Education: A Christian Perspective

by Tammy Drennan

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine¹ has been running a feature in The Homeschool Minute e-newsletter in which people share their top ten reasons to stick with the homeschool journey. The entries range from funny to touching to philosophical, and they all serve the excellent purpose of encouragement.

But there’s really only one reason for the Christian to reject public schooling – God did not give you children to house and feed on behalf of the government.

God gave you children to house, feed, nurture and educate on behalf of none other than himself. He stamped your children with his image, not Caesar’s, and not even the church’s. Then he placed those God-stamped children in your care with the profound and serious call to rear them to be God-obsessed – to honor and love and obey God, to think about him and follow him day and night, to long and work to become more like him, to grow into ambassadors for him.

God placed your children in your hands to ensure that as they grow his image becomes sharper and more pronounced in them, clearer, and unblurred.

The goal of public schools has absolutely nothing to do with God. However “good” a school might be (and what does that mean?), it aims to shape your child into something that neither considers nor needs God to navigate life. God is simply not relevant to the image public schools work to stamp on your child.

And don’t fool yourself into thinking they are not trying to stamp your child with any image at all. Education has a purpose, no matter who is doing it. Educators, be they in schools or be they you, are pursuing the shaping of children for some purpose. That purpose may be good citizenship, a workforce to promote the vision of the state for the future, the dream of a nation that beats all other nations on tests, or the desire to rear up a new generation of men and women doggedly in pursuit of God and his excellence.

Some people believe they see signs that God has called them to choose government education for their children. Maybe they get a flier in the mail that offers free state virtual school for their children. Or maybe the local high school has an excellent sports program that an athletically gifted son would like to take advantage of, or an incredible music program that might open doors for a talented daughter. Maybe it’s the school’s lab for your science-oriented child or the art program for your budding painter or sculptor.

Do not make the mistake of taking these things as signs. They are temptations. They leave God out of the equation, and God never gives us the option of leaving him out of any equation, above all the equation of education.

If it is God’s design for your son to have a football career or for your daughter to become a famous singer, he will make a way. But don’t be surprised if he has not chosen these paths for your children, talent notwithstanding. Think of Eric Liddell² and his incredible gift of speed, yet his work for God led him to minister in China, where he ended up in a Japanese internment camp during World War Two and gave to others until illness cost him his earthly life. God may want to use a beautiful singing voice in an orphanage in Romania rather than in concert halls and on CD labels. Don’t mistake American ideals and definitions of success for Biblical ones.

God’s definition of success has nothing to do with America’s definition of success. The two may sometimes be compatible, but that is because America submits to God’s view and not the other way around. God’s ways are not our ways, and all too often our ways are not God’s ways.

This article would not be complete without addressing the very real problem of those who find themselves with no choice but government schooling. There are fewer than many think – there are plenty of people who think or claim, for any number of reasons, they have no choice who really do. They may have their priorities mixed up or they may be sincerely misjudging their situation.

But there are some who truly do not have a choice. This does not mean that God has ordained government schooling for their children. It means that fellow believers and churches have failed in their role to nurture and provide for their own, to secure the kingdom of God before turning to woo the world to God’s ways. It is not a reflection on God’s ways but a sad sign of our misplaced priorities. Our job is to set our priorities, as individuals and as churches, in line with God’s priorities and remedy the situation.

Finally, it is impossible to talk about this topic without also addressing the “salt and light” issue – the idea that God is calling us to make missionaries of our children.

Has God called any parent to send a child into an ungodly culture for the express purpose of fitting that child for life yet also for the purpose of having that child try to turn the culture on its heels and convince it that it is on the wrong path? How is it we send our children into a culture to be both shaped by it and to change its shape, to be educated by it and to educate it, to respect its leaders and get along with its followers yet reject what they stand for and how they live?

God does not even call adult missionaries to embrace the tutelage of pagan cultures while trying to also change them. Does the world of public schooling need a missions outreach? No doubt. Has God called us to send forth our children as missionaries disguised as students to do the job? We know he has not and that we do not seriously believe that in sending our children to state schools we are actually enacting the Great Commission.

May we pursue more avidly the godly nurture and education of our children and may we take more seriously our duty to help others do the same.

1. www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com

2. http://www.heartoscotland.com/Categories/eric-liddell.htm

Dear Inner City Pastor

Dear Inner City Pastor,

You probably know better than anyone the education challenges the families in your congregation and surrounding neighborhoods face.

 

You know the conditions in the schools, the failure and danger that’s accepted by the powers that be as if the children of your neighborhood deserve no better.

 

Maybe you’re one of many who has gone to bat for the children and gotten involved in the schools to try to force change. For the sake of the children, I hope you’ve had some success.

 

But by now, you probably also know that most changes will be superficial, designed more to pacify than to give children a real chance at education in a nurturing and safe environment.

 

You know, too, the dysfunction of many of your families, but you also know their strengths – that they care about their children and given the opportunity and resources will go the extra mile for them, often with a fierceness and dedication found lacking in parents better situated to help their children.

 

I’m writing this open letter to you because I believe there are things you can do to help, things that maybe only you can do to help. Certainly, you are in a unique position to make a very real difference.

 

The ideal ultimate goal would be to get as many children as possible completely out of public schools and to create independent options for them. But that may be too big a step to take at once. Still, there are many smaller steps that can be taken that will lead up to real freedom.

 

Surely there are teachers, retired teachers and many educated individuals within your congregation who could devote part of their time to a ministry of rescuing children from state schools. There are probably people from other churches who would also feel privileged and fulfilled to become part of such a ministry.

 

You could set up a tutoring center in your church, and people could teach in their homes. You could match up children with mentors and set up apprenticeships. Able individuals could operate workshops to teach crash courses to teens. Not everything has to be done the way schools do it. There’s a lot that can be learned in a much shorter length of time.

 

Wherever possible, maybe a retired teacher or other individual could spend time in homes helping parents master the art of teaching their own children, or they could conduct workshops for the same purpose. Maybe a mentor could guide a group of teens in educating themselves – meet at a public library or some other place.

 

Imagine the message that would be sent to children when they see the adults in their lives taking control, not settling for what the establishment has decided to dish out to them. Imagine the difference it would make in families, as well as in the lives of the individual children.

 

Even the smallest step in the right direction could begin a cascade of hope and possibility.

 

The existing structure is not really interested in change, nor is it particularly interested in children, beyond the dollars they represent. Helping the system that now controls children’s education is a lot like a sick relationship in which one person despises the other and the despised one endlessly tries to get the hater to love him or her.

 

I urge you who are the most influential in your communities to use your leadership role to empower the families that have placed themselves under your guidance.

 

The honest truth is that if you won’t do it, there may not be a whole lot of hope for those who look up to you.

 

If you will do it, the future holds an incredible amount of possibility for everyone.

 

Yours truly,

 

Tammy Drennan