Education is Either For

Christ or Against Him

Commentary by Jim Day

Focus on the Family (Dr. James Dobson) and Josh McDowell Youth Ministries have both done twelve-year studies on Christian children who attended public schools from kindergarten through the 12th grade. They found that 80% of those children left their church and their faith in God by the time they graduated from high school.

In 1990, Dr. Robert Simond’s ministry, the Center for Excellence in Education, contacted parents of church children in kindergarten through grade 12 in public schools and found that 85% of all those children left their church and faith by the time they graduated from high school. The Southern Baptist Council on Family Life (SBCF) reported to the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention that 88% of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church by the age of 18, never to return.

Keep in mind, the above studies apply only to Christian children in grades K through 12. At the time this commentary was written, I did not have the statistics for Christian students who, once they get to our state colleges and universities, walk away from their faith. I’m sure those statistics are at least the same if not higher…and I would suspect higher.
I pray that this commentary will help readers understand why we believe that it is imperative that Christians do everything they can to remove their children from the Godless public education system. We realized that we will not change everyone’s mind and that our position is not a popular one but one thing is for sure, children that are taught at home or in a solid, biblically based Christian day school or university with the Bible as the foundation to their education have the best chance to not only keep their faith, but maintaining a strong Christian worldview throughout their lifetime.

This commentary starts out quoting several studies with percentages. People often scoff at studies and percentages and write them off as someone with an agenda to push. I’ve been quite clear as to what our “agenda” is in the paragraph above. The bottom line however, is not about percentages or agendas, it’s about what God has said about how we are to raise our children.  He is not silent about a child’s education. Education is not neutral. It is either for Christ or against Him. How your child is educated could possibly determine where your child spends eternity.