Remember when the Israelites escaped the bondage of the Egyptians, or the Babylonians, or the Persians? Do you know what the first thing they did was? They left those countries, settled in the Promised Land of Israel, and bused their kids back to those secular schools. I mean, you just can’t beat Egyptian Education or the Babylonia School District, or the award-winning Persian Prep Academy. All their teachers are certified and they have specialized educators and amazing extra-curricular activities. So why don’t Christians understand the pitfalls of Egyptian Secular Public School Education?
Many years ago I was blessed to have a great opportunity to attend a Dale Carnegie Sales Training Course and one of our sessions was on bridging facts to benefits. Every organization has a fact sheet. That sheet lays out some of the basics like a key product, pricing, and description of sub-products. But the most important thing to a customer is the benefits. What’s in it for me? What is the value to me? What do I get out of it? Why do I want that? So what about the Benefits of Christian Education.
We begin with some simple facts. In Christian schools and through homeschooling students learn about God, they are taught Christian values, biblical curriculum, Christian teachers, and Christian curriculum from a Christian worldview not from secular liberal institutions.
What is a worldview? A worldview is a framework from which we view reality and make sense of life and the world. It’s an ideology, philosophy, theology, movement, or religion that provides an overarching approach to understanding God, the world, and man’s relations to God and the world. How you view the world is the beginning of the path or road you choose. That first decision, to go right, dictates the rest of your path. If you start wrong you will end wrong. What is the worldview of the modern public school? Public schools are secular, liberal, and postmodern not Biblical and not Christian.
The ancient world completely understood the concept of educational indoctrination which is why the Babylonians and Persians would take the young people from the countries they conquered and retrain them so that in time they would assimilate into society. This is exactly the process that was taking place in the book of Daniel with Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel. Unfortunately, it worked with the Israelites who would later intermarry and serve foreign gods.
A Biblical Worldview then is based on the infallible Word of God. When you believe the Bible is entirely true, then you allow it to be the foundation of everything you say and do. All reality and truth will begin with Scripture. It will also define your science, your morality, and ultimately your purpose.
So what is the big problem? Non-Biblical Worldview ideas don’t just sit in a book somewhere waiting for people to examine them. They subtly bombard us constantly from television, film, music, newspapers, magazines, books, and academia. This is how ideas like Judeo-Christian beliefs become diluted. Are we even allowed to say, “Judeo-Christian” as a positive historical system in American schools today?
If we don’t really believe the truth of God and live it, then our witness will be confusing and misleading. Most of us go through life not recognizing that our personal worldviews have been deeply affected by the world. Through the media and other influences, the secularized American view of history, law, politics, science, God, and man affects our thinking more than we realize.
What drives your morality, philosophy, civil law, family tradition? Is being American, modern contextualization, or the never-changing Word of God?
One of the greatest benefits of a Christian Education is a Biblical curriculum that establishes a Christian Biblical worldview in the textbooks. The greatest evidence of this is found in our history books. Who discovered America? What principles and values were put in place? What was the role of God, The Bible, and Christianity? Everything that is important about the foundation of our country rests on the worldview. For example, the benefit of Christian Education is learning about the Christian abolitionist who stopped slavery and how it was Christians who started public education, hospitals and established government.
As a pastor, I am called to exposit or explain God’s Word. Words have value and meaning so it’s important to understand Hebrew and Greek so that we can get the proper interpretation. One of the best tactics or methods for this type of grammatical analysis or homiletics is by taking a word and understanding the opposite meaning. Therefore, I want you to consider some of the following concepts by looking at the opposite side of how your child is influenced by public schools.
Concept:
I don’t want my school to reflect our family values. I wanted an education completely free from our Christian beliefs taught by non-believers who hate my position on abortion. Well, then Egyptian Education is your district.
I don’t want a Biblical education. I think the best education eliminates the most important book ever written. The most scientifically, geographically, archaeological, historically accurate document ever written has no value in the classroom. Might I interest you in Persian Prep Academy?
I don’t want Biblical morals taught as the standard for morality in relationships, business ethics, social injustice. Situational ethics and buffet morality will be just fine. At Babylon School District you choose your morals.
I don’t want my patriotic school. I like the idea of sending my child to a school where the military, American flag, and American exceptionalism is mocked. It will make them more patriotic. Here at Sodom Junior High School we promote the burning and disrespecting of the American flag.
I don’t mind sending little Suzie to public school to socialize. She is surrounded by class clowning, sex, drugs, violence, discrimination, gangs, bullying, and anti-Christian slander. Her peers are influenced by cable TV, false religions, and liberalism which they openly share. My school’s safe, after all, we have two armed campus police officers. At Prep Academy of the Philistines, we welcome multi-cultural diversity in lieu of Christian distinctiveness.
I don’t want Christian educators to mentor my child. I want sinners, scoffers, and the wicked educating and developing my child 8 hours a day 5 days a week, 180 days a year for 13 years. It will make them stronger. At Canaan Classical School we scoff at God every day.
I realize that I’m being sarcastic but am I accurate? Have we really thought about the opposite ramifications of not providing Christian education? Would we really send our children through Egyptian Education K-12, Persian Prep Academy, or the Babylonian School District?
What does scripture say about the benefits of Christian Education?
In Deuteronomy 6:7, the Word of God commands parents to teach Godly principles to their children “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Simply stated, we are constantly, consistently to train our children in what is right, wherever we are, and in whatever we are doing. In other words, every Christian family should have the conviction of giving their children a Christian education. I have 5 children and it’s hard enough training them up in the ways of the Lord with billboards, TV, movies, music, relatives, friends, neighbors, sports coaches, etc. not to mention having a school system that undermines everything we are trying to accomplish in their lives spiritually? We sent our children to private Christian schools, homeschool, co-op community school, and public school so I understand that there are many choices to choose from.
As believers, we believe in Creation from the Lord God Almighty. Would you send your child to Persian Prep Academy to learn about how their false gods made the earth or how a random act of chance through evolution formed our universe? We believe that God is in control. Babylonian School District teaches humanism and that man is in control. We believe in praying without ceasing. Egyptian Education allows all forms of prayer, well except for Christian. We believe in a lifestyle that is pure, holy, and morally right in the sight of God. The Persian Prep Academy promotes ways for students to be impure and immoral safely by handing out condoms. We believe a physical relationship is sacred and reserved only for marriage but Egyptian Education teaches how to have a sexually active relationship and call it “health class.” What do we, as Christians, have in common with such places? Stop and think about the top 5 core values that you have and ask yourself if the local public school shares and teaches your core essential beliefs.
So what are the guidelines for education? We’ve come a long way from the three R’s- reading, writing, and arithmetic. Today public schools are overwhelmed because embedded in their curriculum are political, social, and advocacy positions that have nothing to do with reading writing and arithmetic. This might account for America’s 25th ranking among 78 nations ranked in the PISA math, science, reading assessment. Can we honestly say that we are spending our time teaching the three R’s? So what are the guidelines for education? The liberal public school system completely understands that they have a great opportunity to indoctrinate their values through education. Long before governmental public education, the Scriptures set guidelines for education.
The Bible gives us some guidelines for education. God commands the Christian father to see that his children’s education is Biblical. Ephesians 6:1 “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” “Bring up” means to nourish properly so they grow properly. This includes all areas of their life: spiritual, physical, mental, and social. “Nurture” involves the training needed to live. “Admonition” indicates instruction that includes every area of one’s life. Everything that you teach your children is important and must be judged from a Biblical perspective.
So before you pack that lunch and send them on that bus that takes them to back to Egypt for their Education, Think Again Christian.
Notice I’ve been saying Christian Education. My fight is for a Biblically-based curriculum, from a Christian teacher who promotes a Biblically Christian Worldview. Full disclosure, I’m obviously here to promote Biblical Education and I have convictions and opinions as to what the A-1 choice should be, the first and best options so please understand that I’m an advocate for the best way to achieve a Christ-Centered, Biblically-based. God-driven education so that your child grows up to be a follower of Christ and a morally productive member of society. There are many ways to achieve that but I don’t think Egyptian Education is a great option even if it’s free and they offer to bus.
Unfortunately, educators like Horace Mann believed that education should be free from religion and that the purpose was to produce good citizens, unite society, prevent crime, and reduce poverty. Under Mann, state-centered schools would be man-centered instead of God-centered. He would take his influence from Roman, Latin, and Hellenistic methods rather than Biblical ones. Until Horace Mann all American education was Christian. We didn’t eliminate religion we just switched it from Christianity to Post Modernism.
Education always has a purpose. Every culture has used education to shape and mold the state’s vision for its citizens. We’ve seen the Communist state grow through state-run education. In Germany, the workforce was trained by the German bell system. In early America, the Puritans and Congregationalists established public schools in order to lay a Christian foundation in Colonial America.