Train up a child in the way in which the child should go.
What kind of a training as a child did you have? Were you trained with a quality education, a good school and high school, and college or university, were you? You learn the classics, the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic? Were you trained in American history, Western civilization, geometry and chemistry, all the things which are the fundamental basic, necessary for life studies?
I was. There was discipline, real discipline. In those good old days, the rod was used and never spared so that the child would not be spoiled. There were standards, high but fair. You went to the next phase of your life prepared. A degree really meant something. Faculty from kindergarten to graduate school were trained, committed, genuinely educated themselves and would teach and grade a student on realities only, real performance. They were dedicated to their work product. So much of that qualitative education seems long lost today in a world of BLACK LIVES MATTER, THE 1619 PROJECT AND CRITICAL RACE THEORY, does it not? I am eternally grateful that I received a good, qualitative, real education in all things secular and Christian, and I do hope and pray that you did as well. By the way, your children or grandchildren: have they received an education like that, have they?
Perhaps the best education is that which is a Christian education which fully educates and allows the graduate to:
STAND STRONG!
FIGHT THE FIGHT OF CHRISTIAN FAITH FASTENED WITH THE BELT OF TRUTH.
And of course that life – sustaining belt is Christianity, producing a graduate who enters society with a deep, real, loving relationship with Jesus Christ. That kind of education, REAL CHRISTIAN EDUCATION is mocked, frowned upon, ignored with every attempt to eliminate it. So many so called Christian universities and colleges have compromised, given into the rabid secularism of our day. For some reason, many have become WOKE, watering down and reinterpreting the precious BIBLE, THE BELT OF TRUTH and for them Christian Education is not what it used to be. That was of course education BIBLICALLY BASED and unashamedly so. A graduate was a real believer, ready to live and work in society as sons and daughters of the Living God. Today, there are less such Christian educational institutions and consequently less young graduates ready to live and defend the Christian faith.
That same Bible, that BELT OF TRUTH tells us to:
STUDY TO SHOW OURSELVES APPROVED
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH
WORK MEN AND WOMEN WHO NEED NOT BE ASHAMED OF THEIR FAITH.
Those truly Christian are anxious to testify to and defend their faith, to show themselves as fully intellectually capable, ready apologetically or otherwise to protect and defend their precious faith.
They have studied and CONTINUE TO STUDY the inspired word of God so that they can RIGHTLY DIVIDE, that is interpret and understand the truth of scriptures, intellectually formulate them and communicate them to the world. In many cases, much of that is lost as so much of Christian education goes the secular way.
Those truths start with the 39 Books of the Old Testament and the first and greatest commandment therein:
THOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD THY GOD
WITH ALL THY HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH AND THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.
There it is, the most powerful word in all of scripture, Old and New Testaments:
LOVE.
Unfortunately, as hate builds on the secular side, little of that biblical love, THE BELT OF TRUTH is taught and learned. As a result, there is little respect for the biblical admonition that:
THE FEAR OF THE LORD
IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE.
So that, standing before the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, we stand in awe, and amazement, and lovingly so, with the deepest possible human respect for this God of Wonder. Gone from education is so much of that amazement, respect and LOVE in this radical, woke, progressive and angrily secular day and age in which we live. Mankind, to his and her everlasting detriment has replaced the great God Jehovah, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ with:
HIMSELF AND HERSELF!
- Gresham Machen, a Christian apologist, theologian and educator, a highly respected Christian student and President of theological seminary Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia was deeply concerned with Christian Education. Machen, appalled at the growth of ignorance in the church said the following:
“If (Christian ignorance) must be remedied primarily by the renewal of Christian Education in the FAMILY. Otherwise, people cannot know what Christianity really is.”
And there, my fellow Christians is the first principle, the key to Christian Education. That is, the training up of the child in the:
HOME.
When you decide to become a parent, it is your responsibility, your Christian duty to provide for that child a:
CHRISTIAN HOME.
That home, scriptures clearly state must have a man, a biological male, a loving husband and father provider and a Christian woman, loving, educated and capable in the things of the Lord as the head of that HOME. That Christian home should be centered upon the:
LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Without that, the radical, aggressive forces of secularism have an unbelievable advantage as the child grows. I thank God I was fortunate enough to come from such an environment and family, where THE BELT OF TRUTH, the Christ was first and foremost. Every human being has intellectual and spiritual difficulties, and doubts, and without that Christian foundation, life can be so difficult, problematic and uncertain. The home where Christ lives, where the Christian heart prevails is absolutely indispensable. If you are a parent, again, scriptures clearly state that your first priority, your DUTY is to train up that child in the way in which he or she should go in the nurture and admonition of Jesus Christ.
In the year 1972, things in education began to change. There came in that year:
TITLE IX – CIVIL RIGHTS.
That legislation banned discrimination of any kind, primarily sex–based discrimination, some of which was contrary to Christian faith. But, there was an EXEMPTION provided which allowed Christian colleges which operate in accordance with the principles of their faith to continue doing so even if their policies and practices conflicted with Title IX. Without that, faith based educational institutions could not receive any federal funding, whether for the college or the student which could well be the financial ruination of those good institutions. That exemption allowed good universities like Cedarville to operate according to Christian principles. Cedarville college, its President Thomas White boldly states, continues to have separate resident halls for male and female, men’s restrooms can only be used by biological males and women’s restrooms can only be used by biological females, there can be no same sex displays of affection on campus and sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is forbidden including the use of pornography. White goes on to say that this aggressive Christian stand by the university must be agreed to by its staff and faculty and abide by the principles laid out in the Bible and the Christ of Glory.
President Thomas White of Cedarville college goes on to state that:
“Years of careless and casual hiring has led some schools to experience internal rebellion (rebellious faculty) against these principles.”
In short, these more progressive so called Christian faculty members have become WOKE and do not teach or believe the fundamental tenets of Christianity as of old. Cedarville university is willing to run the risk of even the loss of federal funding including grants to students rather than compromise any part of their mission statement or faith. Good for you President White and Cedarville, good for you and we congratulate you on your aggressive Christian stand. Would that more so called Christian colleges and universities would be like you.
And then there is President Jerry C. Davis, President of COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS, a college which The Wall Street Journal dubbed:
HARD WORK U.
Here the words of President Davis:
“We (College of the Ozarks) offer a distinctively Christian education to students with financial need. All students work on campus to defray the cost of their education, graduating debt free!”
Davis indicates that the college has a deep and rich historic Christian commitment, guided by a very consistent and uncompromising biblical world view. The college dares to state that human sexuality is a gift from God not to be changed or biologically ignored by mankind. It states unabashedly that there is nothing else in marriage but a strong heterosexual relationship, with sex assigned at birth no matter how the mission statements of the college are challenged, President Davis states boldly:
“WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN!”
One of the few remaining Christian colleges and universities with backbone and no backdown. The college presents seminars and courses on the significant issues and questions of the day including Critical Race Theory, the LGBTQ agenda, all things Woke and more. The prospective student knows up front what the college stands for, its mission statement and makes a decision to attend or not on the basis thereof. As a true Christian college offering truly biblical and Christ based education, it makes no apologies for its beliefs and it will not backdown or compromise, one of the remaining few.
And then there is Columbia International University. This good university has a tenpoint mission statement which is most reassuring.
The university confirms its uncompromising commitment to “teach biblical truth.”
It is called to hire Godly faculty, set apart for God’s service.
Columbia International University teaches God’s design of humanity as male and female (biological). It now begins the arduous task of developing alternative revenue streams for funding and student loans, anticipating the possibility that government will restrict religious liberty especially in Christian education.
It is committed to growing the scholarship fund so that it can have finances in reserve should the government cut off current funding.
It seeks to cultivate donors who will support such education from a Christian worldview.
How reassuring to know that Columbia International University is one of the several uncompromising, biblically based, strong Christian education institutions yet functioning in our beloved America.
And then there is SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY and its President
- Albert Mohler Jr. Mohler was elected President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary some 30 years ago. The institution was large, well respected and in the words of Mohler “very liberal.” He stated emphatically that the Seminary:
“Was wildly out of step with the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, and it had been shifting to the left for decades.”
It was his God given mission to change that.
Mohler mobilized the conservative churches of the Southern Baptist Convention to recapture and redirect that good Seminary and “pull them back to conservative biblical doctrine” where they once belonged. Mohler boldly and aggressively adopts for this good Seminary the statement of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:14:
STAND THEREFORE HAVING FASTENED ON THE BELT OF TRUTH.
Family Research Council is one good organization with which you should be familiar. It is a Christian based, strongly legal organization which exists to preserve, protect and defend Christian and American values. Meg Kilganno is senior fellow for Education Studies at FRC. She reminds us that the world turns WOKE which world view sweeps across American colleges and universities and which will produce the next generation of teachers, principals and administrators. She identifies the following national organizations that have for so long injected progressive ideology in classrooms:
- National Education Association (NEA)
- American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
- National Association of School Boards (NASB)
- Chiefs for Change
- Southern Poverty Law Center
- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
among others. They are intent on having all education, public, private, charter, parochial, completely dominated by the new progressive thinking, including Critical Race Theory, the LGTBQ agenda, the deconstruction of American history and Western civilization, the 1619 Project and so much more. There is also the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and she rather sardonically states:
“Things go from Woke to worse.”
Christians, she says, must oppose these destructive ideologies. Gender identity, for example, posits that biological sex is a “social construct” and that gender is an inherent sense of the “true self.” These radical ideas subvert and reject the Christian view that every human is biologically male or female and that cannot be changed. Adopting all such WOKE assertions results in an aggressive attack against anything Christian and targets Christian education at any level as the enemy to be eradicated and eliminated. So that, in Christian education, it raises the question:
WHO SHALL STAND?
That is, which universities and colleges, and high schools for that matter, will not compromise and will stand true to Christian convictions and true and real Christian education in every way. We believers must stand, and support, and protect and defend all such educational institutions who stand for a real Christian, biblically based education no matter the cost. The fight is on and we God’s people must:
FIGHT THE FIGHT OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.
Start in the home. Father and mother, husband and wife, son and daughter, male and female. We must emphasize Christian principles with regard to sexuality, true biological sexual orientation, the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, one man and one woman, and above all, a total life, and world view, and educational principles which are based upon and total respective of:
THE BIBLE.
Make sure, no matter the cost, that you, your children and grandchildren get the most important thing in life:
A CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.
If that kind of training exists in the home and in all education, that is the real hope for mankind. Let us be proud of being:
UNWOKE.
WOKE IS WRONG. It will, if victorious, end so much of the Christian Church. It will radically change America and only for the worse. We will in the words of Meg Kilganno, go from:
WOKE TO WORSE.
Stand tall my fellow Christians in the strength and love of Jesus Christ. It is the only hope for Christian education, for America, for families and especially children and for YOU. When all else fails, remember the words of our precious Lord Jesus Christ:
I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.
No man or woman comes unto the father but by me!
And that in sum is the bottom line mission statement of every true, real and committed CHRISTIAN EDUCATION INSTITUTION.