By Dr. Christian Overman
The realization that Dewey’s “Common Faith” has taken prominence over the former Judeo-Christian consensus during the past eighty years in this country has given rise to no small sense of alarm. The church is [slowly] coming to the sober realization that America’s biblical foundations for law, civil government, and education have been replaced. Eighty years of public secularization through education has been enormously successful.
The matter of not mixing faith with public schools needs to be carefully reexamined. The question is not whether faith will be allowed to mix with schools, but which faith will be allowed to mix? The fact is, faith is being mixed with public education daily. It’s just a different faith than the one previously mixed with schools for 200 years.
If it is not allowable to teach kids that the world was created by God, and yet it is allowable to teach them that the world came into being on its own, is it not equally a faith position to teach that God did not create the world as it is to teach that He did? If it is a faith statement to say, “God created the world,” is it not also a faith statement to say, in so many words or lack thereof, “God did not create the world"? Are not both statements of faith?
To teach kids that God did not create the world can be done effectively without actually saying those specific words. A teacher does not have to stand in front of a class of students and tell them “the Bible is irrelevant to the discussion” in order to effectively communicate that it is.
If it is not allowable to teach kids that God has spoken to humanity through the Bible, and that His Word is the universal standard for morality, and yet it is allowable to teach that moral values are "clarified" by society, based on human notion and desire, then is it not an equally religious position to teach that God’s Word is not the standard as it is to teach that it is? Are not both positions faith positions? If it is a religious statement to say, “God's Word is the standard for morality,” is it not also a religious statement to say, in so many words or lack thereof, “God's Word is not the standard for morality?"
That's been the message for decades.
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