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Baptist 'exit strategy': Get kids out of public classroom 
Groundswell of support building in 16 million member group for homeschooling

If you like sexually transmitted diseases, shootings and high teen pregnancy rates, by all means, send your children to public schools. That's the word from a leader in the fast-growing movement within the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention for parents to pull their children from those schools in favor of homeschooling.

The program is called Exit Strategy and Pastor Wiley Drake, whose home state of California has done some things especially offensive to Christians this year, is a leading promoter.

In an interview with WND, he said that those problems and others are prevalent in public schools, and some Christian leaders even have said it could be considered child abuse just to register children in such a facility.

That's why resolutions encouraging members of the nation's largest Protestant church organization to exit public schools have been submitted in every SBC state and regional convention in the U.S., he said.

"Basically, (the education system) has been saying, 'You have to let us teach your kids anything we want,'" said Wiley, citing some of the pro-homosexual material being required in public education.

"Well, we don't like it and we're not going to put up with it," he said.

The "Exit Strategy Resolution" is based on Albert Mohler's recommendation in 2005 that, in light of the "spiritual, moral, and academic decay in the government schools, Southern Baptists develop an exit strategy from the public schools." It also coordinates with work done by ExodusMandate.org, which works to have parents move children to Christian teaching.

Mohler is president of the SBC's flagship seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and one of the SBC's leading theologians.

"Dr. Mohler is right, Southern Baptists, and Christians generally, need to plan a Christian educational future for our children," Wiley said. "First, Christian parents are obligated to provide their children with a Christ-centered education. Anyone who thinks that a few hours of youth group and church will have more influence on a child's faith and worldview than 40 to 50 hours a week of public school classes, activities, and homework is simply not being honest with himself.

"Second, the open collaboration between homosexual activists and many school districts, together with the overall level of crime and violence in the public schools, make the public schools an unsafe place for our children," he said.

"Although changing the hearts and minds of people is often a slow process, attitudes about how we educate our children are changing within Southern Baptist life," said Roger Moran, a member of the SBC's executive committee. "Increasingly we are recognizing that if we are going to profess the name of Christ, then our lives should be a testimony to authentic Biblical Christianity. Yet, how can we expect our children to have that testimony when they are 'trained up' in secular public schools to have a secular mindset that excludes the acknowledgement of God and the Word of God at every point?"

"The experiment with government schooling has failed," said Bruce Shortt, a co-sponsor of the "Exit Strategy" resolution. "What Baptists need to do now is create a new public education system, a system that is public in the sense that it is open to everyone and that takes into account the needs of orphans, single parents, and the disadvantaged. With our existing buildings, our talented people, and the educational technology available today, it is now possible to create rapidly an affordable, effective Christian education alternative to the government schools."

There are numerous estimates that homeschooling in the United States, already one of the fast-growing segments of education, involves 2.5 million students. The nation's largest home educator's organization, the Home School Legal Defense Fund, has more than 80,000 member families alone. It's estimated that the curriculum, materials and supplies for those students already surpass $1 billion a year.

But if, in fact, a large-scale movement within the SBC would develop, its 16 million members could double or triple or more the size of the homeschool community literally at will.

Those families belong to 42,000 churches in 1,200 local associations and 41 state conventions and fellowships.

Drake said the call for abandonment of government-run secular institutions didn't develop overnight.

"We've been hoping against hope that somewhere along the line we could wake them up and get their attention," he said. "We did our best, we hung in there with them as long as we could. We just can't put up with them any longer."

"All of this is based on the fact that schools have been teaching a New World Order rather than an Old World order, a Biblically-based world order, as it applies to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

"We finally had to do something," he said.

College-level education also needs to be addressed, because 50 years ago when chewing gum and spitwads were the problems in school, Princeton, Yale and Harvard essentially were seminaries where students would learn the Bible, and then move into politics, medicine and the law.

The decision follows by a year a resolution in the SBC Annual Meeting urging churches and parents "to investigate their public schools to determine, among other things, whether they are endangering children in their care by collaboration with homosexual advocates."

Rick Scarborough, founder of Vision America and author of "Liberalism Kills Kids," said schools have long since stopped providing positive reinforcement of traditional values.

"In fact, they are not even neutral on many crucial issues which are important to people of faith. Unfortunately, public education has been hijacked by people who reject Biblical teachings on man's origin, the proper role of sex and the acceptability of homosexuality. These are non-compromising issues for Christians."

The resolution notes that federal judges have allowed that "parents have no constitutional right … to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise …" and specifically permitted government schools to teach Darwinism and the acceptability of homosexuality.

Since the convention already owns buildings that could be used, has on staff many teachers who could contribute, and can take advantage of satellite and Internet technologies, there should be no major obstacles, officials said.

Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., is in a state where the problem probably is more easily defined, because of issues addressed by the most recent state Legislature.

That group approved several different plans that would have required local public schools to teach sensitivity to the "discrimination" against alternative sexual lifestyles and integrate "tolerance training" into history and social science curriculums. A required program would have forced students not only to learn a "new definition" of tolerance, but would have required them to accept and advocate for homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism.

Another plan would have prevented any school teaching materials or activities from "reflecting adversely" upon homosexuals, bisexuals or transgenders.

Former Assemblyman Larry Bowler, R-Elk Grove, said in his six years as a member of the Assembly Education Committee, "Never, never, in all the thousands of bills that I voted on in that committee, did I ever see anything even close to the destructive decadence of these three bills."

These three were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but family advocates believe there will be similar proposals in the future. The governor did sign into a law a plan to force Christian colleges – if a single student is attending on a state grant – to promote transexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality.

step by step toward New world order, huh.
Good thing we lived last days, huh?
o wait...that bad, right?

Amen Pastor Roger!

All Christians need to pay close attention to news about evil things being done in our schools. We should all be looking for alternatives and not be so naive that we can stop all of the evil things in our public schools. It appears to be getting worse and worse. If these evil things haven't hit your school system yet, they will - it's just a matter of time.

Our children and what they are taught must always be close to the top of our priority list. We MUST NOT force our children to go "through the fire." If it means a smaller house, an older car, and any number of other less important things scratched off our financial priority list, we MUST plan and prepare for education outside of public schools. Maybe that means schools in our churches or homeschooling. Regardless, we must have other choices. We simply can't allow the devil to teach our children. My wife is a teacher in public schools, and she knows where even the most conservative school districts are going. Many of the school districts are NOT given a choice. They either do what they are told, teach what they are told to teach, and use the mandatory materials or lose funding.

Our children are obviously more important than things, cars, and houses, so we MUST do the right thing for our children. Homeschooling is an excellent choice for many families, and it many times results in stronger bonds of love between us and our children. It's also a proven fact that many home schooled children get a much better education at home than they do in public schools. The same is true for many private Christian schools, but much more money is involved for this choice. This might not be the case if we all pooled our resources and opened many more Christian schools through our churches. There might even be ways to legally divert some of the taxes we pay to our private Christian churches. In reality, our public schools should not be receiving our tax dollars if our children are being educated elsewhere. I know this would involve additional legislation in many states, but this would be reasonable and quite possible.

The main argument against homeschooling appears to be what many people and teachers call "socialization". This is simply getting along with other children, learning for children to play together, and interact with each other. This could easily be done on any playground or in any church. It could even be done by homeschoolers getting their children together and planning events between parents who could network with each other. Regardless, it is far past time for Christian parents to network together on issues that involve our children. If the future and education of our children isn't important enough for everyone to devote some time and energy to, NOTHING is worthy of time and effort. Many other positive things should be considered: 1) involvement of parents and grandparents; 2) involvement of retired Christians who would feel purpose in participating in the future of our children; 3) involvement of retired school teachers; 4) involvement of Sunday School teachers, etc. We really might be surprised how many Christians who would gladly volunteer time to help a Church School, a Private Christian School, or Homeshoolers. I honestly believe that many churches would make this a priority if it became necessary, and it appears that IT IS GOING TO BE NECESSARY. In all reality, this is and should be a MISSION for our Churches.

Love in Christ,
Tom

Colossians 1:29 NASB  For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

Amen brother, chruches should make it a priority. If the church is small and does not have the funding at the very least they can make themselves aware of the laws pertaining to homeschooling in their area and become familiar with the many free resources that are available for parents, then make that information readily available for anyone interested.

There are many excuses that people come up with as to why they cannot place their children in private schools or homeschooling but to be quite honest and blunt it is simply because they do not want to be bothered. There are many resources where the material is completely free and the time involved for the parents is very minimal. There are many organizations that are also available to assist parents and to provide social interaction for their children. These organizations even have competition sports, Drivers Education, music classes and much more arranged for homeschooled children to assist in such areas.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, I've been trying to research alternatives and learn what I can about alternatives to public school. My oldest grandson is now in kindergarten, and my daughter is already worried about what might be taught to slightly older children. In most cases, there is a general rule that the bad stuff starts happening in the third grade. Please, don't anyone take my word for this. Check out your individual school system, as each one could be different. There are also court cases ongoing in many school districts and temporary court orders for some school systems that might or might not be won. I guess that it could be different in each state, but the problems are huge enough for all Christian parents to stay completely informed and have alternatives already planned for. We should not allow the devil to hold our children hostage because we failed to take the time and effort to be informed and develop alternatives.

YES - I have found tons of resources for people who want to homeschool. I think there are also many churches that are developing plans and trying to determine if their congregations will support a Christian school in the Church. I honestly think that many answers will be "YES". I would almost speak with certainty that grants of various types would also be available from many private foundations. I know there is in my city, and they have built classrooms for some of our Christian schools here. Regardless, I would say that homeschooling is an excellent alternative, with or without grants or help from your church. The list of free and excellent materials is mind-boggling. Many of the costs are reduced to the expense for paper and ink for a printer.

Brother, I think that you are completely correct that rejecting alternatives and leaving children in an evil teaching environment many times boils down to folks being lazy. In other cases, folks might use the excuse that money from 2nd and 3rd jobs is a necessity to survive. Then we would be back to talking about the priorities of what we spend our money for.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 51:10 NASB  Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Priorities is correct. The money saved on child care and public schooling plus the transportation to and from schools and extra jobs quite often consititutes one less job needed when a family homeschools their children.

One of the best places to keep informed about changes in the law is through the Home School Legal Defense Fund (HSLDA). This is an organization that has a group of lawyers throughout the U.S. that assist in defending against the local laws and insititutes actions to change the laws on homeschooling. There is a link that can be reached through their home page that shows the laws for various states and the requirements for homeschooling in those states. There are many tips, asistance and how-to's available there also.

http://www.hslda.org/Default.asp?bhcp=1

Homeschooling can be done with preset programs (curriculums) that can be attained through various places such as Landmarks Freedom Baptist Curriculum that have set programs for K-12 for approximately $350.00 per year. Or a person can design their own curriculum with all the free materials available on the internet from record keeping forms to track the childs performance to worksheets on all subjects and sometimes even reduced or free books to go with the worksheets.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, thanks for the link on the laws and requirements. I'll put together an information package and send it to my daughter. They're in St. Louis Missouri. I think that my daughter is already leaning toward homeschooling, and I will try to help them in any way that I can.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Philippians 4:12-13 NASB  I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.  I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

You're most welcome brother. If there is anything else I can do to help please let me know.