Training Future Generations…For What?

Training Future Generations…For What?

Christian schools like MCS talk a lot about training children.  Whether it’s touted in our vision statement and newsletters or posted in the hallways, the idea that training is an essential goal of education is clearly communicated.  To this end, what exactly are we training them for?

“Education must equip people for war!” 

According to Christian education advocate, Glen Schultz, there is no question that we are engaged in a fierce cultural war and to the victor goes our children.  Schultz wins support for his thinking from authors James Dobson and Gary Bauer who contend in their book, Children and Risk, that the present war of values in our country will be fought in the classrooms. 

The reality is that every educational effort prepares children for this war - it always has and always will.  Either the education will be built upon the truths revealed in God’s Word and through His creation, or it will be built upon the opinions and philosophies of man.  There is no neutral ground contrary to what many believe.  Throughout the Bible, God differentiates between light and darkness, wisdom and ignorance, saved and unsaved, and Jesus Himself clearly teaches that “…he who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30)

Some would argue that a Christian school is a “safe house,” sheltering students from the real world and not truly preparing them for the battles to come.  For those of us that have been in Christian education for any substantial length of time, we know this is not the case, especially today as students everywhere have access to the world at their fingertips.  The fact is, secular education shelters children from the truth.  An education without God, equips its students to think and act from a worldview without God – one that is actually opposed to God as it states in Matthew 12:30.

Wars were commonplace in the Old Testament and in the New Testament we find references that Christians are to be strong soldiers.  According to Paul’s writing, the war is now a spiritual one and waged on the intellectual front:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.  For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…  2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Training the mind is what Christian schools do best and you won’t find it anywhere else outside of the home.  We are living in what some have labeled a “Post-Christian Age” and we must provide children with a biblically-based, Christ-centered education so that they are trained for the battles to come. 

Dr. Cy J. Smith, Superintendent