Christian truth or Secular agenda

[John81]

READER'S ADVICE: DROP 'THE CHRISTIAN ARGUMENT' ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION

October 13, 2011 NewsWithViews.com

By Lee Duigon

A reader has challenged me to drop “the Christian argument” against the public schools and find a more broad-based line of reasoning that “will prevail” in the debate.

Let me state her major points as clearly as I can. 1. “Those who oppose Christian ideas and views… control all of education.” 2. Most parents, including Christians, are convinced that receiving a public education is “the only way that their children can be successful.” 3. They represent “a huge segment of the population which prefers to keep religion and state totally separate.” 4. Because Christianity is divided into so many different sects, Christians can’t speak with a unified voice on any subject, including education. 5. Therefore, because “it’s a lose-lose situation,” the only thing for Christians to do is, first, “to convince many people that something is wrong,” and then to “work on a priority basis”—which I take to mean to try to reform or repair public education by addressing specific things that are wrong with it.

The reader is well informed on the history of public education. She understands how its founders and theorists turned schoolmarms into “change agents” aimed at de-Christianizing America. She quotes the most insidious agent of them all, John Dewey, who envisioned schools as playing the decisive role in “devising the social order of the future” under the direction of “experts” like himself. And you can see what kind of new social order they’re devising for us. They have replaced “the three Rs” with the three S’es—Socialism, Sodomy, and unearned Self-Esteem.

The results are plainly visible: a homosexual teacher in a Texas high school putting up a poster of two men kissing and telling students “you’d better learn to accept it,” and a “gender coach” in a California classroom telling very young children “you can be a girl one day and a boy the next, depending on how you feel,” and college students defecating on police cars in New York City while demanding that business “create jobs” for them, but not dare to make a profit.

So, yeah—something’s wrong, all right. The teachers’ unions who dominate public education are maniacally anti-Christian, anti-family, and anti-capitalist. Don’t take my word for it. Visit their websites and read the speeches and the resolutions that come out of their national conventions.

The parents don’t want to know. Public school is what they’re used to, and they fear change. They think the public schools are “free”—ignoring the massive impact on their tax bills—and they don’t want to pay for private school or homeschooling. They anesthetize themselves with the mantra, “Our schools are different,” consigning all the problems they hear about to the next township, county, or state. And if all else fails, they fall back on the bromide that their Christian children will be “salt and light” in the public schools—just as the early Christians were salt and light to the lions in the Coliseum.

It would be easier to restore the Titanic than it would be to reform public education. There is no argument that would “prevail” on the teachers’ unions and get them to change their ways. “Well, dog my cats! Why didn’t you say so earlier? But now that you’ve made it so clear to us, we’ll just disband that Gay-Straight Alliance we set up in your child’s middle school…”

Dream on.

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Christian children are entitled to a Christian education. How else is a Christian culture to survive? What good can come of teaching Christian children not to be Christians?

We make “the Christian argument” because it’s true: the only way it can’t be true is for God Himself not to be true. God commands us to speak truth, whether it prevails or not. This is the prophetic function of the Church, a duty that cannot be evaded. Are we to stop telling the truth because people don’t want to hear it?

It’s a question of obedience. God commands us to “train up a child in the way that he should go.” (Proverbs 22:6) He commands us to teach our children His Word. (Deuteronomy 4:9, 6:7) We are not to jettison God’s Word as long as our children can learn chemistry or calculus—and the public schools are doing a lousy job of teaching those specialized subjects, anyhow.

What would God have said to the early Church, if they’d sent their children to the pagan school in Ephesus and they came out worshiping the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses? What excuse would have gotten those parents off the hook? “True, Lord, our son now chants ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians,’ and worships idols. But look how good he is at long division!” Think that one would fly?

Technology has advanced to where homeschooling or church schooling in any subject is eminently practical. Homeschooled children routinely and dramatically outperform the public-schooled in every test devised by education analysts.

My reader remarks that public education has been enormously successful in its mission to change the culture. This is true—and all the more reason to take our Christian children out of there. We’ve had more than enough of the National Education Association’s brand of cultural change, thank you.

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Would it not be very “changing” to the culture, to liberate, say, 20 million Christian children from the public school indoctrination factories? Certainly radical politics could kiss a big chunk of that teacher union funding goodbye.

If the best the public schools and colleges can do is to produce mobs of defecating imbeciles who are unable to understand the relationship between making profits and hiring new employees, then we’re surely better off without them.

Public education is mis-education, pure and simple.

And disobeying God is no way to ensure the future of our country.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Duigon/lee118.htm

[DennisD]

This almost made me spit out my coffee:

If the best the public schools and colleges can do is to produce mobs of defecating imbeciles who are unable to understand the relationship between making profits and hiring new employees, then we’re surely better off without them.

[John81]

This almost made me spit out my coffee:

If the best the public schools and colleges can do is to produce mobs of defecating imbeciles who are unable to understand the relationship between making profits and hiring new employees, then we’re surely better off without them.

Fox News has shown the picture of what they are talking about on their programs several times and I think they should stop now.

[John81]

One reason this article caught my attention is that I've known Christians, including a couple of friends years ago, who got so caught up in politics their thinking on things changed.

Where they once spoke out boldly about the biblical aspects of so many things, they began taking a more political tone and then determined that focusing upon Christian matters wouldn't get anywhere. Somehow they came to believe that pushing all Christian aspects aside, and addressing things on a purely secular level would bring about great change.

Taking Christian views and aspects of Christianity out of things seems to be how we got into this mess, not a way out, and certainly not a biblical model to follow.

[JerryNumbers]

We are educating our children, hoping because of education they will have a better life, & most parents wants their children to have more than them, so they push the education. Worldly education, & most children wind up leaving God behind when they leave home & most wind up not having a better life. Yet in the end most parents ends up spoiling thier children & soon as they are married they think they deserve to have everything father & mother has, plus even more. And soon because they do not have it marraige trouble comes, or it may come because they have all of that stuff, yet they can't pay for it.

God does not promise His children a better life, but He does promise never to forsake nor leave them, & He promise us if we walk close to Him the world will not like us..

To many want a fairy tale life, there is no 'live happily ever after,' in this world, yet the true born again believe will live happily ever after in Heaven, the the lost souls will live & everlasting punishment.

[John81]

A few of us were recently helping an older person (in their 70s) clean out their kitchen, and make it nice and more usable.

I was the oldest one helping, another there about 10 years younger and the others were in their early 20s. It was shocking and amazing to hear some of the things those young women were saying about some of the stuff we went through, cleaned, tossed, donated, etc. They kept commenting about how they wouldn't have this or that, why did this person reuse butter bowls and other things instead of buying nice sets of bowls, glasses, etc. A couple of them kept talking about how they had their parents buy them this or that when they moved out. Several times I heard them talk about how they couldn't live like this.

How terribly spoiled young folks are. Spoiled to the point they mock and look down upon those who live more frugally or simply determine to live with less. They feel entitled to newer and better whether they can afford it or not.

Thankfully the older person is hard of hearing and wasn't close enough to hear much, if any of this, but it was still sad.

[JerryNumbers]

So true, I know where your coming from, I feel sure many would not have & use the stuff we do.

Several years ago when I was running a country store the Pepsi man was telling me this. He & his wife had a wealthy elderly lady that lived close to them, & they would go over & help her from time to time. He said one time he was helping in her kitchen picking up a piece of tin foil wadding it up & this lady never came apart at the seams. Scolding him fro wadding up the tin foil. She took it from him, smoothed it all out, telling him I keep my used tin foil in this door.

I forget the exact comment he made to her, but I remember what she said to him. "If you & your wife was not so wasteful, you would have a few dollars in a savings account like I do. And if you keep on being wasteful, neither of you will ever have anything."

The Pepsi man said,"I know she is correct, I'm way to wasteful, & I believe the wife & I are learning quite a bit from the smart edlery lady." Yet, so many don't & they usually blame some one else & or the government.

[blossom]

Yes our generation is very spoiled. My mum tells me this all the time. We have never had to struggle, never been through a depression or a war. Our parents wanted everything for us and it has caused a huge problem in our attitude. It doesn't help to lay blame but the problem will not be corrected any time soon. Hardship and hard work is what will cure this ill and there just doesn't seem to be a need for it in our day and age. We have so many time and energy saving devices. Having said all of that what those young adults did in that elderly persons house was disrespectful and maybe a quiet word to them would have stopped it. If you were not raised this way as in the old ways the attitude does not come easily. I don't work or save like my Mum does but I am better than some in my generation. It has been a great concern to me as I see in my kids an even worse attitude which we my husband and I are trying to correct. Not easy once the damage is done. I appreciate hearing it from older people sometimes we just don't know the attitude is there when it seems normal for our time.

[John81]

I can still remember when my parents struggled and how we lived when I was a young child would be considered poor today. My sister wasn't born until 1970 and by the time she was old enough to start remembering things we had already moved into a nicer, bigger home, my dad was making good money working construction, my mom was making decent money in a factory.

My Mom decided to she wanted to give her daughter all the benefits she never had so my sister was pretty well spoiled. That shows greatly today. My sisters husband went from a 25,000 dollar a year job to a 50,000 dollar a year job and she spends the money as fast as it comes in. They have no more money now, as in savings or even doing what would probably be best with much of the money, than they did when he was making half that.

I'm not near as frugal as my parents were when I was a child, or as my Dad has always been and still is, but if my income doubled and I lived where my sister does I would have already bought a different home. Instead, they spend the money on eating out more days a week than they eat at home, buying the latest and best clothes for their daughters, keeping up with the latest cell phones and such, refusing to buy a good used car but instead making huge payments on a new car each time they need another car, etc.

Anyway, I love my sister, but when she complains to me about having money problems...ugh!

Those girls that I was working with in the older persons home, when I tried to explain why they had some of that stuff in their home and why they chose to use such things rather than buying stuff, they said I was only saying that because I'm old too! Nice.

[blossom]

That was so rude of them John, maybe you should have spoken about an unteachable spirit! How have you handled this issue with your kids? We are struggling in this. My family gives my kids so much and admittedly we have brought them too much too. I have cut down their toys to half and talk to them of others struggling, being generous etc. We are trying to arrange to visit a missionary family within the next year. It is hard to show hardship when we live in a town that exudes money. We are not rich but very comfortable. Unfortunately some of our habits need to be changed as well. I guess changing us is the best place to start.

[John81]

We have tried to limit buying things just because the children want them. For the most part, if they are wanting something that's not a necessity or not something needed soon, we wait until their birthday or some other occasion and make presents of some of these things. That's not to say we don't buy them stuff from time to time, but not a lot and not things that are costly.

As they have become older we have tried to teach them to earn some of their own money and then to use it wisely. So, if they have done some work, earned some money and at some point see something and say they want it and ask us to buy it for them I will point out to them they have money they can buy it themselves (assuming it's something at least somewhat worth buying). We can really see them think things through then! Amazing how the amount they "want" something can suddenly drop when they consider the cost of paying for it themselves.

We also talk about some of the missionaries we support, as a family and through our church, and the conditions they live in and the conditions those they work with live in. On rare occasions if one really gets too bad we'll remind them we have more food in our cabinets and refrigerator than many families will have to eat for a month. Watching some of the videos from missionaries at work in the field helps to keep the big picture fresh too.

It can be tough when almost every other family and their children have several new model cell phones, computers, gaming systems, the latest fad toys, clothes and gadgets. We remind them of what Scripture says about being content, point out the reality of the differences between actual needs and wants, necessities and luxuries, how things were when their grandparents were young, how things were when my wife and I were growing up.

One thing that can be difficult to explain is how those on welfare in this country, those who are considered so poor they get several different kinds of assistance, can walk around with new cell phones, drive newer vehicles than we own, wear expensive clothes, have the latest game system hooked up to their large flat screen TV which also has every channel the cable company offers.

Not only that, but then we can look at the "working poor", which are those who work hard for a living, just barely making it, but are considered to have too much to qualify for any assistance. These people tend to be worse off financially and as far as what they have than those who don't work.

Those things can be hard to explain and they certainly don't compare well to the poor in most of the rest of the world.

[swathdiver]

...a couple of friends years ago, who got so caught up in politics their thinking on things changed.

Where they once spoke out boldly about the biblical aspects of so many things, they began taking a more political tone

Funny, the exact opposite happened to me!

Government schools are immoral and are a form of child abuse. Satan roams the halls with abandon because there is little or no reverence for God in them anymore.

Government education cannot be reformed. It can only be abolished. First, you simply delete the Department of Education and all of its tax dollars and then you get rid of public sector unions. It is the duty of each local community to give their children a Christian education as the Lord commands.