The Myth of Neutral Education

                                                                                                                                                     Vol. XX, No. 3, March 2007

Education is one of the most religious things we do. Consequently, any pretense of religious neutrality in the process of educating children in some plain-vanilla fashion is a myth that will lead to enormous confusion. The myth distorts the nature of knowledge, which is the last thing an educator should do.

As we reject the myth of neutrality, we must remember that we are not rejecting neutrality as a bad thing, but rather as an impossible thing. The Problem with the government schools is that they cannot be neutral, even if the people running them try their level best. Government schools cannot be neutral any more than they can fly to the moon or walk on water. But although they cannot be neutral, they can be confused about neutrality in education – and so can we.

[Douglas Wilson, Excused Absence: Should Christian Kids Leave Public Schools? (CruXpress, Mission Viejo, CA, 2001), p. 39]