By Bob Beanblossom
7 June 2016
It seems to me that Christian parents, like others, have been increasingly delegating the ‘raising’ of their children to others: the school, the coach, the church. It began after the war (WW II) when Dad got a good job and Mom continued to work so that they could give their kids ‘all the things they never had.’ Baby sitters became surrogate mothers. All was well with a booming economy. The public school system was producing well rounded, well educated graduates using a system developed early-on in our country. The Bible was still in the classroom and the Pledge was recited every morning. If we had been paying attention, we would have noticed that the universities were becoming more secular. But we didn’t notice.
Somewhere along the line, economic boom became economic bust, and Mom had to keep her job just to ‘make ends meet.’ Prayer and the Bible were kicked out of school and secular humanists (and other varieties) became predominant in the schools and universities.
‘New’ educational theories invaded the schools and traditional Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic (with History thrown in for good measure), became something else entirely. The basics were altered, submerged, and simply eliminated in the mad rush to include all the ‘necessary’ additional social programs and expanded emphasis on sports. School Moms became Soccer Moms, and junior played sports year around–while the literacy rate, problem solving abilities, and basic employment skills declined. Revisionism in all subjects was and is rampant, but is especially so in history. America the Proud became a source of confusion as the taught ‘facts’ of historic leaders and events changed in constantly updated texts. What you learned in grade school was no longer ‘true’ in high school. Situational ethics replaced standards of behavior. Respect for teachers took a major nose dive. We now have teachers and administrators who grew up in this confusion teaching the next generations. Relativism and subjectivism– situational ethics–are taught as employability declines and crime rates increase.
And the church rolled on. Churches grew and adapted to ‘meet he changing needs’ of the community–to compete with an increasingly slick entertainment industry. Weekend trips to ‘the lake’ increasingly replaced church attendance. Why not–the lake was far more entertaining than sitting thru even the best entertainment oriented church services with casually dressed ministers who talked of peace and love, Worship Leaders and their cheerleader choruses (same verse over and over). Back in the church, the Bible and evangelism gave way to social programs. Any church worth its salt had a gym and food-prep/dining facilities. ‘Fellowship’ replaced worship and Bible study. Small group study using the books of popular writers replaced Biblical preaching. On stage, the programs tried to keep pace with current entertainment as dress standards became casual and song leaders were replaced by stage managers and choreographers (by whatever titles), high-tech lighting, video displays, and bands.
Back at school, athletic programs continued to grow in importance while physical education fell by the wayside. Entry ages into sports leagues dropped as seasons stretched, giving rise to ‘soccer moms’ who tried to keep pace with impossible schedules. Education lost importance proportionately and the results were reflected in various measuring instruments. The solution for politicians and education associations was to keep on keeping on while throwing more money at the problem. New theories of education, new programs, and a plethora of new subjects supplanted basic ‘reading, writing, and arithmetic.’ Scores continue to decline as employability follow. Costs continue to rise. Classroom teachers still purchase much of their classroom supplies out-of-pocket. Diversity training replaced knowledge and problem solving as the focus of education. Contraception and abortions could be had without parental consent or knowledge, but not an aspirin. No child was left behind as incentives to achieve went away and mandatory graduation rates assured that the mediocre was acceptable. Stars still rose–in both students and teachers–and high achievers stand out, but are more the result of other factors than the system.
Many other factors contribute to the declining educational levels of our children. When we do pay attention, we attack the symptoms and neglect the causes. We blame ‘them’ for our children’s lack of responsibility and achievement. Destruction of the family is discussed now and then as a contributing factor to the problem, but without understanding or intent to seek remedies. Instead we support non- and anti-family social activists as our whole culture is changed. Common symptoms include now-ism (I want it now), spectator-ism, recreation vs. re-creation, and endemic (maybe pandemic) bored-ism. Causes are more complex, and we don’t like complexity. The world’s most complex problems are solved in a half hour on TV (with commercials) and in an hour and a half at the movies. Why make things difficult?
As Christians we have a responsibility to raise our children to become responsible, productive citizens who live moral lives in a Christian context, hopefully accepting Christ as their savior in the process. I suggest that we must quit separating ‘Christian’ from ‘non-Christian’ activities, including education, and understand that; 1) God demands and deserves our entire life, and 2) a Christian walk includes all of our activities all of the time.
We have two intertwined paths to do this. One is a formal Christian education, and the other is an informal one. An oversimplified distinction between the two is this: in a formal Christian education, the student must needs go where the teacher leads; in an informal one, the student is free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. It seems that the Scriptures suggest a lifetime of the latter interspersed by periods of the former, satisfied outside of a school setting by preaching and teaching by devout and godly men and women. The student must be an active participant rather than a passive spectator. There must be a relationship between the teacher and the taught. The optimum ratio between the two, I suppose, is a measure of Christian maturity, with independent inquiry and progress suggesting increasing maturity.
Christian education today, both formal and informal, seems to be focused on the mechanics instead of the results. It is intent upon building nominal cookie-cutter Christians rather than developing thinking and reasoning abilities through prayerful inquiry and research. Having adopted the worldly sound-bite mentality, subjects are bundled into neat little packages to be presented within a given timeframe with no room for savoring and exploring–no room for in-depth learning–little encouragement for real questions. As an aside, all extra-biblical information must be checked for accuracy relative to Scripture. Facts must be separated from opinion, keeping the facts and measuring opinion against the standard of Scripture. Where Scripture is silent in a particular area, direction is taken from the overall message of the Word. Evolution cannot be supported by Scripture. Fossils cannot be discarded because of Scripture.
While we decry the failures within public education, Christian educators clearly mimic their techniques. We teach by rote rather than by encouraging the natural curiosity that is essential to learning and comprehension, to developing knowledge that leads to wisdom. As we age a bit and the lessons become repetitious, we settle into the feedback mode–questions intended to encourage thought are most often answered with pious platitudes as the respondent retreats to their carefully programmed data files. The innocence and curiosity of the child has been lost, and the growth of discernment and wisdom with it.
We discourage excursions into views that are contrary to ours while lambasting others for doing the same from their different viewpoint. I am not suggesting compromising fundamental values in any way, but rather that we learn about the world we live in that we may live in the world that God has given us, the world we have desecrated by sin. Our children live in a secular world where anti-Christian sentiment is growing, and (with some basis) we are labeled as anti-science, anti-progress. The ongoing exodus of these young people from the church indicates that we are not equipping them to deal with the ‘outside world’ from a Christian perspective. They don’t have the tools to use them selves or to defend their faith. We live in relative isolation and are distressed when a co-worker makes an anti-Christian remark.
Study, as enjoined by Scripture, has been replaced by learning factoids while achieving little understanding of immediate or larger contexts. We have sound bites, and don’t know how to find or use information to solve problems. We use social media to lambast others we might disagree with using unchecked, unsupported, and inflammatory sloganized picture posts. We have allowed ourselves to be assimilated into that mindless world of sound bites, a hint of real information surrounded by opinion and commercials. I’ve been told that the reason for this tight packaging and snappy delivery is so our students–of all ages–won’t get bored.
A.W. Tozer noted that he once took three years to preach through the Gospel of John–with no indication that he lost his crowd or their attention. Are we so different from Tozer’s crowds (he died in 1963) that neither we nor our children can stand anything of substance? If so, is it because our preachers and teachers don’t (or can’t) plumb the depths of our never-changing God?
We of the laity seem to have assigned the Christian education of ourselves and our children–our pursuit of God and our lives within His world–to the preacher and Sunday School teacher for a couple hours a week. There we, as pious spectators, listen enough to have something to say about the preacher or teacher over lunch. Adding to our piety, we might dutifully read our Bibles through each year, skipping those passages that bore us, and never as a family activity.
Even in our conservative churches a myriad of bustling activities and ‘fellowships” frequently encroach upon programmed time set for religious education.
What if our churches placed preaching and teaching of God’s Word ahead of all other activities, thus teaching not only by word, but by example.
What if sermons and lessons were delivered after prayer and fasting, with the unction of the Holy Spirit working through the ministers and teachers? What if they were prepared not only spiritually, but factually by ongoing in-depth study of the Word and related historical and scientific information? What if they as teachers and we as students were driven to continually expand the breadth and depth of our knowledge of Scripture, and from every available source, the life and times of Biblical characters and events–all given to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, not our own understanding? What if the leadership of the Holy Spirit was more important than time and lesson plans?
What if they were driven and supported by congregations and class members who, above else, hungered and thirsted after righteousness?
What if each of us, when confronted with the unknowable, unabashedly bowed in our ignorance and cried with Ezekiel, “O Lord God, Thou knowest!”
Christian education for ourselves and our children both begins and ends in the Bible. But is should include the world around us. With the failure of public schools to perform, it is incumbent upon us to fill in the gaps, correct the wrongs, and instill the rights. This requires us as parents and grandparents to continue our education and to intervene on a regular basis in the education of our children. Fundamentals (reading, writing, math, and history) must be learned and practiced, thinking and reasoning abilities taught and exercised , and vocational skills developed. This can only happen when these things become the priority in our lives and we pass on those priorities to our children.
All of this takes time and interest: dedication. Whether we send our children to public or religious schools, secular or Christian colleges, the burden still falls on us as parents and grandparents. It is a bit like a church that supports missionaries around the world: its primary field is still right outside the church doors. It is like that with our children: God has given them into our care. With that great gift comes an awesome responsibility. We can only lead when we are worthy. We are only worthy when we are His follower.