By: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
Summary of the key points:
- While monitoring education programs like No Child Left Behind aim to improve education, they come with the risk of government overreach and indoctrination.
- The current education system has failed to produce top thinkers and workers. Alternative methods that include moral principles (work ethic, serving as unto the Lord, chastity till marriage, joyful giving, respect for Godly authority…) of Christianity could help raise the bar.
- Education should return to using Christian texts like the Bible, The New England Primer, and The McGuffey Reade, which were used for three hundred years of U.S. history.
- Figures like John Dewey led the transformation from Bible-based to secular education.
- Strong convictions can drive societal change, including restoring Christian patterns. Faith can bridge the gap between reason and skepticism.
- Education should be based on morality and expose children to all worldviews, not just secular humanism. Christian texts should be used as teaching tools.
- Options like homeschooling, charter schools, and vouchers provide educational choices.
- Society should support stay-at-home moms and teach Godliness to prevent issues like divorce and unwed pregnancies.
- Children must learn to choose godliness. Ignoring God’s sexual commands shows hatred for His rules and seals a nation’s fate.
- Stable families are foundational to learning how to be in a relationship. Godly relationships between spouses provide the glue to thrive. Society should model proper parenting and solve marital difficulties with Biblical and psychological principles.
As a society, we have attempted to monitor the quality of education, such as in the “No Child Left Behind” program. But the downside of such programs to ensure a quality education is the threat and possibility of a central regulating authority dictating the contents of a child’s education. In other words, a state-controlled propaganda machine, a tool for indoctrinating the allowable and orthodox opinion of the state can be taught, monitored, and enforced. In other words, the Department of Education, and No Child Left Behind-type monitoring programs are the skeletal frameworks for an Orwellian future of complete state domination of the majority of minds.
Let us leave the threat and reality of State-controlled education aside. And let us take as an obvious premise the fact that the educational system has not produced the first class thinkers and workers that the world needs to design and run the machines of industry.
The question is then, what are the methods of taking education to a new level? What are some different methods of education that could produce the excellence that we once had?
The solution to the Decay in Educational Outcomes: Return to the System that Worked for Centuries:
The school system should return to using texts which teach Christian principles and Biblical metaphors. For 300 years of our nation’s history, we used texts such as The Bible, The New England Primer, and the McGuffey Reader.
It would be difficult to construct an exact chronology of the events, people, and social forces that changed the educational system from a Bible-based/Christ-centered education to a Secular-education. But, we know there were prominent, charismatic and influential figures such as John Dewey that lead the education-reform/transformation movement to replace Bible-based education with evolution, relativity, and secular-based training.
The typical man in society feels powerless to fundamentally change his larger social environment. Still, there is hope. The change we know can come if a strong minority wakes up with the conviction that life is truly lived in God’s world. If the Bible is seen as the revelation of His way, then the pattern for society can be re-established. There is no stronger motivational force than a deeply held conviction about reality, life, and purpose. Educate yourself. The physics connecting God to the existence of the material universe is was my window into faith. Upon seeing how God could have created the universe as we see it, I was able to bridge the gap between reason and skepticism. In these pages, you will find sufficient illumination to make the plunge into a full alliance with the revival and bringing in of God’s reign in the hearts of men. First, do the study, come to a place of adequate certainty, and then enroll your friends, family, and social network in the same study. Become informed about the possibilities of a life lived within the boundaries of allowed Godly action. Understand the implications of a world with every man living under the Lordship of Christ.
Modern apologists have written excellent examinations of difficult subjects and confronted issues such as evolution, and the validity of the Bible, such as in books like “The Case for the Creator,” and “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”. These are valuable resources, and an excellent beginning or addition to your education and conversion into a passionate ambassador for the king on this world.
An education based on morality, with a full understanding of the scope of human belief systems, prepares a child to make an informed decision about his/her faith and worldview. The current model of education pretends to give an objective, non-religious education by teaching a pure evolutionist and secular humanist perspective. Such an education is a narrow non-Christian religious education, and it poorly equips a child to be a broad thinker. We should not shy away from giving a strong and clear presentation of Biblical Christianity to our children. Biblical education should start in the home, but it should be reinforced in the public school system. The Founders supported public education so that every child could read, so he could read the Bible, and learn the ways of behaving in Godly patterns.
I propose that children be given a strong Christian education when young, and then gradually exposed to an ever-wider array of the options of life such as world religions, the denominational views of Christianity, and science vs. religion. Our current society has attempted to expose our children only to the religion of evolution and secular humanism. Such indoctrination in the name of “Separation of Church and State” is hypocritical. It was the commitment of our Founders to establish a Christian Nation. So, our schools should continue in that tradition and deeply examine and emphasize Christianity. We should provide an educational and training basis for restoring the roots of our Christian culture. By teaching the basics of the Christian faith and its personal application to living in this Constitutional Republic, we will create more responsible citizens thus strengthening our society. Christian texts should be used as teaching tools to help ground our children in the fundamentals of Christian righteousness while they are learning the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. All other studies in science, history, philosophy, economics, civics, journalism, geography, etc. should likewise consider the Christian worldview and contrast that with competing worldviews. The recent emphasis in education to eliminate the thoughts and philosophies of “Dead White Men” from our history distorts and hides the truth of our Christian heritage. While others may have participated in our history, their contribution was peripheral to the central seminal creation and the founding of our great Christian Nation.
The education system should have an element of a free-market economy available to the consuming public. Home Schooling and Charter Schools provide another effective option for an excellent education. Customized attention is especially necessary for children with special needs. I am in favor of school vouchers, which give parents a choice in educating their children as they see fit. Parents should not be required to pay twice for their children’s education. When the free market provides options, the voice of the parents will speak clearly to the unresponsive school boards, the NEA, and state education administrators.
As a society, we should work to make child daycare obsolete. The need for both parents to work to support a middle-class lifestyle has a high social cost. We must improve the productivity of the economy (State, National, and Worldwide) so that just one working parent can provide for the family’s needs. As a nation, we must work to support the health of the family. There is no substitute for Mom staying at home while raising the children to be secure, loved, and well-disciplined. As a nation, we should encourage mothers to stay at home and raise their preschool children.
We should educate, train, and teach Godliness as a solution to prevent divorce and unwed motherhood. The atmosphere of free sexual expression has given the appearance of authorization to act out the passions of youth in the name of freedom of expression, independence, personal choice, and diversity. A society embracing the violation of Biblical sexual standards has historically precipitated the fall of civilizations. The Youth push the limits of acceptable behavior; even so, most will follow the standards set by parents, church, government, and peers when society embraces Biblical morality as a sincere standard of proper behavior. For children to embrace Biblical morality, the adults must speak it, live it, and enforce it. Hypocrisy is recognized and challenged by the young. Open discussion and group support for Godly standards help young people stay strong in their commitments.
Many youths sacrifice their faith because of questions about the character of a God who would give sexual desire, and then prohibit the spontaneous expression of that desire. Such dissonance leads young people to adopt alternate belief systems such as evolution and secular humanism which place no value judgments on any type of sexual expression. The purpose of resisting sexuality and other temptations can be understood as a necessary design feature of the creation. A major purpose of the creation is to satisfy God’s desire for love and relationship. As such, free will is required to make that love meaningful. We act out our love of God when we choose to follow God’s rules and resist the temptations and unGodly behaviors which will damage our lives. Acting out sexually in non-Biblical ways has the appearance of living life honestly because we are acting out our feelings and being open-minded and liberated from old-fashioned taboos. But the wages of sin are death; death of the purity of the heart which allows for monogamous lifelong partnership; death to our ability to hear God’s voice; and to death of the civilization.
Children must recognize the divide between good and evil and choose Godliness. Such individual devotion to Godly righteousness is the foundation of a self-governing society. When society avoids the responsibility to teach Godly self-governance, the nation & state must engage in repressive enforcement and extensive regulation of behavior to compensate for the lack of spirit-led internal guidance.
A nation that ignores sexual prescriptions and prohibitions is sealing its fate and calling down curses on itself from Heaven. The nation which rebels against God’s sexual commands shows itself to hate the rules, commands, restrictions, and the Way of God. Being realistic, we cannot see God with our eyes of flesh. It is only by our obedience and love of His Law that we can tangibly express our relationship with Him. The choice between obedience and rebellion is made in the formative years, the actions and attitudes of adulthood reflect that choice. Thus, the eventual fate of the nation lies in the hands of every generation and its parents.
The family is the foundational social unit. When the family disintegrates the “Children are left behind”. Divorce and infidelity break the trust and witness of parents who are the primary agents in the task of teaching Godliness. To maintain the continuity of Godliness in a culture, as parents, we should demonstrate love, faithfulness, and obedience to God’s principles as we teach those principles.
A Godly relationship between husbands and wives provides the glue which allows the family to survive and thrive. As a society, we should model the proper behavior between husbands and wives in our educational system. Today there is little societal consensus on proper parenting, how to effectively engage in personal transformation or the best methods for solving marital difficulties. But there are many effective solutions and methods that integrate sound Biblical and psychological principles. If we are committed to identifying and applying them, our nation’s problem of broken homes and fatherless children can be solved