According to a story posted by Allie Martin of Agape Press, the Southern Baptist Convention will be presenting resolutions supporting an "exit strategy" from public schools.
Those who know me personally know that I have been promoting something similar to this for quite some time. The public school system is broken beyond repair. Not only are the children of America not being properly educated; they are being actively indoctrinated into a secular, humanistic, narcissistic worldview that is completely antithetical to a Christian worldview.
Why Christian parents continue to send their little lambs to the slaughter is completely beyond me. Various reasons and excuses are given, such as finances, convenience, or just plain ignorance. Regardless of what the reasons are, the bottom line is that the children are still poorly educated and heavily indoctrinated.
Christian parents must realize that they are directly responsible for the education of their children. At one time in our nation's history Christian parents could send their children to a public school and still fulfill their parental responsibilities, because the schools were considered extensions of the home. School teachers were directly accountable to parents for what they taught the children. This is no longer the case, and it has not been for many, many years.
Many Christian parents began noticing the problem in the public schools back in the late seventies and mid-eighties, and the modern home school boom was started. Those parents took their responsibilities seriously, and in many cases paid a high price for their convictions. All home schooling parents today owe a debt of gratitude to those early pioneers of the movement.
It will be interesting to see what develops in the Southern Baptist Convention regarding the public school exit strategy. Will the church put their money where their mouth is, and begin subsidizing private and home schools? The public schools receive federal and state tax dollars for each child that attends, sometimes on the order of $5,000 to $10,000 per child per year. Parents who take their children out of the public system still have to pay those taxes, and do not get the benefit of the money.
What American Christians need to do (ALL Christians in America, not just parents of children in school) is to 1) begin supporting private and home school education in deed, not just in word; 2) lobby the state and federal government for tax breaks, educational vouchers, or a combination of the two; and 3) support the initiatives of the Southern Baptists as they take seriously the biblical mandate to educate their children in the ways of the Lord, providing them with a solid, well-rounded education in the process.
