Why so serious about an 'open-handed' issue?
THE SHORT ANSWER - The educational means and methods of our covenant children is not an open-handed issue of little consequence.
As you may or may not know, tragically, less than 10% of professing born again Christians have a biblical lens through which to interpret the world and it's philosophies and theories. In truth, most professing Christians today are practical atheists meaning they conduct life without thought or care to what God has to say about it (Psalm 10). These professing Christians who function as atheists bifurcate faith from fact, head from hands, biblical conviction from public square, personal beliefs from public behavior. They vainly 'allow' Christ to be Lord over Sunday morning and Wednesday evening and small group, but place themselves as lord over the rest of the days and activities.
This fact has had a devastating effect on the individual, the family, the church, and the culture at large.
Professing Christians no longer think differently than the unbeliever. Professing Christians no longer conduct life differently than the unbeliever. Truth is - we do what we are! We may 'talk the talk', but our actual walk exposes us as what and who we really are. What shapes our thinking, shapes our living. They are utterly and always connected. Ideas have consequences. The faith in Christ that saves us from the just and deserved wrath of God involves an internal transformation that has external implications! "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)
We are no longer equipped - and no longer equipping - to "(We) demolish arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5) Many of us are actually held captive by false assumptions and outright lies and don't know it. Does a fish know it's wet? In our Christ transformed diligence, we are to "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8) Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5, and Colossians 2:8 are the foundational passages for loving God with all our mind and strength, intellect and vigor, orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This the goal for the education of the Christian mind. This is to be the great effort of educating the child of a Christian.
When only a fraction of professing Christians think and conduct life differently than the world, we have a huge captivity problem - which is a curse on everyone because the blessings and the cursings of a people and a nation rest squarely upon the shoulders of God's people - the regenerate. "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)
We are to be a blessing, not a cursing. We are to represent Christ and His will in this world. We are His ambassadors. We are to represent our King and His crown rights in this paradise lost. We are to be about His business by subduing entropy and decay and promoting His truth and treasure to all of life.
This is to be the grand charge of educating the child of the Christian. It comes down to discipleship - we are charged to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything whatsoever Christ has commanded, God makes converts - education and life together is discipleship. The curriculum disciples and the people disciple; the teachers and the peers. Message and messenger. Both are connected. Both are critical to the process. Content and context. "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40) This is not merely referring to the personality and character of the person or people doing the teaching, but the content of that teaching as well - what is being taught - the curriculum. We see the fruit of the what is being taught and the who is doing the teaching in America today - and it is not pretty - especially from those who take on the name of Christ. (CHRISTian)
You see the education of our children IS a gospel issue.
The call on the Christian life is to be conformed more and more into the image of Christ. To represent Him. To be about His business on earth. To speak His truth. To do what He did. To love people enough to liberate. Liberate from lies. Liberate from idolatry. Liberate from the consequence of ideas. Liberate from tyranny. Liberate from folly. Liberate from ignorance. Liberate from captivity. Perhaps in this great assignment, God will use us as a vessel to free them from Satan's grip. (Read 2 Timothy 2:24-26)
This is why we remain on earth even after we are made alive in Christ - born again. We have a work to do - to advance Christ's crown rights over creation; which is the carrying out of loving God and loving our neighbor. We live and proclaim Christ's rule and reign over individuals, over families, over church, over civics, over academia, over labor and vocation, over finances, over ethics, over leisure, over justice, over ministry and philanthropy - over everything. This is gospel-in-life! We need a good dose of it! The good news of the gospel isn't just for personal salvation and for eternity to come, IT IS FOR THE LIVING IN THE WHOLE, INTEGRATION OF LIFE HERE AND NOW - for Christ's name sake and glory, and for the benefit of others! We must be educated in this way of thinking and doing. (James 1:22-23)
Why must we speak up? Why must we risk being thought of as 'judgmental', 'legalistic', or - my personal ascribed label - 'divisive'? Why? Because we must be faithful to our King! As much as He cares about His people. He cares about His name more. "And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes." (Ezekiel 36:23)
There is more to 'taking the name of God in vain' than using His name as a expletive - truly, it comes down to calling oneself 'CHRISTian' yet thinking and acting like a captive child of the devil.
We must stop cutting our children in half. Today, King Solomon knew this - that a good parent would never allow her child to be cut in two. "As we see our schools, our churches, and our campuses constructing false dichotomies that sever our children's personal beliefs from their public behavior, their facts from their faith, and their head from their heart, do we tacitly let the king carry out his gruesome work or do we cry, 'NO - don't cut my child in two!'" (Everett Piper, Ph. D. in The Wrong Side of the Door - Why Ideas Matter, and President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University)
Too many professing Christian parents dismiss and deny the consequences of sending the children God has given them to steward for His name sake to government agenda institutions. Too many professing Christian parents see no threat of their child being cut in two. This is willful ignorance - agressively maintained!
The research data on the success of the public schools in indoctrinating the children of professing Christian parents with humanistic or neo-pagan worldviews is overwhelming. "The Nehemiah Institute’s worldview PEERS test shows that 83-percent of the children from committed Christian families in public schools adopt a secular humanist or Marxist socialist worldview. At the SBC’s 2002 annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported, among other disturbing things, that 88-percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at age 18. Barna Research reports that only 9-percent of born-again teens believe in moral absolutes, and more than half believe that Jesus sinned while He was on earth. We believe the fact that 80-percent of Christian families send their children to public schools is a prime reason for this lost legacy." (E. Ray Moore, Exodus Mandate)
Amen!
How can we continue to believe that 14,000 seat-hours of God-ignoring, Christ-hostile, historical revisionist, materialistic, absolute truth reviling, and humanistic indoctrination is not a gospel issue? This is the lunacy of cognative dissonence to the utmost! I am very public about the utter folly of Christian parents thinking it is benign to send their children off to 14,000 seat-hours of secular humanist (or even 'Christianized' humanist) institutions. I am no fan of 'to each their own' since the child (or parent) who claims the name of Christ yet who thinks and acts like the world brings shame to His name, obscures His majesty, and confuses the glory of the gospel-in-life before the captive Lost and the World. This is a big deal. This is a critical point lost on most Christians. This is a critical point lost on most of the church of America.
This is why I am so serious about this open-handed issue. I am attempting to stand against evasive, noncommittal attitude toward Christian truth that is destroying the church and its witness.
"I can see little consistency in a type of Christian activity which preaches the gospel on the street corners and at the ends of the earth but neglects the children of the covenant by abandoning them to a cold and unbelieving secularism."
~ J. Gresham Machen ~
Theologian and Founder of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
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