The dictionary defines religion as “any specific system of belief and worship, often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy.”    Every school is driven by a system of belief; every school is shaped by a philosophy; every school has a code of ethics.  And you can have all those things without any reference to the Bible or Christianity at all.    Education, whether public, private, parochial or Christian is religious.    Horace Mann held out public education as the savior of the world.  Many years ago (1983) John Dunphy was bold enough to say in The Humanist, “I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their roles as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity . . . .“

When debates rage over the separation of church and state, and lawsuits are filed that are designed to eliminate the tiniest trace of Christianity from our public schools, understand that those who shout the loudest about such things are NOT arguing for neutrality in our public schools.  They are simply wanting the religion of secularism, materialism, humanism, or postmodernism to prevail over Christianity.  Education is religious.

There is not a classroom in any of our schools, nor any subject that is neutral ground.  A philosophy drives every textbook and every teacher.  Textbook authors make choices about what to include and what to exclude based on their presuppositions.  Teachers make choices about what they will cover and how they will do it.  Those choices are driven by the teacher’s own philosophy and presuppositions.   Those choices may be subtle or they may be blatant, but they are always religious and they are often taught with “evangelistic” fervor.

In postmodernism, for example, there is no such thing as absolute truth.  Truth is whatever you want it to be.  It has no root in reality.  Man is at the center of the universe – and not man made in the image of God, but man as just so much matter that is only the product of impersonal, random, pointless evolution.  The words of the textbooks mean whatever you want them to mean.  The “facts” of history are anybody’s guess because we really don’t know anything for certain anymore.

And as if that weren’t enough, the secularism, materialism, and postmodernism in education are being constantly reinforced by what our children see and hear on television, in advertising, at the movies and from their friends.

Sadly, this trend in education away from moral absolutes, away from truth, away from the real facts of history is not being driven by the majority of the parents whose children attend those schools.  It is coming from the schools that are training our teachers; its coming from a few who are trying to shape our culture – not reflect it.  And they are as religiously zealous to shape our culture thru education as any Sunday School teacher has been to influence his or her SS class.     Education is religious!

The desperate need for fathers who are willing to be real fathers permeates the whole movie.  Authentic, biblical fatherhood in our culture is nearly extinct, which is exactly why this movie is called “Courageous.”   Calling men back to this kind of fatherhood demands courage, and taking up the challenge to be those fathers will require a level of courage that most men have seldom seen.

But what this movie does with the question, “How can I ever be this kind of father?” is refreshing.  It is what gives hope and life to every father who has faced his failures.  The answer to that question is the life-changing, sin-forgiving, strength imparting Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel resolves the guilt we all feel for our fatherhood failures (and every other sort of failure before God) and it connects us to the grace and strength from Jesus Himself to start over, no matter where we are in the process.  That’s a bold, courageous statement to make in a movie playing in theaters all over the country.  But they make it – without apology.

So, go see the movie.  Then go back to see it again and take your teenagers with you.  That will take courage to let them see what you should be.  But that’s what it’s all about – being Courageous.  Start now.

Think about it.  An average elementary student spends about 7 hrs. a day at school.  That leaves 17 hours out of a 24 hr. day.  They spend about 10 of those hrs. asleep.  That leaves 7 hrs.  There’s about 1 hr. in the morning from the time they get up till they go to school.  That leaves 6 hrs.  Part of that time they’re playing with friends, part of that time they’re watching TV or playing video games, part of that time they’re eating supper, part of that time they’re getting ready for bed.  They might have a couple of hours of quality time with mom and dad – if mom and dad aren’t too busy.

That means that during some of the most formative years of their lives, during the most awake, alert, productive hours of the day, they are under the influence of a teacher in a classroom – for more hours at a time than any other single influence in their lives.  That’s a lot of power!  How many of you have had your children come home from school and you try to help them with their homework the way YOU learned it only to hear your child say with all sincerity, “That’s not the right way.  Mrs. Jones said to do it THIS way!”   That’s power!

Madison Avenue believes that.  They know how much money teenagers will actually spend; they know how much influence children 12 and under wield over their parents’ spending.  So they aim their advertising dollars – billions of them – at children.   Whoever gets to our children at these vulnerable ages exercises a great deal of power.

Kenneth Galbraith, one of the most influential economists in the United States during the last half of the 20th century, saw the educational system of our country as the successor to land and capital as the most important determining factor of who controls whom.   If you own the land and have the money, you have power.  Galbraith said that the educational system was the heir apparent to that place of power.

Horace Mann, the Father of American Education, said, “This institution is the greatest discovery ever made by man. . . .  Let the common school be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged; men would walk more safely by day; every pillow would be more inviolable by night; property, life, and character held by stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future brightened.” [Common School Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Jan., 1841, p. 15.]

Do you understand what he was saying?  He was saying that our public schools could accomplish what almost every other institution of society – the government, law enforcement, civic groups, citizen action committees – has not been able to accomplish.  Our schools can put an end to the human ills that plague society – crime, corruption and immorality.

He was wrong, of course.  Education is NOT the Savior of the world.  But he clearly and rightly understood the power of education.  The critical question is:  will that power be wisely used for the glory of God or will it become a means of destroying the very virtues we long to see in our children?

Designed for parents or teachers to use with children from K-5-through Grade 4, twenty-three lessons illustrate qualities of wisdom and godliness. Each lesson is presented in a simple format with illustrations to capture the attention of the child, and supplemented at the back of the book with suggestions for teaching the lesson. Every child of God – both adults and children – should work hard to show these traits more and more, because we love Jesus and want to be like him. That’s easier said than done, isn’t it? We struggle with sin every day, and we will fail. The lessons remind us that when we do, we will find forgiveness and the grace to continue to get wisdom at the foot of the Cross.

About the Author(s): Ruth Younts (M.A.R., Westminster Theological Seminary) is the Christian Education Director at Redeemer Presbyterian Church (ARP) in Moore, South Carolina. Ruth has been involved in Christian Education for over 30 years. She has experience in working with private Christian Education, Church School and home education. She and her husband, Jay, live in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, and have five adult children.