Feb. 9, 2007

Homeschool News & Views, Issue 9

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

Greetings. This is Dan White with Homeschool News & Views, Issue number 9, for February 9, 2007.

In the last issue of Homeschool News & Views, we discussed a Public Broadcasting Service Religion and Ethics segment on homeschooling. That PBS piece ended with this:

“As of now, churches seem reluctant to tell their congregations to put their kids in private or home schools. But even without that endorsement, the U.S. Department of Education acknowledges that home schoolers are growing ten times as fast as the general school age population.”

Their ending comment had 2 parts:

first, that Christian churches are not telling their congregations to put their kids in private or home schools, that is, to get them out of the public schools;

and second, that homeschoolers are growing ten times as fast as the general school population.

Let’s discuss the fact that churches are not telling their congregations to get out of the public schools.

Southern Baptists are one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, with 17 million members. Their annual conventions are covered by the national media, and that left wing media annually attacks the Baptists over their Biblical positions. One that was widely ridiculed was when the Southern Baptists affirmed that a Christian wife was to be in subjection to her husband. President Jimmy Carter left the Southern Baptists over that particular position statement.

These Southern Baptists have shown some courage in standing up for what is right and standing against what is wrong. In fact, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter are now starting a new Baptist Convention in protest against the Southern Baptists, assumedly where the women will not be in subjection to their husbands, as apparently Hillary and Rosalyn are not in subjection to Bill and Jimmy.

In 2004, 2005, and 2006, Bruce Shortt, a Baptist lawyer from Houston, Texas, and others introduced resolutions at the national Southern Baptist meetings calling on Baptist parents to remove their children from the public schools and provide them with a Christian education at home or in Christian schools.

Bruce Shortt said, “As Christian parents, we have an obligation to provide our children with a Christian education, but unfortunately, Christians have developed a government school habit. The purpose of the resolutions is to force parents and pastors to confront our disobedience in the education of our children and its consequences. Government schools are destroying our children spiritually, morally, and intellectually.”

Another man who helped sponsor one of the resolutions, Roger Moran, a member of the SBC executive committee, said, "The courts say no creationism, no prayer in public schools. Humanism and evolution can be taught, but everything I believe is disallowed."

These resolutions were not supported by the powers that be in the Southern Baptist Conventions, and none have come close to passing. In fact, they try to prevent them from even coming up for a vote. The resolution sponsors have to do some parliamentary footwork to merely get the subject brought up for debate by the whole convention.

Around 42,000 churches are associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and these 42,000 churches have about 700 Christian schools. Also, a significant number of Southern Baptists are homeschoolers.

There are many different varieties of Baptists. I know that in our personal experience, we have associated with more Baptist homeschool families than any other denomination. Some of that is a function of where we live.

With 42,000 churches and 700 schools, about 1 of every 60 Southern Baptist churches has a school. That means that 59 out of 60 do not. They have facilities. They have people. They do not have schools.

These resolutions in the SBC annual meetings are not binding. All associated congregations are locally autonomous, so any resolution passed by the convention is just a suggestion, not a law.

They had passed a resolution endorsing homeschooling, in 1997, and endorsing Christian education in general, in 1999. It is the habit of church organizations to stand for as many things as possible and against as few things as possible. So although the SBC passed resolutions supporting homeschooling and Christian education, they would not pass a resolution against the public schools. That means that officially they are for Christian education and they are also for anti-Christian education.

The overwhelming majority of Baptists send their children to the public schools, and a large number of pastors’ wives work for the public schools. If a local pastor of a church is for Christian education, then that church tends to be more involved in Christian education. If the local pastor or his wife is involved in anti-Christian education, then the congregation tends to follow that lead.

Again quoting Bruce Shortt, he further explained, "We are not urging school reform, because public schools are unreformable. You can't do Christian education in a public school." The goal, Shortt said, is "to create a new 'normal' where Christian parents will see Christian education as the norm."

When the resolution failed to pass at the national meetings, then it was introduced in the state meetings of the Southern Baptists. It's a method, Shortt said, that allows him "to get the message to the grassroots" of his denomination. I would add that one of the great weaknesses of religious organizations is that they usually want to go with the status quo. The leaders of the SBC try to prevent the issue from even being discussed, so Shortt and others systematically take it to the state conventions.

Shortt said that during the time in which he has worked on these resolutions, he "has seen a substantial increase in interest in the issue."

For example, in 2004 the Exit Strategy Resolution was introduced in the Southern Baptist annual meetings in 15 states. In 2005 it was introduced in 25 states. In 2006 it was introduced in all 48 contiguous states. I don’t know what happened to Alaska and Hawaii. Maybe the Southern Baptists just never made it that far. One would have to consider the question that if a Southern Baptist goes all the way north to Alaska, is he still a Southern Baptist?

Although the powers that be have always opposed the resolution at the national convention, and led the whole convention to oppose it, some of those bigwigs are beginning to part their hair in a different direction.

Dr. Albert Mohler is President of the SBC’s leading seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and is also one of the SBC’s leading theologians. He has recommended that because of the moral, spiritual and academic decay in the public schools, the Baptists develop an exit strategy.

Also Pastor Wiley Drake, Second Vice President of the SBC's Executive Committee, says “Dr. Mohler is right. Southern Baptists, and Christians generally, need to plan a Christian educational future for our children. First, Christian parents are obligated to provide their children with a Christ-centered education. Anyone who thinks that a few hours of youth group and church will have more influence on a child's faith and worldview than 40 to 50 hours a week of public school classes, activities, and homework is simply not being honest with himself. Second, the open collaboration between homosexual activists and many school districts, together with the overall level of crime and violence in the public schools, make the public schools an unsafe place for our children.”

We can notice several things in that summary of the Southern Baptists and the government schools.

First, churches or church pastors like to be for everything and against nothing, as much as possible. The SBC was quick to pass resolutions for Christian education but won’t formally oppose the public schools. Of course, when they supported Christian education they were opposing the public schools indirectly, but they are loathe to say it directly because then they would make some people upset.

Pastors hate to make people upset. They like to keep people happy because that makes their job easier. They don’t really shepherd the flock away from danger. They just try to keep them happy while the wolves surround them. Pastors hate to have someone cause a controversy or a confrontation. Their preferred approach is don’t rock the boat, and just ignore the waterfall.

Next – if you are a church pastor or a church leader, and you are not opposing the anti-Christian education of the public schools, you are leading your congregation in that direction. They tend to follow where you lead. Are you sure that is the direction you want to go? God will hold you accountable for that. Do you want to go before the throne of Christ being responsible for leading your church youth into homosexual indoctrination, which is where the schools are now going?

Third, conservative Christians are getting slightly more determined in this spiritual war we are in. Most don’t realize we are in a war. That’s why they are so casual, and that’s why there are so many casualties. And this whole discussion which is now going on with the Southern Baptists, and consequently being noticed by the rest of America, was brought about by the continuing efforts of just a few determined men.

Bruce may be named Shortt, but he has stood tall.

As they brought the Exit Strategy Resolution up year after year at the national convention, and then in state after state convention, do you think those men were well received by the pastors whose wives work in the public schools? What kind of looks did they get from those bigwig leaders who just wanted to have a nice, agreeable convention, without argument and without controversy. Can’t we all just get along?

Just a few determined men, who loved the praise of God more than the praise of men, caused the Southern Baptists to discuss getting out of the anti-Christian schools in 48 states.

Everybody talks about the problems of the public schools, and relatively few do something about it.

As I mentioned before, there are some men and organizations which have boldly stood against the tide of evil in America. One of these is James Dobson and Focus on the Family. He has written great books on childrearing, which we were first introduced to decades ago. He is on radio every day fighting the battle against liberalism. His organization strongly supports Christian homeschooling, with repeated programs and information about its value. Yet they do not come out and flatly state that Christians should just get out of the anti-Christian schools.

He did make a statement some time back to the effect that Christian parents in California should consider pulling their kids from the California schools. But Focus on the Family does not advise all Christians to get their kids out of all anti-Christian public schools.

Just like the SBC resolutions, they support the good but are loathe to oppose the bad.

Dr. Dobson has given advice to Christians for decades now. He has lectured parents on how to raise their kids for a whole generation or more. Jim, what can you possibly advise a Christian parent that is more valuable than telling them to get their kids out of the anti-Christian schools?

The American Family Association continually stands against liberalism in the US. The latest issue of the AFA Journal has articles about selling babies for stem cells, about network TV’s attack on faith, and about a judge’s ruling against teaching Intelligent Design in the government schools. Basically every issue has an article railing against some anti-Christian activity in the public schools. In the past AFA has called for successful economic boycotts of such companies as Procter and Gamble and Walt Disney. Wal-Mart stopped supporting gay marriage organizations when threatened with an AFA boycott. Right now AFA has ongoing a boycott of Ford Motor Company, and Ford’s sales are headed back toward the Model T days. But AFA never calls for a boycott of one of the absolute greatest sources of evil in the country, one of the prime power bases of the left, the one chief agent of change in making America anti-Christian. They have never called for a boycott of the government schools.

I realize that Don Wildmon does not do these things lightly, but these are not light matters. Do it, Don! Send out a few million emails, and tell the Christians to start acting a little more Christian, and get their kids out of the anti-Christian schools, and into Christian education.

Here’s another example. I quote from the Good News magazine.

““Out-of-wedlock births in the United States have climbed to an all time high, accounting for nearly four in 10 babies born last year (2005)…While out-of-wedlock births have long been associated with teen mothers…births among unwed mothers rose most dramatically among women in their 20’s” (Mike Stobbe, AP medical writer, Nov. 21, 2006).

Part of the problem is that young people are living together while putting off marriage, seemingly indifferent about the sanctity of marriage. Of course, when they have been programmed in high school and college to believe that God is an outmoded concept and nature is all there is, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Out-of-wedlock births would drop precipitously if the Bible instructions on the sanctity of marriage were followed.”

Let’s focus on these two phrases: “when they have been programmed in high school and college to believe that God is an outmoded concept;” and “out-of-wedlock births would drop precipitously if the Bible instructions on the sanctity of marriage were followed.”

OK. Why are the Bible instructions on the sanctity of marriage not followed? Because of the programming they have received in high school and college.

Solution?

Don’t get that programming. Instead get programming that does teach Bible instructions.

Every summer that organization’s church newspaper lists their high school graduates. Every year about 90% of those graduates are from the public schools, with about 10% being homeschooled. And they talk about the trouble they have keeping their youth with the church! No wonder! They have been programmed to believe that God is an outmoded concept!

They often talk about the problems of the public schools. They never face the problem of the public schools.

The PBS program we cited earlier said, “As of now, churches seem reluctant to tell their congregations to put their kids in private or home schools.”

The whole Christian homeschool movement was at first opposed by the churches; then tolerated by the churches; then supported by the churches, when it became socially acceptable, just as they support the public schools. Will Christian churches and organizations now take the obvious step for a Christian and oppose the public schools?

40 years after evolution was brought into the schools, God was kicked out. 40 years after God was kicked out, sodomy is being brought in. That’s where we are now. Christians, churches, pastors, Focus on the Family, American Family Association – if you won’t draw the line here, where will you ever draw it?

This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers. God bless the Christian homeschoolers.