Michael P. Farris, Esq.
Chairman &
General Counsel

The imperative for change

Volume 55, Program 3 9/15/2004

Today on Home School Heartbeat, Bruce Shortt, the cofounder of Exodus Mandate, joins host Mike Smith to talk about the reaction of Southern Baptists to the Christian Education Resolution.

Mike Smith:
At the Southern Baptist Convention last June, a groundbreaking resolution was submitted calling for Southern Baptists to remove their children from public school. Tell us what happened, Bruce. What was the response to the resolution?


Bruce Shortt:
We submitted the Christian Education Resolution to begin an educational process. Many Christian leaders and most Christian parents have an image of government schools that is about as out of date as the horse and buggy. For them, this is often an area of profound spiritual blindness. But it's also clear that some parents don't want to know the facts. For them, government schools represent free daycare. Similarly, some Christian leaders refuse to confront this issue because they fear a backlash if they were to tell the truth about government schools. Many, many parents, however, do want to know the truth and are deeply worried about what government schools are doing to their children. Unfortunately, far too few churches are providing educational alternatives to government schools. It's as if our churches would rather deal with the consequences of government schooling (divorce, abortion, drug addiction, and alcoholism) instead of encouraging Christian education. Confronting sin and changing what we do is never easy, but we must change how we educate our children.


Mike:
Thank you, Bruce. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.