Re: Theological Attack On Public Schools

[Greg Burton <gburton@sltrib.com>]

  Folks, now public schools are not only government, but pagan, too?
  I suppose the roads are pagan, and the police department is pagan and the
grocery stores are pagan. Don't the Dougs and Dale shop at Safeway? Is
there a Logos Shopping District? How about the CoOp, or does collectivism
suggest communalism suggest socialism suggest liberalism suggest paganism?
  Are public schools perfect? No. Have many faithful Christians, Muslims
and Jews been educated at pagan government schools? Sure. Are Christian
schools perfect? No. Have any unfaithful Christians graduated from
Christian institutions? Jimmy Swaggart comes to mind.
  You know what? I think there are sufficient theological reasons for
Christians to send their children to pagan government schools. I, for one,
felt like a postcard for my faith in public school. Likewise, I graduated
with a greater appreciation of the other faiths in my community.
  Dale suggests there is an economic incentive to abolishing public
schools, based on an argument that the private sector is more efficient
than the public sector. Are these the same economists who called Enron a
great energy company?
  Isn't education for everyone one of those fundamental principals of an
enlightened society? (Please refrain from interjecting some epistemological
debate of enlightenment and please don't hedge the debate by calling me a
relativist, whatever the tarnation that is, who logically can have no moral
compass.)
  Are the private schools really going to provide a desk for every child?
If the godly, good citizen schools educate 51 percent of America's
children, is that good enough? What about quality? My son's public
elementary school encourages volunteers, so I or my wife can help
contribute to every student's education (there's that communal, socialist
ring again). The thing about public school is it tends to suffer when
parents shove their kids off in the morning and forget about them until
dinner time. I'll bet the same holds true for Logos, only on a smaller
scale. That's not the school's fault, it's the parents' fault. Doesn't
anybody join the PTA anymore? Worked for my mother.
  Sure there are bad teachers.(I had a few.) There are just as many bad
preachers.(Had a few of those too.)
  Dale suggests privatizing government services like education makes good
economic sense. "That's why out-sourcing is so prevalent in the state and
federal government."
  Riddle me this then? What about corrections and the state and federal
penal system? Many states contract privately for correctional officers and
institutions. Other states refuse, arguing that justice, punishment and
retribution — whatever the cost — are foundations of good government.
  So, to combine several threads on this list, if you believe in the death
penalty, and you believe the government is morally bereft, shouldn't we
hand over all of our death row inmates (guilty or innocent but poor, black
and convicted by a white jury) to a religiously-inclined private execution
firm which could both kill and grant salvation?
  I would venture a guess that this would be crazy, but then I might be
disenfranchising a segment of this discussion group.
  If God can educate, execute, build and destroy better than we, where does
all this dismantling of pagan government systems end?
  I would say in tragedy. Jim Jones comes to mind. Koresh. Khomeini?

  p.s. Is the Eric Engerbretson who is writing on this list the same
folkish, guitar plucking guy who sang Led Zepplin and Neil Young into the
wee hours of Moscow and Pullman nights a few (read many) years ago?

cheers, greg burton

>
> There are sufficient theological reasons for Christians not sending
> their children to pagan government schools. That's a no-brainer --
> education is religious.
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