Homeschooling and the SBC

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

Basically what Sandy appears to want out of the public schools is that they teach a very specific brand of Christian faith that meets with the approval of a segment of Christianity. Of course that isn't possible or advisable. The purpose of public education is to give students the educational basics that are the common need of all US citizens. If you want religious faith taught then send your kid to church. That is what the Church is here for.

[Sandy]

[Neil Heath]

After reading this topic, I have to say I agree with Timothy and Dave, and disagree with Sandy. I am married to a teacher and have seen and heard much of elementary school life for 30 years. Perhaps Sandy is referring to something at the HS level that I haven't seen.

I have seen countless students come to my campus ministry program from public schools with solid faith in Christ, and have never heard one complain about what they were taught in HS as being un-Christian in any way.

I would add that in my 30 years of work with college students, I could count on one hand the number of professors I have heard criticized for the kind of things Sandy seems to believe are rampant in education. I have heard plenty of criticism of profs, but for assignments, tests, etc.

I fail to see what Sandy sees.

[Michael Wrenn]

Well, I taught public school for 14 years, and I agree with much of what Sandy says.

I think the federal government has destroyed the quality of public education in this country.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy you are just showing your lack of knowledge about other denominations and Christians in the above post. Being in a post denominational world doesn't mean that we are moving into a Christian homogeneity or a nebulous unity of theology. In fact far from it. The further I get away from my Southern Baptists roots the more diversity I see in different parts of Christianity that I either wasn't exposed to or was not encouraged to notice. It reminds me when I took Baptist history at SBTS using Torbet's book on Baptist history and then was only assigned to read the chapters about the SBC totally ignoring the ABC related chapters and the fact that the author himself was an American Baptist.

Let me suggest that rather than there being a such a wide commonality you haven't read enough of the theology of other denominational perspectives so you are seeing those denomination's views through the lens of your own theological background.

Frankly your comment about shooting "cannons at gnats" left me incredulous given that you are shooting huge cannons at gnats over creationism and views on sexuality, none of which are core theological issues for most of Christian theology yet you see them as important enough to have schools just to make sure the right view on these issues is taught.

Your above post is frankly a stunning example of the conservative evangelical enclave you choose to live in. It is also a stunning example of what is wrong with having evangelical Christians going only to evangelical Christian schools, hanging out with evangelical Christian people, and living out their entire lives surrounded by people with their same world view, same theology, and same church culture. You quickly begin to think either that everyone who is Christian is like you. Or worse, that everyone who is Christian ought to be or has to be like you. It just ain't so Sandy.

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

How well prepared are "Christian schools" to deal with special needs children. For example, my son started school with a young man who required a personal aide with him to be able to function in the classroom. The school system provided personal aides to several children, and these were trained to help those with special needs. Here, our school 7:30 and ended around 5:00. Two of the families with autistic children were sending other children to a private school, but they knew the public program was available to them and used it. Will the private sector help special needs children?

Also, my wife once worked as an aide in a special school (that was part of a public school system) for emotionally disturbed children. This provided both educational care with specially trained teachers and had consulting psychologists and psychiatrists. Do we not have a Christian duty to the "least of these?" Also, few private schools provide vocational education for students who may not have the support, the capability, or the drive to do post-secondary work. There are not courses in printing, masonry, auto mechanics, administrative support skills, drafting, and 3-d CAD in any of our local private schools. Are Christian schools broad enough to take these functions?

[Tim Bonney]

[Stephen Fox]

Has William read Giberson and Stephens the Anointed, And when can we expect a blog at Plodder of the level of his magisterial review of the provocative book on Lottie Moon by the Arkansas Woman?

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

Sandy, I must say that your school is quite the exception to what I have experienced. First, the dominant private school in our area has one special education teacher serving k-12. Second, any classes involving the local junior college, whether these are AP or vocational courses, must be paid for separately in addition to the fees for the student's enrollment at the private schools. Third, the state funds nothing, so the private schools have to provide their own transportation systems. Public buses pick up only public school children and private school buses deliver students only to the private schools. My area is crisscrossed by public school buses and by two separate private schools. Your system sound exceedingly different from anything I have experienced in VA or NC over the past forty years.

[Sandy]

[Michael Wrenn]

Just want to say that homosexuality is not a "side" issue. New scripturally faithful groups such as the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) and the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) certainly didn't think it was a side issue, as they thought it important enough to separate from the sodomite-affirming/celebrating Episcopal Church.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

I have checked for religious schools in my area. There are two small schools in my area. One is operated by a fundamentalist Baptist church (1611 KJV only) and has fewer than 20 students. It appears to be homeschooling done in the church with the pastor delivering a morning sermon to the children. Girls must wear dresses (knee length or below and boys must wear long pants. The second is in an Independent Christian Church and also has fewer than 25 students. Curriculum appears to be Beka with teachers serving 3 grades each and ending at 7th grade. It has been in two different locations since it was founded about 8 years ago.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Bruce Gourley]

Sandy, I truly do not understand why you insist upon betraying your Baptist faith heritage. Our faith forebears shed their blood to separate church and state, insisting that the government had no business allying with or peddling any faith, including Christianity. Many non-Baptist Christian leaders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were angered that America had been founded as a secular nation, and denounced our nation's founders -- Washington, Jefferson, Madison and others -- as heretics and infidels for their part in leading America away from Christianity. Baptists, however, had finally fulfilled their two-centuries long quest, and were very pleased.

This heritage has been true for almost all of our history. In very recent history, in the early 1960s, Baptists -- liberal, progressive, moderate, conservative and fundamentalist -- collectively supported Supreme Court decisions outlawing government-sponsored prayer in public schools. As Baptists of old had insisted, these modern Baptists knew that government had no business allying with or peddling any faith; coerced faith is false faith.

That many Baptists today have turned their back on their faith traditions astounds me.

Today's public school system in America, in its secularness (thank you, Baptist forebears), is in some respects more Christian than many so-called Christian schools -- public schools strive to treat children equally, educate the poor and marginalized, follow the Baptist tradition of church state separation, and strive to teach truth when it comes to science (and other disciplines) rather than dispensing religious mythology (it is telling that only in the late 20th century did it become popular among some Christians to insist that Christians must believe in six-day creationism; and how would you like for your kids to be taught the Hindu creation story, or a Native American creation story, or fill in the blank).

The problem for some Christians today is that they want to indoctrinate their children in religious dogma, are afraid of people outside their religious ghetto, and are also afraid of following the search for truth, wherever that search leads. That people of God -- the God of all truth -- would be afraid of the search for truth is another thing that mystifies me.

(Disclaimer: I am a proud product of public schooling. And I'm very pleased that my child is in a public school.)