Posted on 06/02/2009 7:28:14 AM PDT by achilles2000
The Southern Baptist Convention is Finally 'Throwing in the Towel' on Government Schools
President and Executive Director of the SBC Executive Committee Proposes Major Expansion of Christian Schools by Churches
COLUMBIA, SC, June 2 /Christian Newswire/ -- In 2004 Brig. Gen. T.C. Pinckney, USAF Ret. and former 2nd Vice President of the SBC, and Dr. Bruce Shortt, Houston attorney, opened a debate over education by submitting a resolution to the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention urging Baptists to remove their children from government schools and, instead, give them a Christian education.
Although the Pinckney/Shortt Resolution was met with howls of execration from many Christian leaders, and the Resolutions Committee prevented it from being voted on by the Annual Meeting, the Resolution initiated an important debate over education, both inside and outside the SBC.
Despite the Pinckney/Shortt Resolution's hostile reception, in 2005 Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the SBC's "flagship" seminary, Southern Theological Seminary, called for the SBC to develop an "exit strategy" from the government's schools. (www.albertmohler.com/commentary_read.php?cdate=2005-06-17) Since then other Christian leaders have endorsed, in part or in whole, the call to provide Christian children with a Christian education.
Now, the SBC has come full circle. In an article that recently appeared in The Baptist Messenger, Dr. Morris H. Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, called for churches to provide many more Christian elementary and secondary schools as alternatives to the government's schools. (www.baptistmessenger.com/story/11E2669E88B513F2EAC03509EACA78D3)
The anti-Christian moral teaching within government schools was among Dr. Chapman's chief motivations for calling for a major expansion of Christian education: "In far too many public schools throughout the country our children are being bombarded with secular reasoning, situational ethics and moral erosion."
Moreover, Dr. Chapman sees the need for greatly expanding Christian education as urgent: "In recent days, two questions have weighed heavily on my soul. If Southern Baptists don't do it, who will? If we don't do it now, do we risk forever losing the opportunity to build schools for God's glory and the future of our children, grandchildren and the land we love?"
To implement his vision of a major expansion of Christian education, Dr. Chapman advocates two initial concrete steps. First, he identifies the inner cities as places where a Christian education ministry is much needed and would be welcomed. As Dr. Chapman sees it: "In such areas, Kingdom schools would serve as a central ministry among a myriad of ministries that would help families recover from the chaos that now exists and help them establish Christ in the home."
Second, Dr. Chapman calls on every local Baptist association to create new schools: "Why shouldn't we have at least one Christian school in every association that merges dynamic biblical principles with academic excellence? At minimum, a number of Southern Baptist churches in the same association could band together to create an outstanding Christian school for the area. In our voluntary fellowships with each other, Southern Baptists still have shown themselves uniquely structured and resourced to take on such a challenge. Elementary and secondary education is an area we can add to how we cooperate in missions and ministries."
Dr. Chapman's proposal has been warmly welcomed by Dr. Shortt, the co-sponsor of the 2004 education resolution and of education resolutions in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008:
"As the chief administrator of the SBC, Dr. Chapman's voice is extremely powerful. With his recent call to greatly expand Christian education among Southern Baptists and others, Dr. Chapman has, in effect, laid out the first step in the "exit strategy" called for by Dr. Mohler in 2005. All Christians should note this sea-change in sentiment within the SBC. The spiritual, moral, and intellectual pathologies of the government school system are now obvious even to casual observers. Christian parents and pastors need to ask themselves just how much longer they intend to render our children to Caesar's spiritually dark, morally decaying, and physically dangerous government schools."
E. Ray Moore of Exodus Mandate expressed his hearty agreement: "Dr. Morris Chapman's clarion call for a major expansion of Christian elementary and secondary schools is an example of bold leadership, not only for the SBC, but for the entire Christian community. This could not have come at a more opportune moment when families are crying out for assistance with their children and churches are losing the next generation of youth to worldliness, humanism and post modernism due to public schooling. In the last several decades, Christian organizations and publishers have created excellent curriculum materials and online Christian education programs that will work for small or large churches as well as for home school families. Technology combined with good curriculum have made K-12 Christian education available to anyone anywhere anytime and at reasonable cost."...
Good for them! I support our local Catholic school, so have no extra educational dollars to send to Baptist schools, but I wish them well.
The article said — “... a resolution to the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention urging Baptists to remove their children from government schools and, instead, give them a Christian education.”
—
Well, that’s long overdue and something that should have been done by Christians a very long time ago — pull out of public schools and leave them to the sewers, like they are.
Southern Baptists should have been building their own school system years ago, as Roman Catholics and Mo. Synod Lutherans did. Without the support of Baptist families and Baptist public school teachers, government schools in Texas and the South would be in tough shape.
Exodus Mandate stirring up the education discussion as the SBC heads for its Annual Meeting in Louisville June 23. Ping
You are absolutely right...
The SBC needs to focus on newer educational models than traditional schools. We’ll see how innovative they are.
The SBC has ruined almost all Baptist churches in the northeast Texas region. Don’t put much stock in what they have to say.
I guess we will have to see what the SBC actually does. There is a fight going on internally between the “hip” emergent church wannabees and the traditional Baptists - which is a different issue from education, of course
On the contrary, Christians need to focus on OLD educational models, those given by the Bible.
Any “innovation” should be directed at following God’s direction within this contemporary society, so that our children are “in the world but not of the world”.
“hip” just means being world-friendly,
and we were sufficiently warned about that. (James 4:4 for one)
So have PCA Presbyterian....we saw the handwriting on the wall too.
I think you assume I was refering to content. I was merely suggesting that instead of starting traditional schools, as the leadrship is probably thinking, tey should look at university model schools, academic homeschool coops, Christian oneroom school houses using (Christian) distance learning, etc.
My kids attended a Baptist school 30 years ago.
There were at least 3 operating in our area at that time, within a metro area of about 150,000 population.
Even back then, vouchers or aid to parents with kids in church schools was being discussed. Our Pastor informed everybody with kids in the church school that if any parent ever accepted aid from the gov because their kids were in church school they would have to withdraw their kids from the school.
It was a sound policy then and in my opinion, still is.
Yes, and I have a friend who will be working to bring the issue to a head in Louisvile...the SBC emergents are mainly just theological liberals who are trying to camouflage themselves by claiming to be “inerrantists”.
The only way to defeat Liberalism/Marxism is to dry up the revenue.
***The SBC needs to focus on newer educational models than traditional schools. We’ll see how innovative they are.***
Like “University Model Schools”. I teach at Grace Prep in Arlington, TX which was the first of now 32 UMS schools.
Parents covenant with the school to “school/homeschool” elementary students, who only meet on TTh, and to heavily supervise secondary students, who meet MWF.
The the classroom space need is half, most teachers are part-time, and thus the cost is about half that of a traditional Christian school.
What’s cool is that there are more and more Christian colleges popping up to serve the homeschool community.
Patrick Henry College was founded by Michael Farris, founder of HSLDA and a Constitutional lawyer.
By the time my kids are ready for college, there will either be plenty of choices for “homeschool friendly” colleges and online universities,
or homeschooling will be illegal, and we’ll be in CWII.
“inerrantists”?
As in, they claim to hold to the inerrancy of the Bible?
To be liberal, you have to totally reject that concept because biblical truth and liberalism are totally opposite. I don’t get it.
So is anyone running odds on it passing this year? They’ve been sending something like this up every year for the past 5 years. It seems that it has more backing but it hasn’t been a winner before now.
Not an SBC member. Just an interested bystander unfamiliar with the internal politics of the SBC.
There isn’t any further they can go, old is new again.
From what I’ve seen in my study of Biblical truth and the opposing “wisdom” of the world,
these conflicts have been going on since Eden. And the topics, issues, and opinions on both sides haven’t changed one bit, either.
God’s truth, obviously, never changes. Human society “thinks” it changes, but it doesn’t either.
I guess this is just summed up by
Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
True, but if the body is willing to lie and manipulate in one direction, I’d wager they’re willing to do the same in all directions.
U.S. Sen. John Randolph(1773-1833), of Roanoke, Virginia, was known for voting NO on virtually every bill presented to him. This, apparently, accurately reflected his acerbic personality.
Randolph was, however, fairly rich So, along with Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, he was approached by Methodists with a proposal to donate money for the formation of a new college, and was somehow convinced to do so.
Seeing the Methodists start up a school, the Baptists decided they wanted one too. So, as the story goes, a couple of Baptist preachers approached Sen. Randolph with their proposal. Randolph heard them out, with their justification apparently going something like "Hey, you donated money to the Methodists to let them educate their young men; why can't you do the same for us so we can educate ours as well?" Randolph's reply went:
"But, my dear sir, if you educate them, they will no longer be Baptists."
The school at the SBC church in our area is turning out some amazing students. Consistently, they score higher than the public school kids. (How long before Hussein shuts these down?)
ping
An interesting stat, as well -
homeschooled kids AVERAGE in the 85th academic percentile, an achievement that is considered “elite” in the general population.
Well U.S. Sen. John Randolph was kind of an nimrod, wasn’t he?
Baptist Ping
There is a government elementary school adjacent from a Baptist Christian school system. If my children are not home schooled, I make no bones with anyone where they will attend.
The development in the press release is NOT a resolution.
It is the direction announced by the President and Executive Director of the SBC Executive Committee. Morris Chapman is effectively the CEO of the SBC (the elected president is sort of like the Queen of England - he cuts ribbons, waves to crowds, and gives speeches).
This is very significant, and the question is what other denominatins are going to do now that the SBC is starting the process of getting its children out of the government’s schools.
It really is high time Southern Baptists step up to the plate and join the other evangelical voices calling for Christians to provide their children with a Christian, rather than government, eductaion.
I had my son in a Baptist school for a few years before we started homeschooling him. The cost was through the roof not to mention all the “extra costs”. I spent as much per year at the school as I spent on college. In the south there are many many baptist homeschoolers who opted for that choice rather than the private schools provided by the churches simply because it was more cost effective. When you have to pay for it all out of your pocket it gets hairy.
The private school ran around $6,000 per year compared to under $500 per year to homeschool. I think it’s great for the churches to provide schools but I think homeschooling is even better. As for the SBC? I was upset with them several years ago when they kept pushing public schools so I have to wonder now what has “changed”.
Totally agree with that. When you take $$ from the gov’t for education, you invite them to have a say in what you do. As a homeschool parent, I disagree with the HSLDA (and most homeschoolers it seems) on whether homeschoolers should be given a tax break since they don’t use the public school system. I just want the gov’t to leave me alone - period!
It’s time I guess for our churches to take back our kids.
I sent both my children to public schools in the hopes that their home training would be a positive influence. But the schools have become so anti-religious that my daughter has (hopefully temporarily) turned her back on her faith.
“Southern Baptists should have been building their own school system years ago, as Roman Catholics and Mo. Synod Lutherans did. Without the support of Baptist families and Baptist public school teachers, government schools in Texas and the South would be in tough shape.”
That would further strengthen the movement to allow parents who send their children to non-government schools or home schools an exemption from paying school taxes.
I am PCA too. Most of the families in our church are homeschoolers, many of the others attend a Classical Christian School sponsored by our church and it’s two daughter churches. The percentage that are still in public school is very small, less than 10% I would venture, and it keeps falling every year.
Absolutely. As Chrysler and GM are seeing, you have to “dance with the one that brung you.”
it’s = its
Thank you for the ping!!!
I can’t really decide how I feel about this. I do know it has been going on for years. I remember several discussions about it from conventions I attended in the past. As a homeschool graduate and avid homeschool supporter, I am all for school choice. I think government has waaaay too much control over education, and I would definately support local churches organizing schools (we have two (Baptist) schools in our area.)I feel there should be more options for parents wishing to provide their children with a quality Christian education. However, the high-handed way the SBC comes across with some of this stuff bothers me. If we want to start schools fine, but will it eventually come under the “sole member” status of the SBC - kind of like the seminaries a few years ago? It just seems we keep attempting to move away from the autonomy factor...JMO
Same thing happened to my daughter in junior high. The youth group at our church (in hindsight) just reinforced the secular attitudes of the public school. When we finally pulled out of public school, we had many church members make snide remarks to our kids about homeschooling. We didn’t know the extent of undermining that was going on while we attended but there was a constant “air of superiority” expressed from the public school teachers at our church. We weren’t “SOCIALIZING” our kids.....that’s all anyone cared about and that was one of the main reasons we escaped public school. My child was fully “socialized” by her punk, anarchist, anti-Christian classmates who convinced her that her parents were the enemies.
There’s hope, Charles. My daughter has returned to her faith and serves Him in many capacities. She doesn’t think we are her enemies. :)
"Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is OLD he will not depart from it" - no mention of teenagers there.
No doubt about that. Really, really, “cute”!
Thanks for sharing that with everyone!
You really tweaked those Baptist's noses, didn’cha!
You're the man!, no doubt about it.
I know I'm really going to look forward to your next post ... not!
“opened a debate over education by submitting a resolution to the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention urging Baptists to remove their children from government schools and, instead, give them a Christian education.”
If the SBC is really serious about this they need to go the Route of catholic schools. That is create their own private schools and greatly discount tuition for church members.
Although it has nothing to do with the American Civil War, this is still part of the HIST 3055-56: Civil War and Reconstruction series. Dr. James Robertson, professor of the course, is a Randolph-Macon alumnus, and proud of it. Ironically, he says the Baptist groups he speaks to on the lecture circuit are the ones who always laugh the hardest at this joke.
But then again, the old boy may have had a point.
If the SBC is really serious about this they need to go the Route of catholic schools. That is create their own private schools and greatly discount tuition for church members.
I agree, except that the educational alternatives that they offer don’t need to be exclusively traditional schools
Part of the problem is that people don’t realize how different the schools are today from the way the were even 5-10 years ago.
“I was upset with them several years ago when they kept pushing public schools so I have to wonder now what has “changed”.”
What has changed? Reality is biting the SBC on the posterior.
I agree that traditional schools are not going to be the answer. But the SBC can use University Model Schools, Christian One Room Schoolhouses, big homeschool coops, and other educational alternatives to get the job done.
I think that all Christians need to step up to the plate on this issue...and they need to do it intelligently.
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