PCA Joins Call to Pull Children Out of Public Schools

A Tennessee PCA pastor has introduced a resolution at their General Assembly that resembles the resolution being introduced at the Southern Baptist Convention encouraging parents to remove their children from public schools (Hat tip: Two or Three):

A Tennessee pastor is calling on fellow members of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) to "remove their children from public schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education." Pastor Steven Warhurst of Kingsport introduced the resolution on the floor of the PCA's General Assembly in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The resolution states, among other things, that "the public school system does not offer a Christian education, but officially claims to be 'neutral' with regard to Christ," and that "the public schools are by law humanistic and secular in their instruction" (emphasis in original). In response, the resolution encourages PCA officers and members to remove their children from the public school system and, instead, give them a Christian education "for the glory of God and the good of Christ's church."

Warhurst's resolution also states that "sending thousands of PCA children as 'missionaries' to their unbelieving teachers and classmates has failed to contribute to increasing holiness in public schools." The pastor says he grew up attending public schools, but that when he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, he had to "unlearn" many of the things he had been taught.

"We are people who drank heavily from the trough of state education and realized that it's poisonous," Warhurst says, "and now we've found cisterns of living water, so to speak -- and we'd love other people to join us. I'd love to see every family in the Presbyterian Church in America take their children out of the public schools and train them in the fear and admonition of the Lord."

Warhurst, whose church consists mostly of home-schooling families, says Christian pastors have been silent on the issue far too long. He thinks he knows why that is.

"I think one reason pastors don't speak out against public schools or encourage Christian education is because people will get mad and leave [their church]. That's probably the primary reason: fear," he says. Additional factors, he says, could be "some ignorance of the public school system and what is really going on there" and "a lack of understanding of the Christian worldview."

I suspect this will not be the last we hear on this subject. As parents and churches become more aware of what's really being taught in public schools and how their curriculum is directly in opposition to Chrisitan principles expect the calls to remove children from public schools to grow louder.