A Clarification
To the Editor:
After reading my own opinion piece in last week’s paper I wanted to clarify something that, due to my failed attempt at brevity, I wasn’t able to develop sufficiently. Here is what I did not mean: I did not mean that there are no Christians in the public school system. There are many of them. I have spoken to many of them. They were not the target of my criticism. My criticism of the government schools is directed at the top where the decisions are made about what education is, how it is to be done, and what worldview assumptions will be brought to bear in the classroom. My belief is that sincere Christian teachers in the government school system are not permitted to fully teach the way they would if there were no big brother telling them what they can and cannot teach. To my Christian brothers and sisters who teach in government schools to evangelize: Good on you…but there may be a better way.
I do not wish to criticize any Christian teacher who is laboring in government schools. I do, however, want to ask them to fantasize with me about the following prospect: What if we could afford to start our own school because our dollars weren’t being sent to the secularists? What if we created a place where you were free and encouraged to show your students how mathematics leads to the adoration of the Lamb? What if you were invited to show the link between the sovereign goodness of God and the historic spread and worldwide impact of His Gospel? What if you were encouraged to help you students see Christ in Harry Potter and Sydney Carton, and Father Zosima? What if you were able to take every thought captive and tear down in class any worldview that denies the Lordship of Christ? What if you consistently heard the wild gratitude of parents for how you are shaping the hearts and minds of their children to know Christ and make Him known? What if you could teach students how to think instead of what to think? What if you were able to use your gifts as an educator to help children delight in the God who made them and in the world that He made? What if the prayers that you pour out to the Father over the souls of your students didn’t have to be a private affair? What if every student knew that you were praying for them and knew what you were praying over them? What if we could build the best education available to anyone anywhere (and please understand…we COULD do this here in La Grange, indeed we OUGHT to do this) and were able to invite others in regardless of their creed, convictions, or ability to afford excellent private education (hello single parents!)? What if your students were marked by a Christlike delight in whatever is True, Good, and Beautiful? What if?
All subjects lead to the pleasures of knowing God. The pleasures of knowing God is what education is for. Most Christians know this. No secularist can.
In my previous letter to the editor, I wanted to say to the secularists, who bemoan the potential that their money might fund the worship of a Christ they do not acknowledge, that they are right. They should not be robbed by taxation to support a worldview they anathematize…but this has been done to the Christian for decades. Ignoring God as you study His stuff is not a neutral but a negative. And Christian dollars should not be forced to support a system that we see as actively robbing God of His due glory…just like secularists should not be forced to support a system that directs everything at honoring, thanking, glorifying, and enjoying the God they don’t honor. The question is not whether we will worship God. The question has always been which God shall we worship. Choose today who you will serve. As for me and my house…
Will Martin La Grange