Religion In Public Schools Converts The School Into A Church

When you think of religion in public schools, what do you picture in your mind? Do you think of priests, pastors or rabbis teaching the little ones? Do you picture a Muslim madrassa or Buddhism temple? Or has the following ever crossed your mind?

The American Public School And Religion

"The public school, especially the American high school, with its spacious lawns and playing fields, is a quasi-sacred landmark in every American town, as indelibly part of the community government as the town hall, the fire station, the police station, the court house, the public library.

"But the public school represents something more than merely a government service or the enforcement of law. It represents a body of intellectual, moral, and philosophical values based on the concepts that created it and expressed in the activities that go on within its walls.

"The youngster who passes through its classrooms emerges indoctrinated in a body of secular values as if he had gone to a sort of government parochial school. It may not be a very coherent body of values and it may conflict with the values of his parents or religion; but that very incoherence and conflict, combined with a general philosophical confusion, become the dominant frame of mind of the graduate.

"Thus the school building itself seems to have its own spiritual aura, as palpable as that of any church with its peculiar spiritual architecture. The textbook, with its litany of questions and topics for discussion, takes the place of the prayer book, dispensing moral as well as instructional information.

"This is particularly true in the social sciences, where a secular humanist view of the world is presented virtually as a revealed religion based on an unquestioned faith in science and materialism.

"Thus, the rituals of school life replace the rituals of the church to fill the youngster's days with a formalism called 'education.' No one is sure what it all means, for there is in America as much confusion and vagueness surrounding the word 'education' as there is surrounding the word religion."

These words by Samuel L. Blumenfeld in Is Public Education Necessary? (Boise:The Paradigm Company, 1985), p. 3, offer a cogent description of the choice that every American parent confronts daily under a system of compulsory education, namely one: give the children to humanists to be indoctrinated in Humanism. And for those who are Christian, Voddie Baucham brings the message home without mincing words.




So what are you prepared to do next?

If you're a Pagan, then you won't mind Caesar educating your child to become more thoroughly Pagan. But if you're a Christian, then what?

Who is the object of your faith and what does He command of you?

Get educated. Then take action. It's your children that the State is after, and yet He gave them to you to raise "in the nurture and admonition of the LORD." (Eph. 6:4)

Will you provoke them to anger and lose them to the State?

More On Religion In Public Schools

1. ""I Want To Leave Public School, But Can't Right Now. What Can I Do?"



2. How State Sponsored Education Brought Religion To Public Schools



3. Today's Religion In Public Schools Teaches Your Child The Good News Of The Kingdom Of Democracy



4. Compulsory Education Is A Contradiction



5. Separation Of Church And State In Blood