Proponent of SBC Public School Pullout Proposal Does Post Mortem
by Jim Brown
June 22, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Houston attorney says he is not surprised Southern Baptist Convention leaders rejected his call for families to remove their kids from public schools and provide them with a Christian education.Last week at the SBC's annual meeting, a ten-member resolutions committee voted unanimously not to consider a proposal co-authored by home-school parent Bruce Short. The resolution denounced U.S. public schools as "godless" and "anti-Christian."
The Houston attorney and father of three says of the six education resolutions submitted at the convention, his was the only controversial one. "I think that the committee came under considerable pressure not to report ours out as it stood," he says, "and I think there was probably enough diversity of opinion within the committee that they couldn't really agree on anything else, so they simply decided not to report the resolution out."
Short says many in the SBC fail to comprehend the magnitude of what he calls "the public school problem." He also believes SBC leaders are worried about the controversy the resolution might cause within local Baptist congregations.
"One of the things people don't understand," he says, "is, although the SBC is very conservative on many issues, historically the Southern Baptists have been probably the demographic group that has lined up most strongly supporting government schools. In fact they're almost a sacred institution in the eyes of many within the Southern Baptist Convention."
Still, Short says he may submit the resolution again next year. In this initial attempt to get the anti-public school proposal considered, the Christian schooling advocate and parent says he has noted that the issue transcends denominations and has generated a lot of feedback from outside the SBC.
