Re-Thinking My Thinking on Education

After a little more thought I've decided it may be good to make some acknowledgements relative to my most recent post. Here they are:

1. I don't think education is an altogether simple enterprise. There are genuine complexities to our lives which make education choices more demanding and difficult.

2. If you were to become convinced that public school is not what God wants for your children, it may take a year or so to make a change. For instance, if parents decided today to go in some other direction, the implemented change may not be manageable until next school year. There may be lots of logistics to work through.

3. Parents are responsible to God for their children's education. But that doesn't mean they have to do all the educating. I think to enlist tutors, for example, is a fine thing. And one could argue that the public school system is for them a set of tutors they have chosen to teach their children basic courses while they (the parents) teach godliness. My initial trouble with such an argument would be the influence that such a non-Christian system may have upon my children. And then there is the issue of proper learning. I don't believe the education approach of our public schools is particularly effective or fruitful. Nevertheless, I offer the acknowledgement.

4. Some of the social interaction and opportunities afforded within the public school system could be good for our children. It is true that home-schools and Christian schools cannot offer all of these things. My caution here is that while we may desire these things for our children, we weigh the worth of them biblically.

5. I do not believe it is in itself sinful for a Christian to work within the public school system. The problem for me would be the difficulty that comes with the expectation that employees of the system" put their light under a bowl" (Mt 5:14-16) and/or teach contrary to God's Word. That, in itself, would be sinful.

6. Because of God's common grace, and the image of God in all of His human creatures, Christians can and should learn from non-Christians. One implication of this is that the best math teacher, for example, may not be a Christian, if in using the term "best" we simply mean the person that understands the subject most thoroughly and is able to communicate how it works. Of course if you want your children to understand math's relationship to God, then this teacher can't help you.

Well, it's 2:01 AM and I suppose that's enough. I almost always struggle inwardly after posting something polemical (like the earlier post on education). I don't want to be a hard-ass in any wrong sense of the word. Nor do I want to be an idealist, again, in any wrong sense. My hope is to be occasionally helpful to God's people. So in that spirit, I offer the above.

Grace & Peace.

Loving Our Children by Loving Truth

First, let me point you to Education Choices Are Not Neutral

Second, let me add, that as a product of the public school system, and now a father of two children, it is difficult to imagine that I would put my daughter and son under the influences of that system. I won't take much time with this because of the article link above that I hope you will visit. But I do want to briefly say that what is wrong with the public school system is not that there are no Christian administrators, teachers, and students in it. I have Christian friends who fill these roles. However, what is wrong with the system is that within it, everything is disconnected from God, as if God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, has nothing to do with anything; Nothing to do with math, science, language, government, history, physical education, etc. Or, to put it in the words of God Himself via the Apostle Paul, ". . .by Him (Jesus Christ) all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. . .all things were created by him and for him" (Col 1:16). Or, "For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever" (Ro 11:36).

All of these things that the public school teachers want to disconnect from God the Son (the Christian teachers do this through silence) were actually created by Him and for Him to glorify Him. Of course Christian schools do this too when they assume a disconnect between the biology class and the Bible class. In that scenario, God has to do with the Bible, not science.

So my parenting friend, why do we want to put our children in a system of false teaching that is built on the lie that this is not so? Why do we want to put ourselves in the predicament of explaining to them over and over that what they were taught at school today is not altogether true and that the meanings that were conveyed to them are not the real meanings? Or worse, maybe we have them in the system and then don't do the loving work of distinguishing for them the truth from the lie.

I simply cannot make sense of putting my children under those sorts of influences for 8 hours per day, for 180 days, for 12 years. That's more than 17,000 hours of godless instruction, not to mention the influences from their classmates.

I am no one's judge. That is the work of God. But I am able to bear testimony that I have a great fear of standing before Him in judgment having chosen what presently appears to me to be the worst education option available -- the American public school system. I can hear the objections now -- that homeschooling is not an option (why?) and Christian schools are too expensive, etc. To which I will say -- These are our children! Figure it out. Ask the Lord for guidance and provision. Sell some stuff. Get another job. Do what it takes.

I can also imagine this, "Well, my children are good kids. They are in the system and they turned out just fine". Just fine compared to whom? "Just fine" is a nonsense statement because there is no other version of your child with which to compare the present version. There is no version that was raised learning that all things have to do with God and that He defines all things and gives them their meaning and purpose.

Another troubling issue is the whole segregation of life matter. Perhaps nothing has done more to fuel this than the public school system used by Christians. Out of this type of life division we come up with false ideas like "sacred" and "secular", which teach that some things have to do with God while others do not. Our children grow up learning that the classroom is for education and the church building is for God. That's simply not the case. "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things" (Ro 11:36, again). The Bible has something to say about the education of our children.

Well, this post will anger someone, perhaps even some friends. I hope not. I mean every word. But I am not, as earlier stated, any person's judge. I'm simply trying to think through what it means to love my children in the arena of education. We should question everything. We must know what it is that God says is important for our children to learn, and what is not, no matter what the Department of Education says.

I hope you will check out the article above. It's much better than my thoughts.

Grace & Peace

Perspective

I do not want to belittle any one's real pain. I have imagined what it might be like to lose a spouse or child the way so many were lost on 9/11 in New York City. It is a horrible thought. So again, I do not want to belittle or minimize the suffering. What I want to do is simply remind us that in this country more people are murdered in the womb each day than died in the Twin Towers on that day. Each day. And they are no less innocent than the 9/11 victims. Neither do they experience less terror.

The Earth Shakes Because We Are Broken

While sitting in my office on Tuesday, I experienced my first earthquake. And I will admit, it was frightening. A part of the fright is the great peculiarity of the event. I've been around now for 40 years. Never has the earth shook under my feet. The earth is one of the few things we really count on to remain stable. So when it moves, that's weird.

Two thoughts regarding it:
1 - God shakes the earth to show us that we are sinners. At the fall of Adam and Eve, God cursed the ground. The earth is broken. And it groans until it is redeemed (Rom 8:19-22).

My wife and children were in a Target store when the shaking began. So when we went back to that same store on Wednesday, my 3 year old daughter commented on the experience. She wondered if we went inside, would the shaking start again. She thought perhaps the quake was caused by a giant. So I took just a few seconds to try to communicate to her what the shaking is actually about. Shifting tectonic plates? Well, yes. But there's much more. There's the God of all grace who governs said plates in a way that calls us to turn from our sinfulness, and trust Him, so that we may escape the ultimate consequences of the curse -- His forever wrath. It is as J.I. Packer wrote in his book "Knowing God" - God is good to those who trust Him, and He is terrible to those who do not.

2 - Earthquakes are often associated with unseen spiritual activity. Both Old and New Testaments give repeated witness to this (i.e. 2 Sam 22; 1 Ki 19; Ps 18, 77; Is 24, 29; Mt 24, 27-28; Ac 4, 16; Re 6, 8, 11, 16). Earthquakes sometimes signify God's anger, which makes sense in the light of the paragraph above. Sometimes they indicate angelic visitation. Sometimes they are connected with prayer and God's work in responding to His people. And they sometimes communicate other realities. What earthquakes are not, however, are random occurrences without meaning. They are signs, pointing us  not only to our own sinfulness, but to God's righteous rule and activity. I wonder what was going on Tuesday, in the unseen world?

. . . As to One Untimely Born . . .

I am borrowing this phrase from the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 15:8) to describe my feelings about living in 2011. Due to the continuous dilapidation  of my cell phone, I went into the Verizon Wireless store to purchase a new one. I was clear with the Verizon rep that I wanted a basic phone, not a "smart" one. She seemed surprised, and ventured to tell me that her "whole life" was in her phone, and that she "needed" the internet able device. How sad. After a few minutes of trying to get answers to my questions, I informed this particular rep that she had in fact answered none of them. She replied that she had answered all of them. I told her "No, you have been talking a lot, but you've yet to answer any one of my questions". Then I asked for someone else to help me.

Would it not be a good thing for people to look up from their smart phones long enough to learn to communicate with another person face to face? After this experience I concluded that like Paul, but in an entirely different context, I too am one untimely born. I went home from the Verizon store and told my wife that I would prefer to live in the 19th century when everyone carried a gun and no one carried a phone.

Means and Ends

It occurs to me that almost nothing is an end in itself, perhaps only worship. Worship does not exist to get us to something else. Worship stands on its own, in that sense. Nothing else does; at least nothing else is coming to mind.

Understanding this reality will have profound effects on our perspective and values. It will protect us from making a lifestyle out of what is meant to be an exercise, or making a meal out of what is given as a snack; And vice versa.

"Teach us to number our days that we may present 

to You a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 90:12

A Baby Is Not A Virus

 

"For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb."

David in Psalm 139:13

I read in today's local newspaper that President Obama's health care overhaul includes "coverage of birth control as prevention, with no copays". The article goes on to say how birth control is "the most common drug prescribed to women". Then there's this quote from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- "Not doing it (covering the costs) would be like not covering flu shots". What an imbecilic notion. I mean, really?! The government's not covering the cost of preventing pregnancy is like the government's not covering the cost of preventing a disease? A virus? 

How backward are you Kathleen Sebelius? In what kind of darkness do you live when preventing the conception of a child is likened to preventing a disease? But is this not the mindset of the Obama administration? Is this not the conviction of the pro-choice crowd? For them, a baby is very much like a virus -- inconvenient, tiresome, disruptive, meaningless, valueless, and expensive -- something to be prevented so that you can get on with the important matters of life like career and leisure. And if you fail to prevent conception, there's always abortion, when this little person, made in the image of the triune God, is burned alive with chemicals or torn apart by a high powered vacuum -- all while still in the womb which, for a baby, should be the safest place on earth. 

 

 

"You desire and do not have, so you murder" (James 4:2). Abortion happens because men and women, corrupt and wicked, desire lesser things over their unborn children. We value money, leisure, career interests, reputations, freedom, independence, and our plans more than that precious person God has made from our seed and egg. This is an abomination. We should repent.

Come Lord Jesus.