Foreword to Original 1997 Edition
About 30 years ago, I predicted to a few audiences that a new and greater reformation was coming, and this reformation would come through Christian schools. For evidence of this, read Ellsworth E. McIntyre’s How To Become a Millionaire in Christian Education [This was the original title of this book. Ed.].
The bankruptcy of the state schools is a very obvious one; it is an educational and moral bankruptcy. The bankruptcy of the churches is rapidly approaching a similar level. The churches, where not marked by modernism and unbelief, are antinomian and flagrantly immoral. Their teaching has become pablum, and both Catholics and Protestants know little what their church professes, and the Eastern Orthodox may be worse. Churches insist Orthodox may be worse. Churches insist on faithfulness to themselves, not to Christ, and they cannot command loyalty to a Savior whom they flagrantly disobey.
The Christian school movement has had a frail and rocky history. Dr. McIntyre’s account will tell you of the kinds of weaknesses that appear where churches begin schools because of parental demands, which they meet regularly. In spite of this, it is providing us with an educational revolution. As one who has been an expert witness at many trials in court of Christian schools, I know that these schools, for all their faults, are far, far ahead of the state schools. That, however, is not far enough.
But now Dr. Ellsworth McIntyre has demonstrated that children ages two or three to five can learn so ably that they are ready at five for the fourth grade. He has begun a major
educational revolution that is going to lead to a new reformation.
His account of his own pilgrimage is both grim and happy reading. It is a commentary on the meaning of wholeness of faith and life. If he does not spare the church, neither does he spare himself. Many people are taught nothing by their experiences; Dr. McIntyre found a graduate course and degree in his.
Make no mistake about it. This simply, honestly written book is a major manifesto, and Christians who neglect its lessons will miss out on our future under God.
— Rousas John Rushdoony
September 30, 1996
