Educating from Freedom to Bondage

There are many understandings of freedom, and in fact many totalitarian governments parade under the label of freedom, such as Communist China and many Islamic nations. Freedom in the contemporary American understanding is the ability for an individual or group to do what they wish rather than to be controlled by another.

The Bible, however, never portrays freedom as a type of irresponsible behavior as many in America do. Central  in the message of the Lord Jesus was freedom, as the Lord Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free…If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”  (John 8:32,36). Notice that it is to know the truth is to be free, not that you are free to know what might be esteemed to be truth.

Freedom is a great key for educational development, but is a key that is increasingly being discarded in our land, particularly when we ignore the Judeo-Christian tenets that were once basic in American public and private education. There are token steps in many private schools and in many charter schools, but is this really where the focus is?  What is meant by real responsible freedom in education? It is not imposed from without but develops from within!

In the Bible, freedom is a continual theme from the very beginning, from Genesis 3:5 when Adam and Eve sought to be free to determine what was good and what was evil, and fell to the temptation from Satan.  This was an example of the misuse of freedom in contrast to the true promise of the liberty that flows from the presence of God, as Revelation 22:17 so powerfully proclaims:  “…Come.  And let him that is athirst come.  And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”   The history of the Israelites has been one of continual quest for freedom, and the message of Christ is the very foundation of what is really true freedom.  Recall Christ said, “I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.”   In this is a presupposition on which free and positive education can develop.

Romans 7:6 states a central focus of the Christian message as it says:  “Now we are delivered from the law…that we should serve in newness of spirit.”   Many educators in our land are very much distressed by the destruction of freedom in public education. In respect to understanding the Scriptural truth of this verse—instead of moving from, in, and toward freedom in learning, public education has shifted much to a programming of the students by the educational establishment…a type of bondage.  It is to pass the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND TESTS, to the neglect of developing a passion for  learning in the children.  Much of this is to be blamed, I feel, on our forsaking the foundations on which our nation was founded and from which developed freedom of religion together with freedom for each to learn responsibly and individually.

U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-California) at a forum, “A Pathway to Excellence: The Future of Education in America”, in New Jersey, was one among many seeking to address the great crisis in American education.  He said, “I see change taking place all across the country in public systems, public systems that have adopted public charter schools, that let people go to private charter schools, that have adopted open choice.”  This looks like a real movement toward freedom, but is it?

The forsaking of our Christian heritage is bringing more and more legalism into public schooling, and performance is going down.  There is a student plague from the lack of academic responsibility.  And many teachers, in fact, most young teachers are leaving the profession after a few years in the classrooms, disenchanted by the public school programs.  It is a sad picture!

The subtraction of the Christian focus that once a vital part of public education has had adverse effects over the past fifty years in respect to the academic achievement in the American public schools.   All kinds of academic programming, standards of all types, teacher accountability without parental accountability, and testing, testing, and testing are just some of the areas of this legalism.  The Bible teaches what can be called a particular grace and a general grace.  Special grace is known in those who realize the redemptive personal relationship with God.  General grace is manifest in all creation in God’s goodness to his creation manifest in the secular.

In the general sense God has been gracious to us.  But the time might come in America when the type of education that enabled us to rise as nation to the top, might be no longer.

We look at situations like the total secular educational thinking in Communist China, and say that this could never happen here.  But continually, China is tightening its grip on dissent.  It has been noted that “Simply to have different opinions can cost (dissidents) their life; they can be put in jail, can be silenced and can disappear.” (Jamie’s China, CNN April 12, 2011  Crackdown on dissent in China). The persecution of Christians is covering the whole nation, and any education with a Christian focus is forbidden.

From the religious focus, we can look at that imposed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the great persecution of Christians wherever the Muslims are in power.  In The Center for Security Policy’s recently released report,  “Shariah: The Threat to America” it states that, “The Brotherhood has since 1963 operated a growing number of front organizations tasked with mounting highly effective influence operations in the United States. According to the organization’s own strategic plan, their mission here is ‘a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within’”.

Frank Gaffney observer that “In two different articles published at Pajamas Media we  learn how U.S. government ‘outreach’ to the Muslim-American community has become a vehicle for empowering and protecting enemies of this country and affording them opportunities they systematically exploit with the goal of ‘destroying [us] from within’”.  (“Muslim Brotherhood Proclaim True Intentions in Egypt” 18 Apr 2011–By Frank Gaffney, columnist—Washington Times).

Bondage comes from the secular understanding promoted by Communist China, and it comes from the religious understanding from the Muslim Brotherhood.  Many say, “It could never happen here.”  But as we neglect our Christian heritage as a nation, it might well happen!

by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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