What drives these Christian teachers to stay in the public system? For some it's just pragmatic concerns about job change and pensions. For all the whining about being underpaid, it's steady work with lots of time off and in rural areas it is in fact one of the better paying jobs.
All the retired teachers in my area are in the upper echelon
as far as the standard of living. They're closer to the lawyers, doctors, and
professional types than they are the blue collar and retail workers. I know the
local school teachers look down on us as former homeschoolers and because we
are clearly not a part of the middle class.
So let's be blunt. Mammon plays a big role in this. Christian
schools typically don't pay well and an abandonment of the public system means
that income and one's standard of living is going to take a hit. It's called
faithfulness.
Dominionism also plays a role, and an increasing one I think.
This doctrine has generated a split of sorts, with some camps becoming
militantly against public school. They're right but wrong. For some the call to
Dominion (along with a good dose of Capitalist ideology and ethics) means the
elimination of public school altogether – I know of one PCA elder (and big
Thomas Sowell fan) who insisted all schools should be privatised.
Contrary to their views, I am not against public schools but
I am against Christians in public schools. They serve a social purpose but it's
not one compatible with Christianity. As we're second-class citizens, one step
removed from mainstream life and the power-centres of culture, this is not a
cause for concern.
And yet for other Dominionist-minded people, Abraham Kuyper's
'every square inch' means that the schools have to be transformed and
sanctified or else eliminated as the idea of an existing or extant pluralism
(which Kuyper actually accepted) is unthinkable. They are driven by monistic
goals and visions and some realize (unlike the more radical elements) that the
elimination of public schooling at this point in time and given the
techno-industrial context, would generate a social catastrophe. Even Capitalism
has played a role in creating this reality as the one-income family is (thanks
to that system) an almost unthinkable prospect. The society relies on the
schools as babysitting more than anything else. As such they are motivated to
change the institutions and 'make a difference'. They don't want to abandon
these 'spheres' to the pagans as they believe we as Christians are called to
dominate and rule all of society. If public schools are necessary, then they
must be Christian public schools and
as such Christians need to participate in the capacity of teachers and students
and attempt to 'redeem' this sphere.
It sounds good in terms of a coherent philosophical argument
and is appealing to many people but it's a position built on sand. There's no
basis for the argument in the New Testament and in fact the assumptions that
drive this argument are flatly contradicted by the teaching of Christ and His
apostles. There is no redeeming of that which can never be part of God's
Kingdom. The public school cannot be sanctified. It will always remain part of
what Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 refers to as 'outside'.
We (my wife and I) were driven to reflect on these realities
some twenty years ago as we realized that just because some groups of
Christians were homeschoolers and seemed in many respects similar to us in
outlook and lifestyle – the reality was often quite different. In fact our
motivations, goals, and overall outlook are completely different and as such
our approach to education and even just our approach to daily life are going to
be fundamentally at odds with those driven by Dominionist interests. We might
be able to get along but over time a gulf will develop and the ability to
bridge it becomes impossible.
The sad truth is these Christian teachers are in fact making
no difference and whatever paltry efforts they make to introduce and assert
Christian ethics and ideology (which are meaningless apart from the work of the
Spirit), or even on a one-to-one basis, they are in fact overwhelmed by the larger
ethos and spirit of the institution. They are wasting their time and harming
the testimony of the Church by promoting compromise and confused thinking.
And some just haven't reckoned with the ideas, let alone the
cultural realities. They simply cling in a romantic fashion to the narratives
regarding America being a Christian nation and they just want to believe that
it's so – despite the assumptions being contrary to Scripture, history, and
even common experience. Some of these folks naively believe that if they can
somehow just get the Ten Commandments on the wall and get the kids to pledge
allegiance to the flag (which no Christian should do), and go through the
motions of prayer every morning, it will somehow create and sustain a Christian
society. It's actually very sad to me to interact with some of these people.
They are terribly confused and in many cases they've been badly misled and
deceived.
These are the some of the same people who are in despair over
recent demographic statistics that suggest Christians will become a minority in
America within a couple of decades. Such surveys and predictions can be
summarily dismissed as the truth is Christians have always been a minority. The
Christian society of the nineteenth century was a myth and deeply permeated by
anti-Christian ethics and values. The subsequent open apostasy was the natural
harvest of those rotten seeds. The real Christians were the ones suffering at
the time of the Revolution and Civil War, refusing to fight and participate in
those evils, resisting the ideology of the Founding and the related values of
both capitalism and slavery. This is not to say there weren't Christians during
these times – people caught up in the given moment. That would be a gross
misunderstanding of the point being made. There were Christians to be sure, but
the claims of a Christian society are simply untrue unless one redefines the
meanings of words like Christianity, the gospel, and the nature of New
Testament Christianity. The False
Christianity and functional apostasy that has characterized and dominated
Church history was not left behind when Europeans landed on America's shores.
In fact America created a kind of frenzy, a lust for land, resources, and
mammon, and a great many evils were sanctified in order to justify centuries of
conquest and exploitation.
Should we then just hand over the public schools? Should we
just let them all fall apart and be taken over by the pagans and their
ideology?
To put it simply – yes. Yes! They always were something less
than Christian to begin with. The idea that the state in New Testament times
can engage in Christian education is a prima
facie absurdity.
Such well meaning but deceived people are guilty of begging
the question. Should we then just hand over the public schools? There's nothing
to hand over. You never had them to begin with.
Did ancient Israel care about Philistine or Canaanite schools
and the evils and horrors they taught to their children? While in exile, did
they worry about reforming Chaldean education or fixing the Babylonian system?
Of course not. In fact such questions are ridiculous. So it is with American
public schools. Such questions only become viable in light of other errors and
false assumptions.
A great deal of energy is poured into this fruitless quest.
While Evangelicals tilt at windmills and chase dreams of a counterfeit Zion, Christian
knowledge is languishing and the handful of educated Church members are all but
committed to a culture warrior path (sometimes even with some Latin and
knowledge of the Classics) but to what end? They fall into compromise and
worldliness and the pursuit of ungodly goals by ungodly means. They form dark
alliances and strengthen the hands of those that do evil – simply to fight
other forms of evil. They embrace Consequentialism – the evil and
anti-Christian ethic of the end justifies the means. They start the race with
great zeal and devotion but lose their way and get lost in the tangled thickets
– the mammon weeds of worldly care that blanket the vales of deceit, on roads
that lead to the bitter waters of apostasy.
I thought of this today as I noticed a truck parked behind me
– located right next to a community college. There was a Bible set on the
dashboard. I immediately thought of Christians in the college and university
context and their struggles. For a moment I was encouraged. Walking around the
back of the truck I was met with lots of stickers – guns, Trump, Don't Tread on
Me, and of course – Let's Go Brandon. That more or less sums up the sad state
of Evangelicalism and the worldliness that dominates it. The driver might as
well not read the Bible – clearly he hasn't understood it.
But surely we should be glad he's in the school system waging
culture war – right? No doubt he's being salt and light. The fact that the
ethics of the New Testament and the Sermon on the Mount are expressed as a
fascination with guns, allegiance to a murderous whoremonger, thief and liar,
and juvenile proclamations of Fuck Joe Biden shouldn't concern us, should they?
People, this is apostasy and until Christians wake up, break
off these modes of thought and affiliations there will be no change. Christians
need to be encouraged to get out of the public school system and held to
account when they don't and this will also mean that churches may need to quit
spending money on lawns, buildings, and investments and instead help poor families
that are trying to survive and struggling to educate their children. But
certainly that implies a very different attitude about money and middle class
respectability.