Albert Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in 2005 that:
I believe that now is the time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from the public schools.
Why would he say such a thing? At the time the Southern Baptist Convention was debating a resolution that would have called for all Southern Baptists to remove their children from public schools (an idea my Southern Baptist grandmother who worked as a public school librarian would have rightly scoffed at) because, in Mohler's words:
Every week, new reports of atrocities in the public schools appear. Radical sex education programs, offensive curricula and class materials, school-based health clinics, and ideologies hostile to Christian truth and parental authority abound...
Fueled by a secularist agenda and influenced by an elite of radical educational bureaucrats and theorists, government schools now serve as engines for secularizing and radicalizing children.
Yikes, that sounds scary.
S. Michael Craven (someone I'm not familiar with) wrote about this issue today on crosswalk.com in a post entitled "Christians and Public Education." He quoted Mohler, Martin Luther and others and came away with the same conclusion: public schools are evil and Satan lurks in the classroom...or something like that.The good news is that most Christians don't agree and support our nation's public schools.
Back in 1999 - a few years before the Southern Baptists debated this issue - the National Council of Churches issued a statement that read in part:
While we acknowledge and affirm the contribution of private schools to the welfare of children and the nation, public schools are the primary route for most children—especially the children of poverty—into full participation in our economic, political, and community life. As a consequence, all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, have a moral responsibility to support, strengthen and reform the public schools. They have been and continue to be both an avenue of opportunity and a major cohesive force in our society—a society becoming daily more diverse racially, culturally, and religiously.We welcome the fact that many public schools now teach about our nation's diversity and the role of religion in human life and history, and applaud the schools' efforts to promote those virtues necessary for good citizenship in a pluralistic democracy. These reforms help to accommodate the constitutional rights of all students and their parents. Just as we encourage schools to ensure that all religions are treated with fairness and respect, so we urge parents and others to refrain from the temptation to use public schools to advance the cause of any one religion or ethnic tradition, whether through curriculum or through efforts to attach religious personnel to the public schools. We repeat our conviction that parents have the right to select home schooling or private or parochial schools for their children. But with that personal right comes the public obligation to support public schools for all children.
Just this year the National Council of Churches re-affirmed that 1999 statement in a message to President Obama and Congress:
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA is a community of 36 Christian communions with a combined membership of 45 million persons in more than 100,000congregations across this country. Our member churches – from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace churches – do not agree on all things! We stand united, however, in our conviction that the church is called to speak for justice in public education. We affirm that each life is infinitely precious, created in the image of God, and therefore, that every child should be given opportunity for fullness of life, including a quality and affordable education.Why such vast differences in approaches to public education?We further affirm that our society’s provision of public education—publicly funded, universally available, and accountable to the public—while imperfect, is essential for ensuring that all children are served. As a people called to love our neighbors as ourselves, we look for the optimal way to balance the needs of each particular child and family with the need to create a system that secures the rights and addresses the needs of all children. We know that such a system will never be perfect, and we pledge as faithful citizens to continue to improve the schools in our communities and to make our system of schools more responsive.
Craven wrote today:
Martin Luther wrote almost 500 years ago, "I am much afraid that schools will prove to be great gates of Hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt." Clearly the Scriptures do not reign paramount in today's public educational system and, true to Luther's prediction, the institution has indeed suffered corruption from its earlier intentions.
But the United Church of Christ (a denomination of over 1 million people that dates backs to the Pilgrims) states on ucc.org:
As we think about whether American society embodies Jesus' teaching that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to be concerned about public schools, the primary institution where we have agreed to nurture and shape God's precious children. Public schools are our largest public institution, serving nearly fifty million children.
In the national conversation about public education, our role in the church is special. We are concerned about our schools as an ethical and public policy matter. How do they embody attitudes about race and poverty, power and privilege, and cultural dominance and marginalization, and how do disparities in public investment reflect these attitudes?
The United Church of Christ has spoken prophetically to name poverty and racism as among the primary causes of injustice in our nation's schools. General Synod 15 warned: "While children from many areas have comfortable schools with all the educational trimmings, poor and ethnic minority children often face overcrowded and deteriorated facilities, and a lack of enrichment programs or modern technology." General Synod 18 cautioned: "Because the poor and their children are disproportionately people of color, the educational inequities in our public schools reinforce the racial/ethnic injustices of our society." General Synod 23 proclaimed public school support - and advocacy for the same - as one of the "foremost civil rights issues in the twenty-first century." General Synod 25 called all settings of the UCC to do justice and promote the common good by strengthening support for public institutions and providing "opportunity for every child in well-funded, high quality public schools."
As I've said before, how we read the Bible matters. Craven blames the Enlightenment for the problems he sees within society and the public schools. It was, however, the Enlightenment that brought us the pluralistic society and democratic Republic that we so treasure today. We must defend our public institutions and our freedoms from those who would supplant their own values for the freedom of people to make their own decisions in accordance with their own faith tradition (or whatever moral guide one might use). The danger of such radical freedom, of course, is that people might not think the way we want them to think.
If, however, Mohler was right when he wrote in 2005 that:Fueled by a secularist agenda and influenced by an elite of radical educational bureaucrats and theorists, government schools now serve as engines for secularizing and radicalizing children.how do you explain this polling data on abortion from last year made available from Pew?
Polls conducted in 2009 have found fewer Americans expressing support for abortion than in previous years. In Pew Research Center polls in 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion clearly outnumbered opponents; now Americans are evenly divided on the question, and there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain. Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups...The majority of people 18-49 believe abortion should be illegal (at least in some circumstances), according to Pew's 2009 data.
Apparently the "elite of radical educational bureaucrats and theorists" are failing in their mission of "secularizing and radicalizing children."
Either that or Mohler was just dead wrong. And on the issue of abortion, that radical freedom we enjoy serves his interests. Ironic, isn't it?
Update: Craven, who wrote of Mohler's 2005 statement "I would only expand on his foundation to reinforce the veracity of his claims," e-mailed me tonight to say that I had mischaracterized his views. Since he wrote of his complete agreement with Mohler I don't see how anything I posted mischaracterized anything. His e-mail is posted below the fold. I'm happy to provide him with the chance to respond:
Dear Reverend Currie,
I was interested to read your comments on my article, Christians and Public Education. Unfortunately, you have mischaracterized my argument completely. To begin with you suggest that I am saying "public schools are evil and Satan lurks in the classroom...or something like that." This is mere hyperbole and lacks insight into the subject of my content.
My article merely points out the clearly defined philosophical foundations that undergird modern educational theory and in particular the authority of the state as expressed in the public school system as over and against that of parents. These facts really aren't debatable. It is what it is. There are a multitude of cases presently that establish the authority of state as superceding that of parents. The issue is not so facile as you suggest.
Additionally, you reference the UCC's statement on education in which they regard state schools as "the primary institution where we have agreed to nurture and shape God's precious children." The UCC may have agreed to surrender their children to a secular system to be educated in the "truth" but that is by no means the final word nor the consensus among serious-minded Christians. Furthermore, while this may be the consensus of the UCC, you would be hard pressed to find theological support for such a statement.
Finally, if you were to read my article carefully, you would have discerned that I am calling for the reformation of the "institution," something that the UCC's children or any children for that matter are utterly incapable of doing. Their presence in such a system only puts them at risk and plays no part in producing any institutional change. To think otherwise is to fail to understand the nature of culture, what it is and how it is formed.
Blessings,
Michael
______________________________
S. Michael Craven, President
Center for Christ & Culture
PO Box 262143
Plano, Tx 75093
v. 972.596.6948
