Sunshine Christians

First, Happy New Year to everyone! I hope 2006 will be better for, and bring much needed blessings to, all of us.

Second, I apologize for not posting in such a long time. My dsl was down due to lack of money and I just got it back up Friday. I'm happy to be posting regularly again and ask for your prayers that I'll have the money to pay the dsl bill next month!

I was thinking about a lot of things while I couldn't post. Since it was Christmas time the "War on Christmas" controversy took center stage in my thoughts. I listened to talk radio and heard all the horror stories about retailers not saying merry Christmas, the usual suspects criticizing Nativity scenes, and public schools banning the colors red and green because they were too Christmasy. Of all these stories, the ones about public schools interested me the most because they aggravated a problem I've had for a long time with Christians about their attitude toward public education.

I don't disagree with Christians' criticism of the public schools. They really do seem to have become seminaries of secular humanism, and not just at Christmas time. The problem I have is with Christians' unwillingness to really do anything about the situation. They love to complain about the spiritual, moral, and academic decay of public education yet the vast majority of Christian parents send their kids to--you guessed it!--public schools. I don't get it. If public schools are as toxic as many Christians say they are, why do so many of those same believers not take their kids out?

A few years ago, a couple of men whose names I can't remember introduced a resolution at the Southern Baptists' Convention calling on Christians to remove their children from public schools. If memory serves, they actually said that it was Christian parents' duty to do so. The resolution was defeated. One of the reasons given for the defeat was that abandoning the public schools would be too "radical", and make Christians look like the intolerant fanatics humanists already believe them to be. It was felt that Christians shouldn't play into the stereotype. Another reason for the defeat was the idea that Christians had to be salt and light in school. I found both of these reasons to be cop outs.

Christians are supposed to follow Christ, not the world. Pandering to the prejudices of Christ haters is not "living the Christian life". While Christians shouldn't be different from the world just for difference's sake, they should willingly depart from worldy ways as much as following Christ dictates. Certainly this should be so when it comes to the spiritual and moral well-being of their children. But that doesn't appear to be the case. Apparently, many of the faithful are sunshine Christians, loving their salvation but totally unwilling to sacrifice for it. That explains the pandering and the "salt and light" theory of public school attendance. Rather than admit that they aren't willing to make the lifestyle changes they'd have to make to take their kids out of public schools, many Christian parents say their kids are being salt and light in those schools. What little morality still exists in state schools, they argue, would vanish if their kids left. Oh how holy that sounds! Never mind that such rhetoric allows these people to claim the label Christian while living lives indistinguishable from the unbelieving world.

Now do you see my problem with a lot of Christians? Much of the controversies over things like Christmas could be avoided simply by Christian parents taking their Biblical authority seriously and giving their children a Godly education. That means not sending them to public schools if they are as bad as Christians have made them out to be for the better part of a generation. To those who don't want to make the necessary sacrifices, I say you can't put you child in the lions' den then complain when he gets eaten. To the salt and light crowd, I say a mass, or merely sizeable, exodus from public schools would probably get them scrambling to genuinely reform themselves, making them better, and more religion friendly, for the kids who stay. Thus, leaving public schools could be the best way to make them taste the salt and see the light.

But it's the churches, not an unchurched blogger, who should be telling Christians this. Instead, most churches seem committed to keeping their congregations comfortable in their shallowness. No "hard" sermons about sacrifice or being different from their neighbors when Christ demands it. Just a lot of fluff about how God wants them happy, healthy, and wealthy. Never mind that their children's commitment to a Christian worldview is being systematically destroyed by an institution that most Christians trust more than God. And they wonder why they're losing the culture war!

Christians need to put up or shut up. They should take their kids out of public schools or stop accusing those schools of spiritual rape. Their integrity is on the line. Sunshine Christianity won't do. It's either the real deal or no deal. The choice is theirs; I hope they make the right one.