Government School Rant

Our most recent government school rant comes to us via Ohio. According to Fox News, a Mt. Vernon School District teacher was asked to remove his Bible from the view of students. John Freshwater had already removed a collage that had the 10 commandments but thought that the removal of his Bible from his desk was too much to ask.

Every now and then I will share with you some of the things that are happening in our public school systems. I will refer to them as government schools. Why? Follow your tax dollars to the federal government - then watch them trickle down into our school systems along with policies, requirements, and standards of learning. It doesn't take long to figure out that our government thinks they know how our children should be educated. There was a time when this was left up to individual states. Times have changed.

The Ohio school mentioned above is just one of the latest examples of political correctness being displayed in our schools. To be quite honest with you, this pales in comparison to some of the stories I have read. Unfortunately, these stories are too easy to find. Kid's being asked to keep their Bibles in their locker, teachers being asked to remove symbols of Christianity from their classrooms, etc. Our schools are becoming a place where God is not welcome.

I want you all to understand that I'm not one of those people who is going to tell you to remove your kids from government schools. The congregation of our church is full of teachers. We have teachers from our church who care about the kids they work with. They want to impact their lives. Too often they feel the pressure of political correctness themselves. The problem with this school system in Ohio is that somebody on the board was probably offended. In most cases it has nothing to do with the students.

I want you to think about something this morning. We get our kids up in the morning and make sure they are fed, dressed properly, homework finished, and send them off to get an education. We expect them to learn math, reading, writing, etc. I don't send my kids to school for a Biblical education because it's my job to train them. But here they go into a government school system that teaches them that the world was created by accident (Big-Bang) and that we are all products of evolution. Many of the schools in this country are teaching our 5 year olds that being gay is o.k. and natural. Then when our kids get just a little older they are going to hear some health teacher explain sexuality to them along with the proper way to have sex without contracting some horrible disease or getting pregnant. There is no mention of abstinence except maybe in passing. Some schools will even hand out condoms to ensure that our children are following proper "safe-sex" guidelines. Our schools are now full of kids who cannot read, write, or do math; but they know how to have sex and the halls of high schools are filled with pregnant teens. I don't know about you, but it seems to me that my kid is going to reap greater benefits in life knowing how to read than how to put on a condom. Here's a simple math equation that can be applied to sex education: boy + girl + sex = baby / boy + girl + abstinense = no consequences. Let's move on: the older our children get they will be indoctrinated with political correctness, group values over individual rights, science over faith, and global warming.

I realize that this does not happen in every school. But I am sick and tired of seeing everything under the Christian label being removed. There is no more "Christmas Break" it's now "Winter Break". The same goes for Easter. And if your school has some type of holiday program which includes carols or religious songs you have to be all-inclusive there as well. If you are going to sing about Christmas then you have to remember Hanukah, and all the other holidays that I can't pronounce. I'm not trying to belittle other practices but it seems obvious to me that the only way that you can mention Christ is if you mention some other religion.

I guarantee you that the same school system that asks a teacher to remove a Bible from his/her desk is not going to ask a Muslim to remove their head covering. No - that would be offensive. A Christian school teacher cannot talk about their faith but an evolutionist can talk about theirs. In fact, the evolutionist is required to talk about his faith. I remember a time when we referred to this as the Theory of Evolution, but now Creationism is seen as a theory. Friends, how much more are we going to take? Sure this happened in Ohio but it wasn't that long ago that a VA student wasn't allowed to get on a bus because she was carrying a Bible. This stuff happens in our state as well.

As a parent I take note of these things. I stay involved in the education of my child. If they are taught something that I disagree with then I explain to them the truth of the matter and I'm going to talk to a teacher. But if there ever comes a time when those talks do not bear fruit or the system gets so bad that I'm constantly having to correct a teacher's instruction then I will take on the education of my child myself or they will be placed in a private school.

I believe having Christian children in the school system is a good thing. We need kids who can be light in darkness. I want my kids to understand the necessity of standing up for what they believe in. If I place them in a protective bubble they will not know how to function in society. But I will not stand by and allow any school to mock our faith or our values.

Why don't these schools take all of the energy used to keep God out and turn it toward educating and protecting our children while they are in their care? There's an idea!