To fulfill such a vision, we need to understand our current situation, so that we can build from where we are to where we want to be.

Our Current Situation

By several measures, we as a church body underestimate the challenge to our faith that the current educational institution in our country represents. It is easier that way. Besides, many of us know wonderful Christians who are fine teachers in our local schools and excellent members in our congregations. Besides that, our church body is older, and most of us don’t have children in the schools, so it is easy to feel that it isn’t our problem. But it is our problem, and the problem is serious.

It is impossible to teach or learn much without some implicit agreement on the nature of mankind – our origin, purpose, and ultimate end. The nearly universal premise in American schools, both public and private, is that human beings are by nature advanced animals. Our behavior is the result of some combination of genetic determination shaped by environment. Nobody is ever really evil (if that term has any meaning) and everyone is capable of some good, if society provides the proper conditions.

Also implicit in much of education is the idea that truth is unknowable. This profoundly affects every discipline from reading to history to mathematics to science; it especially affects the social studies. The result is that the importance of truth is replaced by a sociological consensus. This results in such absurdities as it being a felony to destroy a potential eagle (eagle’s egg), but a constitutional right to destroy a “potential human” (unborn child). The principles that undergird such a monstrosity are part of the overall institution of our schools, even when the teacher in a particular classroom doesn’t subscribe to them.

It isn’t as though this vagueness about truth creates a climate of open discussion. Sociological consensus is enforced just as vigorously as any dogma. Witness the court in Georgia decreeing that textbooks teaching evolution could not be marked with a note that evolution is only a theory.

All of these ideas are made even more influential by the fact that public schools are given a mandate by the state to be instruments of social action and social change. This is most clear in such issues as “diversity” and family life (sex) education, but is really pervasive in all areas of the curriculum.

The current state of education is altogether hostile to God’s word in the lives of our children, and therefore hostile to their faith.

Obstacles to Christian Education

Many faithful parents, as well as other congregation members work diligently to establish and maintain schools for our families, but they face many obstacles:

• The case for Christian Education is not made loudly and clearly and frequently enough.

• Newer members in our churches do not possess a heritage of Christian education.

• The demographics of our congregations is changing, so that in many congregations and communities the number of children is declining.

• Opening and maintaining schools is expensive, and beyond the resources of some individual small congregations.

• In many states, there is a highly unfavorable regulatory climate.

The urgent need for Christian education is a case that the Lutheran Schools Initiative will continue to make, and the obstacles to Christian education are matters that LSI will need to address. Please pray for our Lutheran schools and for the Lutheran Schools Initiative, so that we may enjoy abundant success in this endeavor that is very important for preserving the souls of our children and the future of the church.

Edward Bryant is pastor of St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Lombard, Illinois.