Can Your Child Be Taught Truth In a Public School?

Is There A Place For Truth?

Do you love truth? Do you want your child to know the truth, the real truth, not just a few true ideas scattered here and there? God says: “His truth endureth to all generations.” Psalm 100:5. But will God’s truth endure in your child’s generation if His truth is not allowed to be heard and the child is forced to believe other things in a public school?

Every state compels parents to send their children to a state approved school or follow their mandated regulations for other kinds of schooling. Public schools are the cornerstone of the schooling system. It is a government system. While the initial intent of compulsory education laws was to protect minors from being forced into child labor, many parents today feel the states have too much power. The system can try to use this power against parents. Today that power is used to coerce the child. In a public school, your child is coerced to receive instruction by state approved teachers. That instruction is mandated and imposed by your state legislature. You pay taxes to enforce the system of control, whether you like it or not. Are state approved teachers free to teach real truth, or compelled to teach only state-mandated ideas?

Today, many Christians demand that state governments “Save our Public Schools.” We demand Caesar choose the child’s teachers and tell the child what to think about. We fear leaving the child’s mind to him or herself, or to the parents. We beg the state school to tell our children what is true. But can truth survive in such a system? Can it exist where God, the only “God of truth” is legally forbidden? Isaiah 65:16.

Who is Shaping 95 Percent of Your Child’s Mind and Outlook?

Americans rightly insist the government never control one’s perception of God, but then we turn around and demand the government control a child’s perception of everything else. We demand a child’s mind be subject to state control for at least six hours a day, 180 days a year, for 12 years. Certainly, a child may also receive religious instruction at their place of worship for an hour or more a week That means we choose 12,960 hours for a child to learn the government’s official views, but in some cases, only 624 hours to learn God’s Truth. Sadly, 95 percent of a child’s mind is devoted to forced exposure to the state’s views and 5 percent devoted to seeking after God’s views – the Creator of all things.

What kind of decision is this? Does God ask us to sacrifice our sons and our daughters’ minds to the state? Why devote 95 percent of your child’s time to “Caesar” hoping that a few true ideas slip through? You could rightly say such a decision is disrespectful to God.

Why Are You Doing This to Your Own Child?

Father and Mother, is God so lacking in wisdom that you would keep your child from daily learning His Truth for all of life and living? Do you know so little of God’s thoughts and knowledge that you have nothing to pass on to your child in your own home, both of which God gave you? Why are you doing this to your own child? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally.” (James 1:5). If you do not know what or how to teach your child, God says He will help you.

Perhaps a disability, loss of income or change in lifestyle holds you back? Ask God for help instead of simply saying it cannot be done. Perhaps your family members are public school teachers or administrators, or your church has multiple public school teachers who you fear would look down on you? Think about what you are saying; you would sacrifice your child’s mind to earn your neighbor’s good opinion? If good opinions are what you seek, it is God’s good opinion you should covet most.

The Barna Group’s research estimates that over 80 percent of churchgoing parents send their children into their local public schools every day. https://www.barna.com/research/public-schools- christians-are-part-of-the-solution/

They see no wrongdoing because the research shows over 90 percent of Protestant pastors support Christian involvement in “helping public schools.” Could some of this support be driven by fear of the most powerful political lobby within the Christian church today – public school teachers?

Whatever the reasons, lifestyle, money, your church’s approval, or avoiding the anger of family members will. The result is that your children are daily condemned to learn without God and learn to live without God. How can this not be wrong?

The Law Forbids Truth in a Public School

It should not surprise us when children care little about God. In many cases, they care little because they have been taught little. Public schools will not teach about God and cannot teach about His Truth. They are banned from teaching who He is, what He has done, or what He is doing in the world He made for us. The Truth is thus banned too – the Truth about all things as God objectively sees them. The law simply forbids it. The law forbids a Christian public school teacher from instructing any child about anything except what the state approves. Can your child be taught science, art or music from God’s point of view? No. Can your child be taught math or languages from God’s point of view? No. Can your child be taught anything from God’s point of view? No.

Do not be naive. Friends and family who teach in a public school cannot teach Truth when their state masters/ administrators mandate a God-free curriculum. It cannot be done. Do Christian teachers even realize what they are doing? They think they are doing God’s will in the classroom. But state law, state funding and their collective bargaining agreements tell a different story. They establish a teacher’s real occupational lord and master. It is not God, and it is not you. Get a copy of your local public school’s collective bargaining agreement and read it. Your child is a funding unit. Do not be uninformed about this.

Father and Mother, can your child be taught objective Truth from God’s point of view in a public school? Do you have any evidence that this educational system can be the source of real truth or intellectual freedom?

In Exodus 34:6, God says He is “abundant in goodness and truth.” God knows what truth is and where it comes from. Yet, in John 18:38 Pilate asked Jesus “‘What is truth?” The civil and religious leaders mocked the very idea of Truth and still do.

God says He has truth in abundance, but we say a child shall not hear it 95 percent of the time because public schools don’t let children hear or study His truth. We submit children to laws which use coercion to compel attendance, mandate curricula, license teachers and finance it all with our blessing. We have trusted in the impious presumption of our state legislators, school boards, and “Back to School” retailers, that their modes of thinking are normal. And some say that the curriculum ordained and imposed by force of law is the only one for our children. State legislators, bureaucrats, central planners and teachers have collectively established and maintained falsehood over each child’s mind in every state in this nation.

An Unalienable Parental Right

There is another choice – a better choice. There is another way – a right way. Parents must reassert and then reacquire their God-given authority and rights. Every child’s education must be left to the conviction and conscience of his or her parents during the child’s infancy and youth. It is every parent’s right to exercise discipleship, solely as they may dictate, without government interference. This right is, in its nature, an unalienable right. A child’s education should not be forced to follow the dictates of any governmental official, high or low. Force and threats of force have no place in an educational system – a system which, at its heart, deals in ideas.

The government’s job is not to regulate, but rather to protect a parent’s unalienable right to raise their child in the Lord’s nurture and admonition. This right bars government from forced taxation, man- dated association with others, and compelled exposure to its ideas. God has authorized government to execute justice, not disciple our children.

Do not be fooled. It is not God’s will that your children be consistently taught for 12 years that if God exists, He is irrelevant to every subject and class. The fact that your child may have an opportunity to evangelize their public-school classmates does not change God’s mind. Besides, your child can more easily and effectively evangelize others outside the government’s purview, in private settings that are based on voluntary sharing and love.

How about you, parents? What will you do? Will you put your child into a system of mandatory attendance, a state-imposed curriculum, and state control of teachers, propped up by a collective bar gaining agreement and forced taxation? Or will you educate your child in the Truth, as God gives you the strength to see it? Parents can do their part starting today, by denying the state possession of their own child. After that, the Truth you seek is freely available.