We Are Losing Our Children
By Ret.
Brig. Gen. T. C. Pinckney
Publisher’s Note
The following is an
excerpt of remarks made by retired Air Force Brigadier General T. C. Pinckney to the Southern Baptist
Convention Executive Committee in Nashville, TN, September 18, 2001. Though
General Pinckney was addressing fellow Baptists, his comments are relevant for
any denomination or nondenominational body that claims the name of Christ. Every parent with a child in the public education
system -- particularly Christian parents -- should read General Pinckney’s
comments.
The events of a week
ago today were a terrible tragedy. The nation is rightly aroused, and we need
to take effective action. We mourn for the slain
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and we pray for their families. Yet having said that,
evaluated as a long-term threat and in numbers of lives destroyed, the
tragedy I want to discuss with you dwarfs, literally dwarfs, the attacks
on the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. We are losing
our children. Research indicates that 70% of teens who are involved
in a church youth group will stop attending church within two years
of their high school graduation. Think about that statement. It addresses
only teenagers who attend church and participate in the youth group.
What does that suggest about those teens who may attend church but do
not take part in the youth group, or who do not go to church at all? In a talk
at Southwestern Seminary, Josh McDowell noted that less than one-third
of today’s youth attend church. If he is right and 67% do not go to
church and then we lose 70% of those who do, that means that within
two years of finishing high school only 10% of young Americans will
attend church. We are losing our youth! Why is this
happening? Many strands go into weaving a tapestry, and surely there
are many reasons this tragic departure of our youth from Christ is taking
place. However, I believe the evidence clearly indicates that the primary
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 T.C. Pinckney |
A Bit of History
In about 1830, a
group of wealthy Unitarians in Boston became unhappy with the locally
controlled, parent-run, church-influenced schools then prevalent. They decided
to try to establish a system of state-run, secular schools. They sent two young
scholars abroad to study the main European school systems in order to decide
which system to use as a model.
After a two-year
study the team recommended and their sponsors adopted the Prussian system as
their model. Why? Because in that system the state had complete control,
parents had no influence, and children were entered at the earliest age.
With that decision
made, the group designed a three part plan: (1) compulsory attendance, (2) a
state teacher’s college degree prerequisite to certification as a teacher, and
(3) state owned and operated schools. This was the plan they proposed to the
Massachusetts’ legislature.
Among themselves
they agreed that if they could not at first get all three elements approved,
the most important part was the required teacher’s college. This was their
priority because they agreed that “If we teach them what to teach, they will
teach what they have been taught.”
The first year’s
cost to establish the teacher’s college was $50,000. The Massachusetts
legislature balked, saying the cost was too high. So the wealthy Unitarians
made them an offer they could not refuse; they put up $25,000 if the state
would match it. They did, and in 1837 the first state public school system in
the United States was established. Soon other states followed suit.
The Philosophical
Foundation of Governmental Schools
Just 14 years after
the Massachusetts state school system was established, Auguste Comte wrote the
following in his System of Positive Polity, vol. I, 1851, pp. 35-6.:
“The object of our philosophy is to direct the spiritual reorganization of the
civilized world. . . . [W]e may begin at once to construct that system of
morality under which the final regeneration of Humanity will proceed.” His
“spiritual reorganization” was a long-term plan, and it has been steadily
progressing right up till today. And you will recall that Darwin’s great
mythology, Origin of Species, was published in 1859.
Of course Comte was
not alone in this vision of a future without God, of humanity without
individuality, of rule by the self-defined most capable over the less capable.
In 1918 Benjamin Kidd published in London a book, The Science of Power.
On p. 309 he wrote: “Oh you blind leaders who seek to convert the world by
labored disputations. Step out of the way or the world must fling you aside.
GIVE US THE YOUNG. GIVE US THE YOUNG and we will create a new mind and a new
Earth in a single generation.”
Ten years later in
1928 Ross L. Finney, Ph. D., published in the United States: A Sociological
Philosophy of Education. On p. 118 Finney wrote, “Everything depends on
passing out the expert opinions of the social scientists to the masses of the
people; and the schools, particularly the high schools, are the only adequate
agency available for this function.” And, on p. 117 he had just said, “It is
the business of teachers to run not merely the school, but the world; and the
world will never be truly civilized until they assume that responsibility.”
Another interesting
quote comes from The Reconstruction of Religion by Charles A. Ellwood,
Ph. D., Professor of Sociology, University Of Missouri, 1923, p. 177: “Human
institutions, sociology shows, are in every case learned adjustments. As such,
they can be modified provided we can obtain control of the learning process.”
The American
Humanist Association understands the importance of capturing the children for
they have written: “In order to capture this nation, one has to totally remove
moral and spiritual values and absolutes from the thinking of the child. The
child has to think that there is no standard of right and wrong, that truth is
relative, and that diversity is the only absolute to be gained.”
Everyone has a
worldview, a perspective of the world around him. Bob Reccord referred to this
as a “reference point.” He may not think of it in these terms. Indeed, he may
not think of it consciously at all, but you cannot exist without a framework
within which you place events and individuals, which determines your values,
which values in turn guide your actions and reactions to events and people.
Although there are
many worldviews designated by many exotic or not so exotic terms, they all boil
down to just two types: Your worldview will be man-centered or God-centered.
We are all familiar
with Deuteronomy 6:7-9: “And thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine
hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write
them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Yet, we seem to have
forgotten or ignored God’s commands about education:
Luke 6:40 (NASB) “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone,
after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.” Do we want our
children to adopt the anti-Christian, socialistic, pro-homosexual, no absolute
right and wrong beliefs promulgated in government schools?
Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy
and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world,
and not after Christ.” This is exactly what is happening to our children. They
are being spoiled by philosophies and deceits “after the tradition of men.”
II Corinthians 6:14 “Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And
what communion hath light with darkness?” But this is exactly what we do when we
send our children to government schools.
Most Southern
Baptists and most Southern Baptist Churches are failing to obey God’s commands
regarding our children. Yes, we take them to Sunday worship and Sunday School.
Yes, they may also attend AWANAs or another church-centered youth program. They
may even have Bible study at home.
But two or three hours on Sunday and 20 minutes or so of Bible study at home are overpowered by 30 or more hours a week in
anti-Christian government schools and the constant pagan media bombardment
which may add up to another 10, 20, 30, or more hours per week.
Now of course many
schoolteachers are Christians. And may God bless them as they do what they can.
But they are strictly limited by school policy, humanist textbooks, programs
teaching the validity of homosexuality, make up your own minds approaches to
morality, safe sex instruction, and on and on.
Why have we failed
our God in this critically important responsibility? We have failed because we
have been willfully, blissfully ignorant . . . and satisfied in our ignorance.
We have failed because the great majority of us have not made the effort to
inform ourselves of the facts . . . even though there are books and articles
galore readily available. We have failed because — even when we have known the
facts — we have not had the courage to point them out to our people. We have
failed because we have been afraid to offend people. So we have chosen to
offend God rather than men.
What Should We Do?
The ideal, most biblical
solution is for parents to teach their children: to be homeschoolers. All
our churches should welcome and openly encourage
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home-schoolers. But clearly many parents cannot or
will not home-school. For their children we need to start large numbers
of Christian schools. And, those schools need to be truly Christian:
Christian in the sincere faith of the teachers and all other staff,
Christian in textbooks carefully chosen, and Christian in their entire
worldview. I wish to
note that they should also teach about evolution, about humanism, about
post-modernism . . . but in a balanced way, giving the evolutionists’
arguments fully and fairly, but also demonstrating their weaknesses,
the mythological presuppositions upon which these lies are based, and
the disastrous consequences for those who choose to live without God.
Our children must be prepared to live among, confront when necessary,
and triumph in debate with secularists. This is one area where ignorance
is NOT bliss. You may ask,
“Haven’t we done anything about this problem?” Yes, we have done a little.
A relatively few |
church schools are Christian in name and prayer only, using
the same texts as secular schools). Bob Reccord gave us some impressive results
of summer youth ministries. Under the Covenant for a New Century Jimmy Draper
at LifeWay has established the Church Resources Division specifically charged
with helping home-schooling and Christian schools. The man to contact for
help is Glen Schultz. Just call LifeWay and ask for Glen. And Article XII
of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message notes that, “. . . the cause of education
in the Kingdom of Christ is coordinate with the causes of missions and general
benevolence, and should receive along with these the liberal support of the
churches. An adequate system of Christian education is necessary to a complete
spiritual program for Christ’s people.” While it is good that we have acknowledged
the need, we must now do much more to establish this “adequate system of Christian
education.”
T.C. Pinkney retired from U.S. Air Force as a Brigadier General and served as
the 2nd Vice President of Southern Baptist Convention. He lives in Alexandria,
VA, is the Editor of The Baptist
Banner, and can be reached at (703) 780-1566 or TCP@TheBaptistBanner.com.