Proposal Challenges Baptists About Culture's Effect on Lifestyle
by Jim Brown
October 7, 2004
(AgapePress) - Resolutions stressing the importance of Christian education will be submitted at ten Baptist conventions this fall. The measures will be comparable to one rejected by the Southern Baptist Convention last June, which called upon members of the denomination to remove their kids from public schools.Roger Moran of Missouri, a member of the SBC's Executive Committee, says his Christian education proposal will come short of telling parents to pull their children out of public schools. It will, however, address cultural influences that Moran believes have taken many Baptists captive, and he asserts that public education is one of these dangerous influences.
The Baptist leader says his proposal deals with "the areas of the kind of music that we listen to and so often sing along with ... and the kind of movies that we choose to entertain ourselves with, that we go and watch and pay money to see, that glorifies the very sin for which Christ died."
Moran says the proposal likewise includes criticism of "the TV programs we watch, and also the educational system that we would subject our children to." He points out that such cultural influences have adversely affected Christians right along with the rest of society, even to the point that 88 percent of children in evangelical homes leave the Church after graduation from high school.
Public schools have worked with other aspects of modern culture to "rob" believers of their biblical understanding of the seriousness of sin, Moran contends. Still, the author of the resolution feels too many believers simply do not realize the dangers lurking within the U.S. public education system. "The question we need to ask as Christians," he says, "is 'What kind of an educational philosophy is being taught in the schools?' And we know that it is a secular philosophy, because the acknowledgement of God is systematically forbidden within our schools."
The question Moran says he wants to challenge Christian parents to address is, "How do you train your children in the ways of the Lord in an educational system which systematically forbids that?" That is why the Missouri Christian is submitting his pro-Christian education resolution to the State Baptist Convention and calling on members to embark on a "passionate pursuit of the pathway of holiness."
Moran contends that a serious disconnection exists between what many members of the Church profess they believe and the lives they actually live. He is hoping his resolution will serve as a wakeup call that can help believers in today's culture begin closing the gap between their Christian faith and their lifestyle.
