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“Never buy into the ‘neutral’ or ‘values-free’ education myth. Instead, insist that your children’s education, and the education of every American student, teaches Christian values and orientates impressionable minds towards pursuing the true, the good, the beautiful — and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
–WILLIAM WOLFE
The problems with the current American public education system are innumerable — if I wanted to list them all, I would have to write a multi-part series.
But to throw out just a few off of the top of my head, consider how public schools now train students to hate America through weaponized and false history; hate their skin color through Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the classrooms; hate marriage and family by pushing radical gender ideology; and hate the Christian faith by teaching that Christianity is the “white man’s religion” and that Christians are “hateful bigots” simply because they hold to what the Bible teaches about marriage (one man and one woman) and human sexuality (there are only men and women, no one is “transgender,” and transgenderism is a destructive, anti-science ideology).
These dangerous ideas (and all ideas have consequences) are now baked into standard public school curricula, reinforced by classroom exercises, and further promulgated by woke teachers who prey on students’ minds (and sometimes even their bodies).
To make matters worse, many parents who have gone to school board meetings to protest such policies, or sought to have pornographic books removed from school libraries, have been mocked, attacked by teachers unions, and even labeled as “domestic extremists.”
Sadly, even many Christian schools aren’t in much better shape. Soft and subtle forms of cultural Marxism have infiltrated many K-12 schools founded on explicitly Christian principles. In some cases, schools that compromised biblical beliefs to appease the culture have actually gone under. Earlier this year, the Freedom Center reported,
“A private Christian school in Kansas City that changed its mission to say it believes in the ‘holiness’ of the LGBTQIA community has been forced to permanently shut down after its local church benefactors withdrew their funding…Urban Christian Academy added a statement to its website citing its belief in the holiness of the LGBTQIA+ community. Within six months, UCA had lost 42 percent of its funding, and by the end of the year, it had lost 80 percent.”
Enough is enough. What can Christians and conservatives do about this? By God’s grace, we can strive to take back our children’s education. Here are three ways to consider getting involved in this glorious, future-oriented fight for the hearts and minds of the next generation.
This is the most straightforward and simple (note that I didn’t say easy) way to take back your children’s education from those seeking to brainwash them into the liberal death cult.
It’s been said that progressive liberals don’t reproduce in the bedroom but in the classroom. If this is the case, one of the best ways that you can ensure that your child doesn’t get coopted into the current woke army of the left is to get them out of the public school classroom and bring them safely home into a learning environment that you control — not the government.
The Christian Post reported, “Homeschooling saw a 30% increase in 2021-2022 while public school enrollment fell by more than 1.2 million students within the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, ” a recent study has found.”
Homeschooling, again, isn’t easy. But it’s worth it. And as homeschooling grows in popularity (as the numbers show it is), parents interested in pursuing this option can find more assistance, homeschooling cooperative programs, and curriculum options than ever before. Consider exploring Memoria Press, which offers a comprehensive curriculum in all subjects for preschool through grade 12.
Remember, God gave your children to you, not the government. If you can’t trust the local government schools to train and teach them rightly, it’s time to bring them home.
You know Jesus is the Lord of everything, including how and what we should teach our kids. Why wouldn’t you want your child’s education to start there? There was a time when almost everyone in the West was educated in a system beginning with Christ as its foundation and pursuing His glory as its end. Those people built the greatest civilization the world has ever seen. That kind of education can be yours — and it can be found in Christian classical education.
In a recent address at the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), Baptist pastor and classical Christian education advocate Jeff Wright gave this encouragement to parents:
“For too long, I thought of my government education as good enough. Eventually, it dawned on me that good enough wasn’t good enough, not for my kids and not for the Christ who has made Himself known to His Creation. So, the question became what education is best, and answering that led me to Classical Christian Education.”
If you don’t have a brick-and-mortar classical Christian school near you, consider using online options like Classical Conversations or Logos Online School. Yes, it’s an investment. But aren’t your children’s minds and hearts worth it?
As more and more parents are waking up to what is happening in their local school districts, more and more are deciding to run for the school board — to great success. In November of last year, the Daily Wire reported that “In school board races…conservatives picked up a wave of wins across the country…[flipping] at least nine school boards in at least six states — Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Florida — giving them conservative majorities, according to two parental rights groups who endorsed many of the victorious candidates.”
While Christianity Today might not approve, arguing that involved parents running for school board are sacrificing Christian discipleship for the culture war, the truth is that, as I wrote last year,
“Being involved in your local public school, or running for the school board, is in no way opposed to deep, biblical discipleship of your own children at home. It’s not an either/or dichotomy…It’s a both/and equation — both discipleship of your children and fighting for the future of our country. To pretend otherwise is to embrace a ‘theology of defeat,’ conceding that the pagans have won, and all we can do now is be pious and quiet until they come to lock us up. Last I checked, we still live in a representative republic. Elections are won and lost with regularity (again, see Florida). Christians can run for the school board — and win. They can serve on the school board, for the glory of God and the good of their neighbors.”
Along with advocating for options like school choice, running for your local school board is one of the best ways to fight back against the hostile subversion of the American education system.
Plato said that “The object of education is to learn to love what is beautiful.” When you survey the current state of education in America, do you really think that is what our nation’s children are learning to do?
Most importantly, there is nothing more beautiful in the entire universe than our Triune Creator God and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. If education doesn’t begin with, and aim at, inculcating a love of God in our children, then it will fail in this primary purpose.
Never buy into the “neutral” or “values-free” education myth. Instead, insist that your children’s education, and the education of every American student, teaches Christian values and orientates impressionable minds towards pursuing the true, the good, the beautiful — and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
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