Sending in the Troops

I really enjoy observing different peoples’ reactions when I tell them my boys are homeschooled.  Maybe it’s just the people I’ve come across, or maybe it’s our society’s dread of offending others, but I can’t recall a single negative reaction.  The majority of people I’ve mentioned our homeschooling to have been unbelievers, and they’ve still had nothing but encouragement and good things to say about the practice.

Although some have expressed either their own desire to homeschool or their regret that they didn’t, it seems most people are fine with the out-of-the-ordinary ways our family does life as long as we don’t make them feel like they have any obligation to do the same.  That’s the “tolerant” attitude our culture demands we show, isn’t it?  I’m pretty sure if the conversations went much further and I started asking about their family, the guards would come up.  No one likes feeling like they’re being backed into a corner.

Though I haven’t yet faced them myself, we homeschool parents all know the common objections.  Some are just plain ill-informed, such as “homeschoolers don’t actually do any work” or any “academic achievement”-related objections (the people making these objections likely haven’t met many homeschool graduates); others seem to stem more directly from the government school system’s utter success in convincing most people that their way is the best way to raise a child (“I want my child to grow up normal/socialized” or “I don’t think I could teach them myself”).

For Christian parents convinced that God has made it their responsibility to provide their children’s training and instruction, and who understand that God blesses obedience and enables His people to do what He commands in His Word, these objections shouldn’t cause any great distress.  We are to seek first the kingdom of God for ourselves and our families, and trust Him to look after the rest.   There is really only one objection that really bothers me, but not because it makes me question the validity of home education.  It bothers me for two reasons: 1) it’s fired from within our own ranks, being used by believers, and 2) more disturbingly, it’s based on a mishandling and misapplication of Scripture.  Here it is: “I want my children to be salt and light in the public schools.”  It’s based on Matthew 5:13-14, part of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount.”  It’s saying, in effect, “God is calling me to send my Christian children into the mission fields of the schools, to bring others to Christ.”

Is this really a proper application of this passage?  Matthew 5:13-14 reads, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?  It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.  Ye are the light of the world.  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”  The relevant section of Scripture ends with verse 16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”  Ah, context, context.  In this case it seems simply reading beyond the first seven words of verse 14 should keep one from using this passage as a proof-text for the pro-public education position. By now most Christian parents should be well aware of the stats regarding “churched” children graduating from the public system.  Depending on the particular study the numbers vary slightly, but at minimum six out of every ten publicly-schooled professing Christians leave God behind by the time they graduate (and of course many of those young people remaining in the church through high school do end up leaving during the college/university years).

Now, if missionaries are sent by the droves into a mission field, and years later no positive difference can be observed in their mission field through their ministry, that’s depressing.  However, if the majority of the missionaries themselves end up turning from the faith, that’s a full-scale disaster, and a sure sign that God is not a part of the operation.  That’s exactly what’s happening in the schools.  The vast majority of the professing “salt” going in quickly loses its saltiness.  How can godly parents who truly care for their children’s eternal souls send them into such dangerous territory with a long history of turning young people against God?

To the parents who object and further argue that their believing children are lights that should shine before men rather than be hidden, I would challenge them to ask their children how often they actually, verbally, purposefully share the biblical truth they know with others at school.  We know what kind of things are taught in the schools; Christian children have ample opportunities–daily–to politely counter all the humanistic teaching.  They don’t speak up very often, of course, because if they did, they would be warned to keep their beliefs to themselves.  And if they persisted in giving glory to God and standing for the truth of His Word, they would be ostracized by their peers and eventually expelled by the school authorities.  Teachers who have stood up for the authority of the Bible and the gospel in the classroom have been fired for making their beliefs known (I wholeheartedly recommend the excellent documentary IndoctriNation: Public Schools and the Decline of Christianity in America for more on this).

It isn’t enough just to have people see our “good works” apart from our making known our motivation for performing those good works (thankfulness to God for saving us through faith in Christ) and expecting them to glorify our Father in heaven.  People will readily praise us for our good works, but unless someone shares the gospel with them and they believe, they will not praise God.  Children or teachers who are “lights” in the schools without actually standing for the truth of the gospel are not shining their light before men in the way Jesus was talking about.

If you’re sure your children are meant to be light in their schools, alright.  I encourage you to try this: make sure they understand that actively sharing the gospel with unbelievers–teachers and students alike–is an indispensable part of shining that light.  If they go and do that, in a short while you’ll likely have them back in your home during the school day and you can look into more Scripturally-based educational options.  The truth is, most Christian children start going to school long before they’re able to confidently defend the gospel; over the years, they learn to fit in with, and think like, the world to varying degrees, if they don’t abandon their faith completely.

The growing-up years (even the tail-end “growing-up” years) are to be years of preparation, training, instruction, and nurturing at the hands of God-fearing and God-loving parents who also love their children, body and soul.  We should be no more eager to send a child into a spiritually dark and hostile school than we would want to send an untrained, unprepared soldier into a raging battle.  We wouldn’t expect that soldier to survive for long, and we shouldn’t be surprised if our children’s faith fares no better in the spiritual war zone of a godless school.