Don’t ever allow things that produce the impression on your children’s minds that making money or pleasing ungodly people or winning the praise of men or gratifying themselves or anything else of the kind is, or can ever be, of greater value than pleasing God.

 
2. Don’t fool yourself into believing that if your children are left to themselves, they will naturally develop into the godly, holy, self-sacrificing characters you desire – and then be disappointed if they turn out to be little devils, or grow up to be very much like big ones. If children don’t actually bring evil natures into the world with them, they certainly acquire selfish and naughty hearts very soon alter their arrival here. You need to recognize that fact, and to face it with courage and faith, not only for their sakes, but for your own. Remember the terrible condemnation which God pronounced against Eli, the High Priest, in this matter-He said, “I am about to junge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them.” (I Samuel 3:13)

 
3. Don’t expect that children who possess any backbone of resolution and energy will be likely to submit their wills, first to their parents and then to God, without a great deal of patient and persevering effort on your part. There will be exceptions to this rule. Samuel seems to have been of strong character, yet he didn’t apparently oppose God’s purpose; Josiah was another, Timothy another. I have known some myself. Be that as it may, if you want all your children for the King, whether their natures are pliable or unyielding, you must expect to take trouble for their salvation, and let nothing keep you from persevering.

 
4. Don’t expect your children to be so naive that they won’t see beneath the cloak of a false Christianity, especially if they find it in their own home. And don’t think that after they discover its unreality, they won’t despise it. Don’t be surprised if when they see such hypocrisy, they make it an excuse for neglecting, if not positively disbelieving, in Christ altogether.

 
5. Don’t expect your children to be any better in character and conduct than the example set before them – by you, by their own friends, or by those they spend time with. If you allow them to associate with halfhearted church goers, with worldly Pharisees, or backsliders, then don’t be surprised if they are cursed by those examples, and driven from God and true Christianity. Children are likely to suffer more harm by staying one day in the house of some make-believe follower of Christ than they would spending a month in a tavern, where they’d be on their guard because they knew the devil reigned there.

 
6. Don’t contaminate the love of beauty, which exists in the hearts of all children, through the destructive vice of vanity. You will do this if you give them a taste for expensive clothes, fancy hair styles, and wearing all kinds of other adornments. And if you fill them with the childish conceit that they have prettier faces or figures than others around them, don’t wonder if they should, in later years, be drawn into the world by the attractions of its fashions and empty show.

 
7. Don’t fill your children’s minds with the idea of their supposed superiority, mental or otherwise, over their friends, schoolmates, and others around them, and then be surprised when they go out into life as unhappy slaves of an ambition to climb above everyone else, which will alone be enough to destroy all their real peace of mind.

 
8. Don’t allow your boys to think that they’re more important or of greater value than their sisters, and then be surprised if they grow up to look down on and domineer over women generally, and to treat their own mother or their wives as if they belonged to an inferior race. This false idea of superiority, if planted in a boy’s heart, will in later life produce the spirit of real tyranny.

 
9. Don’t instill, or allow anybody else to instill into the hearts of your girls the idea that marriage is the chief end of life. If you do, don’t be surprised if they get engaged to the first empty, useless fool they come across.

 
10. Don’t pamper or spoil your children, making them whiny or complaining, and then be surprised if they grow up to be a nuisance to themselves and a torment to everybody around them unless they’re allowed to have their own way, or continuously waited upon and amused. (Proverbs 29:15)

 
11. Don’t encourage selfishness in your children. In their infancy, children are ordinarily carried away by the desire for self-gratification. Your first business is to lead them in the opposite direction, to make them forget and deny themselves and delight in serving others.

 
12. Parents shouldn’t discuss or argue about the conduct or character of their children while in the children’s presence, and then be surprised if they take sides with the father or mother, depending on whose ideas are the most favorable to their selfishness.

 
13. Don’t make favorites among your children, and then be surprised that those who are not the chosen ones should grow up with a sense of injustice festering in their hearts, which will very likely make them forget all the love you have ever given them.

 
14. Don’t let your children have their own way or give them what they want merely for the sake of peace, or any other reason whatever, when it’s opposed to your own judgment of what is best for them. If you do, you can’t be surprised when they argue with you, contradict you to your face, ridicule your wishes and opinions behind your back, and at last (to your

shame and their own undoing) disregard you altogether. Never forget that it’s written of your Savior Himself, that in His childhood “He continued in subjection to them” – His parents. (Luke 2:51)

 

 

This article was adapted from chapters 22 and 23 of “Love, Marriage, and Home” by William Booth, published in 1902:

 

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Punishing Your Child

 
1. Before punishing a child, be sure he is guilty of the deed. Nothing can be more painful to the parent or more harmful to a child than discovering that a punishment was not deserved.

 
2. Also, before punishing, be sure that the deed was done deliberately. If the child wasn’t aware he was doing wrong, or didn’t intend to do the deed, then it was an accident, in which case punishment is not deserved.

 
3. If you’re satisfied that they deserve punishing, do it right away. The sooner the penalty follows the misdeed, the more effective it will be.

 
4. The punishment given must be, as nearly as possible, the kind that will produce repentance. Two goals should be before every parent in carrying out this painful task:

  • When you punish your child, your aim should be to bring him to repentance. You want him to realize his naughtiness, to see that wrongdoing makes misery, to be sorry for his sin, and to decide that he will never do the evil thing again.
  • When he does a wrong thing, his conscience will tell him that he ought to suffer for it. When a painful punishment is the natural out come of wrong conduct, then wrong-doing and suffering will be closely associated in his heart. You should strengthen that conviction, so that in later life he will know that if he lives and dies in sin, hell will be his rightful end.

5. Punishment, painful so that it will be remembered, should be as short as the offense requires. This is in favor of the occasional use of the rod. A gentle spanking will be remembered, but will not unnecessarily prolong the suffering. (Proverbs 23:13-14)

 
6. Be careful that you never harm your child’s health. It’s possible to damage a child for a lifetime by too severe or long-lasting pain. However naughty, disobedient, or cruel children may act, justice must always be tempered with mercy.

 
7. When telling your child to obey you, avoid drawn out conflicts. From some strange motive, there is occasionally a blank refusal by a child to obey a direct command. If he doesn’t obey you in a reasonable amount of time, an immediate spanking is the best thing. The unfortunate course adopted by many parents is to try to force the child to obey, no matter how long it takes, and under such circumstances a regular battle between the wills of the parent and the child is a common experience.

 

William Booth (1829-912) founded The Salvation Army with his wife Catherine in 1865, in their home country of England. As a zealous evangelist, his passion for the lost was especially for those who were outcasts of the established church. His whole life can be summed up in his own words, “Go for souls, and go for the worst!”

 

Even though William and Catherine were heavily involved in evangelism and helping the poor, they never forgot the importance of training up their own eight children in the ways of the Lord. The children learned early in life that they were expected to obey their parents and that life was no game. One son said, “None of us grew up slackers; none of us played with life.” While the Booth home was well disciplined, it was also affectionate, and in the early days William was often found wrestling the children on their floor, or letting the little girls play with his hair as he read a book. Emma, speaking about her mother said, “She was the light of our lives, the inspiration of our childhood, the ideal of our ambitions, the repository of our confidences, the guardian angel of our souls, and the beacon of our lives as we sailed earth’s sea towards the same William and Catherine Booth dedicated their children to the same work God called them to – loving a lost and hurting world to Jesus. They were not disappointed by the results. All their children were workers in God’s Kingdom, taking the Gospel to many nations including India, France, Switzerland, and the United States.

 



Home Schooling Resources

mother home schooling reading books to children

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” [Proverbs 22:6]

 

Whose values do your want your children to have when they grow up? Yours or the values of God’s enemies? Your values or the values of people who think you are totally unfit to teach your own children, especially when it comes to moral and religious matters? Who even knows what all your concerns are regarding the education of your children?

WARNING!  Never take for granted the privilege of home schooling your children…

This can happen in American and anywhere:     Germany Declares War on Home-Schoolers

 



Family-Centered Training After High School

 

If men and women of antiquity could somehow be transported through time to our present era and culture, they would probably be dumbfounded by the number and kinds of choices that are granted to individuals in our society. As we have already noted, during Bible times parents exercised a decisive control in the arrangement of marriages. For the most part, a man’s choice of vocation was similarly determined. Sons usually took up the occupations of their fathers, working the land or using the tools that were passed along from one generation to another. Daughters became wives. Asking a young Israelite if he had discovered God’s will for his life’s work would probably elicit a blank stare.

 

Not so today. For young people of our time and culture, the “Big Three” among the decisions of life are marriage, vocation, and education – though not necessarily in that order. The choices are personal and the options are almost limitless (at least in theory). Given the multitude of possibilities and the importance of the decisions, the urgent search by many Christians for definitive guidance in these areas is certainly understandable… — Garry Friesen – Decision Making & the Will of God, p. 335

 

Indeed, times have changed. The question is whether they have changed for the better or for the worse. Mr. Friesen is correct in his basic assessment of the differences between the options available to a young person in “Bible times” and those available to young people today. In the Bible we see parents guiding their children all the way through their upbringing until they reach the point of marriage and vocation. Today parents take an essentially hands-off approach once the child finishes high school. His (or her) choices educationally, vocationally, and when it comes to selecting a mate are essentially up to the young person alone.

 

Notice right off one of the key issues in this matter of how our post-high-school children go about determining the direction of their lives. Mr. Friesen wrote of how a young person in Bible times would be “dumbfounded by the number and kinds of choices that are granted to individuals in our society” (emphasis added). Here is the essence of the matter. Today we view life direction as a matter of individual choice, whereas in the Bible it was a matter of family and even community concern. Again, our author observed, “The choices are personal and the options are almost limitless” (emphasis added). Precisely. The choices open to a young person today are regarded as choices he can and must make himself. His life direction is personal decision.

 

In contrast, in Bible times the decision would have been his, but it would have been heavily guided by his father and mother. The focus would not be his personal desires alone or even primarily. His choices would be substantially shaped by the will of his father, the good of his family, and how he fit into the local community. For a young woman, her life direction would have been even more thoroughly dictated by family considerations.

 

Those of us who homeschool our children have come to understand the substantial measure of responsibility we have for their total upbringing and the great degree to which we can and must be involved in their lives. As we saw in our last issue (“Home Education Is Biblical Education”) parents are at the center of the process of training; they are the God-appointed teachers of their children. And the process of training is not some merely cognitive, classroom-oriented process. It is a process of discipleship: an intimate, constant relationship in which the parent shapes the child’s heart as well as his mind.

 

The question is: When does this responsibility end? It seems that most parents would consider the process complete once the child has completed “high school” level academic work. It is at that point that even homeschooling parents tend to regard the young person as ready to go out and make his own decision about education, vocation, and marriage, with a minimum of input from the parents. We have argued elsewhere, however, that the process of training is not complete just because the child has passed an artificial academic/cultural milestone (cf. our article, “A Father’s Job Description,” in issue 16, and John Thompson’s article, “College at Home to the Glory of God,” in issue 14). Parents are responsible to train their children to be competent husbands/fathers or wives/mothers and to be competent in a vocation; and parents have the responsibility to guide their older children into a life’s work and into a godly marriage.

 

One of the tragedies we see in the homeschooling subculture is that the fruit of many years of devoted training is being squandered as parents essentially abandon their children to make their “personal” decisions as “individuals” when it comes to the most important choices in life: further education and training, vocation, and marriage. It is precisely at this point that parental involvement and direction is most crucial and that the years of intimate parent/child discipleship could bear the most enduring fruit. Instead, children are sent off to find their own way in life.

 

What is the problem here? It boils down to this: Even homeschooling parents fail to grasp the larger vision of a properly family-centered approach to life. We have bought into the worldview that accentuates the individual and minimizes family ties (or any other communal ties). And so once we are finished training through “high school” we think our work is done: we have prepared another individual to take his or her place in society, on terms they are free to consider without respect to family, community, local church, or any other ties that might hinder the liberty of the individual to create his or her own destiny.

 

So we send our children off to college, assuming that academic preparation is most important, and ignoring the moral and spiritual dangers of this approach. We urge our children to move out of the house, get their own apartments and a job to support themselves, and we forget their need for continued guidance and preparation for their life work and for marriage.

 

What exactly is wrong with the standard send-them-away approach to our post-high-school children? And what would be a better approach? Let us consider several issues.

 

LIFE VISION

 

The most important role our children will fill in life is that of a godly husband and father or wife and mother. It is through this calling that they will do more to advance the kingdom of God in this world than in any other calling. It is in carrying out this calling that they will spend more time and energy than in any other facet of their lives, be they male or female. We must raise our children with the expectation that their preparation for their future family responsibilities is the most important dimension of their life preparation. In short, above all else we must communicate the vision that creating their own godly households will be life’s greatest adventure.

 

The present-day approach communicates none of this vision. Instead young people are given the impression that home and family are for kids and that as newly-arrived adults they must set out on an adventure away from the confines of the home.

 

Consider the pervasive mission trip craze. (How many appeals for funding have you received this past year?) Though obviously not wrong as such, they tend to feed the notion that the serious work for God is somehow far way and exotic. Helping haul bricks to build an orphanage in India, or “witnessing” on the streets of Mexico City for two weeks is seen as the purest form of the spiritual quest. What an adventure! Pity the poor kid who has to stay home and merely can applesauce or help run the family business. But in fact, the latter are engaging in preparation far better suited to the real life God has called them to live for the rest of their lives.

 

We hesitate to mention in this connection the popular “apprenticeship” programs offered by a popular, national ministry that also offers a homeschooling program through high school. Here children leave home for months at a time to work with other children their age in training and missions programs. Even while the ministry itself emphasizes family renewal, their method undermines that very emphasis. Young people are subtly taught that real life preparation (at least after high school) cannot occur in the confines of the home and family, nor under the tutelage of parents. To receive the very best training possible, it seems, you have to leave parents, home, and local church and be part of a giant ministry effort. While no doubt fulfilling and useful to the young person in many ways, the effect is to train children away from their home-centered calling.

 

Needless to say, sending children off to college assures that their hearts will be turned away from home and family and reoriented toward the pursuit of the all-important “career.” What college student has foremost in his (or her) mind that he is preparing to be a family leader, a godly spouse, a parent to children, and that from this base will spring his greatest effectiveness in every other area of life? None that I know.

 

Why can’t we give young people a vision that fits more closely with a biblical view of what their primary life calling is to be? We can, but it will involve re-thinking the standard cultural models for training after high school. Our greatest challenge today is to learn how to help our children see a family-centered life as the real adventure.

 

EXPECTATIONS

 

Closely related to the issue of the vision we give our children as they near adulthood is that of the expectations that we create through the methods we use in their preparation. We have already alluded to the subtle expectations created by college, mission trips, and distant, institutional apprenticeships. These experiences tend to communicate this way: Where will you find fulfillment and purpose in life? Not in the mundane callings of husband and wife, not in the mere drudgery of fatherhood and motherhood. Not within the confines of the home. No, your real fulfillment will be in something “bigger,” a mission, a career that is by definition related to the world beyond the home.

 

These expectations bode ill for the future of the young people who have them. They come to view family life as confining and unfulfilling. They are set up to be dissatisfied with the ordinary responsibilities of fatherhood and motherhood. Or if they maintain a positive view of these callings, they are tempted to believe that being a father or mother is a snap. After all, it doesn’t require any special preparation. Career is what is demanding. Parenthood (and spousehood) just happens, somehow. This too will lead to problems once the reality of family life is encountered.

 

It is the young women who are especially injured by the method of being sent away from the home for their life preparation. While their God-given calling is a home-centered one (Titus 2; Proverbs 31) and their life mission is to be the helper of a man as he pursues his dominion calling (Genesis 2), the experience of being trained outside the home tempts them to dissatisfaction with their role. What college offers a degree in motherhood? No, the young women are invited to prepare for careers just like the men, and they develop the expectation that fulfillment will be found not in home-centered work, but in finding a niche in the marketplace. This sets up inevitable tensions once these women are married.

 

The issues here are serious. In Titus 2:5 Paul urges young women to be workers at home “that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” Yet our whole method of training our daughters is one that tempts them to blaspheme the word of God by becoming discontent with the calling God has given them as they prepare for their own careers outside the home.

 

Even if we keep the priority of being a wife and mother before the girls and don’t allow them to prepare for a career outside the home, we may lead them astray. The very act of sending a daughter away on a mission trip for a couple weeks or on an apprenticeship for several months teaches her to have a spirit of independence that will not suit her for her calling as a helper to her husband. Nowhere in Scripture do you see a model that allows for daughters to leave their fathers’ authority and protection prior to marriage, yet that is the norm even in Christian circles today. By training our daughters to be independent we may be training them to blaspheme the word of God.

 

After spending some time in Russia as part of a mission team, a girl wrote others of her experience. One statement caught the attention of my oldest daughter (who does a lot of home-centered work and has never been to Russia). The girl wrote: “When I left Russia, I left part of my heart there.” What struck both my daughter and me was this: Why is this young lady being put in a position where she is developing affections for a work that is neither her father’s nor her husband’s? How is she being trained for the life that God is actually calling her to as a woman? In fact, despite the worthy nature of the work itself, she is nevertheless subtly being trained to be independent, to develop her own sense of direction and priorities in life. We’re not saying her life is ruined. We’re just trying to call attention to the ways we thoughtlessly disregard biblical priorities as we fit in with the culture’s methods of training our children. We create expectations that cannot be fulfilled within the bounds of a biblical life calling.

 

FAMILY BONDS

 

A father’s job is not done until he has led his children into a God-honoring vocation and a godly marriage. Parents were given this task, the total life-preparation of their children, yet the task is more often than not abandoned short of the goal. This is the tragedy of the modern method of handling older children: it short-circuits the parental role in the training of children and thereby hinders the continuity of the parent-child bond that is essential to the progress of the gospel in the world.

 

In Malachi 4:6 and Luke 1:17 we have a double witness given as to the importance of the fathers’ hearts being turned to their children and the children’s hearts being turned toward their fathers. We have previously discussed the meaning of this “turning of the hearts” (“The Father’s Heart: God’s #1 Priority,” issue 22). In short, it refers to the necessity of godly training in the context of a loving relationship. If we may quote a relevant portion from that article:

 

… Each generation may not have the opportunity to witness the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River on dry ground, but each generation has the opportunity to experience the living God in a way that will preserve their faith. As fathers open their hearts, love and train their children, walk with God openly before their families, urge their children to follow the Lord with them – then the children come to experience the God of their fathers, not as memory and story only, but as living reality in their own lives. The parent-child heart channel becomes the means for each generation to have an encounter with God that assures their continuance in the faith.

 

As children come to walk with God as they walk with their parents, they will create their own history of divine encounters. Sin confessed, God’s discipline received, forgiveness experienced, prayers answered, guidance gained from Scripture – all these create a personal history of God’s dealing with the child that assure the genuineness, depth, and perseverance of his faith. The faith of the fathers becomes the faith of the next generation… and so on.

 

What a shame when this process is cut short just at the most crucial time in the child’s life: the time in which he is making the most important decisions in life, those related to vocation and marriage. Here is where all previous training can come to fruition. Here is where the parent-child bond can be cemented for life, in a way that will assure strong family ties for generations to come and thus create the most productive channels available for the progress of God’s kingdom.

 

The family in the West is in the weakest state that institution has been in since perhaps declining Rome. This is due to the sense of the increasing irrelevance of the family in our individualistic society in which so many family functions have been swallowed up by government or eliminated through technology. But it is also due to the simultaneous and related deterioration of family bonds, the relationships between family members within and between the generations.

 

One way to begin to restore these bonds is for parents to reclaim the total process of child-raising, including that of establishing them in vocation and family, and in that process to win the hearts of their children to a family-centered vision of life.

 

Let’s not just teach our children that preparing for starting their own families is their most important calling, let’s also teach them to view that new family in the context of the extended family. Psalm 112: 1,2 says, “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendents will be mighty on earth…”. How many men can say that his descendants are mighty in the earth? Perhaps part of the reason is that his descendants are scattered over the earth with no sense of connection or obligation to the rest of their extended family. Like coals scattered in the fire, they lose their effectiveness. If families would regain a sense of common purpose, shared commitments, ties of love that bind, then perhaps we would see more men who are mighty in the land, and the flame of family strength would be rekindled. Perhaps then a vision of ministry and dominion could be passed on from generation to generation. Perhaps then extended family would choose to remain close together to increase their strength and enhance their mutual support. Perhaps then the local church would be strengthened with a continuity of membership rather than being decimated by the nomadic lifestyle of modern families.

 

We need to consider returning to methods of training our children that will bring a restoration of the extended family living within a community and within a local church. We must, that is, if we care about maximizing our effectiveness for the gospel in the world. Our current methods ignore the essential heart bonds between the generations and the ties God intended to bind members of the larger family to one another. Homeschooling is a start to reversing that trend, but we must carry its implications further. We must communicate a total family-centered vision of life. (See “Is It Right to Be Family-Centered?” in issue 24 for a discussion of how being properly family-centered is the most effective way to be outward-oriented and pursue our task of dominion in the world.)

 

DAVID AND JESUS

 

The scriptures everywhere presuppose the model of family life we are portraying here. But it may be useful to consider a couple of examples that display the wisdom of a family-centered approach to raising children into adulthood.

 

First is David, the one we remember as King of Israel, a military hero, a musician and poet. But let’s remember how he got his start. He did not enroll in Saul’s school for training future leaders (if he had such a school). He did not enlist in the military academy to learn the art of war. He did not attend the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music to acquire his skill on the harp. His training was all at home.

 

He learned the art of shepherding people by shepherding sheep. It was there that he also learned courage, strategy, and prowess as he defended the animals from the lion and the bear. And it was also in the home and in the field that he learned to play his instruments to the glory of God. This simple, home-trained boy was the man God chose to become the greatest king Israel ever had and the one who would be a type of Messiah the King.

 

He was known simply as “the son of Jesse” (1 Samuel 16:18). Notice the emphasis on this point after David had killed Goliath (17:55-58):

 

When Saul saw David going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?”

     And Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.”

So the king said, “Inquire whose son this young man is.”

     Then, as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?”

So David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.”

 

The definition of David was that he was his father’s son. He received his training from his father, and it was his father who received the credit for his accomplishments. The home was a more than adequate training ground for one of the greatest and most accomplished men of the Bible. And it was his relationship with his father that was stressed, not any credentials achieved outside the family.

 

This is an illustration of the fact that our usefulness to God is tied to how well we perform in the family setting. The home is the training ground for all of life, and a life centered on the home is one that God can use beyond the home. Effective families become effective far beyond their own narrow scope, but effectiveness in the family is the starting point for effectiveness in any other sphere of life.

 

How many of us, or of our children, would be identified by others as “the son of . . .” Yet this is the kind of intergenerational tie that marks real world-changers.

 

Jesus is the other example we have in mind in this connection. On the human level, of course, Jesus was known as “the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55). His status in life was derived from his father whose occupation he took up. Even though He was the Messiah, with a much larger mission in life than being a carpenter, he still submitted to the convention of being trained by his father and carrying on his work. He was known as His father’s son because His father has trained Him.

 

Yet Jesus also showed the same regard for His heavenly Father. “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all thing that He Himself does….'” Jesus’ references to His Father are constant in the book of John. No less than 100 times He refers to His Father’s will, word, and works and the relationship that exists between them. Though He was Himself God the Son, He looked to His Father to receive His mission in life and deferred to Him constantly.

 

Fathers today need to learn from David and Jesus. They need to see it as their calling to carry the training of their children through to completion, to the very shaping of their life’s work. God may have a mission for your children that is greater than you can imagine, but it will be a mission that you prepare them for as you prepare them for a normal life of work and service. And the bonds that are created between you and your children as you do that will not only reflect honor back on you as they move out and accomplish things for God in this life, they will also help assure that the process will be repeated in the next generation and that your descendants will indeed become mighty in the land, to the glory of God.

 

HOW I’M APPLYING ALL THIS

 

Allow me to conclude by becoming personal and sharing how I am attempting to implement all these ideas in my own family. You can rest assured that I fall far short in many ways, and things always sound better on paper than they look in reality. But here’s a glimpse anyway.

 

I have six children (20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 6). All have been homeschooled from the beginning. We consider it sin to send children to public school, and we don’t find most Christian schools much better. Our plan has always been to balance academic training with spiritual growth, equipping in life skills, and an emphasis on creativity in all things.

 

We have taught our children to expect our guidance beyond the high school level, extending to the time they are married. They expect my wife, Pam, and I to help them in the process of finding a mate. The girls know that I will take the initiative in investigating young men and presenting one to them who I consider a good candidate for marriage. The boys know that I will likewise take an active role in guiding them toward a wife, though in their case it is appropriate for them to take initiative and deal directly with the father of a prospective young woman.

 

I have sought to expose my sons to as much and various work as I could over the years, and living in a rural area the last five years has greatly enhanced my ability to do that, since it seems there is more work that a boy can do out here. While I want each son to pursue academic training as far as his ability and interest dictates, I am even more concerned that each one learn some trade skills which he can use to earn a living and care for his own family in the future. Part of my working assumption has been that we are entering a period of history in which self-sufficiency skills will be more valuable than very specialized skills that will only equip a man for a narrow niche in the division of labor. I want to shape well-rounded men who can do a lot well and take care of themselves and their families no matter what happens to our society.

 

My oldest son Drew (almost 19) works building houses and is setting up his own house so that he is ready to live on his own in anticipation of taking a wife when the Lord provides one. He takes charge of much of the work on the homestead, including care for the animals. I keep my younger son Seth (almost 14) busy with work around the homestead, the house we are remodeling, and helping other families in the church when they need an extra pair of hands.

The family-centered vision has been passed along to the boys. As early as 15 Drew was talking of his desire

to finish his academic training so he could work, set up a home, get married, and have many godly children and grandchildren. (I don’t think I had that vision at 15!)

 

The girls are busy at home, practicing the life skills they will need in the future as they bless my family now with their labors. My oldest daughter Sarah (with a little help) has canned nearly 1,000 jars of food this year. The girls planted most of the vegetable garden and provided most of the care. They help me out in my ministry work, entering data, sending out mail orders, making tapes. Later they will help their husbands in similar ways.

 

All the girls have “hope chests” (whether or not it is a chest) in which they are setting aside things they can use when they are married and have a family. This is a constant focus for them all, even now for six-year-old Alice. It is a form of dowry that I can offer a prospective husband along with my daughter. And it will be substantial. When we moved last December Sarah alone had nearly 60 boxes of her own things that we had to move, most of it hope chest things! It has grown since, and she has virtually everything she would need to set up house, from dishes and kitchenware, to linens, to home decorations. (I don’t know what people could give as wedding gifts.)

 

None of my children has been to college or, at this point, expects to go. If they were to require college-level training, I would arrange a college-at-home program to spare them the unwholesome influence of campus life, and to keep them in touch with the real world of family, church, work, and community.

 

I would not send a daughter away for any kind of academic training since her training is supposed to be home-centered in any case, and since I could not exercise my duty of oversight and protection if she were out of the home. When my oldest daughter was 17 I did send her to another state to serve a Christian family who had health needs and a lot of children. I saw that experience as consistent with the calling she was being trained for, and I made sure she was under the authority of a godly man and part of a good church during the six weeks away; plus I kept regular contact with her by phone. I could imagine doing something similar for a brief time of training in something like midwifery or another skill related to her calling.

 

Sending a daughter to college, in my view, would be to tempt her to abandon the calling God has given her and to invite her to develop a spirit of independence. It would also weaken the influence that my wife and I could exert and would likely lead to the fracturing of our family as she would likely marry someone of her own choosing and move somewhere else.

 

All my children are being trained to expect to remain close to the rest of the family, unless God somehow clearly calls them to another location (and finding a godly man for the daughters could well require that). The norm is to remain with family, to build ties between siblings, cousins, etc., and between the generations of the extended family. We will seek to invite the prospective husbands for my daughters to become part of our community here.

 

They are being taught to expect to be part of the local church through the years and to raise their children and grandchildren in the same church. We also teach that Christian community (Christians being neighbors) is not just a neat idea but essential to the survival of Christian faith over the generations. (Steve Schlissel suggested that one practical thing that can move us in the direction of creating Christian communities is for each family to simply decide that they will never move again unless they can move next door to another Christian family.)

 

They are being taught to expect to care for their elderly parents if that need should arise (another reason to remain in the same general location). If a daughter’s husband should die, she would have her father and brothers close by to help out (not to mention the men of the church).

 

Back to our original issue: we reject the notion that it is normal to send children away just at the time that they are ready to make the most important decisions in life. We believe it is a lie that they need distance from their parents or the training of some distant “experts” to be adequately prepared for life. Their best training is in the context of the home, church, and community. This is real life. This is the basis for real strength over the years.

 

We will not see our family scattered and its strength dissipated by following the idolatry of individual self-determination. We will make our decisions based on what is good for the whole family, for the local church, and for the Christian community. We will plan to maintain our place in each one unless God clearly calls us elsewhere.

We think the home is more than a place you grow up in and family is more than the people you see each Christmas. We intend to see the family resurrected, by God’s grace, so that we can once again have families of whom it could be said that they are mighty in the land. If that’s ever going to happen it means we have to make choices that will make it possible.

 

No matter where you are in this process yourself, you can begin where you are. Just make each new choice in light of the standard of values you want for your family. That’s how new directions are set. Your little choices today can change the world tomorrow.

 



The Religious Nature Of Education

by David Sant

 

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. –Deuteronomy 5:6-7

 

ALL EDUCATION IS RELIGIOUS AT HEART

 

Most Americans think of education as a value-neutral arena in which children are taught the knowledge and skills they need to function as adults in society. As Christians, we must realize that education is inherently religious. What is education, if not teaching children about the way the world works?

 

Children are taught the rules of language and reason, the laws of mathematics, the laws of nature, and the laws of society. Education is the process of teaching children the laws of the God who created the universe, logic, language, and men. All education is indoctrination into a religious worldview, whether it be the true religion of Christianity, or any of the myriad false religions invented by men. All education is undergirded by presuppositions about the origin of the universe, the origin of man, the purpose of man, ethics governing relationships between men, and the continuing existence of the universe in an orderly and predictable manner. It is an inescapable fact that all of these basic assumptions are fundamentally religious. Therefore we must view the schoolroom as the place where children are indoctrinated into the religion of their society. The school is, in effect, a temple. The question which Christians in twentieth century America are late in asking is this: “Into what religion do the government schools educate our children?”

 

When God reaffirmed the covenant with Israel just before their entry into the Promised Land, He gave the Ten Commandments for the second time and then gave them the greatest commandment of all. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

Here we find that God commands parents to educate their children in His Covenant This is to be done in every place (home and away) and at all times (from rising to retiring). Christian children must never be in a situation where God’s commandments are not being taught.

 

Proverbs tells us that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge” (1:7) The whole of education from physics to spelling falls under this command to use all of life to teach children to know the Lord. The corollary to this is that we should use the knowledge of the Lord to teach children about all of life.

 

PUBLIC EDUCATION IS RELIGIOUS

 

Christians tend to be naïve in the ways of the world. What we are only beginning to realize at the end of the twentieth century, the Unitarians and humanists who designed and run the nation’s public school system realized 150 years ago.

 

Public education is fundamentally religious; and their intent was to use public education to remove children from the influence of Christian ideas. The public schools were designed to educate children out of Christianity into the secular religion of humanism.

 

This may seem like a brash statement, until we look at actual writings of the supporters of the public school system.

C. F. Potter, a signer of the “Humanist Manifesto” (1933), self consciously saw public education as the means of educating Christian children into a new religion:

 

Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching? -Humanism, A New Religion (1930)

 

Lest you think this is an isolated example, there are ample proofs that the humanist establishment is still deliberately using the schools to destroy Christianity in the present era. John Dunphy writes in The Humanist (Jan/Feb 1983):

 

I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their roles as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool, day care, or large state university.

The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of love thy neighbor will finally be achieved.

 

Paul Blanchard notes what most Christians fail to see as one of the primary causes of adolescents turning away from the Christian faith in The Humanist (Mar/Apr 1976):

 

I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is 16 tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average high school child acquires a high school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history.

When I was one of the editors of The Nation in the twenties, I wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the two primary reasons that men did not attend church. Perhaps today I would say golf and a high school diploma.

 

There is no doubt that the humanists recognize that the public school system is designed to destroy the Christian faith in children and replace it with another, faith in man. Why do Christians continue to blindly send their children to be taught in these temples of false religion?

 

STATE EDUCATION IS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

 

The religious nature of public education is readily apparent when we ask five simple questions and see how the schools would answer them:

 

1. How did the universe originate?

 

PUBLIC SCHOOL: The Universe originated in the Big Bang and is self-existing. Each religion of the world has a spiritual explanation for this, and all of them are subjectively true for those who believe them.

 

THE BIBLE: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:6,7)

 

2. How did we get here?

 

PUBLIC SCHOOL: Over 4 billion years life arose through random chance from the raw materials of the universe. Man is the highest evolved life form and came up from the animals. Man is no more than an animal. The cosmos is divine and biological life is the highest expression of divinity.

 

THE BIBLE: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image; according to Our likeness;'” (Genesis 1:26)

 

3. What is the purpose of man?

 

PUBLIC SCHOOL: To find individual happiness and self-fulfillment.

 

THE BIBLE: “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

 

4. How shall we relate to other people? What is right and wrong?

 

PUBLIC SCHOOL: There is no absolute right and wrong. Each society determines within itself what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Anything is acceptable as long as it does not violate someone else’s right to happiness and self fulfillment. The only sin is intolerance of others who differ from yourself. Children need to be taught to accept themselves. Children should explore their sexual identities in their teen years. Homosexuality is a viable “alternative” lifestyle and must be tolerated, even praised.

 

THE BIBLE: God gave the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5) and the rest of Scripture to govern relationships between men and God, and men and other men. The God of the Bible holds all men accountable for their actions and is highly “intolerant” of those who disobey Him. He will sentence them to everlasting damnation.

 

5. What is the future of mankind and the universe?

 

PUBLIC SCHOOL: Man will continue to evolve into a higher and godlike being through survival of the fittest and social engineering. Man shall be saved from his problems through technology, centralized government planning, and education. The universe will continue for a few billion more years until the sun and stars burn out and everything is cold and dead. There is no ultimate meaning to life other than what the individual makes of it. After death men are either reincarnated or cease to exist.

 

THE BIBLE: “I was watching in the night visions And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came up to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, And His kingdom which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13,14)

 

These questions bring out the clear distinction between the religion of the public schools and the religion of Christianity. Public schools are temples of a different god than the Christian God. Its teachers are the priests of this false religion called “humanism” which is merely a reincarnation of ancient paganism. Therefore, Christians who offer their children to the public schools to be educated are violating the first commandment “You shall have no other gods before me,” by turning their children over to the priests of a false religion.

 

THE COVENANTAL NATURE OF HUMANISM

 

Christianity is the true Covenant between God and His people. All other religions are counterfeits. Because the counterfeits must be imitators of the real thing, false religions are covenantal as well.

 

In the Christian religion the sign of the covenant is baptism, and the periodic renewal of the covenant is the Lord’s Supper. When we take Communion we are renewing our covenant vows to God. The terms of the Covenant are revealed in the Bible, the Word of God. The Covenantal meal of the Lord’s Supper symbolizes God sustaining us and sanctifying us from sin. He is our God and we are His people.

 

The religion of Humanism is also covenantal, but it replaces God with the Welfare State. It promises to provide for its citizens from cradle to grave. It also claims “I will be your god and you shall be my people.” When people place their children on the yellow school bus to send them off to be educated by the State they are renewing their covenantal vows to the god of Humanism. In return the State provides their children with a covenantal meal, the school lunch, and a “free” education. The god of the State requires obedience and taxes in return for a free education when we are young, college loans, unemployment checks, and social security when we are old. An example of the conscious nature of this covenant is found in a policy paper called “Public Schools and Citizenship” by The Center on Education Policy:

 

Historically, schools have prepared students to be good citizens in four ways: (1) teaching students about the role of government in the United States; (2) upholding civic values by teaching students to be good citizens and good neighbors; (3) equipping students with the civic skills they need to be effective participants in a representative democracy; and (4) promoting tolerance and respect for diverse peoples and different points of view.

 

In point number (4), tolerance is defined as acknowledging other religions and creeds as equally true. This is similar to the Roman government’s licensing of all religions, provided that they acknowledge “Caesar is Lord” and tolerate the practice of other religions. This is polytheism in practice, also called “pluralism”. Christian students who insist on openly holding to their faith of salvation through Jesus Christ alone as the standard for all people are attacked and degraded in the classroom for bigotry and intolerance. They must keep the claims of their faith private and merely personal in order to be tolerated.

 

THE CHURCH MUST TAKE A STAND

 

The public school in America is a tool designed to perpetuate the religion of the Welfare State. Christians who send their children to public school are covenant breakers. Every day the kids get on the yellow school bus they reaffirm their covenant with humanism. Families and churches who do this bring upon themselves the curses of disobedience.

 

How many Christian families have you heard of who sent their children to the public schools and their children either left the faith, became entangled with drugs, or conceived children out of wedlock? (A lot!) How many home-schooled families do you know who got those results? (Very few!) The fruit of disobedience is all around us, but the church as a whole refuses to recognize that the root of the problem is our schizophrenia in sending Christian children to public schools.

The time has come for Christians to recognize that sending their children to these humanist institutions is sinful and idolatrous. Churches should discipline members who insist on continuing in this sin. Public schooling is spiritual adultery and is every bit as serious as breaking the marriage vow. May God have mercy upon our nation and grant us repentance from this grievous sin!

 

COMMON OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

 

1. “We send our children to public school to evangelize the other children.”

 

Answer: Change the words and see if it still sounds OK. “We send our children to be taught in the Buddhist temple so they can evangelize the other children.” Or, “We send our daughters to work in a brothel so they can evangelize adulterous men and other prostitutes.” Does that sound outrageous? By sending your children to public school there is a better than 50% probability they’ll end up having sex with another student before they graduate. (If you send them to a public university the number who have sex before age 20 is 87%.) Evangelism does not require, or even allow, us to put our children under the covenant authority of pagan teachers. Not to mention, it doesn’t work. A small minority of Christian kids who go to secular schools continue in the faith of their parents. The question is, Who is evangelizing whom? If you want to evangelize other children, then invite them to your house and present the gospel to them in the context of a Christian family.

 

2. “We spend time with our kids to help them filter what they are being taught in school.”

 

Answer: By doing this you teach your children to be schizophrenic. If the public school teaches them falsehood, then why send them there to be taught at all? It is not possible to counter forty hours per week of indoctrination and peer pressure with a few hours of parental instruction. Remember what C.F. Potter wrote (above): “What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

 

3. “We want our kids to receive a quality education.”

 

Answer: In his book, Strengths of Their Own, Dr. Brian Ray provides statistical research which shows that average standardized test scores for homeschooled children are in the 80th percentile, whereas the average of public school children’s scores is the 50th percentile. Public schooling in the vast majority of cases offers an inferior education to homeschooling or private Christian schooling. Even if public school did offer a superior academic education, would academic proficiency be worth the price of a child’s soul?

 

4. “I feel it would be wrong for me to send my children to public school, but it’s OK for other people. Each family must do as the Lord leads them.”

 

Answer: God has one standard of right and wrong: His revelation, the Bible. It is forbidden to teach your children to believe in other gods. The public schools do exactly that. This is not a subjective issue.

 

5. “The public school my kids go to has a lot of Christian teachers.”

 

Answer: Really? Does it make a difference whether the teachers are Christian when the curriculum, the administration, and the other students are pagan? Your child’s teachers may be closet Christians, but if they dared to say in the classroom “The God of the Bible is the only true God and Christianity is the only true religion,” they would be fired. A Christian teacher who “keeps his light under a bushel” is worse than a teacher who is not Christian at all. He is an example of compromised Christianity.