Position of the Providence Church Elders:
Education
One of our fundamental convictions at Providence Church
is that God is sovereign, and in His sovereignty He governs through
three realms: the home, the church, and the state. We believe that in
order to have a right understanding of education, it is crucial to see
God’s intention for each of these realms.
God
has commanded fathers, not the church or the state, to educate their
children. Ephesians 6:4 exhorts Christian fathers to bring up their
children “in the training and admonition of the Lord” – a clear
requirement for fathers to give their children a comprehensively
Christian education. The “training” of the Lord means discipleship in
all of life, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2
Corinthians 10:4-5). This places education squarely in the realm of the
home.
The command given in Ephesians 6:4 echoes the covenantal responsibility issued in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
‘Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your
heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk
of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you
lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write
them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’
Psalm
78:5-7 points to a clear purpose in parenting: “For He established a
testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded
our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that
the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born,
that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may
set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His
commandments.” Our parenting endeavor can be summed up by saying that
we are presenting the next generation to God as His people who know His
ways and works and who hope in Him. This is our calling and our task.
Education is a crucial means of fulfilling that task for His glory.
The
implications are clear: it is neither the state’s nor the church’s
responsibility to education our children, and if Christian fathers look
to the state to educate their children through its schools or to the
church to education their children through Sunday schools and other
programs, then those fathers have abdicated their covenantal
responsibility under God.
We
believe too many churches have sinfully wrested this responsibility
from fathers by creating child-centered programs that facilitate not
only biblical illiteracy and immaturity among children but also
abdication among fathers who have never been taught God’s Word on this
subject. We also believe that the government, fueled by bankrupt
humanistic educational philosophies and statist policies, has largely
taken over the God-ordained educational job of Christian parents, while
the church has sat silent.
We
believe fathers must obey the Scriptures and educate their children for
the Lord Jesus Christ, cultivating in them a biblical worldview, and
preparing them for a lifetime of service in God’s kingdom. We believe
it is impossible for the church to do what God has ordained fathers to
do. The church has an invaluable role in the training of children –
training and equipping parents to educate their children and also
functioning as the body of Christ where maturity is modeled and prayed
for and taught.
In
addition, we believe it is impossible for the public school system to
educate children in a way that is honoring to the Lord. If the public
schools were public schools, they would be directed by the public.
Instead, they are directed by the government, and the official position
of the government is, at best, neutrality toward
Christianity. We believe this neutrality is impossible but is instead
hostility. Our Lord told us that everyone is either for Him or against
Him (Matthew 12:30). The government school system is against Christ.
Therefore, we believe Christian parents should remove their children from the government schools for at least five reasons:
- Neutrality is impossible in any endeavor, and especially so in
education, which is built on the three foundations of truth, beauty,
and goodness.
- Government schools are built on pragmatism, but by their own pragmatic
standard they can never “work” because they ignore the very foundation
of education: the reality of the Triune God, the truth of His Word, and
the Lordship of His Son.
- The Bible requires Christian parents to teach their children the Word
of God from the time they rise in the morning until they rest in the
evening. Attending government schools negates this command.
- Christ said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God
with our hearts, souls, and strength, but also with our minds. Loving
Him with our minds entails learning to think like a Christian about
everything – not just biblical studies and theology but history,
literature, philosophy, science, language, and every other field of
study.
- The government schools bow to the three gods of pragmatism, relativism,
and pluralism, and parents inevitably yield their children to the
worship of these state-sponsored deities in the government school
system. (For more on the subject of Christians leaving government
schools, please see Douglas Wilson, Excused Absence.)
Many
parents will protest that there are Christian teachers in the public
schools. True enough, but if those Christian teachers teach according
to a biblical worldview, they will be breaking the law. Other Christian
parents say that their children are missionaries or “salt and light” in
their schools. But the point of an education is to train children to
think like Christians so they will be able to be skilled apologists for
the gospel, and sending them into the mission field before they are
ready is to hand them over to the enemy. Children are immature by
definition, and they will always be influenced more by their
environment than they can influence it. Still other Christian parents
say we must stay in the school system in order to transform it, and it
would be wrong to just pull out and lose our influence. But the price
is far too high. Are our children a suitable price to pay for a place
at the table of influence in our communities? Can we contend for the
Lordship of Christ in our neighborhood by violating the Lordship of
Christ in our children’s education?
So
we believe there are two real alternatives for Christian families: home
schooling and Christian schooling. Parents need wisdom to know which is
best for their family. In either case parents must see that it is their
responsibility to educate their children for Christ. They must then
embrace this God-given responsibility and give their children a
Christ-centered education under the authority of God’s Word.
It
is not the intention of Providence to denounce or castigate parents who
have not yet come to understand the biblical mandate for a
distinctively Christ-centered education. It is, however, our desire to
be obedient to the Word of God in the vital and eternal matter of our
children’s training. Likewise, it is our desire to say what needs to be
said: it is time for the church to repent of its educational
infidelity. We owe this to our children, but above all we owe it to the
Lord God. This is yet another way that we can glorify our Lord by being
faithful to Him.