SBC Committee Member Agrees With Call for Public School 'Exit Strategy'
by Jim Brown
June 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A second member of the Resolutions Committee for the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina, says the denomination needs to consider developing a plan to remove its children from America's public schools.
The SBC Resolutions Committee will meet Thursday to begin poring over resolutions that have been submitted for consideration next week. Among them is a proposal authored by Dr. Bruce Shortt and Executive Committee member Roger Moran that calls on the denomination to develop an "exit strategy" from public schools.
While second-year committee member Ida South of Mathiston, Mississippi, would not comment on the resolution, she agrees with Dr. Albert Mohler's belief that such a strategy is needed. Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of a daily national radio program, has publicly stated that "now is the time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from public schools."
South, a veteran educator who is now retired, says the situation in the public schools is "getting worse all across the country." She feels most schools now are teaching a completely secular worldview.
The retired teacher points to one issue in particular as being symptomatic. "The teaching of homosexuality as being perfectly normal is more or less a symbol of what's wrong with our schools," she says, "because all the other things kind of fit in with that."
And South believes it is just a matter of time before Christian views are entirely censored from the public school setting. She admits this is a concern that may slip up quietly on Christian families and educators in the heartland or the "Bible Belt" areas, but she insists that creeping secularism is a rapidly spreading threat.
"I think we who are in areas where there's very little problem are kind of shaken when we find that someone is about to sue because their child heard the word 'God' mentioned in school," the Southern Baptist committee member and former educator says. "So even those of us in areas that have very little problem are beginning to wake up to realize that we do have problems."
As awareness grows among denomination members about the current state of America's public schools, South hopes more Southern Baptists will respond. She says leaders in SBC churches need to get more serious about providing alternatives to public education, including Christian schools and home schooling.
Grassroots political activist Rick Scarborough and evangelist Voddie Baucham, Jr. are also among those Southern Baptist leaders who have endorsed a proposed resolution favoring Mohler's call for an exit strategy from U.S. public schools.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
