How Christian schools harm Christianity
What I fear about Christian schools:
- You have to be a Christian
It is expected of everyone to care about God. Which means, that some people have to fake it. Which means that real Christians notice that some people fake it, and consequently, tend to judge them for it. The people who are openly indifferent towards God see the hypocrisy in all those that fake it, and the Christians that are condemning, and end up hating Christianity all together.
-Because of the overall school attitude and discipline system, it is easy to confuse Christianity with good grades, good behavior, and following the school rules.
The students who get good grades and suck up to the teacher are somehow viewed as the best Christians as if Christianity has anything to do with good grades. The teachers and principals tend to reward these students by handing out "God points" or giving awards like "Most Christ-like" and "The Godly Award" which was really just given to some quiet girl with good grades. Ironically, this reward system/mentality harms the actual quiet girl w/ good grades the most. The person starts to think as long as they follow the rules, they're good with God. Christianity then starts to become more about what you do and don't do than what God has done. The more they think their morality holds merit, the less they think they need Jesus. The rest of the students see this and start to believe what the rest of America has believed all along: that Christianity is just about following some rules and being a goody-goody and therefore, is unattractive and irrelevant.
- They have Christian history books, Christian grammar books, Christian spelling books, Christian economics books, etc.
It may do a decent job of making sure Christian students are not "of this world" but it does a poor job of equipping them to make an impact while they're in this world. It may do a decent job of showing the subject through a Christian lens, but it fails to show the lens that the rest of the world, the world we are commanded to make disciples of, looks through. All truth is God's truth. Meaning the athiest geologist, who knows tons about rocks, knows a great deal about God's creation whether he acknowledges God or not. Meaning a painting of a sunset is just as "Christian" as a painting of Moses. By Christianizing spelling words, etc., two things are happening: we are furthering the gap between us and the people we are trying to relate to in order to show them Jesus, and we are stunting our understanding of the big picture that God has created everything and has come to redeem everything. We are secluding ourselves into this Christian bubble; if we continue doing that, how are non-Christians supposed to see our good works, our love for each other and give glory to God? How is a person supposed to engage the non-believer in an evolution discussion when they haven't been told a single thing about it, nor do they know where the non-believer is coming from? How is a person supposed to engage the unbeliever in a discussion about any topic when we've only heard the Christian point of view? How is a non-believer supposed to relate to us when we can't speak their language?
- Rules that are established in the name of promoting spiritual or acedemic growth, when in actuality they exist merely to protect the school's saintly image.
For instance, every guy's hair has to be no longer than a certain length. Because, of course, it is more godly to have short hair than long hair. Again, it is more important that we maintain our stereotypical Christian image than allow for individuality and freedom. (this is sarcasm for those of you who come from a Christian school (sorry, unneccessary cheap shot))
Another example, expulsion for getting pregnant. In other words, "If you commit one of the big sins on our list (not a list from the Bible), there may be forgiveness from God, but there isn't forgiveness from us. Since we can hide our sin, but yours is more visible, you make us look bad, so we must ask you to go."
(although honestly, if I were a pregnant girl, I would want to leave anyways because of all the condescending looks I would get in the halls. But still, let that be the girl's decision, not the school's.)
You may be able to argue and give me some good reasons why these rules are in place. Ok maybe so. But if one of the primary concerns is that students understand the beauty of Christianity, then the school must do everything it can to communicate this instead of possibly communicating the opposite. The way the school treats its "sinners" says everything about their Christianity; it says everything about their Jesus.
- You have to be a Christian
It is expected of everyone to care about God. Which means, that some people have to fake it. Which means that real Christians notice that some people fake it, and consequently, tend to judge them for it. The people who are openly indifferent towards God see the hypocrisy in all those that fake it, and the Christians that are condemning, and end up hating Christianity all together.
-Because of the overall school attitude and discipline system, it is easy to confuse Christianity with good grades, good behavior, and following the school rules.
The students who get good grades and suck up to the teacher are somehow viewed as the best Christians as if Christianity has anything to do with good grades. The teachers and principals tend to reward these students by handing out "God points" or giving awards like "Most Christ-like" and "The Godly Award" which was really just given to some quiet girl with good grades. Ironically, this reward system/mentality harms the actual quiet girl w/ good grades the most. The person starts to think as long as they follow the rules, they're good with God. Christianity then starts to become more about what you do and don't do than what God has done. The more they think their morality holds merit, the less they think they need Jesus. The rest of the students see this and start to believe what the rest of America has believed all along: that Christianity is just about following some rules and being a goody-goody and therefore, is unattractive and irrelevant.
- They have Christian history books, Christian grammar books, Christian spelling books, Christian economics books, etc.
It may do a decent job of making sure Christian students are not "of this world" but it does a poor job of equipping them to make an impact while they're in this world. It may do a decent job of showing the subject through a Christian lens, but it fails to show the lens that the rest of the world, the world we are commanded to make disciples of, looks through. All truth is God's truth. Meaning the athiest geologist, who knows tons about rocks, knows a great deal about God's creation whether he acknowledges God or not. Meaning a painting of a sunset is just as "Christian" as a painting of Moses. By Christianizing spelling words, etc., two things are happening: we are furthering the gap between us and the people we are trying to relate to in order to show them Jesus, and we are stunting our understanding of the big picture that God has created everything and has come to redeem everything. We are secluding ourselves into this Christian bubble; if we continue doing that, how are non-Christians supposed to see our good works, our love for each other and give glory to God? How is a person supposed to engage the non-believer in an evolution discussion when they haven't been told a single thing about it, nor do they know where the non-believer is coming from? How is a person supposed to engage the unbeliever in a discussion about any topic when we've only heard the Christian point of view? How is a non-believer supposed to relate to us when we can't speak their language?
- Rules that are established in the name of promoting spiritual or acedemic growth, when in actuality they exist merely to protect the school's saintly image.
For instance, every guy's hair has to be no longer than a certain length. Because, of course, it is more godly to have short hair than long hair. Again, it is more important that we maintain our stereotypical Christian image than allow for individuality and freedom. (this is sarcasm for those of you who come from a Christian school (sorry, unneccessary cheap shot))
Another example, expulsion for getting pregnant. In other words, "If you commit one of the big sins on our list (not a list from the Bible), there may be forgiveness from God, but there isn't forgiveness from us. Since we can hide our sin, but yours is more visible, you make us look bad, so we must ask you to go."
(although honestly, if I were a pregnant girl, I would want to leave anyways because of all the condescending looks I would get in the halls. But still, let that be the girl's decision, not the school's.)
You may be able to argue and give me some good reasons why these rules are in place. Ok maybe so. But if one of the primary concerns is that students understand the beauty of Christianity, then the school must do everything it can to communicate this instead of possibly communicating the opposite. The way the school treats its "sinners" says everything about their Christianity; it says everything about their Jesus.
posted by Martin | 2:30 PM
2 Comments:
amazing post, sir. so what are we left with then?
homeschool, probably.
Your Christian schools sound a lot different to those in Australia. The one I went to still taught evolution alongside creationism, for the reason that it's important to not to ignorant about a viewpoint held by many people.
And not all the students were Christian - I think about half half. All the staff were Christian though.
I found a post that I read on a blog that was on this subject - for Australian context.
http://backyardmissionary.com/2006/06/where-will-your-kids-go-to-school.html
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