Why Christian Schools - Part 2 - The Public School is a Great Place for My Kids to be Salt and Light

by Dick Buckingham
Administrator

"You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.”  These are familiar quotes from the gospels usually attributed to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.  Many of us have been motivated by these statements of Jesus to be active in our jobs, neighborhoods, even the world to let our “light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”  It is one of the marks of a disciple, that we are willing to step into the world to represent Jesus and all that He teaches.  It is common then, that a parent, desirous of teaching and training a child to be a disciple, would think that a perfect place for their child to be salt and light is on the campus of the local public school.  After all, if we pull all of our children out of the public school to put them in Christian schools, who is going to be left to witness to the masses in our schools?  It is a question truly motivated by a love for the lost and it may almost seem uncaring to counter it.  Yet it deserves a carefully reasoned response.  There are some assumptions that are being overlooked to conclude that God would have us place our children in the public schools to be “salt and light.”

The first assumption to address is that schools are mission fields.  They are not.  Schools are specifically designed to impart certain knowledge and train pupils in a specific worldview or way of thinking.  It is not the same as sending a missionary to go to a foreign land to labor among the people and in the process of living life among them, influencing them in such a way as they would listen to and receive the good news of the gospel.  Schools are designed to do just the opposite.  Young people who are impressionable and teachable are brought to adults who impart philosophies and ideas that may or may not be in line with truth.  At its very best, public education teaches some form of truth, but it extricates if from the whole truth that includes God as the ultimate Mover and Maker of the world.  We also know that some of what is frequently taught in public schools is in opposition to the truth as revealed by God in His Word.  How is it possible then for a child to assert influence over anyone in a setting where it is by design that they are the ones to be influenced?  And the worldview they are presented with and taught is not one based upon the truth of God’s Word, but the worldview the government desires its citizens to have.

A second assumption is related to the first and is that a child is a missionary.  The problem is nowhere in the scriptures do we see children being called to be missionaries.  Instead we see over and over and over again the emphasis placed on parents to teach and train their children.  Consider the following:

Deuteronomy 6:6, 7 – And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Ephesians 6:4 – Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Here are two passages that clearly indicate that our children are not to be doing the missionary work

of adults who have developed more fully in their thinking.  Instead of being teachers, children are to be taught.  Certainly parents play a major role in this training and our local churches assist.  But when you consider the sheer number of hours that our children are under the teaching and training of their teachers at the public school, there are not enough hours in the day for us to begin to counter what may be taught as truth but is not.  When most parents ask their children what they learned in school, the answer is “nothing.”  The students themselves are unable to communicate what is being learned that might be dangerous to them in terms of their thinking and worldview.  How is a parent ever able to make sure truth is weighed in with the false ideas presented?  Many times, we find out after we see the fruit of this false knowledge worked out in the life of our child.  Then, many times, it is too late.

Please be aware that I am not implying that God can’t or won’t use children to affect others.  I know you can give me examples of many times God has been so gracious as to accomplish His work through our kids.  But just because He can and does sometimes, does not change what our children are primarily supposed to be doing (learning the truths of God) and what we are supposed to be doing (teaching our children the truths of God).  Nowhere does God command us to make our children into little missionaries.  A good friend and colleague of mine, Franklin, puts it this way: “Nowhere in scripture are parents with a choice compelled to have their children taught in a secular institution.  If anyone can show me scripture that says otherwise, I will change my position.”

The final thing to consider in this discussion is not a false assumption but a brutal truth.  As parents, when we drop off our children at the public school, we are implicitly transferring our authority to the teachers and staff and implying that we agree with what they teach.  Our children, trusting us, feel it is safe to accept what is being taught and for the most part do so without hesitation.  It is as though we were teaching them ourselves.  Are you in Biblical agreement with everything the public school teaches? What about 90%?  50%?

When you bring your child to the door of a Christian School, you transfer the same authority.  Are your beliefs and teachings more in line with what the Christian school teacher is teaching your child or the public school teacher?

I will continue this series on “Why Christian Schools” next week.

Find out more about Faith Christian School at www.faith-christian.org

Train Up A Child

by Dick Buckingham

Administrator

There has been something heavy on my heart over the past several months and I have been ruminating about it often.  It is: “Why would Christian parents who have a choice send their children to the public government schools?”  Another way of putting it more pointedly...why would the godly send their children to be discipled in an ungodly system?

I know that by that very statement, some of you are already putting up a defense. You may be thinking that I am biased as a result of my position as the administrator of a Christian School.  Why wouldn’t I speak negatively against the competition?   Doesn’t the Chevy dealer try to convince you that a Ford just doesn’t measure up?  (Everyone knows it doesn’t, but we will save that for another time!)  This is not about me trying to preserve my job or increase my influence.   Believe it or not, I was just like many who thought public education was just fine.  After all, I attended and graduated from a public school.  What affect did it have on me?  The implication in that question is that public education didn’t affect me and I turned out just fine.  How often I have heard parents say that very same thing as a justification that putting their children in public schools will not be a detriment to them.

The truth is, the very fact we make such a statement as that, shows that we were profoundly affected by the public education we received.  The effect is that we cannot understand or discern the difference between a system that teaches a worldview where man is the main course and God is a side dish at best, and a Biblical worldview that sees God at the center of everything.  We can’t see it because our own worldview has been tainted by the public education we received.

God graciously saved me when I was in junior high, so much of my formative schooling years was at a time when I was immature in the faith and biblical understanding.  I was diligent about learning the truth as revealed in God’s Word, but understanding there was a different way of looking at things was the furthest from my experience, because I continued to be in the realm of public education on a daily basis.   While I endeavored to integrate my faith into my school life, it was relegated to being part of the “extra-curricular” Christian club on campus meeting before or after school, and a released time Bible study held daily at the Mormon facility across the street from the school.* Unfortunately, the way I was taught to think and honestly the way I thought, was not much different from any of the other students on campus.  We listened to our teachers, took what they told us as true, and applied it to our lives without ever considering what the Bible had to say about it.  I was taught a secular humanist worldview which places man at the center, and around whom all things revolve.

Following high school (not as a result of high school, but God’s grace) I knew I wanted to be involved at some level of ministry.  I had done some music with my church youth and had enjoyed being before people and encouraging them with words of truth.  My thought and assumption was that I would train for the pastorate.  In pursuing this goal, I wound up attending a small seminary in Philadelphia.  For the first time, I was being taught all things from a Christian worldview.  As we talked about history and life from this perspective, it was like I had been viewing the world through a window filthy with the grime of the world, and it had now been flung open so that I could see easily and breathe freely the fresh air of God’s perspective of our world.  My worldview was radically changed in a relatively short amount of time.  My initial thought was, “every Christian should go to seminary to get their eyes opened as mine had been opened.”  I still had not realized that the problem was that I had been taught a worldview as a child that was contrary to the truth.

My education in worldview perspective, though, was not over yet.  After a few years serving as a youth pastor, I was given the opportunity to teach in a Christian school.  I thought it a great opportunity to continue my ministerial work with youth.  Little did I know that it would radically transform my life and thinking.  Now I was teaching some of the very same things I had learned in high school but it was with a curriculum from a Christian publisher with a Christian worldview.  Since my eyes had been opened in seminary to a correct view of the world, I could now see the potential of teaching children correctly about God and His world from the beginning.  I became excited about the potential of training children in the truths of God and helping them to integrate them into their understanding in history, science, math and English.  I began to see Christian teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19, emphasis mine)

Education as the way to teach and train children from Christian families with the correct worldview from the beginning, grounding them in the truths of God so that they would be strong and not waver in their faith.  It was truly discipleship as Jesus had commanded in the Great Commission, “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and

Some 30 years later, I am still serving in the ministry that I believe God called me to, seeking to teach a Biblical worldview perspective to students from Christian families.  It has not been an easy road.  The greatest opposition that it has faced has been from the very ones you least expect it from, Christians.  I am convinced that it is at least in part because they have been trained in a secular worldview when they attended public school and they simply cannot see the difference.

Can you be honest enough with yourself to answer the following questions?  Could it be that your public school education affected the way you think about the world?  Could you be thinking it is harmless for your children because your own worldview has not been thoroughly transformed to a Biblical worldview?

Over the next couple of weeks I will continue to address this subject in several blog posts.  I will consider some of the following concerns that I hear from parents:

• Shouldn’t our kids be salt and light in their public schools?  Are we just going to abandon this important “mission field?”
• Why not public schools?  What is the harm?
• The Christian school doesn’t have band, choir, drama, (you fill in the blank). Isn’t my child   going to be at a disadvantage when they compete with students from public school who did?
• Does God’s Word really compel us to put our kids in Christian Schools?

*Probably needs some explanation.  In our community, there is a strong Mormon presence.  As a result the political powers that be in the local government and school boards allowed a provision for Mormon students to choose to leave their high school campus one period a day for “released-time seminary” as it was called.  The Mormon church conveniently supplied a building usually right across the street from the high school for these students to go.  Not to be outdone, the Christians in the community insisted upon nothing less than the same opportunity for their students to study God’s Word with those who elected this option.  Sometimes the Mormons would even allow the Christian group to use their facility.

To learn more about Faith Christian School, please visit our website at www.faith-christian.org 

1 + 1 = 2

by Dick Buckingham
Administrator

1+1=2

Everyone will look at the above equation and agree that it is true.  It will be accepted without question and anyone who says otherwise will be ridiculed or ignored.  But what if I ask you why you believe it to be true?  

Some may give answers like the following:

                “That is what my teachers taught me.”

                “It just is.  It is a statement of fact, like gravity.”

                “Everyone knows that it is.”

But how do you know it is true for certain?  Already, there are some who are rounding up the paddy wagons, heading in my direction.  Allow me a little latitude to discuss with you further.

If you believe it to be true because your teacher or anyone else told you it was true, then I would ask how do know they were right?  What if someone else comes along and says 1+1=6, will you accept this as easily as you did your teacher’s statement?  And if not, then why not, since you are basing the authority of your acceptance of this math statement upon the teaching of another?  What would make one teacher superior to another?

If it just is, then how do you know that?  It really doesn’t answer the question; it just ignores it and says the same thing a little louder, giving us the impression that whoever can shout it loudest is right.

If it is because everyone knows that it is, what if I find someone who doesn’t?  Does that nullify it?  And if not just one, then how about two or three or four?  How many would it take to disagree with the proposition before you would reconsider its truth?  Are truths such as these dependent upon majority acceptance?  Of course not!

What if I said, “1+1=2 may be true for you, but it is not for me.”  Would you allow my relativism to have credibility?  Would that work in a real world where I could change this addition to be whatever I like?  Likely not as the feet of the men in the white coats grows ever louder.  Yet, you have not yet given me solid reason as to why we must both conclude that 1+1=2.

Perhaps now, with some measure of sighing, you realize I am serious and you are about to set out to carefully prove that adding one to one is always true.

“According to our counting system, two is the next number following one.”

Why?  Couldn’t our counting system have six following one?  And why can’t we change our counting system everyday if we want?  What is there to keep us from doing that?  Why must we insist on 1+1=2?  Why can’t it be 1+1=6?  Excuse me, there is a knock at my door.

Clearly this is nonsense.  That fact that I even spent this much space in this blog is silly at best.  Why did I do so?  Because there are many people today who want to discuss other truth and try to handle it in the way that I have above and we allow them credibility to think they could possibly have a point.  An example is the declaration that God is.  I make such a statement about God and very quickly I am challenged.

“You can’t insist that is true for everyone!  It may be true for you, but it is not for me and many others.”

While this may seem like a gracious, generous statement, not forcing me to move away from my assertion as long as I don’t force it on others, but it is just as ridiculous as the argument above.  There either is a God or there isn’t.  It can’t be both ways.  To insist otherwise is foolishness.

So that brings me back to my assertion that there is a God.

“What proof do you have?”

I will use the math above as my evidence.  If there is no God, and the world and everything in it has come about by chaotic chance than we would not be able to insist upon our counting system and statements of mathematical facts.  If everything is in a state of change, then so is our math system and what we once thought true about it no longer is and even that won’t last forever.  The reality is, unless there is an orderly God who has created a world of order, we could not make any useful conclusions about anything that would help us in anyway.  The fact that when you add one more to one the answer is always, always, always two is because there is order in the universe established by the Creator of order, none other than God himself.

You see, God has left Himself many witnesses of His existence in the things that He has made around us.  An orderly world is just one of them.  If one is so inclined, we can see evidence of a Creator in just about everything.  That is what the scriptures reveal.

The heavens declare the glory of God.  The skies proclaim His handiwork.  Day after day they pour forth speech.  Night after night they display knowledge   (Psalm 19:1).

Is it any wonder that the psalmist also proclaims “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)

What is Life?

by Dick Buckingham
Administrator

Every other year, I have the challenging task of working through the difficult course of Ethics with our junior and senior students.  We approach this first from a philosophical perspective before taking specific ethical issues and trying to respond to them Biblically.  This is a challenge that I am increasingly finding more difficult.  The influence from our society and the long-term effect of evolutionary thinking has caused many to curve from truth.  Most of us move about our day to day lives using little more than a feeling as to what is right and wrong.  Indeed, God has given each of us as part of His reflected image a sense about morality.  Unfortunately, due to being marred by sin, none of us gets it right all the time and many seldom do.  As a society, we struggle with changing morals usually by taking a poll or survey and going with what the majority feels is right.  As a result, what is unacceptable now may become acceptable in the near future and often has.  There is a crisis of morals in our world and it is increasing because we aren't doing a good job of instructing our children about some basic absolute truths.

The first and most important truth that we must impress upon our children is that there is an absolute standard of ethics.  It is not one that is subject to polls or opinions, but has been carefully crafted and communicated to us by our Creator.  So often, critics insist that we cannot push our belief system upon someone who doesn't share our belief system.  While most would agree with that basic conclusion, the premise it is founded upon is faulty.  The assumption is that the ethics we say are absolute are the product of men or a religious perspective.  The reality is, they are the declaration of the Maker of us all, and His pattern given to us to function in this world.  It is true, I have no right to foist my opinions upon another and insist they must change theirs to match mine.  But it is God’s right to do so, as both Framer and Judge who will hold accountable.   We may not like what He has to say, but He has every right to say it, press it upon us, and hold us completely to its standard.

A second important truth, that needs to be impressed upon our children, is that life is a precious custodial gift bestowed upon us all by a gracious Creator and He requires us to treat it as would a caretaker, to promote it, maintain it, and treasure it no matter the cost.  So many of the issues we wrestle with in our society today have to do with the definition of life.  Questions regarding the ethics of abortion, suicide, assisted suicide, capital punishment, euthanasia, and more all hang from this one pendulum.   

In a particular year, on a test given at the end of this Ethics course, I asked my students to consider a woman who had been brain damaged due to an accident and required care for just about everything she did including being sustained with food and liquid via a feeding tube.  There was little hope of recovering any amount of significant function that would allow her to be productive.  Yet her condition was not so severe that she required extraordinary medical help to stay alive.  Other than the daily hygienic care everyone usually does for themselves, the only medical convenience was the feeding tube to provide daily sustenance.  The question I asked was, would it be Biblically acceptable to remove the feeding tube from this person to allow them to starve, dehydrate, and die.  Though we had talked about life during this course, all but one felt the Biblical thing to do was to remove the feeding tube.  Needless to say, I was shocked and dismayed.  None of them based this on any scriptural passage or example but upon what they deemed to be a definition of life.  They used arguments based on definitions that true life is only present when one is fruitful or productive.  Some assumed that life is our personal possession and that we may discard it at any time and for any reason.  Others suggested that since life with God is so much superior to this one, ending this life to enjoy that one is justified.  One even went so far as to give me Webster’s definition, as though this was the absolute answer and would settle all question.  The problem is, it doesn't matter what Webster or anyone else thinks about what life is.  The only thing that matters is what God thinks about life and how He defines it.

As soon as we begin to try to qualify what is life and what is not, we have entered a very dangerous area that

opens the door to all sorts of problems.  If life is defined on the basis of how fruitful one can be, then there are many in our society that should be “graciously” put out of their (our) misery because they can no longer or may never have been able to contribute something.  And who is to say what the level of contribution has to be in order to be determined worthy of life?  If receiving life giving sustenance from a tube is the line that we draw, then no infant in the womb deserves to live as they are sustained only by life’s original feeding tube.  Several of them felt if the person themselves had expressed a desire that they not live in such a way, then that was justification for the removal of the tube and starving them to death.  But isn’t that just suicide, and the removal of the tube assisted suicide?  So much of our society believes that life is something that is our personal possession and we are free to do with it whatever we choose.  It is a grave error when we view life is such a way.   Did we do anything to produce life in ourselves?  Did we create it?  Purchase it?  Earn it?  Then how can we claim that it is ours?  If it is not ours, then whose is it, and what is our role in handling what has been granted to us?

In Genesis 2, we see that God determined to fashion man in His own image and He breathed into man the breath of life.  Thus life belongs to God and He alone bestows it as a custodial gift upon each of us.  It is not like a gift that our parents give us which we feel free to abuse and discard as we please.  It is the most precious gift given to anything that God made and our Maker requires us to give it the highest regard and care.  Therefore He gives instructions and commands that we are to hold life in the highest regard and do everything we can to promote and maintain not only our own lives, but the lives of others.

Though I had taught my students this perspective of life from God’s Word, I was unable to persuade them to hold fast against the pressure of our world.  A Christian school teacher cannot do it alone.  A Christian pastor or youth leader cannot do it alone.  As Christian parents, we must understand the high responsibility we have to impress this upon our children.  The influence of the society around them is great and takes all our concerted effort to overcome.

Truth

by Dick Buckingham
Administrator

I am a 50s something guy who has spent most of his adult life working with and teaching the young people of our society. Over the years, I have seen some very serious things creep into the thinking of our youth that cause me great concern. Some might suggest it is because I am such an old fossil that I couldn’t possibly comprehend the progressive ideas that are sweeping through our land. I think it is something else entirely.

We have become such an accepting and tolerant society that we have come to accept truth, at least some truth, as being relative to each individual. Each person can decide what works for them. If they are comfortable with something that they believe to be true, it is OK, even if someone else believes something contradictory to be true. In many ways we have begun to confuse the difference between truth and opinion.

For example, is the following statement truth or opinion? "Dr. Pepper is the best soft drink in the world." Opinion, right? It may be that someone prefers Dr. Pepper to all other soft drinks, but they would not be able to prove in any fashion that their preference ought to be the preference of every other individual. Similar statements like, "The Green Bay Packers are the best football team ever," or "Batman is better than Spiderman," are clearly opinion and not a statement of truth. Because we all have opinions and one opinion is just as valid as the next, we may begin to view all things in the world this way.

What about this one? "The sky is blue." Is this statement a matter of opinion? Do we put it up for a vote or conduct a survey to see what the majority think is the color of the sky? No. We all agree that the color of the sky is blue. This is a universal truth, not subject to opinion or discussion. How is it then that there are some things that are open to objective opinion and other things that just are? The reason there is no debate over the color of the sky is that it conforms with fact or reality. The reality is that each and every person who looks at the sky sees the same color. Our eyes have been made in such a way that they perceive the light of the sun as it passes through our atmosphere (which, incidentally, filters out all the colors of the spectrum except the colors that make up the blue we see), the nerves transmit that information to our brains which in turn translates to us that the color we are seeing is blue. We know when we see that color it is blue because someone (most likely our parents) taught us when we see that color, we call it blue. The bottom line for all of this is that there are some things that are truth. Not everything is a matter of opinion.

Anyone who would make the claim, "There is no absolute truth," has committed logical suicide. They have made a statement of absolute truth which the statement itself says does not exist. The statement is false if it is true and only true if it is false. It doesn’t matter how often a person says it, or how loudly they proclaim it, or even which celebrities endorse it, such a statement is categorically false. The reality is...truth exists.

Think for a moment about this one:  "God is."

Is this statement truth or opinion? Many today would immediately say opinion, and we must accept other opinions about the existence of God as valid and give just as much validity to their opinion as to this one. However, the reality is that everything we perceive about the world around us says God does exist. Psalm 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim his handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge." While man has tried his best to silence and nullify the message of all creation that is daily around us, it screams, "God is, God is!" To look at and examine the complexities of the universe and proclaim that such a design is the work of chaotic chance is foolishness and not knowledge. It is as foolish as proclaiming the sky is green and not blue. It doesn’t agree with reality.

There are other important truths that our world would like to marginalize or deny.

"Man has been created in the image of God."

"Man has fallen and now has a nature of sin."

"Man’s only remedy for sin is faith and trust in Jesus Christ."

All of these are true, not because we took a vote, or because one opinion is better than another. They are true because they have been revealed by the One who created us all and knows us completely. They are His opinion. And His opinion trumps my opinion and your opinion and every other person’s opinion every time.

It is critically important that you and I teach children about truth. The false attitude of our society regarding truth is affecting more and more because they focus the message on our young people. The youth of the world today need us to teach them the absurdity of the logic our society is using regarding truth. They are going to need to stand firm against the rising tide of mutually accepted absurdity.

One thing you can do is share this blog with others in your sphere of influence on Facebook or other social media. Please take a moment to pass this message on to others.