In yet another front of the raging culture wars, the Southern Baptist Convention has a proposal that its members withdraw their children from public schooling. If this clears the Resolution Committee, this would take the form of a resolution to the Convention. Home school or private Christian schooling is given as the means of education rather than public schooling with a preference for home schooling.
This is an interesting proposal and as far as I am aware the first of it’s kind from any major denomination. If nothing else, it shows the prominence that homeschooling has achieved in a few short years. The movement that was barely a whisper twenty years ago is a major player in the culture wars.
For some, this proposal signals a further retreat from engagement with society at large. For others, it is a drive to reduce worldliness in the church.
Many homeschoolers are suspicious of the proposal for a number of reasons. An influx of homeschoolers would raise the profile of a movement that by and large prefers to stay quiet and not draw attention to itself. Some momeschoolers fear a backlash should the SBC proposal be adopted on a national basis. They fear that further state regulation would result.
Other homeschoolers see a value in increasing the economy of scale by having more homeschoolers. If the group is larger, they reason, then it will be harder to kill.
This whole question of how Christians are to engage their culture is an interesting question theologically. Are our children to be used as a point of engagement? Scripturally this would seem problematic. Scripture commands parents to raise their children in the faith. The problem is how can one hour of church or Sunday School a week counteract what happens in 30 hours of public school? The family is putting an expectation on the church which is hard to fulfill. When there is failure is the church blamed?
Credenda Agenda has an article which takes the position that our children are to be used as weapons in the culture war. This article illustrates the contrast against the position of the homeschooler and that of the other side in the debate.
Are our children our main point of contact with the world? If most of our friends are Christians then how do we contact the world? The answer is in the question itself. If we choose to have our friends be mostly Christians won’t our kids do that in the public schools anyway? Given the choice, wouldn’t we prefer that our kids hang out with kids that share their values. Bad company corrupts good morals is an old adage that has a value that has been proven over and over again.
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