Christian Ed Advocate Sees SBC's Public School Loyalties Shifting
by Jim Brown
June 23, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Southern Baptist leader is advocating a movement to promote denomination-wide Christian education for children in elementary and secondary schools.Last week, a Southern Baptist Convention committee rejected a proposal that would have called on members of the denomination to pull their children out of public schools. However, there are diverging opinions within the denomination, including great wide-scale agreement with the resolution's framers that American public schools today are no place for Christian children.
Ed Gamble, executive director of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools (SBACS), feels the resolution authored by T.C. Pinckney and Bruce Shortt was too caustic and harsh on public schools. "Instead of beating up the public schools," he says, "I think what we need to be doing is offering the alternative -- that is, a Christian education."
Historically, 85 to 90 percent of Southern Baptists have been pro-public schools, Gamble says, but that is starting to change. One reason for this, he contends, is that the philosophy of sending Christian kids to evangelize in public schools has not been an effective one.
"I'm all for the 'salt and light' argument," the association spokesman says, "but has it worked in the last 30 years? Do we see an increasingly Christian public school system because we've sent our children to it? I don't see that happening. So if we're going to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, we're insane."
Gamble has himself come to believe that the current situation calls for another approach. "I would say, philosophically, I think we need to be giving a kingdom education," he asserts and notes that other Southern Baptist parents seem to be reaching the same conclusion.
In fact, the SBACS director feels he is seeing the start of a "sea-change" in the SBC's view of education. More and more Baptists are warming up to the idea of removing their children from public schools, Gamble says, and he calls the Pinckney/Shortt resolution "just a rock through the window, the beginning of a tidal wave movement" toward Christian education.
