The Bible teaches that parents have an important role in teaching their children about God.
“When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ “—Exodus 12:25-27
“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”—Deuteronomy 6:6-7
“Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”—Joshua 4:5-7
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”—Ephesians 6:4
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”—2 Timothy 3:14-15
The most important thing that children can learn about is God.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.”—Psalm 111:10
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge...”—Proverbs 1:7
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”—Proverbs 9:10
I don’t the Bible explicitly teaches that subjects such as maths or French are best taught to children by believers. However, if the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and understanding, maybe it is preferable to teach these things in a framework that puts God at the centre of learning.
It looks increasingly likely that the Conservatives will form the next government. The Conservatives say they want to make it easier for churches to start schools.
“...We will tear down the bureaucratic barriers which prevent new schools being built, and remove the administrative obstacles which currently prevent charities, churches, voluntary groups and others from providing the new schools parents want and children need....”
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=139136
If the government wants churches to create new schools, is now a good time for evangelical Christians to be thinking about creating new schools with a clearly God-centred curriculum, with the Bible at the heart of education?
I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of excluding ourselves from the communities we find ourselves in and being in a Christian bubble. It’s like the common American Christian ‘thing’ of homeschooling because you don’t know what influences a child might come into contact with at school.
If we want to create explicitly Christian schools then we also need to be comfortable with there being explicitily Islamic, Jewish, Sikh schools etc. as well.
I think that it’s very important that our children receive Christian education but believe that that’s down to the parents and local Church to provide, rather than the school. Too many people try to shift responsibility to schools now and I don’t believe that’s a healthy attitude to take.
I don’t want to form a Christian bubble. However, I think that particularly for primary schools, Christian teachers are a better way of influencing the school than 5 -11 year old children who may or may not by that age have a good understanding of the gospel.
Also, if churches or Christian charities did create schools, and these were academically successful, non-Christian parents may want to send their children to them, even if they don’t like the Christian curriculum.
You could argue, however, that we should encourage good Christian teachers to go into all schools and try to provide appropriate influence, rather than just in the select few specialist schools.
My cousin used to teach in a CofE school and the only thing that really set it apart from a normal school was that they had an assembly every day which was of a broadly Christian nature and they said a prayer every day in class. The whole curriculum still had to be covered so there was little advantage to sending your kids that ‘Christian’ school than to a non-Christian school.
I would like to see schools where the whole curriculum is designed around a Biblical worldview, rather than schools which are basically the same as any other school except having a prayer in a classroom.
As I noted earlier, it is likely that soon it will be government policy to encourage churches to create new schools. Therefore now is a good time to think about whether we should be doing that, and if so, what we want those schools to be like.
I don’t want to form a Christian bubble. However, I think that particularly for primary schools, Christian teachers are a better way of influencing the school than 5 -11 year old children who may or may not by that age have a good understanding of the gospel.
Hi Ben, it’s Rupert, maybe you remember me.
I was just wondering if increasing the number of faith schools is a good idea. Indoctrination isn’t a word I use lightly, but I fear this is what your faith schools would lead to. If parents want to bring up a child, in a certain manner they have every right. But as a humanist, School is like my Church. I feel schools should be reserved for teaching FACTS. Don’t you think it would be easier for a child to make their own decision about the validity of religion, in later life, if they recieved empirical facts in school and Theological opinions of their parents in church. I’m afraid that incorporating Religion into all aspects of a childs life would leave them little possibility to properly mix with and understand people of differing opinions. If you take away this possiblity, then you have an indoctrinated child, which I think is an infringement on their human rights. Not only this, but it would leave them ignorant of other ways of life. Ignorance breeds hatred and arrogance; thats one thing I think we can all agree would be a bad thing.
but is it possible just to teach facts? All education comes wrapped in a worldview and schools which teach in the context that all religions are equal, and none of them are necessarily right, are ‘indoctrinating’ just as much as a church school.
You can think about it like this. If one religion is right then teaching in that relgious context is not ‘indoctrination’ but truth. Then any teaching which doesn’t recognise the truth of that religion is actually false.
And though my daughter is to make her own decision to follow Christ, as a Reformed christian I do not believe I am to set her adrfit somehow to find out if Christianity is true or not. Rather, God loves to enter into relationship with those who trust him, and their children, so my daughther is to grow up encouraged to believe in him, pray to him and respond to the God who has loved her first.
Rupert,
I don’t want Christian schools (and Christian homeschooling) so that we produce ignorant children who don’t understand alternative viewpoints. If I homeschooled, I would attempt to accurately teach alternative viewpoints, but also teach a Christian response to them.
I feel that as our world gets darker in these END TIMES we, as Christians need to ensure our children are being taught Godly precepts.
We cannot trust that they are not being indoctrinated with worldly, harmful things and therefore I think homeschooling will continue to grow in the UK as it is growing in the USA.
We have to be especially vigilant as parents to what lessons our children are being taught out there in state education as our government is increasingly secular and atheistic and given laws from the EU which wants no mention of God and can be very anti-christian.
As you know, bible prophecy warns us about these things happening in the last days and you only have to browse the Internet to see the awful ungodly measures and intimidations we are up against.
Christian Concern For Our Nation ( CCFON ) is a very good organisation and seeks to help people, mainly Christians who find themselves caught up in these situations.
I have, myself, quite a few grandchildren and continually find myself warning their parents ( in their busy lives ) about ungodly things the government is planning to enforce in our schools.
Please remain vigilant!
I feel that as our world gets darker in these END TIMES…
Oh, well if it’s the END TIMES, then I better relinquish all power to The Christian Peoples Alliance…
But seriously now, the only way that a child is going to grow up into a person, in a position to make an objective choice about religion, is if they get are taught about all major religions from an unbiased view point. What right do Christians have to teach impressionable children about one religion above all others, when there is no more evidence for that religion than any other one? The government impose standards for education so that kids are able to live their OWN life when they grow up. Religious schools take that away from kids.
And Ben, I simply can’t buy your arguement that christian schools will teach about other religion fairly, why would they? They want the children to grow up to be good christians and have no motivation to teach with any other intension. That is wht religious schools are bad. As they have a slanted idea of what is in the kids best interests. State schools will guarantee what the government have objectively defined as in our kids best interests, that will allow our kids to make their own decision about religion later in life, something which a faith school is intrinsically against.
I thought this organisation was for bible-believing Christians but obviously you have unbelievers commenting here in light of the reply to my recent comment.
We do feel as bible-believing christians that we have the truth and there is in our eyes extremely more evidence than other religions to support this. Therefore I for one do not wish any of my grandchildren to be indoctrinated with other false religions.
The British Isles has always had the laws of the land based on christian principles and since we have strayed from this and allowed other religions to take hold in our lands we have had nothing but problems.
It does say in the scriptures that foreigners living in the land must abide by and respect our religious practices which is a far cry from the way things are in these times in the UK.
The more we stray from these christian ideals in our land the more our Lord will remove His blessings.
1. Where is all the “extremely more evidence” for Christianity being true?
2. Please can you back up your assertion “since we have strayed from this and allowed other religions to take hold in our lands we have had nothing but problems”?
Do you mean that when we were a majority Christian country, in the Middle ages, everyone was really happy? Or is this just another example of people in the present idealising the past, I wonder.
Also, how can you believe that the Lord only gives blessings to Christian countries. The Netherlands have a cohesive society with a happy population… but they are secular liberals, that legalise weed and prostitution :0
Dear Rupert,
I have been a Christian for a long time and have researched the Bible against the history of the world and found it to be infallible.
It is difficult here to go into detail but there are many publications out there for you to check. when I get a moment I will try to post some recommendations of books for you to read. Ah, just thought, there is a series of books by: Dr E. K. Victor Pearce which is brilliant I can recommend. The series is : EVIDENCE FOR TRUTH, volume 1: Science, Volume 2: Archaeology, ( Volume 3 my daughter has and I can`t remember the title ) There is a Volume 4 also which you may or may not be interested in called: Miracles and Angels. He is a scientist, archaeologist and theologian and is well known for his lectures and international broadcasts in many countries around the world, especially on United Christian Broadcasters ( UCB ) Hope this helps.
Oh, I forgot to answer the second part of your question, I feel as many people do that we were a better society when we had Godly laws and principles as guidelines to live by.
There are so many problems now because we have gone away from those Judeo-Christian principles and you can see it in not just our society but others around the world.
There again it is difficult to go into detail but what I am trying to say is : God is not mocked and we ignore His precepts at our peril.
Throughout the Old Testament God did withdraw His blessings from people, especially His chosen people, who did evil and showed their disobedience by turning away from Him and doing their own thing, which were against the 10 commandments .
I know it is hard to keep these laws which is why Jesus had to come as a pardon for our sins when He gave up His life for mankind.
And Ben, I simply can’t buy your arguement that christian schools will teach about other religion fairly, why would they? They want the children to grow up to be good christians and have no motivation to teach with any other intension. That is wht religious schools are bad. As they have a slanted idea of what is in the kids best interests. State schools will guarantee what the government have objectively defined as in our kids best interests, that will allow our kids to make their own decision about religion later in life, something which a faith school is intrinsically against.
Christians believe that Christianity is true and that its claims can stand up to fair scrutiny. Therefore they would not need to hide things about other religions in order to teach about them.
Also, if Christian schools want to produce Christians who can share the gospel with others, then they are likely to want children to understand the beliefs of others. If we want Christians to understand how to share their faith with a Muslim, then it is not an advantage to teach an inaccurate view of Islam.
I think most British people are not very informed about the teachings of the world’s major religions. Former poet laureate Andrew Motion thinks many people don’t know the Bible well enough to understand references to it in other English literature. Surely the majority of the people he is talking about went to state schools. If state schools don’t even teach children to have a decent understanding of the world’s biggest religion, why do you have such confidence that government schools are currently teaching what is objectively defined to be in children’s best interests?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/17/bible-religion-andrew-motion
