Many Christian homeschooling families that most states allow parents to homeschool their children without government school control. As a result, even seasoned homeschooling families are lured into government homeschooling programs with the promise of free computers, curriculum, and government teachers to ensure that parents are doing the job right.
Christian parents need to see these programs for what they are, Trojan Horses that give the government complete control over your child’s education. In essence, you have invited the government to come into your home and take control of what your children learn and how they do it. Parents all over the country are being lulled into a false sense of security because their children are being homeschooled. All homeschooling is Christ centered, right?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Government school curriculum stands in direct opposition to Biblical values and principles. It’s content is dictated by educators whose understanding of what constitutes a complete education are steeped in secular humanism and influenced by the liberal politics of the day.
For a Christian family to invite this kind of educational philosophy into their home is completely unacceptable. As CHristian parents, we are charged by God Himself, to train, teach, and nurture our children in the admonition of the Lord. This simply won’t happen if we place ourselves under government authority.
John Wesley said,” What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.” The choices we make today, set the precedent for future generations. There is a better way.
Biblical Homeschooling
For as long as the United States has existed, there have been homeschooling families. For centuries parents took the lead in educating some of the greatest individuals this country has ever known.
In the 19th century, government funded schools came on the scene, and the demise of our educational system began. The original goal of the government schools was to produce a race of obedient, industrious citizens.
After Bible reading and prayer were thrown out of the schools by a Supreme Court ruling, our educational system changed drastically. By the 1970’s and 1980’s a small percentage of Christian parents began to question the right that the government had to be in authority over their children’s educations. This was the beginning of the modern homeschooling movement. As these families traded secular humanistic textbooks for Bible based curriculum, they noticed a change in the spiritual climate in their homes. They reaped the benefits of closer family relationships and a life centered around God’s Word.
School districts were outraged at the audacity of these early pioneers of the homeschooling movement. Surely, parents who lacked government teaching certificates had no business teaching their children.
As the homeschooling movement grew government schools felt the effects of losing thousands of students per district financially. State governments were merciless in their efforts to outlaw homeschooling.
As it stands now, all fifty states make provision for legal homeschooling. As more families saw the benefits of Bible based homeschooling, the movement continued to grow. Over two million American children are homeschooled today.
Biblical Homeschooling vs. Government Homeschooling
The Bible says the Devil’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. The Devil hates Godly families, and will use whatever means he has to to attack us. It only makes sense, that the government run secular education system would find a way to destroy the work the Lord is doing in families through Biblical homeschooling.
By placing our families under the authority of the government’s educational system, the spiritual dynamic is changed. Trading the ultimate authority of Jesus Christ as the head of your family’s education for curriculum that fails to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus Christ is inviting spiritual disaster.
This isn’t to say that all families who choose to allow their children to receive a government educations aren’t Christians. There are some valid questions this decision raises. What is the spiritual fruit of this type of education? We know that statistically 9 out of every 10 Christian children who attend government schools will leave the church after graduation. You have to reason that children who are taught using the same curriculum at home will have similar outcomes.
Surrendering Headship
Most Christian parents choose to homeschool because they desire for their children to have a Bible based education. They prudently consider the present condition of the government schools, and determine that their Christian children would fare far better at home.
How then, can we take our children out from under God’s authority and place our homes under the authority of the same government schools we determined to be immoral and corrupt? It’s hypocrisy.
When we invite the government to take authority over our homeschooling, we cease to have a truly Christian homeschool. Government appointed supervisors become our ultimate authority, and we teach to meet their standards not the Lord’s.
Education and discipleship go hand in hand. Education is more than just an exchange of knowledge, it is imparting a certain worldview to students. When we step outside of God’s plan for the education of our children, we also forfeit the blessing and favor that comes with doing things God’s way.
In Christian homeschooling, the chain of command is: God first, then dad, mom and the children. Government homeschooling takes away our ability to follow this Biblical direction.
Aligning Ourselves with a Spiritually Bankrupt System
The government schools have been the downfall of millions of children in our society. The Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender community is using the government schools to desensitize our children to the sin that these ungodly lifestyles embody. Our children are stripped of their God given identity as the schools make moves to accommodate LGBT students. Unisex restrooms and locker rooms are the reality in our nation’s schools. There are over 4,000 school sanctioned support groups for LGBT students, while many Christian groups are getting the boot.
Our children are being ushered off during school hours to murder their children at abortion clinics, all without parental permission.
Government homeschool students are government school students in every sense of the word. The district receives funding for government homeschooling students.Even though your child never sets foot in a classroom, thousands of tax dollars annually are funneled into the local district on your child’s behalf. By enrolling in government homeschooling programs, you are indirectly offering financial support to an educational system that spits in the face of Biblical teaching and denies the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Public schools are anything but neutral. Their effects can be seen in the moral and spiritual decline of our country. As Christians, we simply can not align ourselves with darkness.
Secular Humanistic Curriculum
When you agree to enroll in a government sponsored homeschooling program, you give up your rights to use Christian curriculum or present material from a Christian worldview during required school hours. When you sign up for all of the government goodies, you commit to allowing a secular school to operate in your home during school hours. Both Federal and state laws disallow the use of sectarian curriculum to be presented during school hours.
Parents fool themselves into thinking that they will still be in full control of their home schools while using government programs. In 2004 in California, a charter school was denied the right to continue operating because the parents used religious materials during school hours. Officials stated that “any religious instruction during class time for which the school received state money is against the law regardless of the source of funds used to purchase materials.”
This leads many parents to use secular curriculum that spurns the teachings of Jesus Christ and spews pro evolution rhetoric as fact.
Because the government vouchers only apply to non-sectarian materials, there has been a huge flood of secular texts. Christian parents are selling out to the government for the annual goodies they get for sacrificing their beliefs and morals. It’s hypocrisy at it’s finest.
No material that we present to our children is completely neutral. By allowing non- Christian curriculum to influence your child, you set the stage for the child to reject the teachings of the Bible. Which is right? Mom and Dad show approval for the government curriculum by allowing its presence in the home. How is a child to know which information is correct?
Aren’t our children’s souls worth more than the money we save by selling out to the government homeschooling programs?
Unequally Yoked
Government homeschooling yokes you with the unsaved. Not only are you under the secular influence of our government during school hours, but you soon find yourself obligated to attend programs and events that expose you and your children to ungodly peers.
Suddenly, the peer group goes from being predominantly Christian, to mixing freely with the world. As Christians, we should associate with the world to show them God’s love and point them towards a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But these relationships should not make up the majority of our social interactions.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? “Therefore, “come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.”
Society tends to lump all homeschoolers together, as though all homeschoolers have the same goals in mind as they educate their children. As Christian homeschoolers, our primary focus should be on training up our children to serve Jesus Christ, the rest is secondary. Do we teach to please the standardized tests, or our Heavenly Father?
Education is literally discipleship. Every subject we teach can be connected to the Creator of all things. Christian homeschool should unfailingly point our children to Jesus Christ. The information we impart to our children will either make the case for or against Christianity. We only get one chance to get it right. Our children’s souls are too important to risk losing them to the Devil as a result of curriculum that is intrinsically of a secular nature.
When you enroll in a government homeschool program, you are required to make sure that your child is taught according to government standards, no matter how far they veer from Biblical teaching.You may find yourself willing to compromise in order to meet the program requirements. Few people fall away from God in one giant leap, it happens by a series of small choices that seem of little consequence. In the end these small decisions cost you your soul.
Some families reason that they need a qualified teacher to make sure that they are getting the job done right. The majority of parents were raised attending government schools, and are conditioned to doubt the abilities of anyone who lacks government endorsement to teach.
The Bible takes a different approach to authority in the home. God, husband, wife and children, in that order. There is no mention of a need for the government to oversee any area of family life.
When government homeschooling dominates an area, attendance at Christian groups tends to dwindle. Government homeschooling is taking back the ground that pioneer homeschooling families fought so hard to gain.
When families enroll in government homeschooling programs, they are required to attend certain events and activities. While these may seem harmless and even fun, they drive a wedge between families who use government homeschool programs and those who choose Biblical curriculum.
Slowly, families start to identify more with other families that use government curriculum, and their fellowship with other Christian homeschoolers becomes strained, or nonexistent. This creates exactly the environment parents hoped to avoid by homeschooling.
Focusing on Secular Standards
When you enroll your family in a government homeschooling program, you promise to meet whatever standards the government has set for your homeschool. This agenda fails to recognize Jesus Christ as Lord. Truly Christian homeschooling strives to meet the standards set by a holy God. Government homeschooling works to make your child be loyal to the state and its beliefs, instead of Jesus Christ.
The Bible plainly says that you can’t serve two masters. You always end up loving one and hating the other. We can’t serve the agenda of the government and God at the same time. The two are in direct opposition to each other.
Christian parents argue that they will counteract government teaching by supplementing with Christian materials in their spare time. What does it say to our children when we foster this deception? Why should we even attempt to subject our families to an educational system that rejects Jesus Christ? We’re no better than Judas when we sell out our Lord and Savior to save a few pieces of silver.
Do Christians really need government homeschooling? The families who sacrificed and fought for their rights to homeschool had to make up curriculum as they went because many companies refused to sell to them. Even though it cost them time and money, they kept on because they knew that their children and grandchildren would reap the benefits of Christ centered homeschooling.
Today’s homeschooling families who return to government programs are reminiscent of the Israelites who faltered in the desert and considered going back under Egyptian rule. Both of these entities offer a seemingly easier route. In reality, they both lead to slavery under an ungodly government.
The Easy Way
At first glance, government homeschooling programs look a whole lot easier on Mom and the budget. Who wouldn’t want free computers and curriculum? Add in all of the other goodies the government throws in, and the whole thing starts to look pretty good to a worn out Momma who is struggling to get it all done.
What the government fails to tell you is that Momma becomes a government employee the minute she signs the kiddos up for all of Uncle Sam’s treats. She is ordered what to teach, when to teach it, and how it is to be presented. Her family and home are now under government scrutiny. The ultimate authority over the homeschool switched from God to the government.
Parents who fail to meet government guidelines in educating their children risk a visit from CPS or being deemed unfit by the Area Education Agency to homeschool their children. The results of both of these situations can be devastating.
Parental Rights
The biggest threat to Christian homeschooling is the number of Christians who are caving in and enrolling in government homeschooling programs. Our rights to homeschool our children are at stake. Christian homeschooling families are raising up godly children who love and serve Jesus Christ. The Devil hates that, and has found the perfect way to deceive parents into handing over their Biblical rights as parents to a secular education system.
The government is smart enough to realize that the way to control a generation is to use the curriculum they are taught from to impart a diabolical system of beliefs that is contrary to the Word of God. What pioneering homeschooling families fought against, we welcome in the front door.
When parents exchange their love for God with their desire for material things, the homeschooling movement is weakened. These families allow themselves to be blinded by government goodies and overlook the fact that they are slaves to the government.
Because the government requires families to jump through hoops in order to get the goodies, families stop questioning the validity of government interference in homeschooling. They become desensitized to the demands of the government authorities. Government homeschoolers are of no threat to the secular humanistic agenda promoted by our government.
When you accept government involvement in your homeschool, you surrender your rights. You resign yourself to homeschool on their terms. Liberal bureaucrats don’t hesitate to admit that they want all homeschoolers under government authority.
Families With Vision
The Bible says that without vision people perish. Believers need to grab hold of the same vision pioneering homeschooling families had. They envisioned the freedom to educate their children according to the Bible, without government mandates.
They discerned the state of the government school system and refused to allow their children to partake in it. They were rewarded with children who unashamedly followed Jesus Christ. Many of these pioneers are seeing their grandchildren reaping the benefits of their unwavering faith.
It’s our turn to take up where they left off. There is still work to be done. We have to take up the fight for Christian homeschooling and stand against the government’s efforts to place us all into subjection to their ungodly agenda.
It starts with saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We need to refuse to bow down to government pressure to relinquish our rights to homeschool our children Biblically. Next, we need to educate other homeschoolers about the dangerous precedent government homeschooling is setting for the future of homeschooling.
Our children and grandchildren are counting on us.
Mimi Rothschild is a veteran homeschooling mother of 8, writer of a series of books called Cyberspace for Kids, and passionate advocate for children and education that is truly worthy of them. In 2001, Mimi and her late husband founded Learning By Grace, a leading provider of online Christian homeschooling Academies.