Repairing the Ruins

Mind Thine Own Business

Douglas Wilson

"
arents who have their children in Christian schools have simply abdicated. They just drop off the kid and the tuition check, and somehow think they have done their parental duty. The Bible didn't tell them to, but they have signed their children over to be educated by 'professionals' and 'experts.' Moreover, their children are surrounded by children from other families, many of whom are sinful and ungodly. They are educated in intellectual lockstep through a regimented system of Prussian-inspired, age-segregated classrooms. And on top of everything else, the curriculum is just a baptized humanism."

"Homeschooling parents mollycoddle their children. They are too overprotective, and the result is children who don't know how to relate to others. And average parents who think they can provide the academic level of education provided in a good Christian school are just kidding themselves. Moreover, having more children than you can educate is as bad as having more children than you can feed. And why do homeschooling fathers just let the moms run the show?"

All their purported differences notwithstanding, Christians who run one another down in the manner given above really have more in common with one another than they think. Several problems with this kind of thinking immediately present themselves.

The first is that such judgments reject the boundaries of authority God has established in His Word concerning the government of children. Children are placed in specific families, and the heads of these families will answer to God for how they brought up their children. "Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand" (Rom. 14:4). The parents of one family do not answer to the parents of another concerning their method of spelling instruction.

Of course, no government has absolute authority, and this certainly includes family government. In some situations, Scripture would require the civil magistrate to intervene ( i.e. say the parents were running a child- porn ring). Or a serious family problem could require the elders of the church to step in and admonish the parents. But such intervention would only be appropriate in egregious situations and would be manifestly biblical. In most situations, we should heed the words of Paul, and mind our own business (1 Thess. 4:11).

The second problem is that such broad generalizations distort the biblical criteria for evaluating the lives of others. The Bible is consistent in teaching that fruit counts far more than professed allegiance to a particular method. We are all familiar with the one who is loud in his enthusiasm for the latest thing, but who is "all hat and no cattle." In considering this, it should make little difference to us whether the trumpeted "latest thing" happens to be "our" way of doing things. Real unity is found in likemindedness about rearing children who love the Lord and who think like Christians. This likemindedness is evidenced in the children .

A third problem is that we do not realize the value and limitations of generalizations. Say that two families have made opposite education decisions, one to homeschool, the other not, and they did so based upon their observations of other parents in their community. One family "saw" lower academic standards among homeschoolers, and the other "saw" worldliness in the kids at the Christian school. As long as they are making their own decision for their own family, they are doing well. Generalizations can be helpful.

But they can also be abused. We often conduct our pedagogical debates as though we had never heard of logic. If a man were charged with a crime, and three witnesses testified they saw him do whatever it was, it is not to the point for him to produce five-hundred witnesses who didn't see him do it. Generalizations do not apply to all members of a class distributively.

If someone decides not to homeschool because he has seen some poor examples, is that reason for a good homeschooler to feel defensive? Of course not. Selected educational methods do not form a para-family organization. Parents answer to God family by family ; He does not judge based upon membership in a Christian school or homeschooling association.

Parents who abdicate, whether they have their kids in a traditional school or not, do belong to the same club. And parents who successfully rear their children, whether at home or in conjunction with a school, have much in common with one another. They have far more in common with one another than with an abdicating parent who happens to "share their method." If someone owns a Ford, should he get embarrassed and defensive if a Ford-owner in another county runs his car off the road? Of course not. And if someone who drives a Chevy is driving well, should that cause him to start feeling competitive? Rhetorical question. Of course not.

Our standard should be fruit . When hard-working Christian parents homeschool their children through the high-school years, and they do a good job, then all Christians should honor them. When hard-working Christian parents work with a solid Christian school, and their children grow up to be well-educated Christians, then all Christians should honor them.

The other side of the coin is important as well. This is a fallen world. Some Christian schools are hopelessly compromised. Some Christian textbooks and Christian schools teach that Roger Williams was a stable man. And some on the fringes of the homeschooling movement are preparing to tell us all that we are in sin unless we raise our own chickens and make our own soap. So what?