SBC's Leader Doubts Anti-Public School Proposal Will Pass

by Jim Brown and Allie Martin
June 11, 2004

(AgapePress) - The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination in the U.S., says he cannot support a proposed resolution that calls for members to remove their children from public schools -- a resolution that one prominent family expert supports, up to a point.

The proposed resolution, written by T.C. Pinckney of Virginia and Bruce Short of Texas, calls upon Southern Baptists to remove their children from government schools and ensure that they receive a Christian education. The 910-word draft has been forwarded to a committee that will decide whether it will be presented for debate during the denomination's annual meeting next week in Indianapolis.

But Dr. Jack Graham, president of the SBC, has reservations about the proposed resolution. He feels certain that some of its present wording will make it difficult, if not impossible to pass, and cites for example its suggestion "that families that send their children to public schools are acting in a sinful manner. Those kinds of words would not be a part of a [successful] resolution of the Southern Baptists."

Although Graham has supported the creation of more Christian schools, he says he cannot endorse the resolution as it now stands. "While we support Christian education -- we have a Christian school here at our church, and I've been banging the drum to start Southern Baptist kingdom education kinds of schools all across America -- I personally would not favor resolving in any way to remove our children from public schools," he says.

Instead, the SBC president emphasizes that Christians can and do play a part in positively influencing public education. "We have many public school teachers and coaches and administrators who are very active in our churches," Graham notes, adding, "We're training our young people to be salt and light in our communities, and many of these will be teaching in the public schools."

The founder and chairman of Focus on the Family has also come short of fully endorsing the resolution urging all Southern Baptists to pull their children out of public schools; however, he says leaving government schools is the best move in most cases.

Although Dr. James Dobson says parents should remove their children from public schools in liberal states like California and Massachusetts, where homosexual propaganda and safe-sex ideology are taught on all levels, he says some states' educational systems are not as contrary to Judeo-Christian values. In those cases, he says the proposed Southern Baptist resolution may be a little "over-broad."

The pro-family leader strongly disagrees, however, with those who believe young people should be left in public schools so they can be salt and light in an environment of values contrary to their faith. "We're not talking about adults here," he points out, "going into the world and trying to minister to those who are wicked. We're talking about putting our kids under the leadership of people who disagree with everything you believe and stand for, and are working to undermine your belief system. And we're going to let our kids be the ones that are going to try to change that?"

In all circumstances, the Focus on the Family spokesman says, parents need to monitor everything being taught to their children because the public education system as a whole is antithetical to Christianity and, more often than not, is failing America's children academically and morally. He feels parents who rationalize leaving their children in public schools for missions reasons may need to rethink their theological position. "

"We're going to send our kids into Sodom and Gomorrah and hope that they'll change the system, minister to the system? I think that's our job as adults," Dobson says, "not a child's job, especially when they're very vulnerable -- junior high and high school. You get your kids into Sodom and Gomorrah, you just might not be able to get them out."

The pro-family leader suggests that in many cases the best way for Christians to influence the public schools may be by pulling their youngsters out of them. Dobson says if schools knew they could not keep children in the public education system while insulting the Christian faith and forcing students to read perverse literature, then everyone would see a dramatic change in America's classrooms.