Christians admonished to 'take ownership' of children's education

Christians admonished to 'take ownership' of children's education

An Orlando pastor who heads the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools says it's time for believers to stop disobeying God and take ownership of the education of our children.

Edward Gamble is director of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, based in Orlando. SBACS is sponsoring seminars around the country to train church leaders how to open private schools, in order to get children out of the secular public schools. Gamble says sending children to be indoctrinated by a secular, humanist institution is not biblical.

"Failure to do what God says is called disobedience. You can color it whatever color you want, but it's still disobedience -- it's rebellion," argues Gamble. "And when God's people don't take ownership of the education of their children, they're disobeying God."

The Southern Baptist official supports his argument with scripture. "[God] says very clearly throughout scripture 'I expect you to raise Godly seed' and 'Teach these things to your children,' He says in Deuteronomy. In Luke He says 'give a child the teachers you want him to have because when he grows up he'll look like the teacher.'"

Gamble says the major fallacy is that there is any such thing as an education that can be secular. "Scripture doesn't know anything about any part of our lives being secular," he states. "Everything's sacred."

According to Gamble, no child can spend 16,000 hours of his or her life between kindergarten and 12th grade doing anything and it not have a profound impact on who he is. "But when the messages are either abiblical or counter-biblical, why would you expect a child to grow up thinking biblically?" he asks.

Christian educator says children ill-prepared to evangelize

An advocate for Christian private schools says believers have a duty to give their children a godly education, and should not be fooled by the argument by some public school parents that their Christian children can be "salt and light" in the secular government schools.

The Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools is an Orlando-based group that is using two-day seminars in various cities to train church leaders in how to open private schools. Director Edward Gamble says Christians who give their children over to the secular public school system are disobeying God's command to educate their children biblically. He says many Christians believe the false argument that Christian children can be "salt and light" in the secular, humanist environment of public schools.

"I've heard that over and over and over again for the last 20 or 30 or 40 years," Gamble confesses, "and when I look at the results, the results say that the world influences the kids more than the kids influence the world."

That, says the Southern Baptist spokesman, is logical. "We don't send children to the mission field -- we send adults," he says, "and then only after extensive training, conditioning, and preparation." Gamble offers the following scenario by way of explanation.

"If you went to a typical Baptist church, or any other church for that matter, on a Sunday morning and asked the pastor or the Sunday school director to take you to the 3rd grade or the 8th grade, and show [you] the kids who [have been] prepared to be missionaries in a hostile environment, could they do it?" he asks.

"God doesn't tell us to send the enemy our children and have him educate them," says the SBACS director.

Educator says some pastors blind to public schools ills

The director of a group that promotes private Christian education says there are several reasons why many pastors, including Southern Baptists, continue to ignore the problems within U.S. public schools, and continue to defend them from the pulpit.

Edward Gamble oversees the Orlando-based Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools. The Association is offering seminars to teach church leaders how to open private Christian schools. He says while there are still some public schools that have not been affected or intimidated by the American Civil Liberties Union, and some that still employ well-meaning Christian teachers and administrators, one cannot escape the fact that the government-run school system promotes an atmosphere that is counter-biblical.

Still, says Gamble, many pastors express support for public schools. He cites three main reasons for this support. First, Southern Baptists are an egalitarian people -- they believe in an education for everybody, which he says is a good thing. Secondly, Gamble says pastors who defend public schools are remembering a public school system that does not exist anymore; a setting where God was welcomed, not banned. And lastly, he states that these pastors do not want to offend.

"They look out over their congregations, and they see all these people who work and teach and are involved in the public school system -- and frankly, they wonder how in the world they could take a position that appears to oppose those people's livelihood or investment," he explains. "And I'm not sure whether that is a failure on the part of the pastor to be courageous enough to call the situation what it is."

Gamble says if this is the case, God will judge that.