Posted on 01/01/2009 8:27:43 PM PST by SecAmndmt
You've heard all about the disputes: "Silent Night" banned at the "holiday" program, artistic references to the Bible censored and faith-inclusive children's programs facing discrimination.
Now some people are fed up with public school treatment of Christianity and have launched a campaign calling for a rescue of kids from government education programs – a "Call to Dunkirk."
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Uh, actually yes, in a sense. In a godless universe axiomatic truth is irrational: It’s just sort of “there” for no apparent reason, with nothing behind it. It makes much more sense in an ordered universe with a beginning and an ultimate purpose.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Exactly correct!
Here's the blind spot in this argument: Secularism deserves to sit right alongside those other worldviews - and it IS the religion-slash-worldview being taught. Don't fall into the fallacy of pretended neutrality, my FRiend!
No, no, choice is only for dismembering babies.
Exactly!
It is impossible to have religiously neutral school. It is axiomatic.
Government schools will establish the religious worldview of some and trash the freedom of conscience of others.
The biggest political bullies gets to indoctrinate the next generation of voters.
Axiom:
Government schools never were, are not not, and never can be religiously, culturally, or politically neutral.
I like it.
When I do have an income (ironically for this discussion I'm currently attending a private university) a lot of it will in fact be due to public schools, all but one semester of my K-12 education and my undergrad were done at public schools.
I can only use my own experience in school which was godless, but I didn't take away the things you say I should have. I certainly didn't become ashamed of my beliefs anywhere.
I feel the things you talk about will be abundantly obvious to a believer and others can see what they want to. It is not necessary to mention God for His presence to be self-evident.
In the current system of schools (and there is little chance I see of a nationwide privatization) it would be hard to require a God-centered world view. It would seem belief would be required first of teachers (certainly a discrimination issue there) and then of students. Bombarding someone with a view they aren't ready to accept only strengthens their resolve to not accept it. That would lead to the opposite of what teaching from a God-based view would seem to want to accomplish.
You likely **really** educated yourself and were supported by good parenting. The government school mostly send home a curriculum, assigned projects which they graded, and administered tests.
Very little real learning happens in the institutional school itself.
When I meet parents of academically successful children. I am curious about what the parents of these children ( homeschooled and institutionalized) are doing. I find that in **every** case there are **NO** differences between the home study habits and efforts of either group. or the amount of time actually spent learning an studying in the home. ( I have never met and exception.)
Homeschooling and institutionalized children and their parents are doing the SAME THING! One is homeschooling. The other is afterschooling ( aka: homeschooling after school) .
Axiom: Academically successful children are successful because of the parent and the child's own efforts...NOT the school! The school is mostly providing a curriculum to follow.
Corollary I: The more closely parents adopt the home habits of academically successful children ( homeschool or insitutionalized) the more closely the child will reach his full potential.
Corollary II: The more the child's home life differs from that of academically successful children ( home or institutionally schooled) the **less** they will achieve academically.
Corollary III: This is true whether the family is poor or rich.
So.... The government schools will **NEVER** meet the needs of a child in a disadvantaged home because government schools can NOT fix the family in which almost all real learning happens!!
We must abolish government schools for First Amendment and freedom of conscience issues, but, in the case of actually **teaching** children from less than ideal homes we **must** do something other than the government school model. Only the private sector can apply the innovation needed.
Institutional schools for children in disadvantaged homes must do one or both of the follow:
1) They must teach parents and children how to effectively “afterschool” and hold the parents and children accountable.
2) The school must somehow recreate in an institutional setting what is found in the homes of academically successful children ( home or institutionalized).
By the way...The KIPP schools seem to be doing both #1 and #2.
Institutional schools for academically successful children who have supportive academic home lives **must** do the follow:
#1) Provide more effective teaching resources and advice for the parent and child.
#2) Eliminate time wasted in the institution setting, so the child has more time in a home-like setting within the institution to do what he already does well: Self- STUDY!
None of the above applies to adults who had less than stellar academic performance and then went on to succeed in college and their careers. I am one of these adults and my home was not a well directed academically as it might have been. A motivated adult can overcome academic deficits at any time in their lives.
More importantly, in the public perception it would relegate such Christians as responded to the call to the ranks of whackadoodles who live in compounds -- which is something that popular culture has long done anyway.
Any attempts to preach the Gospel would therefore first have to contend with the a priori assumption that the speaker is nuts.
Of course, this silliness comes to us courtesy of WND, so you can already guess that it's playing to a pretty small audience to begin with.
2) When our children are taught our culture and history ( with the many topics and subjects that includes) there are only two possible worldviews from which to teach: godless or God-centered.
To force children into either of these worldviews, and for the government to **establish** one over the other is NOT NOT NOT religiously neutral.
Government schools can NOT find a religiously neutral compromise. They **must** choose: godless or God-centered. The only solution is to begin the process of privatization of the schools.
I can see that you are having a hard wrapping your mind around this.
Let's just take two topics: Science and Literature
In a religious worldview that is Jewish or Christian, the children would be reminded ( when appropriate) that science and math are a creation of a **rational** God. The beauty and elegance they gradually discover in math and science would be seen as discovering evidence of the beauty and elegance of God. God is rational. God is purposeful, and as a result our world is rational. These children fundamentally understand that their lives therefore are purposeful and there is a reason that they are on this earth.
In a religious worldview the study of pure science is intimately tied to the child's faith in a rational God. Science is ration because God is. It is beautiful and elegant because God is. Learning about science and making discoveries is learning about the mind and “heart” of God.
In a godless worldview none of these philosophic eschatologic issues are addressed. The child learns that the government separates science and God. God is not even acknowledged. The approach to science is atheistic, materialistic, and utilitarian.
In the godless environment the child is taught the subtle lesson on that their religious beliefs are somehow shameful and must be hidden at home as if it were a bathroom activity.
godless is NOT religiously neutral. God-centered isn't either.
Literature:
In literature can you think of any fiction in which one or more of the Ten Commandments is not an issue? I can not think of a single example. Not even the category of Man Against Nature is free of Ten Commandment issues because often people survive natural catastrophe due to their obeying the First Commandment ( loving God before all things).
In a private school with a religious worldview literature would be analyzed far differently than in a godless one. They would consult their scriptures, commandments, and writings of their leaders.
In a godless school none of the above is allowed. Instead of learning how to rely in the teachings of his faith to analyze the conflicts of life, he is taught instead to depend on his own opinion. ( not God's opinion) Hey! Why not? **All** of his teachers and fellow students depend on their own moral compass. If everyone can have an opinion, then why would God's opinion be more important than that of his teacher or fellow classmate.
As you can hopefully see, neither the godless or God-centered worldview approach is religiously neutral. The school must choose one or the other.
The solution is begin privatizing universal K-12 schools so that parents can choose a school that best supports what is being taught in the home.
I am reminded of the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s. The Iranians used small children to sweep the fields for land mines. Once the field was cleared then the adult soldiers passed over.
Expecting ***children*** to sweep through the spiritual minefield of a godless government school is actually ***worse** than Iranian children being blow apart. Hey! The Iranian children lost their earthly life. Our Christian children can lose their **ETERNAL** soul.
My homeschooled kids were prepared educationally and spiritually for the atheistic slug fest found on the college campus.
You would call this isolated??? I don't. I call that being fully prepared for scrimmage.
You have created a strawman argument. How can anyone defend a argument of your creation? NO conservative here has even remotely suggested withdraw from the culture into compounds.
They are **correctly** suggesting that we do not use children for the spiritual mine sweeping job meant for adults.
I understand what you are saying, but you can clamor for it all you want and privatization will never happen. First of all as you addressed in another post, a lot of parents simply don't care enough as it is. Are they really going to spend the money to send their schools to a private school? What if the only game going in town is a church funded one and the family is not of that religion? My parents had a lot of misgivings about me being in a Catholic school for one semester a big part of the reason it was only one semester. Is the only answer to move?
State run schools are, of course, far from a perfect answer and it would be great for things to be done much closer to what you envision. However, it ignores a lot of the realities of today. Not the least of which is Christian teachers.
The Baptist Church in my hometown wanted to start their own school and asked the public school superintendent, who was a member, to be the superintendent of the new school. He refused saying he had dedicated 30 years of his life to public schools and wasn't going to turn his back on them now.
I would imagine a lot of Eastern fiction is based on Buddhism and so not on the 10 Commandments. Although most moral codes are very similar.
As I said much of what you say about science and math will be self evident to the believer. If most learning is done at home as you say, then why shouldn't religious teaching be done at home/church? Why is it so much more susceptible to being lost or forgotten in school then the other learning that would go on at home? Especially when the right friends are sought out at school, like say fellow Sunday School members.
Funny ... the suggested "remedy" seems precisely to use the children as mine-sweepers for an adult problem.
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I meant to ping this out a few days ago. It is a good article and gives (even) more evidence that public schools are not a good place to send children to be educated, unless one is a leftist/atheist/secularist/Democrat who would be happy if one's children came home and announced "I'm gay" or "I've become an atheist". There is a vigorous discussion of which I have not read all, there is some disagreement. But as far as I am concerned, the evidence is overwhelming that public schools are indeed indoctrination centers. No doubt about it. Maybe the odd school here or there in far corners of the US might have non-liberal teachers, but the text books themselves are riddled and saturated with leftist dogma. I've seen them, have homeschooled children in the past and seen the text books over the years. Even in the 80s the school books were rife with leftist dogma, and it's much, much worse now.
Since when is sacrificing our children the way to evangelize the world?
Adults should be the ones evangelizing the teachers and other parents. They’re the adults, after all. They shouldn’t be sending out their kids to do their job.
The children can witness to their friends but the job of witnessing to the teachers and other adults should be the parents job.
I’d be interested in seeing any stats on the effectiveness of children witnessing at public schools vs. the number of Christian kids who’ve abandoned their faith because of the public schools.
The stats are horrible.
In post #66 I posted research results with links.
Sending your children to a public school is robbing them of the potential of a joyful innocent childhood.
They learn way more than they need to from the other kids at way too early an age.
The human race and Christianity survived for 2,000 year without our children having the burden of witnessing thrust upon them.
The adults did it. Imagine that.
Which they can do outside of school just as easily.
Are they burning us at the stake again? Feeding us to lions, are they?? Or are we still talking about the song Silent Night in a school play? Where do you see sacrifice? We don't withdraw from the world, unless the world is hunting our heads, which has happened, but it is not happening now. We will not allow atheist school teachers to have their dreams come true... a voluntary withdrawal by Christians from school.
This was pure hogwash, or a term used well by Mr. Wes Pruden of the Washington Times ... bullshine?
I came up through a public school and I was never robbed of anything. Instead, I challenged others to examine their claimed devotion to Christ in times of conflict, and openly proclaimed my belief in Jesus without repercussion.
Some inner-city schools are terrible and may be an exception and there are some known for out of control violence. Leaving those schools... is one thing, but that doesn't have anything to do with Christianity, thats a safety issue.
Just as easily? No. You evangelize people you know. When the world sees your joy they will want to know the secret. The secret is that "Christ is the joy of our salvation." Evangelizing strangers is very difficult especially at that age.
At the college level: I was Evangelism Chairman at Jacksonville State University Baptist Student Union which was strange we even had the position because back then, in the late 70's, evangelism traced back to the Baptist Student Union would threaten our existence on campus and we might even have lost us the building. Couldn't pass out tracts or anything.
Today, there are many denominations present on or very near campus and are allowed to advertise on the campus electronic bulletin board right on the front lawn. Times have changed for the better here, in that regard.
So I know at least a little bit about evangelism. I have served on my churches evangelism team, going out on thursday nights to visit homes where cold hearted family members would allow us to speak to them and pray for them for a few minutes and rarely had any success. Once people cross a certain threshold in life it becomes very very difficult to reach them. "I am almost persuaded."
This is one reason why maintaining a presence in the public schools system is best for the LOST kids. People in this forum have argued that it is best for Christian kids to leave, and they could have certain points about that, but I can't allow those points because the lost kids will have such a limited chance to receive the light of Christ when the Christians are gone. Their main influences in life will be the pot-heads and the dysfunctinals who are headed straight down the path to destruction. I know what that result will be, it will be lost generations. If you begin to feel outnumbered today, consider how hard it is going to be a few generations from now if we hide ourselves in private schools.
Yes, the public school systems need our prayers, our thoughts and we need to keep up the efforts that are already in place to reach more souls for Christ (ie: summer Bible schools (VBS), after school programs, invitations to church and sunday school.)
Not allowing the kids to play Silent Night in a school play, however frustrating that may be, cannot be allowed to stop us from doing the work of Christ.
"Put on the whole armor of God that you may STAND."
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