Side Bars – R.L. Dabney on Secular Conservatives – Rethinking Public Schools – The Bible and Private Property – The Bible and Possession Laws – Deuteronomy 4:5-9 – Lord Acton Quote – The Bible and Gambling – Closing Exhortation – Our Obligations – The Purpose of Civil Government

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Rethinking Public Schools
Here’s some food for thought that we ask you to consider as you ponder ballot measures that affect our public schools.

First, we are concerned that the current system of public schools “leave God out.” Because of certain Supreme Court rulings over the past century, the public school system is, at its heart, self-consciously secular.

Second, because of this, these schools imply that knowledge is ethically neutral, which it is not (Proverbs 15:26, 24:9; 2 Cor. 10:5; Rom. 1:18-21). The implication is that the world can be truly known and understood without reference to it’s Creator - which it cannot.

Third, we question “Is it the civil government’s job to educate children?” When our Savior told us to render to Caesar the things that are his, He implied that God had indeed established civil government. But He also clearly implied that certain things were given to the State, but that other things weren’t. This being the case, we look to the Bible to tell us which is which. It seems to teach that civil government’s job is to restrain certain sins by punishing evil-doers (Rom. 13:4) and to praise the righteous (2 Peter 2:14). No mater how good government-run schools may be, they do not accomplish either of these two God-given purposes of the State.

And, fourth, these schools are largely paid for by people other than the children’s parents. In the system of government that God set up for His people in the Old Testament, parents were responsible to pay directly for the cost to feed, clothe, and educate their own children. Our current high tax rates make it very, very difficult for many parents to do that today. But the answer seems clearly to be to rethink the whole concept of government (public) schools and take small but determined steps towards true privatization of education.

This voters' guide produced by Parents Education Association, PAC.