INDOCTRINATING YOUR CHILDERN

Word from the Center
Written By Peter Scaer

“I won't indoctrinate my children but will let them decide for themselves.” Non-believers boast that their children are free and critical thinkers, taught to be kind and non-judgmental. Remarkably, though, these free-thinking children end up just like their supposedly free-thinking parents. Those not "indoctrinated" with biblical values end up with other kinds of indoctrination, offered up by the schools, TikTok, and the like. Nature, after all, abhors a vacuum.

 Yet Christians fall for this way of thinking, saying that they want schools that don't indoctrinate, but rather teach their kids the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Okay, but what are they reading? Should it be "Billy Has Two Daddies"? Or should it be dry training manuals, so that children will be taught to read, but have nothing that will feed their souls, minds, and imaginations? Raising children is always a value-laden enterprise, as is education. For Chamber of Commerce Republicans, it's not about raising up a citizenry capable of keeping a constitutional republic, it's about training a workforce. For Democrats, it's about just about climate change, diversity, equity, and inclusion. That's their spirituality, and that's their dogma, which they wish to inculcate into your children.

 And yet parents say that they will let their children choose their own path. What they are really saying is that the world, with all its -isms, can better teach their children. Say what you will, but all education has content and purpose. Classical education recognizes that we do well to draw from deeper wells. If we wish to ensure the blessings of liberty, educational content matters, and that includes not only our founding fathers, but the material that motivated them, with proper due give to the democracy of Athens and the Republic of Rome. If we wish poetic souls, you can't do without a thorough grounding in Shakespeare. No person can rightly be called knowledgeable without a thorough knowledge of the Bible.

 If you skip church, you are teaching your children that God doesn't matter. If you know Christ is the Great Physician, and don't take your children to Him, you practice the worst kind of negligence. The secularists can at least pat themselves on the back for raising "free thinking" children who think just like they do. Christians who hand their kids off to the media and the school system will find that their own children will be just as "free-thinking" as those of their agnostic neighbor.

 

The Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer is chairman and professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne.

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