Essentials for High School Bible Curriculum: Re-posted

One of the biggest disappointments I ever faced as a high school Bible teacher in a Christian school was the consistent pressure, from parents and administrators who bowed to parental pressure, to “dumb down” the Bible curriculum in both middle school and high school. 

“It’s an extra class they have to take while their peers in public school get four electives, one each year,” was a standard whine.

“Bible class shouldn’t be academically oriented, it should be relational and fun,” was one that I had difficulty processing. 

“The kids get tired of having all of this stuff shoved down their throats,” was also a common complaint.

Then, tell me again why you have your kids in a Christian school?

These sorts of complaints, and administrator pressure to avoid anything whatsoever that might be controversial (impossible job, but you know what I mean) and to take it easy on the kids are weighed against evidence provided by research which shows that teenagers who are active in their church youth group during high school are leaving the church during their college years at a rate of more than 8 out of 10.  Some surveys show an even higher departure rate, and a “churched” percentage among the under 30 population of right around 6%. 

I’d be willing to lay odds and take bets (figuratively speaking, of course) that a big part of the reason for this is that teenagers are not prepared for the academic challenges to their faith that they face in college.  Those who don’t have a Christian school education have little or no ability to weather an intellectually based challenge to Christian beliefs and principles.  An hour, maybe an hour and a half of Bible study each week, built around banana splits and pizza nights doesn’t equip very many youth for Freshman Philosophy Seminar 101.  Cut and paste, mamby pamby Bible courses in Christian schools are like a straw fence against a fire. 

If parents are going to fork out $10,000 a year for four years of Christian high school, they should at least expect that their children will emerge from that school reasonably equipped to deal with the philosophical and moral challenges they will face in the immediate four years upon graduation.  The odds should at least be better than 2 out of 10. 

While it is not an absolute guarantee, Bible courses that focus a student on the reasoning behind the faith decisions they’ve made, ability to do exegesis of the scriptures, a solid foundation in apologetics, and comparative studies of Christianity’s claims versus those of other major world religions, and particularly the philosophies and methodologies of higher education that come from secular humanism, should be foundational.  Students should be reading books by authors like Josh McDowell, Bill Hybels, Lee Strobel, John MacArthur and other apologists, and they should also be reading books by secular humanists and the Jesus Seminar, and then making comparisons between what those people say, and what the scriptures teach.  They should understand church history, the modern missions movement, and they should be able to tell you about the evidence which supports the accuracy of the text of the New Testament.  They should be able to convey an understanding of the divinity and humanity of Christ, and explain the difference between a humanist worldview and a Christian one.  Everything they learn in Bible class should be one more step on a journey to an irrevocable decision to not only be a faithful believer in Christ, but to be well informed enough not to blandly accept arguments simply because they come from a professor in a college classroom.

One of the first emails I ever received from a former student who graduated and went to a well-known public university was a thank you for making Bible class “hard” enough to make her study to get a good grade.  This particular student encountered a professor in freshman philosophy who, on the first day, promised to refute anything remotely related to what he called “mythological religion,” which was essentially Christianity.  She responded back, day after day, with points that she had learned in my apologetics class, forcing him to look things up and discover that some of his theses had holes.  She did the same when she got into medical school, and was challenged by the professors there as well.  She emerged from both college and medical school with her faith intact, and with the respect of both her professors and her Christian classmates who hadn’t been as well equipped to speak up.

Don’t “dumb down” your Bible class.  It should be your school’s biggest academic, intellectual challenge.

For a good resource on this subject see Love Your God With All Your Mind, by J.P. Moreland.

Arizona Supreme Court Nullifies Voucher Program

http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9345&Itemid=53

The path to a voucher program for students who desire to use state money to attend a private, parochial school became more difficult in Arizona when the state supreme court ruled an existing program unconstitutional.  The program in Arizona provided money for students in special education programs and in foster care.  According to this article in the Texas Baptist Standard, the ruling will affect about 475 students.  They will continue to receive the vouchers through this school year.

It does not appear that the courts are going to allow any tax dollars to be provided to religious based private schools, including Christian schools, regardless of the method of delivery, or the purpose of the programs in which the students are involved.  Direct aid has pretty much been ruled out previously, this was a form of indirect aid, a grant that allowed students with special educational needs to opt for education in a Christian school, specifically to enroll in programs in those schools that public schools might not offer.  It also provided for foster children to attend a private school if they chose to do so.

It is difficult to translate taxpayer funds into a Christian school through a voucher system without touching on several sensitive areas.  First, though we tend to think in terms of these funds being “ours,” the fact of the matter is that when they are blended with the dollars of other taxpayers, they cease to be ours.  And even though schools which are taxpayer supported receive money from their local district, state and the federal government based on their enrollment, the money is not directly given to the students themselves, and the amount received is not based on the actual cost per student in that school district.   Vouchers exceed the amount that any individual taxpayer pays into the eductional system, so receiving a voucher, whether it goes to the student directly or to the school he attends, causes problems as far as the courts are concerned.

It does not appear that there has been much political support for this system from the outset.  Some politicians have given it lip service, but when it comes to actually writing and passing laws to enact legislation to put it in practice, not much has been done.  Most voucher programs carry regulations that restrict the school’s freedom in the area of Christian instruction and practice.  It appears that the judicial system, whether on the state or federal level, is increasingly moving to stop the practice.  Even conservative judges are nervous when it comes to this issue.  So is there something that can be done? 

The Kingdom Educator has a couple of suggestions.

1.  Allowing parents who home school their children or who send them to a private school, Christian or secular, to deduct the tuition and fees from their taxable income would be a start.  That does not involve money changing hands, the expense is verifiable, and it is not money that is, at least technically, invested in something with a profitable return from a strictly financial perspective.  This doesn’t violate any constitutional principle that I can see, since everyone would be entitled to deduct all educational expenses from their income.

2.  Allow individual taxpayers to designate a school to which their educational tax money would go.  That also does not violate any constitutional principle, since those who would rather that their money not go to support a Christian school would not be compelled to do so.  Parents with children in Christian schools could designate their educational property tax to the school their children attended, and while that would not pay their full tuition and fees, businesses and individuals who are supportive of Christian education in their community could also designate, and that would make a big difference. 

Let’s fast and pray for some creativity with this, so that Kingdom Education can be about the Kingdom, and not on fighting the courts and the legislature for money, or warding off the strings they want to attach.