Given that our culture is in significant disarray (as in, falling apart), many Christian parents have rightly identified the process of secular government education as one of the central culprits. Having made this identification, they have established Christian schools or have begun to home school. They have done this in such numbers that in many locations, they have mounted a significant challenge to the educational powers that be. This process, already well under way, have accelerated greatly over the last couple of years.
And this is all to the good. They got into it in order to “make a difference.” The first goal was to make a difference for their own children, and secondarily for the children of other like-minded parents. But there are only two ways to go from this place. Either the new school will fail in this goal, and will not make a significant difference, meaning that it will somehow accommodate itself to the surrounding culture, and simply become part of the landscape. There are numerous private schools scattered around the country that are already part of the landscape. This might be understandable concerning those private schools that were founded a century ago, but it has even happened to schools that were founded just a generation ago, in response to the sorry state that government schools were in back in the eighties. Of course, those schools look like bastions of sanity now.
This accommodation happens because there is an upside to compromise; you leave the enemy alone, and he leaves you alone.
But suppose your school rocks and rolls. Suppose that it begins to present a potent challenge to the educational status quo. The educational establishment may not know how to teach children to read, but it would be foolish to attribute this to a general incompetence. They are quite competent at achieving their real goals, and their real goals include staying in business. They also excel in churning out God-hating socialists who, after decades of sex ed, don’t know what a girl is. So they certainly know how to defend themselves, and their vested interests, and their money. Are you a threat to any of these? Then watch your head. Also, come to think of it, watch your back.
Effective private Christian schools should therefore expect to find themselves as the brunt of slander, lies, political challenges, incoming dead cats, and so on. This is not a sign that something has gone desperately, terribly wrong. Rather, in times like ours, this kind of vitriolic attack should be considered a mark of honor.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11–12).
Indeed, in times like ours, any Christian institution that is not controversial should be considered suspect.