The danger of public schools | Christian Education Training Course 5/8

It’s important for us to consider why we believe that it is our duty to provide our children with a truly Christian education. Part of the reason we have already discussed: that it’s the parent’s responsibility to teach their children in the ways of the LORD (Prov. 22:6, Deut. 6:4-9 and Ps. 78:5-7). That is part of the promise that you make when you present your child for baptism. This is a weighty responsibility that cannot be shifted off onto someone else, the school, the church etc. One day we must give an account to God for how we have instructed and brought up our children. It is a very serious thing to give your God-given responsibility to bring up your children over to the state, which completely rejects the Christian faith. Whether we realize it or not, that is in effect what we do if we send our children to a public school.

Part of this responsibility is to understand the great dangers that the public schools present to our children. Many parents are unaware of the fearful consequences of sending their children to be educated by the state. They think that it’s more professional and will give their children good opportunities to get a place at university and a good job afterwards. The danger is that in our thinking, we very easily place the state education on the same level as truly Christian education and assess it according to worldly standards. In fact, if you look closely at the education the public schools provide, you will discover that in many areas it’s a shocking failure. There is actually very little true education in the Biblical sense of the word, which is the training of the mind. Most of what takes place in the public schools is enculturation and indoctrination. But the problem is that almost all of us are products of the public-school system, so it’s very difficult to make an objective judgment.

We understand parents, that it’s a big step to withdraw your child from the state school system and place it in a school which has not yet started, has little experience, has no certainties and several significant dangers. But before we conclude that it’s a choice between a proven reliable system (public school) and a high-risk option (church school), we need to understand clearly the consequences of placing our child in the state school system. Otherwise we are unable to make an informed judgment.

First, Enculturation. Schools are fundamentally agents of enculturation. More than 90% of the time a child spends in school is spent on enculturation, while only 10% is spent on instruction.¹ If you study history, you will find that all state indoctrination programs have focused on the education of children to achieve their aim. See Marxism, Communism etc. They have no Bible, but they understand better than many Christians do the vital influence of a child’s education on the rest of its life. The philosophies and thinking taught before a child’s 12^th year are the most important influences on its whole development. By the time a child is 12 years old, it has spent more hours in school than they have spent with their families and the church combined. It would take 75 years of attending church regularly to equal the school’s influence in the first 12 formative years of a child’s life.² So we need to be aware of the real dangers we are placing our child in by sending it to the state schools.

“Second, True education is, in a sense, a spiritual process, the nurture of a soul”(p. 279). Man is a spiritual being. This means everything we do involves the soul, including education. To remove Christianity from education is to destroy education. As Dabney says, “Every line of true knowledge must find its completeness in its convergency to God, even as every beam of daylight leads the eye to the sun. If religion be excluded from our study, every process of thought will be arrested before it reaches its proper goal” (p. 280). We believe that man was created in the image of God, he is a religious creature by nature. Wherever you go, even to the remotest tribes, you will never find one tribe without religion. The concept of God cannot be removed from the human soul. To separate the image of God from man is to rob him of his humanity. We cannot ignore this fundamental essence of man in his education without greatly dishonouring God, damaging the child and turning its education into a perversion.³ Man is a rational and moral being, able to distinguish between good and evil.

We have been taught to think that education is just about obtaining some knowledge and skills to be able to function in society. That is only a small part of education. Dabney said “Education is the nurture and development of the whole man for his proper end”—and that end is moral.’ The most important goal of education is formation of character and thinking. The process of education is fundamentally religious in character! It involves instilling values and norms into the child. There is no such thing as neutral education, that is education without a religious philosophy underlying it. The concept of neutral education is an ungodly one. All education, whether it states it or not, has an underlying religious philosophy. The state school system in China is no exception to this. Their atheistic philosophy is that there is no God. In fact, I am my own god! I am taught to focus on myself, my own needs and desires, without reference to God or anyone else.

The philosophy of secular education can be summarized in 6 points.

Students are taught:

To be man centered (humanistic). To love themselves. We find that the concept of allowing children to make their own decisions as to what they will do is very pervasive. It also affects the church to a great extent. Many Chinese parents (including Christian parents) think it’s showing love to their children to ask them what they want and allow them to make the decisions. Like a parent who says, we asked our child whether it wants to attend a Christian school or remain in the state school system. He doesn’t want to go to a Christian school. This I would suggest is totally wrong. Parents have a God-given responsibility to care for the spiritual, physical and social upbringing of their children. To give the child this responsibility is totally unbiblical and also damaging to the child. We are not to ask the child what it wants, it needs to learn obedience to Biblical principles, at home, school and in the church. Luther says, why is it that we, the older, are spared to the world, except to train up and instruct the young? It is impossible that they should guide and teach themselves, and accordingly God has committed to us who are old and experienced the knowledge which is needful for them, and He will require of us a strict account of what we have done with it.
To be earthly-minded (secular humanism). To reject convictions of faith. Due to the all-invasive influence of the theory of evolution which is taught constantly from an early age in primary schools, children are taught that everything we see around us can be accounted for by the forces of chance and the survival of the fittest. Textbooks rigorously exclude all concepts of the spiritual world and the possibility of miracles. A Biblical view is totally absent. The subtle danger is that secular humanism claims to be moral, to stand up for human rights. But when it comes to the rights of the unborn child they are ruthless. It’s the logical consequence of the evolution theory: man is no more than an animal, so the unwanted unborn child can be ‘disposed of’ by abortion. This is the terrible silent holocaust that is going on every day, and is promoted by secular humanistic thinking. I would like to ask parents who have chosen to keep their children in the public schools: do you really know what your child is being taught and how they are being influenced at school?
To live for earthly gain and material possessions (materialism). This aspect of the philosophy of secular education is also a logical consequence of the evolution theory. If there is nothing but the physical realm, then it is logical that we should live purely for earthly gain and material possessions. So the objective of gaining a good result in the 高考 is purely to get a place at a good university so you can get a well-paid job. The motive of truly Christian education is the glory of God and spiritual good, not only earthly prosperity. But if we are just highly developed animals as evolution claims, its logical that we should just live for material gain. Sadly many Christian parents’ thinking is the same as the world. If their child succeeds in this world, then they are content, even though their soul is still lost.
To live for the here and now (temporalism). Related to the 3^rd point. If we are controlled by materialism, then we will also be controlled by temporalism. All the focus is on what we can see. Restraint is bad, don’t wait, enjoy now. But the Scriptures teach that this life is only a preparation for the eternal world. We are not to live for this life, but to contemplate eternal life.
To be free of restraints, to accept the philosophy of situation ethics (permissiveness). Without the guiding principles of right and wrong according to the Bible, the result will be, what works is ok. What I want in a given situation is the rule. Not the absolute standards of right and wrong, but rather I am the standard of what is acceptable or not. If it feels good, then it must be right. Man becomes the measure of everything. The result is not a heroic, courageous, self-sacrificing individuals, but self-centered, pampered, spoiled brats, a generation who just seek their own pleasure.⁴ Modern man is destroying himself.
To reject absolutes and believe that there is no fixed truth (relativism). This is also a consequence of the evolution theory and secular humanism. If there is no God, then there is no absolute truth. According to the secular humanist, truth is right for you, but you cannot force your concept of truth on anyone else. The result is total anarchy. Without absolute rules of right and wrong, we degenerate into less than an animal. Society would not be possible without rules of right and wrong.

These are some experiences of a friend who, like most Chinese young people who have graduated from university, has spent 16 years in public education.

Emphasis on marks. The mark means everything to a student in a public school, if they want to be respected by their teachers and other students. Very often the teachers divide the class into two parts, those who get a ‘good’ mark and those who get a ‘bad’ mark. The teacher’s admiration only focusses on the students who have a good mark. A good mark is absolutely necessary for success in the public-school system. If your mark in the 高考 is poor and you can’t get a good place at university, then your whole student life is in vain. Teachers generally only have a positive view of certain occupations which can earn a lot of money or have a high social status. Only a few teachers are willing to guide those who don’t have a good mark.
Relationship between teachers and students. Often only those students with a good mark have a good relationship with the teacher, the others are just despised. Most of the students are ignored by the teachers. The value of the teachers has a great influence on the students. I only had 5 good teachers in the 12 years of my school education. They instructed the whole person and had a personal care for the students. The students remember these teachers and what they meant for them. But most students have no relationship with teachers at all. The reason is that most teachers cannot demonstrate a desire and a love for knowledge and for the truth themselves.
No instruction of the person. Some moral and ethical principles were only touched on in primary school. After that there is no special instruction in moral and ethical principles at all. When I look back now from a Christian perspective, I can see how sin destroys the youth in the school. They don’t have and cannot have an understanding of truth and error, of right and wrong, because they are left in a moral and ethical vacuum. There is no care for the whole person, as a moral being who needs to be trained and formed in our thinking and our approach to life in this world. Nothing remains but emptiness and vanity. The emphasis on the knowledge of the textbook and marks takes the place of everything else.
The content of teaching in public schools. The knowledge of the textbook only needs to be recited; it doesn’t need to be thought through. Particularly subjects like history, politics etc. This education cannot bring any sense of authority, because the textbook only gives a quick answer to a complex question, and also the textbook always changes with the political situation. Critical thinking is completely absent in the public schools. There is no liberal education provided.
Influence of peers is crucial. Because of the moral and spiritual vacuum, many students are easily influenced by others to accept wrong views of many sinful things, e.g. Homosexuality.

To give your children to be educated by the godless state is a most solemn thing. In England sadly there seems to be a judicial blindness upon the small remaining reformed church. Most reformed Christians don’t believe in Christian education, but still send their children to the state schools. Their arguments are utter folly. They say things like, the children need to be salt and light in the world. It’s turning everything on its head. And it’s a denial of total depravity. Because of our totally corrupt nature, we know that we will be far more quickly corrupted by an ungodly world than that we will be able to influence them for good. One rotten apple in a basket of good apples quickly corrupts the rest, the others don’t make it good. Of course, a child often doesn’t have the strength or ability to identify and resist the corrupting influences and be able to stand up for the truth. Like a young plant, first they need to be nurtured in the greenhouse, before they are exposed to the winds and cold of the garden. The young children need to be cared for and nurtured in the truth, and when they are grounded in the truth, they will be able to stand against error and immorality. We all understand this principle of nature, but why then are we so blind to the same reality in the realm of education? The results are also catastrophic: most of the young people have left the church before the time they reach adulthood. The majority of people in the (mostly small) churches in the UK are middle-aged or old people. The hemorrhaging of the youth from the church has been going on for decades now, so that the church is now so weak that it can hardly recover. It is a fearful judgment on the church in my fatherland. Someone was evangelizing on the streets of a town in Britain once. He tried to speak to a Muslim. The Muslim replied, why are you talking to me? Your churches are empty! And he is right. Dear parents, do you truly care for the souls of your child or children? Then I plead with you to seriously consider what we have discussed this afternoon. If your child is still in a public school, you are allowing it to be indoctrinated in a thinking and philosophy of life which is totally in conflict with the Bible and with what they are taught in the church and at home. Don’t imagine your child will influence others for good, it’s a myth and a trick of satan. Don’t imagine you can correct the influence of school once your child comes home. The influence is too powerful. It’s a spiritual conflict. Also, we need to consider that all that we do or do not do, should be by faith. If it’s not of faith, it’s sin. If we cannot say, I can by faith send my child to the public school, then we need to seriously reconsider this matter. We cannot expect His blessing on our family if we willfully disobey Him in such an important area of our lives. And without His blessing we have nothing.

Fifty students are all sitting dully listening to the teacher talking at the front. They are required to remember and to repeat what they are told, without being expected to think about it. In fact, thinking about and questioning what they are told is discouraged. This is a deliberate policy of the public-school system. Why? Because those who think too deeply are dangerous, they might begin to question the state authority. Obedience is the key. No individual thought, corporate thought is required. Everyone must think in the same way. So what do the public schools do? They crush students with an unbearable load of information which they must be able to repeat by rote for the 高考. OF course, afterwards most of it is forgotten. But the methodology is very effective! This strategy is designed to keep young people so busy at school that they have no time to question and reason for themselves, no time or energy to rebel against authority. The strain and pressure of studying from very early morning until very late at night is too much for many young people and each year many commit suicide. The consequences of a nation educated to believe there is no God is fearful: social disintegration, very high divorce rates, millions of abortions every year, drugs, corruption, suicide, murder etc. all show us the fruits are deadly.

To summarize the different approach, students are taught what to think and how to do. What to think is: you must think in this way, I will tell you what you should think. You should think that evolution is true, and everything came about without any God. And I will tell you how to do, training is focused on a specific job or profession, which knowledge cannot be transferred to another profession, because the basic principles of thinking have not been mastered. But the approach of Classical Reformed education is the complete opposite: the students are trained how to think and what to do. How should I think, what are the correct principles to be applied to form my judgment and thinking? Then I can be taught what I should do, according to the Bible. From this foundation, I can study many subjects with ease.

S. Hauerwas, J.H. Westerhoff, Schooling Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992) ↩︎
R. Littlejohn, C.T. Evans, Wisdom and Eloquence (Wheaton Ill: Crossway, 2006), 182 ↩︎
L. Berkhof, C. Van Til, Foundations of Christian Education (New Jersey, Phillipsburg, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1990), 31 ↩︎
J. E. Adams, Back to the Blackboard (Woodruff, SC, Timeless Texts, 1998), 2 ↩︎