Chapter 3

The Standard Model of Childhood Education

Government Schools: Training Grounds of Democracy

As obvious as many of the problems with the public schools are, one might think that talking about their evils is akin to beating a dead horse. I wish that were so. Considering the number of Americans, many of whom claim the title “Christian,” who continue to place their children in these schools, this is not the case. The majority of Christians still view the public schools as a viable option for their children’s education, if perhaps not the ideal choice. In any case, they argue, it is certainly not something God would think important enough to curse someone over. If you believe this, I have some bad news for you.

God will one day call upon us to give an account of everything we did with what He entrusted us with. Of all the many blessings God gives us, what is more precious than our children? Contrary to modern belief, children are property. But they are property of God (as are we all, as is everything), not the property of their parents. God will judge us as parents based on how we carried out our responsibilities towards the children He gave us. “And, ye fathers, provoke [appoint] not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Entrusting our children to the government does not fulfill this mandate.

Do not misunderstand me. God can raise up leaders and godly people from anywhere He chooses. The public school system does not hinder His plans. God can raise a new generation from a field of dry bones: “Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live” (Ezek. 37:5). Both Moses and Daniel survived a state school education. The public school, despite its many, many crimes, has never plucked anyone from God’s hand.

What is at stake is a great reward. God, in every area of life, gives commands. Follow these commands, and God will bless you. To violate them is to bring judgement. The commands to parents are of vital importance. Moses and Daniel did survive state school education, and came out quite well in spite of them, but nowhere does the Bible set forth their education as a model for His people to emulate.

A couple of definitions are in order. I shall sometimes use the commonly used term “public school” to refer to the state or government schools. This term is not very truthful; “public” implies that somehow these schools serve the so-called common good or answer to the taxpayers. This is not the case. Nevertheless, this is the common usage.

“Christian school” will refer to private schools at least purporting to teach elements of the Christian faith. In reality, almost all of these would properly be called “church schools” or “parochial schools,” in that they are church-operated and controlled, and have as their priority the advancement of the institutional church—usually a particular institutional church or denomination.

Whatever you call them, state, government, or public schools are often said to be “failing.” Such a statement stands on a false premise. For them to be failing would mean that the public schools are not producing the product they wish to produce.

I call the statist school system the “Standard Model of Childhood Education” for good reason. Even though we have seen a tremendous proliferation of Christian and private schools in the United States in recent decades, still ninety percent of our nation’s children will attend a public school during their childhood. Anyone who does not place their child in a public school is deviating from the norm to a considerable extent, though most of those children who do not attend public schools are in theologically weak evangelical Christian schools or secular private schools.

People seem to have an amazing belief in the altruism of our civil government. They act as if the state would do something, operating a school for example, with anyone or anything’s best interests at heart other than its own. This has never been the case. The limited government set up by America’s founding fathers was a necessary evil, a means to an end. Now government is seen as the end, and state schools are a very capable means towards that end. Far from being failures, public schools are doing exactly what they were intended to do, albeit perhaps more horrifically than some of its founders might have envisioned.

The bottom line is this: anything funded by the government is designed to benefit the government. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, a particularly appropriate maxim as millions of presumably “free” lunches are given out to children by federal programs each day. The government does not spend thousands and thousands of dollars on every student every year in its programs without getting something in return. That something is malleable subjects to perpetuate its power. The state offers cradle-to-grave security: it will only cost you your life.

Government schools are training grounds for that highest form of society—democracy. The average American sees nothing wrong with this. The emphasis in modern education is on “cooperation” and “problem-solving” (i.e., working together and putting aside differences for the collective good of society—as determined by the ruling elite). Just turn on any educational children’s television show. Tolerance and cooperation at all costs are the highest virtues. Americans have been brain-washed to such an extent that democracy, what Thomas Jefferson said was “mob rule,” is declared by virtually everyone to be our civilization’s most defining and noblest characteristic. Ronald Reagan, in a Veteran’s Day speech which I’m sure brought a tear to the eye of patriotic Americans, said, “Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” Our politicians simultaneously claim that they act in the name of the people, and yet know better than the people themselves what is good. “Democracy” is a euphemism for the totalitarian state which actually exists. It is mob rule where the mob’s will is determined by the government.

Government schools excel at preparing our children to be citizens in such a state. Moral and mental capacities are reduced to their lowest common denominator. Children are taught: “We are all human beings, so why should we not get along and work together? And since human beings are just another kind of animal, there is no place for arbitrary absolute morals.” The teachers in public schools are the facilitators of this moral sabotage. Having been brainwashed themselves, they are servants of the state, not of the parents or even of the children.

A common misconception is that public schools are anti-religion, or somehow separate from religion. Hardly. Civil religion (a particularly popular flavor of humanism) is the order of the day. That being said, many other religions are quite complementary to this civil religion, or at least do not threaten it. For this reason, in public schools you will find celebrations of pagan festivals, weeks dedicated to Earth Day, yoga and meditation, and many other religious elements. None of these contradict the basic foundation of humanism—all are welcome in the schoolhouse.

In fact, the only religion you will find truly expelled from state schools is orthodox Christianity. Pluralistic Rome tolerated all religions except Christianity too, and for the same reason: true Christianity demands that God come first. Ultimate allegiance for the Christian is to God alone: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29b). Surely, the Christian may be called to cooperate to an extent with pagan authorities, but never to a degree which God does not allow. This is unacceptable to the civil government. For them, religious faith is fine only as long as it does not interfere with the state’s goals. Even Christianity, so long as it is confined to our churches and our personal lives (an area of ever-decreasing size), is acceptable to our civil government. This arrangement should not be acceptable to Christians.

False Virtue

Morality and goodness are impossible apart from God. Both mainstream Christians and humanists deny this, at least in practice if not always in actual words. There are a multitude of character development curricula on the market, some which even come in either faith-based or secular varieties, depending on the environment in which they will be used. These curricula espouse the belief that with the proper education and indoctrination, civilized and moral children will be produced, whether God is involved or not.

The truth is that “virtues” such as kindness lose all meaning when taken out of their Biblical context. For example, biblically, the “kindest” thing we could do for a convicted murderer and his potential future victims would be for civil government to carry out capital punishment. Allowing a murderer or rapist to go free might be showing kindness according to humanists (a group including many Christians), but not according to God. Biblical definitions are a vital necessity. Most Christians do not have a good enough grasp of theology to know what something as basic as honesty is, biblically speaking.

In any case, most people assume that a person who possesses various vague “values” like compassion, integrity, patience, and fairness (all defined apart from Scripture, of course) is a good person, a moral person. (How many conservatives claim to support “family values”? What are those? Why?) Scripture says differently. There are no abstract characteristics which make a good person. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). Any holiness or morality we may possess is a product of God’s sanctification—apart from God, we are nothing.

Morals and values are taught in the public schools. But they are taught relativistically, apart from God’s absolute Word. Indeed, the morals mentioned often have no counterpart in Scripture. You will have a hard time finding in the Bible commands for us to have “tolerance” for all men under all circumstances. Of course, there is no tolerance for Christians or any who would be intolerant of these humanist virtues. However, Christians who deny the law of God are not prepared to resist these teachings.

A fool might suppose that lacking any education in Christianity’s moral law, a person raised in state schools would be able to fornicate, steal, and otherwise go along with modern society’s mores without any problems or guilt—a “healthy animal,” so to speak. But you can no more violate God’s law without consequences than you can the law of gravity. Romans 2:15 tells us that God’s law is written on our hearts. Guilt—along with terrible, terrible problems—still proceed from transgression of the law, whether or not a person is conscious of that law or its consequences. That children suffer from the consequences of their sins does not bother the civil government. A morally-compromised, guilt-ridden citizen is easier for the collective to control. A self-absorbed person who does not stand for anything will do nothing to oppose the aims of those in control.

The vaunted neutrality of the public schools is a myth. Their overriding goal is to further the interests of the state. Education inescapably includes indoctrination. The question is: whose doctrine? God’s doctrine? Or man’s (whether it be the church’s or the state’s)? The answer reveals the true god of the school. Education, like every area of life, is inescapably religious. There is no school that does not teach religion. Christians, most of whom already worship a false god in the form of the institutional church (whatever flavor they might prefer—Baskin-Robbins has nothing on our list of denominations), are ill-equipped to do battle with civil religion. As Allan Bloom said, “Every educational system has a moral goal that it tries to attain and that informs its curriculum. It wants to produce a certain kind of human being.” The “kind of human being” the public school wants to produce is a state-worshiping drone. And too many of God’s people are willing to meekly work in the ant pile and serve another god.

The State as Parent

Many of what our ancestors would consider the most outlandish of our modern day perversions are accepted without question by almost everyone. It is taken for granted that it is the state’s prerogative to make decisions involving our health and safety, to decide where and when our children will go to school, and to regulate our private businesses to the nth degree (for example, it is a felony in the state of Florida to practice interior decorating without a license). The perversion of compulsory attendance has been necessary for the government schools’ triumph.

For much of American history, it would have been considered odd that anyone besides a child’s parent could force a child to attend school. Not that children were not educated, but education was a a parental responsibility, and it was not synonymous with “schooling.” It is beyond my scope here to give a history of compulsory schooling, but suffice it to say that compulsory attendance has been so successful that it is taken for granted today. In fact, compulsory attendance in government schools has been so successful that the vast majority of parents continue to bring their children to public schools even now that other alternatives exist.

In many, many ways, the United States of America is less of a “Big Brother” and more of a parent, albeit a not-very-affectionate parent with less than selfless motivation. Doesn’t the state provide income and food to millions of Americans, both those on welfare and those it employs? Does it not provide education? Doesn’t it provide “free” lunches and healthcare to millions of school children each day? Does it not ensure the safety of its citizens, tell them they can’t eat trans fats, and talk to them about how bad cigarettes are? This is the state attempting to function in a parental capacity. But the state makes a very poor parent.

Weakening real family bonds and transferring allegiance to the state is all a part of the game for the public schools. It is harder to make a person with strong family allegiances go along with the crowd. Since strong families are a threat to totalitarianism, strong families must be eliminated. Compulsory attendance makes this possible. Children are forced to spend time with their new family: their brother and sisters in democracy!

Freedom of speech and religion for the general populace means little when the state and its servants have already determined religion, culture, and values for the children they have brought up from infancy. It matters not if the older generations rebel if the younger generations have already been captured. Christianity’s foes know better than most Christians the importance of the little children. This is a battle for the minds, souls, and allegiances of the young. Weak families do nothing to stem the tide of humanism.

A major strategy for weakening the biblical family is to turn children against their parents. This isn’t that hard to do, considering that children (and people in general) are naturally rebellious towards authority, especially godly authority. The public school does its best to tear down fathers and mothers in the eyes of their children. Telling kids that the religion taught in their home is false, that creation is nonsense and evolution is true, that their parents’ concept of right and wrong is bigoted and outdated—all of this takes a heavy toll. Children are taught that they have evolved beyond their parents’ morality and customs. To be part of the future, they must disregard the past.

Child Abuse

Children are encouraged to be informers on their parents, to report them for drugs, criminal activity, and the like, but especially for child abuse. Every society has its anathemas, and “child abuse,” as it has been defined, is one of ours. The parent has very few allies in this area. Teachers, doctors, childcare inspectors, and social workers all fall into the category of “mandated reporters” when it comes to turning in those they suspect of child abuse. Childcare workers in government classes are instructed to turn in parents to the authorities for even the slightest suspicion of possible child abuse—better safe than sorry! I myself have taken such classes and heard the instructor in dead earnestness tell the class that reporting a parent for child abuse based on a feeling or hunch is doing the family a favor. After all, even if turns out there isn’t any actual abuse, at least now the government is there to help to make sure there isn’t any in the future. And isn’t that a good thing?

Parents who place their children in public schools and secular daycares are particularly susceptible to this risk. There you can be certain that the people taking care of your offspring really believe the stuff they are taught in the government classes. For them, turning you in to the Department of Children and Families is just doing the right thing. The state’s brainwashing is quite effective.

The reader at this point may think that I am in favor of child abuse. Far from it. It’s all about definitions. How you or most readers of this book would define child abuse is quite different from how a government child care expert or public school teacher would. The redefinition of words is very much a part of the current struggle. Surely only a monster would disagree with the state intervening in cases where children are being abused! And since child abuse is so horrible, any and all means of combating it are justified. Labels are very powerful in our society.

It is the unfortunate truth that legally, “child abuse” can be defined as almost anything. The statutes on the books are so vaguely worded as to allow for a vast range of circumstances to constitute abuse or neglect. In actual legal proceedings, the court and prosecution would most likely rely on an expert to tell them what abuse is. This you do not want.

“Child abuse” has many varied forms. If no physical signs of child abuse can be found, there is always “mental child abuse.” Did someone harm the child’s self-esteem? Perhaps the stifling home atmosphere has created a “failure to thrive” in the child. Potentially, anything in the home environment that could prevent the child from becoming a “self-actualized” individual can be called abuse. Prominent atheists have made no secret of their belief that religious (Christian) instruction for young children constitutes child abuse. I have encountered numerous government child care experts who agree. These experts and investigators have a seething, barely-contained hatred for Christianity, so it should not be surprising that Christian families are terribly discriminated against in child abuse cases.

The agency responsible for handling child abuse complaints in my state, Florida, is known as the “Department of Children and Families.” Having seen this agency’s agents in action and what they do to families, I can safely say that the Department of Children and Families has as much to do with helping children and families as the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984 had to do with protecting truth. The government is not your friend, and you will not receive a fair hearing.

It is not an understatement to say that child abuse law and the various child protection agencies are some of the godly family’s most vicious foes today. A child abuse allegation will show you just how few state-recognized rights you have as a parent. The more your children are around these bleeding heart mandated reporters, the higher your risk. All the more reason to get your children away from public schools and humanist childcare settings immediately and permanently.

The Collective

As I previously mentioned, state schools prepare children for life in a democracy, what Hillary Clinton famously called “a village.” The village is characterized by common denominator morality. Everyone must sink to a common level. Brotherhood is on the basis of our fallen humanity, our oneness as humans, not God’s covenant. The highest virtue of the collective is tolerance—tolerance for all but the intolerant.

While values for the village are ostensibly provided by the village people themselves, in actuality, it is the state and its elite who dictate morality. These values are designed to benefit the collective, not the church, the family, the individual, or any other entity. In the collective, society is everything. All public education is geared towards the creation of people able to function in democratic society, people who can put aside all differences and work together for the “good” of the collective. We’ve been indoctrinated with these ideas to an incredible degree.

For such a democratic society to function, widespread literacy is not necessary. In fact, it is positively destructive. Reading tends to cause divisions, and can lead to other destructive behaviors such as thinking. Those who can read can more easily get news and other information from non-government-approved sources. Above all, literate people are able to read the Bible, which must be avoided at all costs for common denominator morality to prevail! Literate citizens do not do well in the hive mind, as a rule. It is not a failure of the public schools that they do not turn out people who can read—it is one of their most fantastic achievements. One of the greatest reasons Grace Community Schools is discriminated against by government agencies (the top reason would be our Bible teaching) is our phenomenally-effective reading program. It goes against everything the democratic early childhood education regime stands for. They don’t want children who can read.

Both Grace Community Schools and the public schools are extremely successful in their respective reading goals. The difference is that we teach children how to read, they teach them how to not read. At best, public school literacy enables its end results to browse through the grocery store periodicals or pornography section, things which do not pose a hazard to the government or its goals. The readers of Lowrider magazine are not a threat to the prevailing social order.

In a democratic society, everyone (except for the government/scientific elite, of course) is on an equal footing. The hardworking responsible father and husband is to be esteemed no higher than the unemployed gigolo down at the club. Petty differences such as whether or not abortion is moral, or whether it is permissible to steal one person’s money and give it to another are to be set aside. The pedophile is not to be shunned, he’s just misunderstood. No reason we can’t all work together for the good of humanity! Democracy requires the mass leveling of mankind, and leveling always means going downward.

To that end, “peer relations” (i.e., friendships outside of the family with people of similar age) are stressed as the most important relationships. No honor is given to father and mother, or their wisdom. The value of family relationships in general is downplayed. Not that anyone at the public schools or the childcare regulatory agencies will admit to this. Early learning agencies and the Department of Children and Families regularly put out propaganda materials emphasizing how much they are trying to “strengthen families” with their programs. They are “pro-family” all the way. At least that’s what the parent brochures say. They say the same thing about reading.

On a related topic it seems that there are more “family films” being produced than ever before. A trend I have noticed in these films is the unannounced redefinition of family to mean whomever one chooses to associate with. It makes sense: children are encouraged to choose their own friends, their own religion, even their own gender, why not their own family members?

The Other “Drug Problem”

Always present on lists of problems with the public school is the “drug problem.” To be sure, there is a problem with illegal drugs in the public schools (and many Christian and private schools). There is another drug problem that not everyone is familiar with: Ritalin and similar legally-prescribed, mind-altering drugs.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. While being indoctrinated by programs like D.A.R.E., and told that “winners don’t use drugs,” legal and all but compulsory drug use in the public schools is rampant—and doctor-approved! The fact is, if you send your child to a public school, he or she will be surrounded by drug users. You might even be coerced into making your child be one of these users.

Ritalin (aka “kiddie coke,” among other nicknames) has characteristics extremely similar to speed, and is the most commonly prescribed drug for the treatment of ADD, ADHD, and similar “disorders.” On top of its “legitimate” use as medicine to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorders, its low cost and easy availability has created an entire black market, and all that entails. When a single pill that can sell for up to $20 costs about $1 with a prescription, there is going to be a problem. The public school staff members, not generally known for being bastions of morality, are often responsible for distributing drugs to students. As you can imagine, there is “slippage.” But even when conscientiously dispensed, controlling masses of kids using chemicals is not a good thing. But it’s standard operating procedure in the schoolhouse.

The hypocrisy of telling children not to seek drugs as a solution to their problems while insisting that they cannot control themselves without Ritalin is obvious. The message sent to children is clear; why seek God’s help and develop self-control when they have a magical pill to take care of the problem? Their behavior is not their fault, it’s a medical condition. This kind of excuse-making and stunting of moral-development follows people their entire lives unless God intervenes.

I was shocked the first time I talked to an adult about his ADHD problem. He was in his mid-twenties, still taking prescription medication for treatment, and apparently it “ran in the family.” The symptoms he described did not seem like anything uncommon to most if not all people. Easily distracted while doing tedious work? Difficulty focusing when the television was on? He had been conditioned to rely on drugs to overcome this “medical condition” since childhood. I have since talked to others, and am no longer surprised by such confessions. It is to be expected in our culture of flight from responsibility. But back to the children.

What is often the case is that parents are told by the school and the school-endorsed doctors that there is no other option but to medicate. Indeed, parents are made to feel by doctors and the school that refusing medication would make them negligent parents. We frequently see these “medicated” children in our afterschool program (although the age at which these mind-altering drugs is prescribed continues to creep ever lower).

They enter our Grace Community School buildings in a very tranquil, mostly well-behaved manner. Sometimes they don’t take their daily pill. There is usually a marked difference with these students on such a day. It is hard to tell how much of the changed behavior is the result of the drug’s absence, and how much is the children doing what is expected of them; after all, they have been told over and over that they will act out if they do not have their “medicine.”

I must tell you that these drugs do seem to work, if by “work” you mean that the drugs succeed in sedating the children. Children on Ritalin and similar drugs often appear to be in a zombie-like state, not caring about much of anything. Of course a veterinary tranquilizer would do the same. From the perspective of the schools, drugging children like this makes perfect sense. A school is faced with the task of controlling hundreds of undisciplined children from frequently broken homes who have been raised with no moral guidelines, who will not ever be taught any kind of responsibility or self-control.

What else are the schoolhouse social engineers going to do?

Socialization

One of the most commonly expressed “concerns” people have about homeschooling is the supposed lack of “socialization.” The premise for this concern is that, apparently, children who are not taken from their parents and exposed to large groups of peers from diverse homes and backgrounds on a daily basis will turn into introverted recluses unable to function in society. The myth of socialization is a persistent one. But socialization is a particularly poor reason to choose a public school education.

It has been pounded into the heads of parents by childcare experts that this “socialization” is necessary for children to grow up into healthy, full-functioning individuals. Otherwise, children will not be well-adjusted! To an extent, this is true. Socialization is a key part of the public school’s child-adjustment process. However, having your child “adjusted” by these educators is not a good thing. Coming back to the emphasis on democracy, this socialization helps to level the morals of the population. Children from Christian homes will not have their morality improved by spending time with children from non-Christian homes. As my pastor is fond of saying, “If you stick a white glove in the mud, the mud does not get glovey.”

The socialization available in the public schools (and it must be admitted, at most churches and Christian schools) should be avoided by Christian families at all costs. Godly socialization comes primarily from the family. Showing kindness to those outside of the covenant does not mean that our children need to be best friends with children from non-Christian homes, or even kids from Christian families who are still bad influences. Children will not benefit from association with morally inferior peers! With this emphasis on peer socialization, is it any wonder that fornication, teen pregnancy, and drug use is at an all-time high in our country?

Once upon a time, protection of a child’s sexual purity until marriage was a primary priority of parents. A person cannot honestly claim the same about the very vast majority of today’s parents. Christian parents, who should know better, or at least care, are no better. A 2003 report from the National Association to Combat Teen Pregnancy found that one out of every five children has sex before the age of fifteen—I am sure it is higher now. Yet parents still have no problem with sleepovers; they show no initiative to chaperone children on dates; they don’t even supervise them in their own homes.

Why would you place your child in an institution that teaches them that all sexual relations and perversions are good, regardless of the marriage covenant or God’s very specific rules (e.g., Leviticus 18)? Why would you allow them to hang out after school with children from families which are lax about such matters, or to visit the homes of children from families who trust their children without careful supervision? How fornication happens is no big mystery. Kids receive education on how to have sex at school, and then have opportunity to practice what they’ve learned in each other’s homes. Trusting your child around other children and with other families is the worst thing you could do.

The typically small families prevalent today deprive children of the wholesome social interactions possible in a large family. Without brothers, sisters, and cousins of all ages to be friends with, our children have lost something important. Family socialization is different from traditional school socialization in that it is not unnaturally segregated by age and ability. A four-year-old who only plays with four-year-olds is going to be immature compared to a child who plays with older siblings and cousins. Kids need role models. Even as adults, we do not benefit from association with peers as much as we do from being around people who are better than ourselves at something. Younger children learn better by watching, talking, and playing with and being taught by older children. Older children benefit by learning responsibility when they assist the younger ones, becoming mentors and role models. Children will emulate their friends. As parents, you want to be careful about who those friends are. The family is the ideal source of mature, parent-respecting “peers” for children to interact with. When most socializing is done outside of the family, it should not be surprising when children ultimately reject their own families, morals, and traditions.

The few children I befriended from my public school were not a good influence on me, and my parents were actually quite selective about who I was allowed to play with. More than anything, time spent at others’ homes made me appreciate my own home and siblings more. Other than a few best friends from my church, I was not close to very many people outside of my home. I don’t see this as a bad thing. A child from a large, godly family is not missing anything good when he is denied the chance to socialize extensively with peers who do not share the family’s morals and goals. As bad as it is, forcing children to socialize with degenerates, drug addicts, and other morally inferior peers is just part of the sacrifice the state wants families to make.

Moloch Worship

Sacrifice is exactly the right word for what the state requires. The worship of Moloch as described in the Old Testament was essentially state worship. Every citizen is asked to give his or her life for the civil government, either through death or through a life of devotion to the state. In ancient times, Moloch sometimes asked for children to be sent “through the fire” as a burnt sacrifice. We dress it up a little more in our modern times. In fact, we make it so palatable to parents that most families are more than willing to give their children to Moloch. We even make it seem patriotic. This is part of what is known as “civil religion.”

Satan offered Christ rule over the entire world if only Christ would fall down and worship him. And just as Satan offered Christ rule of the world, Moloch offers much to those who will serve him. The state provides many benefits. Have your child attend the public school, and you can be sure of friends, respectability, financial benefit, and freedom from persecution. In fact, for millions of children, government-provided childcare and public schooling is only the start of a lifetime of dependence on the government. It may seem like the state goes to an awful lot of trouble to provide all these things, but there is a very good reason for it all: children raised by the state will not bite the hand that feeds, clothes, and houses them (incidentally they will also grow up to vote Democrat).

Christian parents are commanded to raise their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4); this mandate is incompatible with a public school education. All too many parents believe that they can counteract the negative influences of the public school with Sunday School, VBS, and instruction at home. This belief is false. Two or three hours a week of “Christian” indoctrination at home and Sunday school hardly makes up for the six hours a day spent at what Bruce Short (in The Harsh Truth About Public Schools) calls a “pagan seminary,” not to mention the time spent with their peers after school, and watching television. Destroying a child’s Christian beliefs is what government schooling does best; it is far better at indoctrination than the typical well-meaning parent.

You probably know kids who went through public school and still turned out well. I know a few. I suppose you could call them the exceptions that prove the rule. I would suggest that all such people did so solely by the grace of God, and for His greater purpose. But to emulate these people is a very dangerous gamble.

It is true: God has the power to lead a child through year after year in a pagan, God-hating environment like our public school system and have that child come out a Christian. That’s fantastic, but God can also raise the dead. He has no limits save what He puts on Himself. We cannot look at the few miracles God performs and use this as a basis for how we should act. The fact that some people survive horrible car crashes should not make us less careful to avoid one ourselves!

Scripture provides us with a clear example of this in the second temptation of Christ. From the roof of the temple, Satan says, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Matt. 4:6). Christ’s response was this: “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4:7). Tempting God is exactly what these Christians are doing when they place their child in the humanistic cesspool that is the public school system. If God would not save His own Son from such self-inflicted injury, do not presume God will save your children from your own stupidity and willful rebellion. Don’t throw your child from the roof of the temple. Angels may not swoop down to assist.

Conclusion

It has become a commonly-accepted doctrine that, “Children are not property.” This is not what God says. “For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof” (1 Cor. 10:26). All of creation belongs to God. It is His property to do with as He pleases. This includes all people, us, and our children. That most people think that being God’s property is a bad thing shows how far socialism has invaded our culture. A wise man will take good care of his property. How much more so will God? Being the property of our wise Heavenly Father is far from being a negative!

While children are property, they are God’s, not their parents’, and certainly not the state’s. However, God has entrusted children to their parents for stewardship. They are our most important responsibility. Education of these children is one of the parents’ primary jobs in life. While education is a task that can be delegated, the responsibility for that task cannot be set aside. “We do not yet accept pimps and prostitutes into church membership, but... can we retain in membership people who affirm Christ as Lord and Savior and yet turn over their children to a godless school?” (R. J. Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum).

Our humanistic state has attempted to usurp the parents’ role in almost every area. Far from offering resistance, the average modern parent is extremely eager to go along with this. People, as a rule, want as little responsibility as possible. Christians are to be the exception to this. We need a generation of Christians to rise up and willingly undertake the tasks God has given us, starting with our families. I have seen Christians fully occupied with church ministries and political activism, while neglecting those closest to them and delegating their children’s education to the state. This we must not do.

When you get to the judgment seat, do you want God to ask you why you put your children in the hands of godless humanists for their education? I do not. A faithful Christian living in terms of God’s Word cannot condone the public school or what it teaches. God cares about the little children. He will not be happy with those who have abandoned them to the enemy.

But there are alternatives.