Education: Inevitably Religious

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                        Vol. XVIII, No. 7, August 2005

We don’t usually think of education this way. We consider government schools as “secular” which my Webster’s defines as “of or pertaining to the worldly or temporal as distinguished from the spiritual or eternal”. So we assume that secular schools convey no religious views pro or con.

However, this way of thinking is absolute error, for implicitly it asserts that it is possible to separate the material-temporal from the spiritual-eternal. That is, that God – while He may exist – plays no role in daily, practical life, that school subjects like history, mathematics, chemistry, etc. can be correctly taught, learned, and fully understood without reference to God. In short, God is irrelevant to our daily life and therefore may be ignored.

Thus, government schools persist in teaching evolution without reference to the mounting physical evidence against it. They deny the biblical revelation of God’s creation thereby undercutting the entire truth of the Bible.

Also, being “freed” of biblical morality (“Thinking themselves wise, they became fools.”), they increasingly deny any absolute standards of right and wrong. For example, government schools foster homosexuality.

On the GLSEN website the following appears, “Nearly 3,000 schools have GSA’s [Gay, Straight Alliance] or other student clubs that deal with LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] issues. Over fifty national education and social justice organizations including the National Education Association (NEA) have joined GLSEN in its work...” Seventy-three of these homosexual high-school clubs are in Virginia. (If you want to check this, go to www.glsen.org, on the left under “Students” click Go, then on the right under “Student Clubs and GSAs” select your state from the list. A roster appears listing those high-schools in your state with clubs that have registered on the GLSEN website. How many others there may be that have not registered is not known.)

In this article evolution and homosexuality are just examples. The main point is that all education inescapably, inevitably proceeds from a worldview and fosters that worldview. An Islamic school inculcates Islam, a Buddhist school Buddhism, a Christian school Christ, and a secular school secularism, that is, the irrelevance of God. One cannot exist without a framework within which to make sense of the world around him. Without a worldview all is chaos; life makes no sense. Any ordered society – or even a personal life – absolutely requires standards of what is right, what is wrong, what is permissible, what not allowed. And behind these standards there must be a reason why, perhaps only assumed and not consciously specified, but nevertheless present and real and shaping.

It is time all Christian parents recognize this fact and provide Christian education for our children, either home schools or truly Christian schools. It is also urgent that churches form many, many more truly Christian schools.

We are at a crucial time personally and nationally. Our children are being seduced away from God. Moral standards in America are increasingly debased. Our country is in transition from a once-Christian nation to a cesspool of depravity. Look at what has happened to England and the other European nations. If we do not give our children a Christian education, we will soon sink to their level. What will you do about it?