Now that we are on the fourth and last part of this Separation of Church and State, some may be wondering, “What does this have to do with education?” First of all, a look at some of my other blog posts would be helpful, but I will summarize here.
The Bible NEVER gives the responsibility of education to the government. NEVER! God has given the primary responsibility of education to the child’s parents. The Bible also gives command for the churches to teach in spiritual matters as well as assisting in “carnal” or “natural” things (education, among others, such as food, clothing, etc.). Neither the church nor the state has the right to take the parents’ role of educating their children; however, the parents may choose to seek outside assistance with their responsibility.
During the colonial days and into the early years of our country, there was an established public school system. During those times, the schools were not as corrupt as they are today. They had the Bible as their main textbook, morals were taught, and discipline was enforced (if not expected) when there was disobedience or disorder. The schools were kept and run on a very local level, with the local parents as the “school board.” There was little that people saw wrong with this setup.
There was a problem, however. If not at first, it soon became influenced and controlled through government (first local government, then expanding outwardly). The governments involvement has corrupted the entire system, and today it is illegal to have anything related to Christianity (not all religion is banned).
The First Amendment was and is supposed to have a separation of church and state, but, because the overall tone of America was moral Christianity, that influence blended with the government through the nineteenth century – not to mention that there were still those that wanted to have a marriage between church and state. D. James Kennedy makes this observation in his book, Character and Destiny:
To remember how Christian the schools in this country truly were, one has but to recall that in 1890 the Roman Catholic Church started its own school system. Why? Was it because of the secular element in the schools? No. It was because the public schools were so overwhelmingly Protestant that the Catholic families and their priests felt that they needed to start their own school system in order to make sure their own point of view was expressed. (p. 54)
Protestant (Reformed) Christianity was the general rule in the public schools. The Reformed influence promoted the religious lifestyle of the founders of our country, but they were able to bury Baptist and other dissenter influence. The Protestant influence was so great it led to the Catholics starting their own school system in the late 1800’s. By the 1950’s, the public schools lost their Protestantism to secularism and paganism (humanism). This led to the Christian school/homeschool movement.
The movement was mainly a Baptist movement (at first), but several smooth-talking Reformed theologians joined in. Reformed doctrine was brought into the Christian school curricula, and, again, Baptist heritage was buried.
The point of this article, however, is not primarily our Baptist heritage in this country. The point is that our history has proven the Bible’s teaching – the government is not to be involved the education of our children. The government’s goal is not the child’s or the family’s well-being – it’s goal and interest is whatever is better for the country’s future.
There IS to be a separation of church and state – not how the secularist are trying to promote. Everyone has the right to be able to worship God (or not worship) as they see fit, and the government has NO right to interfere with that.
This four-part series on Separation of Church and State: