Sunday, August 5, 2007
Crisis in Christian Schools?
Descartes once said "in order to be a true seeker of truth, one must, as far as it is possible, question everything." I am becoming more and more convinced of this as I have seen Christians seemingly well grounded in their faith go through Christian schools and come out the other side questioning their Christianity. There is something wrong here. I know of several cases where this has happened. The first case I know of was at a Christian high school. Someone I know became so completely dissulussioned with Christianity after seeing the amount of hypocrisy at his school that this person isn't sure they want to be Christian. Part of the purpose of sending someone to a Christian school is an effort to keep this person from losing their faith. The fact that the opposite effect is happening is disturbing. So what's causeing this? Is there actually a crisis in our Christian Schools? I would say quite simply yes, there is a crisis in Christian schools. The problem, put simply, is the Christian sub culture. This is the idea that if one puts a group of Christians together who are like minded they will never question anything and in so doing will save their faith. THIS IS WRONG! Scripture commands that we be in the world but not of the world. NO WHERE in scripture does it command that we not even in be in the world and that we completely separate ourselves from the world. Christ in fact reprimands this kind of behavior in Revelation chapter two when he condemns the church who has lost it's first love. Here is a church who has done all the right things, and yet they have lost sight of the goal. I would put forth that this what happens when Christians insist upon living in a sub-culture kind of society. We end up raising children who are given the tools combat in the real world but never given the opportunity to use these tools. I would ask then, what was the point of giving the tools in the first place? If we insist upon sheltering our children to the point that they have no idea what is in the world they will no know how to deal with the things that are in the world. What will follow is a child who views the world as something that is perhaps not all bad and thus begins the slippery slope of a child who, when confronted, does not know how to deal with the confrontation and begins to agree with the ideas set before him. I ask you, would it not be better to instead begin confrontation in a controlled kind of manner that these children will know how to use the tools they have been given? It makes no sense to give the child the tools to use without actually giving them instruction manual to booklet. We must not assume that our children will simply figure it out on their own, some will, but some will come out the other side disillusioned. Again I ask, would it not be better to give them both the tools and the instruction manual to use these tools to combat the world? I would put this to parents, you know what is the world. Educate your child in both the ways of the world and the ways of Christianity and then ask them, which is better?
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