News

(AgapePress) - According to a recent article in USA Today, there is one thing the nation's most successful CEOs have in common -- they received their share of spankings as children.

[Read the Full Atricle Here]

(AgapePress) - A second member of the Resolutions Committee for the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, says the denomination needs to consider developing a plan to remove its children from America's public schools.

The SBC Resolutions Committee will meet Thursday to begin poring over resolutions that have been submitted for consideration next week. Among them is a proposal authored by Dr. Bruce Shortt and Executive Committee member Roger Moran that calls on the denomination to develop an "exit strategy" from public schools.

While second-year committee member Ida South of Mathiston, Mississippi, would not comment on the resolution, she agrees with Dr. Albert Mohler's belief that such a strategy is needed. Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of a daily national radio program, has publicly stated that "now is the time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from public schools."

South, a veteran educator who is now retired, says the situation in the public schools is "getting worse all across the country." She feels most schools now are teaching a completely secular worldview.

The retired teacher points to one issue in particular as being symptomatic. "The teaching of homosexuality as being perfectly normal is more or less a symbol of what's wrong with our schools," she says, "because all the other things kind of fit in with that."

And South believes it is just a matter of time before Christian views are entirely censored from the public school setting. She admits this is a concern that may slip up quietly on Christian families and educators in the heartland or the "Bible Belt" areas, but she insists that creeping secularism is a rapidly spreading threat.

"I think we who are in areas where there's very little problem are kind of shaken when we find that someone is about to sue because their child heard the word 'God' mentioned in school," the Southern Baptist committee member and former educator says. "So even those of us in areas that have very little problem are beginning to wake up to realize that we do have problems."

As awareness grows among denomination members about the current state of America's public schools, South hopes more Southern Baptists will respond. She says leaders in SBC churches need to get more serious about providing alternatives to public education, including Christian schools and home schooling.

Grassroots political activist Rick Scarborough and evangelist Voddie Baucham, Jr. are also among those Southern Baptist leaders who have endorsed a proposed resolution favoring Mohler's call for an exit strategy from U.S. public schools.

[Read Full Story Here]

The following article appears at

The Southern Baptist Exit Strategy: Let Our Children Go!
by Nicholas A. Jackson
May 16, 2006 08:11 AM EST

All Eyes on Greensborough

In the year 2006, never has there been such a clear antithesis between those who love our God, our country and our children, and those who wish to destroy our God, our country and our children. Nowhere is this battle being fought more aggressively and fiercely than in the halls of our government (public schools).

Federal circuit court judges held in November 2005 in Fields v. Palmdale that "parents have no constitutional right ... to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual, or otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so."

[Read the full article here] 

(c)2005 The Conservative Voice. All rights reserved. Some portions (c)The Associated Press.

Building on a Southern Baptist Convention resolution urging parents to remove their children from public schools that promote homosexuality, the denomination's publishing house is seeking to make inroads into a growing homeschool market.

Broadman & Holman, the trade-book division of LifeWay Christian Resources, sponsored an exhibitor event titled "Homeschooling 101 for the Christian Retailer" at Advance 2006. This year's national trade show of the Christian Booksellers Association was held Jan. 23-28 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center.

Home-schooling barely existed 25 years ago but is growing at a rate of 7 percent to 12 percent a year. Today an estimated 2.1 million children are schooled at home, and the number is expected to grow to 3 million by 2010. Three quarters of homeschoolers are Christian families.

Homeschool parents spend an average of $450-$750 per child per year. That translates into a market potential ranging from $1.3 billion to $2.25 billion, Tyler told retailers.

Pat Marcum, a sales and marketing consultant representing Alpha Omega Publications, a publisher of Christian curricula based in Chandler, Ariz., said the No. 1 factor driving a growing homeschool movement is none other than "the government school" itself. He cited reports about underachieving public schools from a 1983 government report titled "A Nation at Risk" to an ABC News "20/20" report two weeks ago titled "Stupid in America."

"Christians some time ago asked the public schools not to remove God as creator in the public-school system," Marcum said. "Did they listen? No."

Marcum said public school also ignored conservative evangelicals by removing prayer and Bible reading, the Ten Commandments and the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Finally they asked them not to teach the homosexual agenda, but they did."

Last June the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution urging pastors and parents to remove their children from public schools if they find their school promotes the "homosexual agenda."

"This is now taking place," Marcum said. "The impact that is going to have is on the number of parents that are going to be bringing their children home."

The resolution warns against "homosexual activists" using educational institutions as a gateway to promote acceptance of homosexuality as "a morally legitimate lifestyle." It calls on churches and parents to research and monitor whether their local school districts are helping to advance that agenda through programs, curricula or homosexual clubs and to act accordingly.

Bruce Shortt, a homeschool father from Houston, fought an uphill battle for two years to get the nation's largest Protestant faith group to go on record as criticizing public schools, but he says the committee-written resolution passed by the convention is actually stronger than the version he and co-author Voddie Baucham had recommended.

It urges Christian parents "to fully embrace their responsibility to make prayerful and informed decisions regarding where and how they educate their children," whether they choose public, private or home schooling.

"Certainly, any school district that has a homosexual club or any program, curriculum or policy that would influence children to regard homosexual behavior as normal or acceptable is a clear and present physical, moral, emotional and spiritual danger to all children," said Shortt, an attorney associated with Exodus Mandate, an organization that supports homeschooling as an alternative to the government's school system.

A number of SBC leaders, even those who privately support alternatives to public education, feared backlash from teachers who attend Southern Baptist churches should the convention adopt a resolution critical of public schools.

But Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a column last summer he believes the time has come for responsible Christian parents to begin developing an "exit strategy" from public schools.

The SBC went on record as supporting homeschooling in 1997 and in 1999 affirmed private Christian schools. LifeWay has been involved in Christian school ministry, which includes homeschooling, for eight years. A number of people in upper management are homeschoolers.

Shortt said Lifeway is poised to play "a very important role in the growth of all forms of Christian education, including homeschooling."

Zan Tyler, who has edited a "Homeschool Channel" on LifeWay.com since 2003, is a veteran of the homeschool movement.

After nearly being arrested for truancy when she and her husband started home-schooling in 1984, Tyler led an eight-year legal battle to win recognition of the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools as a legal, alternative accrediting agency for home-schooling parents. She was president of the SCAIHS 10 years and still serves on its board of directors.

Before the Legislature passed a new law in 1992, parents in South Carolina could not homeschool their children without approval by their local school district. Today homeschooling is legal in all 50 states.

"I believe that homeschooling is a revival movement," Tyler told booksellers, with potential to build a new generation of "Joshuas" to stand for God against a secular world.

Shortt said Lifeway "has been a tremendous source of encouragement and help to Christian parents in the past, and it will play a much, much larger role in the future."

In fact, he said, "I believe Lifeway may well play the key role in the implementation and development of the exit strategy from the government schools that Dr. Mohler has urged."

Marcum and his wife, Linda, homeschooled three children, who are now grown, for more than 19 years. He said most homeschool parents discover benefits beyond education.

"It's not so much home-schooling that God has blessed," Marcum said. "It is obedience to his Word."

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

[Read Full Story Here]

(AgapePress) - Voddie Baucham is hard to ignore. At 6 feet 3 inches tall and 300 pounds, the Houston, Texas, teacher/author is an imposing figure in the pulpit. But his size isn't the only thing about Baucham that demands attention. It's his simple, but persuasive, analysis of what's wrong in America and how to fix it.

According to Baucham, 36, a return to a Christian consensus of values in America will come only when believers re-evaluate the nature of the church -- and more fundamentally -- the role of the family as the preeminent disciple-maker of their children.

Baucham contends that God intends for the home to be where Christian children are spiritually nurtured into mature adults who can influence all spheres of life for Christ. At the same time, every new generation of Christian parents must pass their faith on to their own children. He calls the concept "multi-generational faithfulness" and argues that the chain is broken when Christian parents abdicate their discipling duties to church programs.

According to Baucham this lack of discipleship in the home is why statistics show that many young people from church-going homes leave the faith during their college years and why Christianity's voice in American culture is waning.

AFA Journal spoke to Baucham after a recent address at Blue Mountain College, a small private school in northeast Mississippi.

AFAJ: Tell me how your own personality, gifts and background have factored into your ministry of applying Scriptural principles to the issues of contemporary culture.

Voddie Baucham has served on numerous church staffs, and currently serves as an elder at Grace Community Church in Magnolia, Texas. He is an adjunct professor at The College of Biblical Studies in Houston, Texas, and Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He has authored two books and written for academic journals and magazines. Voddie and his wife Bridget have been married since 1989. They have three children, and currently live in Spring, Texas.

Baucham:

It has caused me to analyze things that many Christians who grew up in the church take for granted. So when I see certain behaviors and patterns in the church that are not biblical, an alarm in me goes off.

AFAJ: In addition to the Scripture, what theologians and writers have influenced your thinking?

Baucham: Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, D.A. Carson and Jonathan Edwards among others.

AFAJ: How do Christians engage the culture without conforming to its values?

Baucham: This is where the family is so important. When you understand multi-generational faithfulness, it's an idea that completely changes how you view cultural impact. I can look at influencing the culture by going out and getting the right legislation passed or the right person on the school board -- and there's nothing wrong with those things -- but the bigger picture of cultural impact is me being a Godly husband and father. So as I am training my children and at the same time part of a larger community of faith that is doing the same, we are equipping a generation, not just to pass good laws, but to be transformed people.

In my opinion, this is what makes the home-school movement so important. Because you are getting children out of the public school system that has them for 45-50 hours a week and inundates them in this anti-Christian, secular humanistic mentality and into a situation where discipleship is the key to their education. It's only here that multi-generational faithfulness can take place.

AFAJ: What role does the local church play in changing the culture through multi-generational faithfulness?

Baucham: I believe the church is a family of families. One way we have gone astray is that we see the church as a corporation that breaks us into individual groups. We have something for this group and something for that group and we are breaking families apart when we get to the church house. We're expecting church programs to disciple our children rather than that happening in the home in the context of the family.

God has given us a mechanism for multi-generational faithfulness and that mechanism is the family. And so one of the things the Church must do is to rediscover and re-emphasize the importance of the family as that discipling agent and build up the family because that is what's crumbling.

My message is a call for parents and grandparents to disciple their children and grandchildren. This is the answer. God has given the family to preserve the community of faith! If there is a generation that is not discipled, they will not know God. That is the significance of the family. The role of the local church is to come alongside families and help them fulfill their call.

AFAJ: In a recent sermon you referred to a study of youth and religion by the Sociology Department of the University of North Carolina. That study shows that children overwhelmingly practice the religion of their parents as long as they live at home. However you claim that other studies indicate that by the end of their freshman year in college, between 75 and 88 percent have left the church. Is there any recapturing this generation?

Baucham: With Christ there is always hope, but currently I don't see any indication that that will happen. In fact, the institutions of our culture -- the public school system, the media, our universities, politics, corporate America, the judiciary -- all are perpetuating the acceptance of ungodly practices such as same-sex marriage and euthanasia.

The one hopeful sign I see is that the home-schooling movement is thriving. If there is an answer, I believe that is it.

AFAJ: What particular issues are you watching that you think will dominate our cultural in the future? In other words, where is the front in the culture war?

Baucham: The life issues, including abortion, euthanasia, partial-birth abortion. These issues are still critical because the acceptance of them indicates that we are moving further and further down the road of devaluing life. For example, right now I believe we are quickly moving from a discussion about the "right to die" to the "obligation to die."

These issues of life go right to core of the very nature of man and the very worth and dignity of human beings. Those are at the foundation of every other issue.

AFAJ: Is there a connection between the devaluing of life and the devaluing of the family.

Baucham: Supporters of abortion have always said that when a women doesn't think she can afford to raise her child, abortion should be a choice. Even in the church we look at a Christian lady with five or six children like she's committed a crime.

Another thing I'm concerned about is the nature and role of the government in our nation. We have moved so far toward a socialist mentality, largely through our schools, that many people believe with all their heart that it's the government's job to take care of people. That misunderstanding impacts many other issues including the role of family.

(AgapePress) - How about this for a contemporary Christian rock song: "Give public schools what they need. In the name of heaven, choice!" Add a screaming lead with a solid bass line, and you'll have a winner.

In recent decades, one of the major trends of education has been parents waking up to the public school system and recognizing that something is wrong, really wrong. Consequently, many have been removing their children from government schools and opting for private and homeschool alternatives. Now comes an Alabama-based group urging believers to embrace government education and improve it as best as they can.

Redeem the Vote! is even enlisting the help of Christian musicians to try and persuade believers to spend more money on public education.

Bad plan.

If you want public schools to improve, stir a good dose of free enterprise into the mix. Monopolies -- which is what public education is today -- don't work, plain and simple. They grow fat and sloppy, and in this case enamored with teacher benefits instead of academic accomplishment. Let private and homeschool possibilities compete on a level playing field with them and they will change, undoubtedly for the better.

An ABC special report called "Stupid in America" indicates what educational reformers have been preaching for decades -- the longer they spend in government schools, the worse students perform academically. John Stossel reports that ABC gave identical tests to high school students in New Jersey and Belgium; of course, the Belgians throttled the Americans. At age 10, interestingly enough, students from 25 countries take the same test and American kids place well above the international average. By age 15, Americans perform at well below the international average, even worse than in much poorer countries.

American schools, by comparison, are not helping our children.

And instead of pushing for more money -- which has never been shown to improve a broken system and instead tends to merely deliver a bigger and more broken one -- why not try something that has a proven track record in this country? Like ... competition.

Senator (and former education secretary) Lamar Alexander once predicted that sometime in the future puzzled graduate students would ask: "Now, please explain it one more time. Exactly why was it that America kept in place for so long a system that froze our schools in a time warp and denied to children of middle- and low-income families the same opportunity to choose the best schools for their children that fortunate families, like the children of presidents, senators, and U.S. representatives, enjoyed?"

Alexander would go on to say that higher education in this country has gotten it right, with choice and a system of competition that has produced world-class institutions at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Public education, and the gatekeepers of its poor-to-mediocre ways -- the National Educational Association -- protect the status quo while somehow leaving room for certain evangelicals to root for the government approach.

If Christian rock stars want a pedagogical cause, school-choice is a good one. Overwhelming majorities of blacks, whites, and Hispanics are for it. Or, if you want to be as inconsequential as many modern Christian songs -- root for more money and more kids for the status quo.

[Read Here]

A judge's decision banning the teaching of intelligent design in a Dover, Pa., school district should convince Christian parents to remove their children from public schools, conservative columnist Cal Thomas wrote last week.

Thomas, a former religious-right insider who in 2000 co-authored Blinded By Might, a book arguing the Moral Majority had failed and urging evangelicals to withdraw from secular politics, said religious conservatives now should wake up to the futility of trying to force secular schools to reflect their beliefs.

"Religious parents should exercise the opportunity that has always been theirs," Thomas wrote. "They should remove their children from state schools with their instruction manuals for turning them into secular liberals, and place them in private schools--or home school them--where they will be taught the truth, according to their parents' beliefs."

"Too many parents, who would never send their children to a church on Sunday that taught doctrines they believed to be wrong, have had no problem placing them in state schools five days a week where they are taught conflicting doctrines and ideas," he said.

While private schooling or home schooling costs extra money, Thomas said, children are worth the cost.

"Surely, a child is more valuable than material possessions," he wrote. "Our children are our letters to the future. It's up to parents to decide whether they want to send them 'first class' or 'postage due.'"

Thomas' column is the latest boost to a growing "Christian education" movement encouraging parents to accept responsibility for educating their children and to remove them from the government school system and either enroll them in church-run schools or personally teach them at home.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second-largest denomination behind Catholics, in June adopted a resolution urging parents and churches to investigate whether their local schools are trying to indoctrinate children into accepting homosexuality and, if so, to pull them out of public schools.

Bruce Shortt, a sponsor of the SBC resolution, wrote a Dec. 20 column in WorldNetDaily.com contending that unless parents develop an "exit strategy" from public schools, a large percentage of their children's generation will cease to be Christian.

Shortt, a Houston attorney and leader in the Exodus Mandate movement promoting private home schooling, quoted a study recognizing that failure of Jewish families to provide their children with religious education is resulting in greater numbers of younger Jews who are estranged from Judaism. Citing studies by George Barna and Christian Smith, he said, the same could be said about Christianity.

Anthony Gordon and Richard Horowitz "make their point poignantly by asking Jewish parents, 'Will your grandchildren be Jews?'" Shortt said. "For Christians the relevant question is, 'Will your children be Christians.' Unless parents and pastors decide to change their priorities, the data from Barna and others demonstrate that the answer is clearly 'no' for 90 percent or more of Christian parents."

Heading into Baptist state conventions this fall, Exodus Mandate sent out a press release saying resolutions modeled after the SBC's call for investigation of homosexual activism in schools would be introduced in state and regional conventions covering 28 states.

While a number of conventions did not bring resolutions to a vote, at least eight passed resolutions related to either education or homosexual "activism."

The Tennessee Baptist Convention, according to the Baptist & Reflector, adopted a resolution offered "in the spirit and letter" of the SBC resolution urging parents to monitor and investigate educational influences on children.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention passed a resolution warning that "homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle."

The Kentucky resolution urged parents and churches to "research and monitor the entertainment and educational influences on children" and to "exercise their rights to investigate diligently the curricula, textbooks and programs in our community schools and to demand discontinuation of offensive material and programs."

It also called on Christian parents to "fully embrace their responsibility to make prayerful and

informed decisions regarding where and how they educate their children, whether they choose public, private or home schooling, to ensure their physical, moral, emotional and spiritual well-being, with a goal of raising godly men and women who are thoroughly equipped to live as fully devoted followers of Christ."

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, Missouri Baptist Convention, Northwest Baptist Convention and Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma all passed resolutions on parental involvement in education, according to news reports, while the Arkansas Baptist State Convention adopted a resolution countering "homosexual activism."

The Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware formed a committee to research how to make Maryland public-school curriculum more biblical and family friendly.

The South Carolina, Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia and Southern Baptists of Texas conventions all adopted resolutions supporting the teaching of intelligent design.

Bob Allen is managing editor of EthicsDaily.com.

Previous related stories:

2005 Year in Review

Sympathy for Advocates of Intelligent Design

Resolution Sponsor Says Anti-Public School Sentiment Growing Among Southern Baptists

Southern Baptists Call for Investigation of Public Schools

PCA Rejects Resolution Against Public Schools

Baptist Newspaper Calls for Education Resolution

Family Groups Endorse SBC Resolution

Resolutions Committee Called on to Report School Resolution

Southern Baptist Leaders Need to Be Honest About Public Schools

Baptist Press Silent on Homosexuality in Schools Resolution

BP Burned Before Over Public vs. Private Schools

Experts Offer Supporting Testimony for Resolution on Homosexuality and Schools

Proposed SBC Resolution Decries Public Schools as ‘Toxic’

Proposed SBC Resolution Calls for Investigation of Homosexuality in Schools

Evangelist Opposes Homosexual ‘Agenda’ in Schools

Resolution on Homosexuality in Schools Wins Endorsements

Proposed Resolution a Departure from History of SBC Support for Public Schools

[Read Full Article Here]

(AgapePress) - A Christian education resolution considered by the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this year -- and eventually passed in modified form -- seems to have ignited a fire under Christian leaders in several states. Associations of Southern Baptists in as many as 28 states have now introduced measures warning of pro-homosexual policies and material in public schools, and calling on parents to get involved in protecting their children from that influence.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In June 2005 he suggested in a column that "responsible" Southern Baptists across the country begin developing an "exit strategy" from the nation's public schools. That strategy, he wrote, would affirm both the "basic and ultimate responsibility of Christian parents to take charge of the education of their own children" and the "responsibility of churches to equip parents, support families, and offer alternatives."

Mohler was commenting on a proposed resolution soon to come before the denomination's Resolutions Committee. That resolution, authored by Baptist evangelist Voddie Baucham and attorney Bruce N. Shortt, alleged that the influence of homosexual activists in the public school arena has resulted in curricula and rules that promote the acceptance of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle.

The Baucham/Shortt resolution proposed that, should investigations by local churches unearth pro-homosexual material or involvement in their schools, Southern Baptist parents in the community should be informed of that and encouraged to "remove their children from the school district's schools immediately."

The SBC's 2005 Annual Meeting eventually approved a modified version of that resolution, encouraging Baptists to consider alternative forms of education for their children -- such as home-schooling or private or Christian schools -- if evidence of homosexual influence is discovered.

Evidently the Baucham/Shortt resolution struck a chord with Southern Baptists across the country, as it has apparently inspired Baptist leaders in 28 states to introduce similar resolutions. One of those is Roger Moran, a Southern Baptist leader from Missouri who also is a member of the denomination's executive committee.

"One of the great tragedies of American Christianity has been the near universal failure of its leaders to boldly proclaim the inherent dangers lurking within America's government-owned and controlled schools," Moran says in a press release. "But now, in the context of Southern Baptist life, that is beginning to change."

According to Moran, those in his denomination -- and no doubt across the spectrum of American Christendom -- Christians are beginning to understand that it "matters supremely" the worldview that is being foisted upon children in the public schools. He says that "secular" worldview has laid the foundation for a "new morality" that, with the help of liberal judges, has cleared the way for homosexual activists to recruit youngsters into the homosexual lifestyle.

And in light of Dr. Mohler's comments, resolution co-sponsor Bruce Shortt sees a "sea change" coming in how Christians in general view the nation's public schools.

"There can be no better evidence of this change than Dr. Mohler's statement that responsible Baptists should begin developing an exit strategy from the public schools," Shortt says. "Another clear sign of mounting awareness and concern ... is reflected by the fact that the number of states covered by Christian education resolutions has nearly doubled over last year."

And Dr. Baucham feels that Christians are carrying out the Great Commission by "rescuing" children from government-run schools -- particularly those from low-income or single-parent families, who he says are often most vulnerable to the messages being delivered by homosexual activists.

"Our churches need to intervene to provide those children with a Christian education," he says. "The mission field is not just overseas; it is right here. And this mission effort requires a more serious commitment than just handling out tracts or sharing a testimony."

According to Baucham, it is also an issue of accountability: "No passage in the Bible suggests that God is concerned about our churches having large sanctuaries or elaborately produced music. He will, however, hold us accountable for our stewardship of our children."

The group Exodus Mandate says most of the Christian education resolutions coming out of state SBC associations -- like the Baucham/Shortt resolution -- point out the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle, highlight the methods used by schools as they collaborate with homosexual activists, call for parents to investigate their local schools, and then suggest how parents can choose alternative forms of education for their children.

© 2005 AgapePress all rights reserved.

[Read Here]

By Bruce Shortt
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Many evangelicals were shocked last June when Dr. Albert Mohler, the Southern Baptist Convention's leading theologian, wrote that it is now time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from the public schools. But why should it have been shocking?

For years innumerable, journalists, activists and scholars have been chronicling the metastasizing pathologies of the public school system. Surely few today are wholly unaware that the government's schools have become foundries of ignorance and bad character. Surely few are wholly unaware that the government's schools are the nation's largest pusher of psychotropic drugs. Surely few are wholly unaware that violent crime and sexual abuse of students in the government's schools are far from uncommon. And surely few can be wholly unaware that the government's schools now incorporate curricula and programs that both are a threat to our children's physical and psychological health and are, in many instances, pornographic.

Moreover, our highly trained education professionals are not shy about informing any parent who questions, for example, the wisdom and necessity of teaching 6-year-olds about homosexual marriage that it is none of their business. And why should "educators" be reticent about making sure parents know their place? As the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals candidly stated in its recent Fields v. Palmdale decision, the power of the government schools has grown to the point that "parents have no constitutional right ... to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual, or otherwise, when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so." In other words, a child placed in a government school will be trained up as the bureaucrats, judges and special-interest groups who control the government's schools see fit.

If the parents of 1960 had been confronted with today's government school system, they would have immediately recognized it as child abuse and shut it down. Most of us today, however, gratefully accept the yard signs and bumper stickers handed out by the local schools and determinedly try to ignore what the schools are actually doing. We find comfort in our delusional beliefs that "our schools are different" or that "my child is salt and light." If we are forced to confront some of the uncomfortable facts about the government's schools, we nervously shuffle our feet and try to change the subject. Why? The reason is our need for self-deception.

Self-deception is a form of self-indulgence. It substitutes a comforting, but false, version of reality for the truth, all in the service of a subliminal desire to avoid changes in our lives that an honest appraisal of reality would require. But self-deception also protects itself by building a fortress – it erects crenellated battlements, excavates moats, and raises up ravelins that protect our comforting faux-reality by rendering us nearly impervious to evidence and argument. While all of us have indulged this vice, how much harm it does depends upon which uncomfortable reality we are seeking to avoid.

Over the last 60 years, Christians, leaders and laity alike, have deluded themselves by believing that we can provide our children with more than 14,000 hours of "seat-time" receiving a secular education in the government's schools during the course of 12 years, and that our children will be none the worse for it. And, like self-deceivers in all times and places, we refuse to notice the evidence to the contrary or respond to argument.

Recently George Barna reported that only 4 percent of our teens can be considered evangelical Christians, down from 10 percent in 1995. To be sure, an overwhelming majority of teens say they are "Christian," but their responses to a few simple questions concerning biblical doctrine clearly demonstrate that, despite what our children say, they are not. These findings aren't unique to Barna. The Nehemiah Institute's worldview surveys of Christian children, for example, have resulted in similar findings.

Similarly, Dr. Christian Smith, the lead researcher for the National Study of Youth and Religion, a large sociological survey of the religious beliefs of teens between 13 and 17, reaches many of the same conclusions regarding the religious life of teens. According to Dr. Smith, no matter what religion the surveyed youth professed, in general their actual religious outlook was what Dr. Smith characterizes as "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." This is a religious worldview featuring an undemanding, distant god, whose only commandment is to be "nice," and who doesn't become involved in anyone's life except when he is needed to take care of a problem. This religion, according to Smith, conceives of its god as "... a combination of a divine butler and a cosmic therapist." Rather than being commanded to take up his cross and follow Christ, the Moralistic Therapeutic Deist believes that "... the central goal in life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself." Unfortunately, this is not merely a problem with teens – increasing numbers of ostensibly Christian adults and some pastors hold these views in whole or in part.

Awareness of our failure to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is only now beginning to percolate into the consciousness of pastors and the broad Christian public. With this growing awareness, of course, come the obvious questions: "How is this happening, and what should we do?"

The answers to these questions, however, are quite straight forward. There is no such thing as "neutral" education. All education is religious and imparts some worldview or other. It simply happens that for generations Christians have been educating their children in a non-Christian worldview in the public schools. Consequently, why should we be surprised to learn that our children really aren't Christians when almost all of their education has been entrusted to the public school system? If we were to take a new computer and load it with just Windows and Excel, would you be surprised if it wouldn't do word processing? Yet, we have the utterly anomalous expectation that we can educate our children in a secular institution with a secular curriculum for 12 years and more and then expect them to be something better than nominal Christians.

As Christ points out, "A disciple is not greater than his teacher, but everyone when fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40). We have unthinkingly made an aggressively anti-Christian public school system the teacher of our children, and we should not be surprised that our children emerge from the public schools "like their teacher." If we want a different result, we must provide our children with a thoroughly Christian education – something that public schools are legally prohibited from providing.

But even if an emerging awareness of the truth manages to weaken the fortress of our collective self-deception – by casting down the ridiculous "but our schools are different" and "our children are salt and light" deceptions – the truth still faces a formidable battlement wall of irrelevant and ineffective proposed "solutions," whose real purpose is to allow the status quo to continue.

Are 70 percent or more of our children leaving church after they graduate from high school? The self-deceived Christian responds, "Let's train 10-year-olds to be evangelists so that there is at least one in every government school classroom!" Does research clearly establish that fewer than 10 percent of our teens who claim to be Christians in fact really are? The self-deceived Christian responds, "Let's start after-school Bible clubs!" Are our children successfully being indoctrinated with the view that homosexuality and promiscuity are acceptable behavior that can be pursued safely if you take the right precautions? The self-deceived Christian responds, "Let's fight to get abstinence included in the curriculum!" Do a majority of Christian teens believe that Jesus was a sinner? The self-deceived Christian responds, "Let's get a 'Bible as literature' course included as an elective in the high-school curriculum!"

None of this is new. The government schools' destructive influence on Christian and other children has been evident for at least two generations. Throughout that time, when confronted with the harmful consequences of our disobedience in the education of our children, the self-deceived Christian has responded with conspicuously ineffective, silly ideas that range from praying around flagpoles to Christian "lock-ins." Generation after generation of Christian parents and pastors have studiously averted their eyes as the government schools have become more antagonistic to Christianity and have more aggressively "defined deviance downward." As a result, generation by generation our children, families, churches, and culture have slipped further and further into the muck of postmodern paganism.

What have we been trying to avoid? Responsibility and change. As parents we fear that if we acknowledge that we are obligated to provide our children with an education that imparts a thoroughly Christian worldview our "personal time" might be in jeopardy, not to mention the larger house, the longer vacation, and the newer car. Most pastors and Christian leaders fear conflict, possible unemployment, and reduced giving if they dare to question the wisdom of educating our children in the "little whited sepulcher" down the street.

Not surprisingly, because of our multi-generational failure to be faithful in the education of our children, we find that many of our churches are rapidly beginning to resemble one of three things: "Heaven's waiting room," a Sunday morning karaoke club with a 20-minute pep talk thrown in, or a spiritual Starbuck's for the "uber-hip" 20- and 30-year-olds who have witlessly embraced the postmodernism fed to them by "educators" and the media.

On those rare occasions when our self-deception's ravelin has been seized, its moat has been bridged, and its main battlements have given way, we find there remains a castle keep defended by a final deception – that how we educate our children doesn't really matter all that much spiritually. Of course, this is obviously untrue. Not only does the Bible tell us that we are to train up our children in the way they should go all of the time, it also tells us why – we are what we think and that we will reflect what we have been taught. Not surprisingly, the "fruit" of our current educational habits also show that how we educate our children matters profoundly.

Years of research by the Nehemiah Institute demonstrate that children educated in Christian schools, for example, score higher on Christian worldview surveys than their government-school counterparts, and that children attending Christian schools with a Christian worldview emphasis do extremely well. Similarly, Dr. Brian Ray's research shows that Christian homeschooled children retain their faith better than children whose parents have institutionalized them in government schools. Nevertheless, the self-deceived Christian refuses to hear and responds by claiming that the influence of their Christian home will somehow overcome the influence of the government's schools.

Interestingly, a careful study by Orthodox Jews strongly confirms that how a child is educated clearly trumps all other factors with respect to whether a child retains his faith into adulthood.

The authors of the study, Anthony Gordon and Richard Horowitz, spent years researching the effects of educating Jewish children in Orthodox Jewish day-schools. Their findings demonstrate the pivotal role that parochial education plays in the religious formation of a child: "... multiple research studies have come to the same conclusion: Within three generations there will be almost no trace of young American Jews who are currently not being raised in Orthodox homes with a complete Jewish Day School education ... the less time-intensive forms of Jewish education have almost no effect on intermarriage." [emphasis added]

How is it that giving Jewish children an education based on the worldview of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings has such a profound effect? Gordon and Horowitz find that the child so educated is equipped to answer the ultimate question, "Why be Jewish?":

Orthodox parents and Orthodox day schools seem to give their children enough good reasons for staying Jewish that even when the children are grown and have the option to intermarry and disappear from Jewish life, virtually none of them do. Somehow, they reach adulthood with solid answers to the question of "Why be Jewish?"

Moreover, as Gordon and Horowitz point out, a less committed approach to the training up of children leads to catastrophe:

There is finally a dawning recognition that Jewish continuity and survival cannot be sustained in what has been an American lifestyle devoid of serious Jewish education and Jewish living. One might have believed in the 1950's or 1960's that it was sufficient to have minimal Jewish exposure. Examples of such exposure includes simply to be a member of a Temple, have Jewish friends, play basketball at the Jewish Center and live in a generally Jewish neighborhood to ensure that one's children would be Jewish. However, we now have the data and studies to know that children who are left without an education leading to deep Jewish beliefs and practices have little chance of having Jewish descendants.

No less than Christians, Jews are enjoined to train up their children in the way they should go all of the time. But, also like Christians, relatively few do. Moreover, just as our disobedience in the education of our children has weakened Christianity, Jewish leaders are concerned about the loss of future Jewish generations as their children become more estranged from Judaism as a result of their parents' failure to provide their children with a Jewish education and intermarriage.

Not surprisingly, then, at virtually every point in the Gordon-Horowitz study, we could substitute the word "Christian" for "Jew" and the result would be an accurate picture of the situation facing Christians today. As Christian Smith, George Barna and others have pointed out, our children neither know what Christianity is nor can they answer the question "Why be Christian?"

Gordon and Horowitz make their point poignantly to Jews by asking Jewish parents, "Will your grandchildren be Jews?" For Christians the relevant question is, "Will your children be Christians." Unless parents and pastors decide to change their priorities, the data from Barna and others demonstrate that the answer is clearly "no" for 90 percent or more of Christian parents. Do you care? If you do, you and your church will follow Dr. Mohler's advice and begin developing an exit strategy from the public schools today. Now.

Bruce Shortt is the author of "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools," available from ShopNetDaily.