It has long been my bitter experience that many Christians are ambivalent to Christian education. Sure it might be good for some children they say, but my children don’t need it. So today we are beginning a series highlighting the excuses Christian parents make for avoiding the responsibility of a Christian education.
Excuse 1: I want my children to be salt and light
This has to be the most virtuous excuse that I have heard. What Christian doesn’t want their children to be salt and light? Yet while the number of Christians who use this excuse is significant, the number of children in government schools who are actually salt and light is far fewer. For many Christians, this is just a pious platitude, an excuse to assuage their guilty consciences that they might just be prioritising material goods or something else over obedience to Christ.
While there are some children from exceptional Christian families who by God’s grace are actually salt and light in their public schools, far more frequently, the witnessing and converting is occurring in the opposite direction. Christian children are being conformed to the pattern of this world. Compare if you will, children who attend decent (as opposed to nominal) Christian schools or are homeschooled to children who are at public schools. The public school children are often ‘cooler’ and far more attuned to what is acceptable to the secular world. Their ‘secular and religiously neutral education’ has done its job well. You can see this often in their dress and demeanour as well as their speech and values. How many children has the church lost to the faith because we have deceived ourselves into thinking this ‘salt and light’ approach to be an effective evangelistic strategy? Spoiler alert; it’s not.
Now while there are some sincere Christians who use and believe this excuse, it is important for us to see what is often actually going on. This is an attempt to paint a decision that runs counter to God’s commands as a righteous decision. It’s actually quite clever, and man has been doing this sort of thing forever. I’m looking at you Saul. But it will not do. To obey is better than to sacrifice. God holds parents and particularly fathers responsible for the education of children. In Ephesians 6:4, Paul exhorts fathers to bring their children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. He categorically did not suggest bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of Caesar or any other pretender to the throne of the universe.
Yes of course we should announce the news of the kingdom! Yes of course we want our children to be salt and light! We don’t just want the right outcome and let’s face it, our current obsession with public secular education over the last few generations hasn’t achieved this, but is at least partly responsible for the decimation of the church. What we also want is that our process and methods are God-honouring. And we know, that when we honour God in obedience, he blesses us. Look at Psalm 78. As we the covenant people of God honour Him by teaching our children so that the next generation will know His law, then we will see a new generation putting their trust in God, remembering his redemptive deeds and remaining loyal to him. These children will be more salty and far brighter lights for having developed a Christian rather than secular worldview.