Objections to Leaving the Government Schools

Is there nothing to be said?

If we start to press the point, making a real issue out of Christian involvement in the government school system, the chances are good-to-excellent that certain objections will be raised. So let us state the position, anticipate objections, and answer them as best we can. Here it is. Whenever it is physically possible, Christian parents are responsible before God to remove their children from the government school system.

“Physically possible” There are times when parents genuinely have no choice. Say, for example, in the aftermath of a nasty divorce, one of the parents succeeds in getting a judge to prohibit enrollment in a Christian school. Or say we are talking about a single mom with three jobs, and barely making it. Homeschooling is out, and tuition is flat unaffordable. Unless a patron steps in, it is simply impossible. We are not talking about such difficult cases. As the adage goes, difficult cases make for bad law.

I don’t see the problem with my kids attending public school. I went through public school and I turned out all right.

A cute answer here might be “what makes you think you turned out all right?” But a more serious answer is that the government schools are not the same as when you attended them, or when your parents attended them. Our culture is in free fall, and a lot of it has been driven by the schools, and then circles back into the schools. When you were in school, none of the girls in the class would disappear for a week and then come back with her breasts cut off, and with her claiming to be a boy. The assumption that the schools are not deteriorating rapidly is a deadly assumption.

Christian schools are really expensive. We can’t afford it.

I would urge parents to run an inventory on everything they spend money on, and to put the cost of education into the mix. Then they should move the education of their children to the very top of that list. If educating your children privately is impossible, then no one is saying that you have to do it. But if it could be done if some of your priorities were reevaluated, then I think you should do it. There is a great difference between “this would be difficult,” and “this is impossible.”

There are two different realms—the realm of creation, and the realm of redemption. The government schools can teach in the former and church and home instruct kids in the latter realm.

This response represents a theological error. The assumption is that there is an area of human knowledge and endeavor that is somehow neutral. But neutrality is a myth. Even if the teachers in the government school refrain from attacking your child’s faith, there is an implicit lesson contained in every class. Say it is a math class. “We are not saying whether or not your God is real. But we are saying, by implication, that if He exists, His existence is irrelevant to what we are doing in this classroom.” And that is radically false.

My child is uniquely gifted, and is up for the challenge that government school would provide.

My response here would be to urge parents not to allow their understandable kvelling to interfere with a sober-minded assessment of the status of their child’s actual spiritual immune system. Many parents have misjudged this, to their sorrow.

Athletic competition is very important to our family, and the Christian schools in our area are very weak in this area.

I would not want this answer to be seen as a disparagement of athletics. I believe them to be a very important component in the process of education. In the context of a solid Christian school, the lessons learned while chasing a ball can be a crucial supplement to what the school is inculcating. But if chasing a ball is preferred over getting a real education, then I believe there has been some idolatrous slippage.

You think it is all right for a child to have an unbelieving violin instructor. Why is this different?

It is the difference between one hour a week, with the parent accompanying the child, and seven hours a day, five days a week, with no parents there. It is the difference between paddling in the surf with a sand bucket, and swimming a mile out to sea, fighting off sharks.

One of my kids is academically gifted and the other one is autistic with special needs. No Christian school in our area is capable of dealing with either one.

There really are challenging situations like this one. But it should be remembered that special needs students are more vulnerable, not less. A Christian environment is more important for them, not less. And a gifted child is susceptible to the kind of flattery that the world specializes in. And yet, and the same time, the dilemma here is a real one. But I would say that the need here is great enough that the parents should consider relocating to an area where there are Christian programs that could minister to children in such special circumstances.

My kids think that the students at our local Christian school are dweebs.

This is actually a likely indication that worldly standards of evaluation are already making inroads in your children’s thinking. Better head that off.

My children are my responsibility. I don’t appreciate your legalistic interference.

In our church, whenever a child is baptized, the whole congregation takes a vow that they will assist these parents in the Christian nurture of the child. So it is quite correct that the parents have the primary responsibility. But there is a line where other believers can say something without it being legalistic.

If what you are saying is true, then why do you think that it is lawful for Christians to teach in the government schools?

An adult teaching in government school can have a fully formed Christian worldview, and he can see and recognize what is going on all around him. He is able to defend himself. But nine times out of ten, the students, especially the younger ones, have no idea what is being done to them. They are vulnerable in a way that the Christian teacher need not be.