Faith Schools Petition
The following is a petition being presented to the Prime Minister:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to continue the support for faith schools and to ensure that in all schools the teaching of traditional ‘faith’ views of origins is included alongside the more recent scientific ‘theories’ which many scientists ‘believe’.
Faith schools help to ensure that children develop mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and morally. As such faith schools ensure children are well placed to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. Schools should be places where children are given a full education, not centres where the spiritual and moral is excluded. Evolution and other scientific theories should not be taught as fact but instead along side other ‘faith’ views of origins. Supporting faith schools will provide children with a fuller education, parents with the choice of such for their children and help to promote a fully multi-cultural and peaceful society.
Access the petition here, although I have a real issue with the way that Islam and Romanism is lumped with Protestant institutions and supported by the state, but such is the way it is stated. Better to support our brethren than not.
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to continue the support for faith schools and to ensure that in all schools the teaching of traditional ‘faith’ views of origins is included alongside the more recent scientific ‘theories’ which many scientists ‘believe’.
Faith schools help to ensure that children develop mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and morally. As such faith schools ensure children are well placed to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. Schools should be places where children are given a full education, not centres where the spiritual and moral is excluded. Evolution and other scientific theories should not be taught as fact but instead along side other ‘faith’ views of origins. Supporting faith schools will provide children with a fuller education, parents with the choice of such for their children and help to promote a fully multi-cultural and peaceful society.
Access the petition here, although I have a real issue with the way that Islam and Romanism is lumped with Protestant institutions and supported by the state, but such is the way it is stated. Better to support our brethren than not.
Labels: Current Affairs, Education
posted by Timothy Davis | 8:49 pm
8 Comments:
All people support "faith" schools, the dispute is over which faith the school teaches, not over whether it is a faith school.
State schools proclaim the religion of Statism: "Caesar is Lord"; all Christians must withdraw their children from these wicked institutions. Those who do not are compromising with false religion.
The State may not necessarily be ungodly; it could theoretically be a Christian state, as it was at the beginning of state education. They do not necessarily have to proclaim, "Caesar is Lord!"
But it is wrong that the State has control over the education of children. It is not the State's role. It is the parents' responsibility and privilege to determine the education of their children. That is the foundational issue.
Parents, however, have to weigh up varying responsibilities in regards to their children. Many believe that they can supplement the secular education with home Christian education, and that they could not provide an adequate education at home (or afford to send them to a private Christian school).
(Sad to say many young Christians can't even afford a home with two incomes, let alone have a wife at home! The greed of investors and the neutrality of Government who inflict such a state of affairs on our society is wicked!)
Has the Northern Irish educational system degenerated so far that it can rightfully be called a "wicked institution"? I think not. There are aspects that are wrong, but isn't saying "wicked" going a bit too far? The word "wicked" has a strong nuance that isn't yet justified.
The State may think it's lord, but is this what is being proclaimed in our schools? Many Christian teachers are able to proclaim Christ as Lord and have a profound influence on the next generation. However this freedom is more restricted than it should be.
As society becomes more ungodly and Sinn Fein hold the Education Ministry, we may see further degeneration. However, being outside the State system does not preclude one from State interference though. As humanists see more and more people outside of their control, they will seek means to bring them under their mastery.
The long-term effect of relinquishing the control of schools to the State in the 19th Century is already bearing fruit.
Although we don't have one of the main authors of the Humanist Manifesto as the architect of our public education system like America, ungodly men were involved in the State taking control (as Henry Cooke pointed out in his day and as is well known in the case of the first N.I. Educational Minister in 1922) and humanists are definitely seeking to use state control of education to achieve their ends, esp. by trying to exclude Christianity from the classroom and ultimately in the home (as with Dawkins). This is one reason why we should sign this petition.
If state schools are not wicked Tim then I do not know what is. Even a Christian state which has state education is compromising with the religion of Statism, as it has allowed the state to step outside its God-appointed role.
The argument that parents can send their children to state schools and give them a Christian education at home is nonsense. Should they also give them a Roman Catholic or Muslim education part-time as well? In the RP church most of our people are blinded by the claims of the "messianic" state; they have no idea about the limitations of state power, Biblical views of economics, welfare, law etc. However, if our ministers preached on these issues, and our people started home-schooling or sending Children to proper Christian schools, then I am sure much of this would be resolved.
The NI education system is wicked simply because it is not Christian (having Christian assemblies or Bible readings does not fundamentally alter this). There is no neutrality, if an educational system is not established in submission to Christ, then it is in rebellion to Christ. Moreover, our schools (especially our secondary schools) are moral sewers (the one I went to was a horrible place). Also the state steals taxpayers money in order to fund these 'churches' of humanism/statism.
I do not dispute that many Christian teachers do a good job; but they too have been so blinded by the humanism they are taught that they have been taught that they don't realise that much on the curriculum is un-Scriptural. Moreover, good people working in a wicked system does not justify it; for instance, Obadiah worked within Ahab's ungodly regime.
Daniel,
We are agreed that it is sinful for the State to assume to itself authority over an area of life that God has not delegated to it, whether or not they are "Christian".
(Henry Cooke, whose green statue beside Evangelical Bookshop in Belfast is called the "Black Man", persuaded the PCI to reject involvement in a government education scheme because it separated religion into RE classes. The R.P. Church used to condemn the separation of literary from religious education and urged all congregations to set up their own schools. (See "The Covenanters in Ireland" by Adam Loughridge, pp. 106 - 108.) In the precursor to the current version of the Code, our book of Church government, an encouragement to set up RP schools still remained. How we have fallen!)
The issue is that there is a distinction between this being the case and classifying it as a "wicked institution" (a brothel is a wicked institution) and saying that it of necessity declares "Caesar is Lord" and makes one worship the State as god. You aren't drawing distinctions and seeing degrees of sinfulness.
If my son is not concentrating at his work and being lazy, I would point out to him that he is sinning, but would I say to him, "You wicked child!!!"? There is a distinction.
I am not justifying the system, nevertheless I think your statements overstate the matter. I also think it is unfair to judge those who send their children to state schools as "compromising with false religion". Were Roman soldiers and other state officials "compromising with false religion", when they worked within the State, but refused to acknowledge the Roman gods?
If Christian children were told to worship the Union Jack, Tony Blair or the Queen, then that would be another matter...
I would certainly remove my children from the RE classes which I had at grammar school and get them to study some proper RE. There we were taught the evolutionary theory of religion in our first year (i.e. animism -> polytheism -> monotheism) and anti-supernaturalism (i.e. here's how to explain away the miracles). Seemingly my brother's classes were worse. (I am told the new RE curriculum precludes this, but I confess to having doubts.)
The current "Christianised" state system within N.I. falls significantly short of the ideal, but I don't think that your statements are a careful, balanced and accurate assessment of the situation.
Tim
I do recognise that there are degrees of sinfulness, and that some state school systems are even more wicked than that in Northern Ireland, nevertheless, the state school's system works on presuppositions that are profoundly wicked.
Covenant children belong to God, stricly speaking they are not 'our' children - God gives them to us on loan. Consequently, He commands us to bring them up in the 'nuture and admonition of the Lord', not the nuture and admonition of the humanistic/messianic/totalitarian state. For the state to claim the right to educate, and for Christians to compromise with this, is aiding the rise of the 'god-like' totalitarian state. It is an idea which is Socialistic and Humanistic, and therefore totally wicked - even if its wickedness is restrained (which is true to some extent in Northern Ireland).
Moreover, it could be argued that a state school is more wicked than a brothel, since the state does not steal the taxpayers money to fund them and require people to use them. A brothel practices sexual autonomy, a state school teaches educational and philosophical autonomy.
As for the argument about Roman soldiers and other state officials, I am not saying that a Christian should not help even a pagan state to perform its God-ordained functions of defence etc. However, this is an entirely different matter from state education. Those who hand over their children to the Moloch-State for 5 days a week, are compromising with Statism (a false religion) whether or not that Statism is baptised with a sprinkling of Christianity. Its not enough to remove covenant children from RE classes as ALL education is religious, the real question is which religion it is teaching: and state schools are not teaching Biblical Christianity as it applies to all of life.
Tim
Sorry for being on again.
You say "I would certainly remove my children from the RE classes which I had at grammar school and get them to study some proper RE. There we were taught the evolutionary theory of religion in our first year (i.e. animism -> polytheism -> monotheism) and anti-supernaturalism (i.e. here's how to explain away the miracles)."
I find this profoundly disturbing, as I did not actually realise that this sort of thing was being taught; in the school I went to "Religious" education was taught by evangelical Christians who were godly people, and if there was anything suspect on the curriculum they would have corrected it (though sadly they did not do this with other supposedly "non-religious" subjects).
I am afraid to have say that anyone who sends their children to a school which teaches any of these things should be excommunicated from the church as they are guilty of extreme educational polytheism.
When I was condemning state schools for being wicked, I was only condemning them for teaching Statism, Socialism, Egalitarianism etc. I had no idea that some state schools had degenerated this badly. While I can understand Christians who have been duped into thinking that Statism etc is not wicked, what you have told me worries me even more.
I find it somewhat strange in the light of this that you can accuse me of being unbalanced. If you read my blog (and my book on the RPW) I deal very gently with Christians who disagree with me on minor things like baptism and exclusive psalmody; however, when it comes to high-handed disobedience to Scripture I am more hard-hitting. Frankly it amazes me that some RPs would not allow Baptists, who are trying to be faithful to Scripture, to join the church, yet, on the other hand, they would allow people who send their children to state schools, where these Satanic teachings are expounded, to be church officers! Who, I ask you, is being un-balanced?
Daniel,
Excuse me for not replying sooner. I didn't know you had replied.
When I say unbalanced, I mean that you are not weighing up the other factors that Christians have to deal with and the other precepts that they must obey, e.g. "He who does not provide for his own is worse than an infidel". With house prices the way they are, it will be almost impossible for young Christian adults to contemplate home education in our country, even if they lived in council housing. Or is that too pessimistic a view?
I also mean that, for example, your designation "wicked institution" is stronger than is justifiable, in my opinion.
The liberalism that I was taught was a consequence of the so-called "Christians" who taught R.E., not the state system. What would be taught in many C of E church schools, I wonder?
How would you justify the accusation that N.I. state schools teach statism and socialism?
Tim
Thanks for your reply (I realise its not always easy to keep up).
In terms of the other factors you have mentioned (and you are wise to mention them as people need to count the cost before engaging in home education etc), the verse quoted has little bearing on the issue as home-schooling courses can be provided very cheaply (for as little as £100 per child per year). If this means going without foreign holidays, several cars, or even owning your own home, then so be it.
Whether or not Statism or Socialism is explicitly taught (most people don't even know what Statism is such is their slavery to the Molech State), the whole system by implication is Statist/Socialist. The fact that Socialism or Statism is not condemned (even if it is not explicitly taught) means that State schools are guilty of promoting it.
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