More parents are excercising their rights regarding education.

[OneFollowingHim]

Southern Baptists Increasingly Shunning Public Education

"Frustration with public education seems to be growing among the nation's Southern Baptists, with supporters of Christian schools and home schooling arguing that if God is absent from the classroom, then their children should leave too."

Source...

We homeschool and the only other option for us would be private school. The anti-Christian atmosphere in the public schools is something we prefer to avoid.

[EvoUK]

How, precisely, is not specifically teaching christianity the same as being anti-chrisitianity- especially when other religions and other gods are not discussed either.

[Amazing Rando]

Southern Baptists Increasingly Shunning Public Education

"Frustration with public education seems to be growing among the nation's Southern Baptists, with supporters of Christian schools and home schooling arguing that if God is absent from the classroom, then their children should leave too."

Source...

We homeschool and the only other option for us would be private school. The anti-Christian atmosphere in the public schools is something we prefer to avoid.

Well to each his own I suppose. You've got to do what's best for your kids. I'll be sending mine (when I have them someday!) to public school unless the public school in the area we live in is subpar. I figure as long as you teach your kids your Christian values as best you can, exposure to "the world" really isn't as bad as some would have us believe.

[Minnesota]

From the link.

"A school education that's secular would teach us that God is an option and that we're all the product of random chance and millions of years of mutation and evolution," he says. "Those things are out of step with what God's Word teaches, and they're inappropriate for the education of children who would grow up to think and act biblically."

It's always amusing when these self anointed spokesmen for all of Christianity take it upon themselves to disfranchise those Christians that don't toe their line of belief. The underlying message being, "How dare you call yourself a Christian when you don't believe as we do." Is it possible for a good Christian to believe that mutations effected evolution? Doesn't appear so. Any such Christian would be out of step with "what God's Word teaches." But as it turns out, there are millions of Christians who DO believe in evolution, and that it IS in keeping with "what God's Word teaches."

So, when one reads "it is not so much that Christians are leaving the public schools as that the public schools have left Christians," obviously the term "Christian" is meant to exclude anyone who does agree with their position on evolution. I wonder how long people like Gamble would put up with such inanities if it came from another camp, say if Catholics started making assertions that unless one revered the Pope, they could not claim the label "Christian."

As I see it, such bigotry and delusional exclusiveness goes hand in hand with the nervous fear that their belief has too many chinks to weather close examination, and functions as a preemptive move to block any such assaults. "Don't kid yourselves my brothers and sisters, we, and only we, have interpreted scripture properly, which gives us exclusive rights to the label Christian. So if anyone who claims to be Christian but adheres to the atheistic hogwash that the world was not created in six days, and that we all evolved, just tell 'em they aren't really Christians. These are not things god has taught us."

Fundies are entertaining to be sure, but their mental gymnastics to prop up their swiss cheese theology is a bit scary.

[Lily]

I homeschooled my son from Kinder thru his Senior year. He is well adjusted,thoughtful, kind, considerate, reads the Bible on his own, has his pilot's license, etc... I am only bragging on the impact of God on my son's life. We chose not to put him in public school, because we wanted him taught from a Christ centered curriculm. I am so thankful we chose this option...we could not be prouder of the man he has turned out to be.

[Rusty T]

Has anyone seen the Tapestry of Life curricula?

rusty

[Lily]

How, precisely, is not specifically teaching christianity the same as being anti-chrisitianity- especially when other religions and other gods are not discussed either.

Satan is the author of confusion. I would not teach my child a false religion and since there are no other gods to talk about, but our God in heaven; all others are false gods.

[Minnesota]

Satan is the author of confusion. I would not teach my child a false religion and since there are no other gods to talk about, but our God in heaven; all others are false gods.

I don't believe you would, but in claiming that Satan is the author of confusion, how can you be sure he didn't play you for a patsy? Confusing you into believing that whatever path you guided your son down was the right one, when, in fact, it was the wrong one?

[Lily]

I don't listen to Satan and I stay in God's Word. We see what kind of Godly man our son has turned out to be. I do not worry that I have guided our son down the wrong path.

[Minnesota]

I don't listen to Satan and I stay in God's Word.

But, if Satan is the "author of confusion" then why is it not possible that what you believe to be "stay[ing] in God's Word" is actually a misperception Satan has authored so as to deceive (confuse) you. The "God's Word" you perceive is actually not god's, but Satan's. The real "God's Word" being something quite different?

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

How, precisely, is not specifically teaching christianity the same as being anti-chrisitianity- especially when other religions and other gods are not discussed either.

It isn't the same. The problem is, many Christians are being sold a line of right-wing rhetoric that establishes a by-and-large false dilemma in the public school system. They falsely equate not inclusive of religious doctrine with anti-Christian. Worse yet, they claim to seek that Christianity be taught alongside competing scientific theories, yet one needs only sit in on a meeting of the CCC or any one of dozens of Christian educational organization to realize that this claim is only a stepping stone, that what they want is not Christianity alongside other ideas, but rather Christianity instead of other ideas, and while the former would be acceptable if the Christian theories had some scientific support (they don't, which is why they are excluded from public instruction), but the latter has no place in the public school arena, as public schools are not the proper place for religious instruction. Some Christians understand this, but sadly many do not, or they just don't care.

[Minnesota]

It isn't the same........................

Right. And, what the fundies are trying to do is establish the perception that the whole of Christianity is on their side. OneFollowingHim makes the absurd observation that there is a "anti-Christian atmosphere in the public schools," when, in fact, the only "anti" positions the schools have taken are anti-"creationism is as valid as science", anti-"prayer is right because the majority rules," and anti-"the 10C's have a place in schools because some of its ideals mirror that of our society." Of course there are others, but these should suffice.

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

Satan is the author of confusion. I would not teach my child a false religion and since there are no other gods to talk about, but our God in heaven; all others are false gods.

However, that isn't what Minn asked. How does the simple exclusion of religious teaching as a necessary component of scientific explanation for natural events equate to "anti-Christian?"

The totality of our education doesn't occur in one single venue, it occurs in many venues. There is no need to inject religious instruction into secular venues, when the religious instruction we receive at home and church and other venues is already a part of the total package. The totality of our eduction in life should not have to come down to a contest between the sacred and the secular, rather they should work together to provide their individual parts.

Evolutionary theory is not necessarily at odds with the bible, especially since evolutionary theory is not necessarily equal to Darwinism. Evolutionary theory doesn't attempt to answer first origins, it attempts to answer intermediary processes. It isn't necessary to go all the way back to God to demonstrate how those processes work, just as it is more than sufficient to explain human reproduction beginning with the sperm and the egg, without needing to go back to grandma and grandpa, and the begetting of Great Aunt Mildred, and Jobeth in the 16th century who was a decendant of Mahalla the Wise in ancient Tibet, who was the great-great-great-great-great grandniece of Gilgamaud the Conqueror of the vast Fifteen Acres of the Sodden Swamp of Upper Gilead in the fifth year of Constantine! Such an abbreviated explanation as begins with the sperm and egg of your parents does not argue that none of that came before you, but only that we don't need to know all that, right here, right now in this venue, to satisfactorily accomplish this venue's part in instructing you on how you came to be.

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

Right. And, what the fundies are trying to do is establish the perception that the whole of Christianity is on their side. OneFollowingHim makes the absurd observation that there is a "anti-Christian atmosphere in the public schools," when, in fact, the only "anti" positions the schools have taken are anti-"creationism is as valid as science", anti-"prayer is right because the majority rules," and anti-"the 10C's have a place in schools because some of its ideals mirror that of our society." Of course there are others, but these should suffice.

Exactimum (yes, I have decreed that is now a word).

[OneFollowingHim]

Darwinian evolution denies supernatural special Creation and is therefore anti-Christian. That is the only view taught in public schools. ID is blocked at every turn. And I understand why. It overthrows Darwinism. Darwinism teaches that everything we see with regards to biological life occurred without any Supernatural influence. To deny the Creator is to deny Christianity. And to teach Darwinism is anti-Christian.

Handing out condoms and demonstrating how to put them on bananas is anti-Christian. And then justifying it by saying kids are going to have sex anyway undermines the values of abstinence. There are sexually transmitted diseases that a condom will not prevent. And too often kids are not given the whole picture about sexual contact.

Teaching the acceptance of homosexuality in public schools is anti-Christian. Some may embrace that Heather has mommies, but it is none-the-less wrong. For more on the homosexual agenda in public schools see...

Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools Marches Forward

And I see the same old posters here that I see in every thread of this type.