Dr. Glen Schultz is the founder and director of Kingdom Education Ministries, and author of Kingdom Education: God’s Plan for Educating Future Generations, a classic in the field of education. With his permission, we are posting an abbreviated version of his recent post, The War Against Christianity. |
The backlash from the article has been swift and
strong. However, most of the responses
to this anti-homeschool article have merely defended homeschooling. Please know that I also believe that
homeschooling is a parent’s God-given right and should be protected.
What has alarmed me, however, is the fact that the article
and Bartholet are attacking something much more important than the practice of
homeschooling. This article is attacking Christianity.
This is evident when Bartholet is quoted, (all emphases
mine):
“Surveys of homeschoolers show that a majority
of such families (by some estimates, up to 90 percent) are driven by
conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from
mainstream culture…some of these parents are ‘extreme religious ideologues’
who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.”
This is the crux of the worldview battle that is
intensifying throughout today’s culture. Christianity or a biblical worldview is the real focus of the article’s
attack.
Bartholet and a professor from the College of William and
Mary are holding a summit at Harvard, called, The Homeschooling Summit:
Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform. The co-sponsor of this summit,
Dr. James Dwyer, has made the following statements in interviews and written reviews:
“The state needs to be the ultimate
guarantor of a child’s wellbeing. There is no alternative to that. The reason why parent child relationships exist is because the state
confers legal parenthood on people through its paternal and maternity laws. It is the state that is empowering parents
to do anything with children – to take them home, have custody and to make any
kind of decisions about that.”
“…the claim that parents should have
child-rearing rights—rather than simply being permitted to perform parental
duties and to make certain decisions on a child’s behalf in accordance with
the child’s rights—is inconsistent with principles deeply embedded in our law
and morality.”
I have been pounding the drum for years that education is
never neutral. All education is driven
by the desire of one group of people to instill certain beliefs and values into
the next generation.
Education isn’t about academics, athletics or fine
arts. It is about worldview formation.
Next week, Part II.