God and the classroom

They’ve taken God out of the classroom

The Christian fundamentalist ilk routinely claim that they’ve withdrawn their children from the public education system the cause “they,” whoever “they” are, have taken and God out of the classroom.  This is just a convenient excuse for those who don’t like what they see happening in the American education system to take up their marbles and go home and play alone.  I think more often than not the motives are xenophobic, racist or classist. 

Taking God of the classroom or the school is like trying to take God it out of a foxhole.  When I think back to my childhood and my experiences in the school system, I prayed to God every day.  In fourth grade I prayed that God would wake me up from the nightmare that was my fourth grade teacher Mrs. Scott.  This is a woman who had no business being around small children, she was cruel, demanding, authoritarian and loud.  I got through it though and my experience with Mrs. Scott taught me how to deal with loud, authoritarian and cruel people and that sometimes, like in a foxhole you keep your head down.

When I was in middle school and had to deal with the boys in the locker room, God was with me as well.  I’m here aren’t I?  PE class in the middle school was the first time that I experienced an entire grade level of some 150 boys coming together at one time to change clothes in a moderately  supervised environment.  I became acutely aware of who the predators were and who I should stick with as part of the safety herd.  This was a valuable lesson for later in life.  There was constant prayer during that experience, and God was indeed present in the public school locker room. Years later I’d become aware of lesser gods in the boys locker room. That topic is for another musing.

Throughout my public school career every quiz, test, assignment and big project required that prayers be lifted to God.  Those prayers asked for wisdom, discernment, encouragement and perseverance.  God had me in an environment where I would meet many different people, with many different ideas, with many different backgrounds and I’d have to learn how to cope with them in that venue.  This lesson prepared me to cope with them in the greater world too.  Funny, even in NJ, no one took God out of my school experience.

I believe that many who home school do so because it is the easy way out.  It is easy to collect up one’s children and shepherd them away to a safe same thinking environment.  That action at its heart is intellectual malpractice, why in a democratic republic it might even be treason.  Those actions are also very dangerous to maintaining a  democracy, the ideals of Franklin, Jefferson and Adams require enlightenment.  It is also a complete for twisting and perversion of the Gospel.  These people should read the Gospel of John chapter three vs. 16 and…17.  Verse 17 is very clear Jesus as God did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it.  How in heaven’s name can we save the world as disciples if we hide and ourselves away from that world? Simple answer, we can’t.

November musings

November musings

Home Schooling

I do think that if children are home schooled that this should be considered for the right reasons. Those being, the child needs special one on one attention that the public and private school systems cannot provide. That the child is unable to function intelligently and rationally within the confines of the system and is then considered to be a disruption and must be removed from the school for the greater good. Personally, I don’t believe keeping a child home based on Christian principals is the right decision.
What exactly do the scriptures say…

"And it came to pass afterward, that He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with Him.." Luke 8:1.

That’s what Jesus did; He went into the world, into every city and village preaching and SHOWING the glad tidings. Jesus is our example not to hide from, or run from the world but to go into the world. How sad it is that many who home school their children miss their commission to show the world what it is we’re made of. Why in some circumstances it might be fair to ascertain that those who hide from the world are just as bad as those in fundamental madrassas who promote violence against the world. Those who hide from and shun the world have given up on it and that is a sin. The sin, again from scripture;

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Simply, this commission cannot be achieved whilst hiding out at home. How will others see what we’re supposed to be doing when we’re hiding out from them? Parents who train and teach their young ones well have nothing to fear from a school system. Perhaps those most fearful are those who’ve fallen the most short in their job to train their children well, with strong morals, ethics and steadfast belief in who they are and what they believe.

Oh I expect to hear lots of whining that “Our children can’t pray at school.” That, “God has been removed from the school.” “That the schools are full of persecutors.”

This is all poppycock. At no time in my life when I have either shut my eyes or not, to pray has anyone prevented me from doing so. If God has indeed been removed from school, well then who is to blame for that? Could it be those who’ve taken up their marbles also known as their children and packed up and forsaken the system with a refusal to participate? Maybe. Could it be that those who’ve cut and run are creating spiritually weak offspring who when grown will not be able to function with, confront and respect those of a different mind, perhaps.

To wrap it up, many of those who’ve cut and run are demonstrating that they don’t love or care for their fellow citizens, they have shunned them and in that shunning, they have shunned God’s light in those who they’ve forsaken.