Listen to what some prominent Christians are saying regarding the crises we have with government run education. Dr. Tim LaHaye states, “One of the big problems we have today, I think is the Church…. The church is facing a serious problem of losing its young people to the world by the time they graduate from high school, and what is the reason? Twelve thousand hours of secular humanist brainwashing….It is time we parents get our kids out of the public school.”[i] Dr. LaHaye may not have known this but the most recent of research supports his main thesis in his statement.
Dr. Charles Stanley argues, “When you send that child off to school today, you’re sending them into a pagan society because…the school system is not going to teach them to believe God-not going to teach them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ-or to honor Him. But they’re going to, by the way they teach, little by little, do what?… Attack their faith…teaching them ethics that are unethical according to Scripture, teaching them to be willing to participate in immoral, ungodly, sensual practices that are acceptable to the world but condemned by Almighty God…”[ii] He continues to comment that they may not acknowledge that it is what is happening but it is not what they say but what they do.
The late Dr. D. James Kennedy wrote, “Of course, one of the most important concepts to remember is that God gave the job of rearing godly children to parents, not to the state or the National Education Association….The ones who will eventually pay the heaviest price are the children who are left to be trained solely by a false and empty humanistic education system which not only fails to educate, but fails to prepare them to become the moral leaders God intended them to be!”[iii]
If these men are not enough, consider Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, US Department of Education. She was also a local school board member and is the author of The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. She described our governmental school system as follows:
You think the purpose of education is reading, writing and arithmetic? The purpose of education is to change the thoughts, actions, and feelings of students. Hitler wanted to control the educational system in Germany, Stalin did in Russia, Mao Zedong in China. You have to get a hold of the minds of the young, where you break the person’s values; you break their understanding of their individuality. You bring them to a consensus with the group; they become a member of the collective. It’s Soviet education, basically-might as well say it- it’s Soviet education. You cannot expect to have a smoothly running, world socialist system if you have people out there who are going to object to what you’re trying to do, so you have to brainwash them.[iv]
The sad truth is that all the information, the facts, leads to the conclusion that the US educational system is more interested in indoctrinating our children into secular, immoral, and godless ways of thinking and behaving than truly educating them. Granted, there are Christian teachers in the government school system, and I would encourage them to continue teaching. However, neither you nor I can be guaranteed that every teacher our child will be under will be of the same worldview.
Unmistakably, we Christian parents are aghast when we see the problems, from the local bullying at the high school to diminished patriotism to a lack of moral standards. Yet, we are as much the problem as the answer. We just continue to give our government schools our kids, literally authorizing them, telling them that it is fine with us that you teach them secular humanism, that God is dead. According to one study, more than 85% of Christian parents apparently believe their children are safe under the tutelage of public school. We believe that since we turned out “okay” then they will too.
It is time though for each Christian to examine the Scriptures. Before we send our children to the school down the street, we need to step back and take the time to weigh the pro’s and con’s of this important decision. There are other options available today for the Christian parent. Government school no longer holds the monopoly in regard to equipping our children. There is the private school, co-op’s, home schooling, and probably something in-between that no one has yet dreamt. We are responsible for the training of our children. It is time we take this responsibility seriously.
[i] Interviewed on DVD Education in Today’s Culture: A Biblical Perspective 2004
[ii] Dr. Charles Stanley, “A Mother’s Greatest Gift,” Part 2 (DVD), In Touch Ministries 2007
[iii] Dr. D. James Kennedy, Truth in Education, Coral Ridge Ministries Media, Inc. 1996
[iv] Charlotte Iserbyt, as quoted in One Nation Under Siege, a William Lewis film, 2006
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