Christian Schools, Failing Schools and Elite Schools

Militant atheists are just that – they are militant and they are atheists. I saw one castigating a pastor who claimed that God didn’t intervene in a school shooting because the schools have kicked God out.

The atheist regarded this thinking as moronic, but I think we should stop and take a second look. I’ve taught in many places – Christian schools, elite schools, and failing New York City schools.

Interestingly, the elite schools weren’t so different from the failing schools. Admittedly, some of the failing schools were more like obstacle courses where the goal was to survive until the end of the day. The teachers roamed the halls fearfully with tear-filled eyes. Turning one’s back on the class to write on the blackboard was a very dangerous undertaking. It invited flying projectiles and other things that could jeopardize survival.

While it is true that in the elite schools you didn’t have to worry about projectiles, knives, or sometimes even fists, there were still egregious disciplinary problems. Some people say, “Well, boys will be boys,” but I think that boys can be boys on the streets and not bring their disrespect and disregard for authority and their classmates into school.

Admittedly, I am making some broad generalizations, so I’ll be specific and tell you about a Christian secondary school (7-12) where I have spent my last three January vacations serving as a volunteer teacher. While it is a large school – over 800 students - it is also very personal and even warm.

Of course, we pray together and talk a lot about what is most central to our lives — our Savior — and perhaps this is why the atmosphere is entirely different from any other school I’ve ever experienced. Students and teachers greet me in the hallway with…“Welcome back, Mr. Mann.” Discipline has never been an issue, at least a real one, in any of the classes where I have taught. Once I tell the students that I don’t allow any side conversations in class, it’s a done-deal. No projectiles, although I’ve heard tell of some, and no disrespect. I looked forward to going to class in the morning, and I’ve never waited anxiously for the final buzzer.

 

In one class, I talked about the students’ responsibility to stick up for the welfare of others. During this talk, a teacher at the school and I sensed that some of the students were fired up to do just that – to be guardians of righteousness.

No one becomes a heroin addict overnight. It happens in incremental stages, perhaps starting with marijuana. Likewise, no student becomes a shooter overnight. It might begin with legitimizing disrespect for others. It might be helped along by “values-clarification” exercises, which communicate to the students that there are no objective rights and wrongs - just individual orientations and needs that require expression and satisfaction. From there, they learn that, before all else, they must be true to themselves - their own dispositions and tastes.

Everything can and is expressed in such schools – whatever is required to be true to self! Unfortunately, killing is true for some young adults, so much so that they gladly advertise their proclivities and intentions on Facebook.

Perhaps we – Western civilization – need to wake up and smell the coffee. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves how we’ve gotten into our present mess.  Perhaps we need to take another look at where we came from and what made our schools so successful in the past.  Perhaps the pastor had a good point.

My Wish List

We live in a convoluted world where “nondiscrimination” has become a clandestine way to discriminate:

• The InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter at the State University of New York at Buffalo [SUNY] has three weeks to come into compliance with the school's nondiscrimination policy or risk losing its status as an official campus group.

According to the university:

• InterVarsity's constitution, which includes a clause requiring leaders to agree with a statement of faith, violates school policy.

Discrimination dressed up as “non-discrimination!” I don’t know much about SUNY Buffalo, but I would imagine that they are not yelling “discrimination” at their woman’s group, which requires female leadership or their Young Democrats, while only allows a Democrat to head the group. I would also be surprised if SUNY was going after the Muslim group, which of course insists on Muslim leadership. In fact, I can’t think of a group that wouldn’t discriminate in some way in their selection of leadership.

If I’m wrong about this, I wish that someone would correct me. However, I’ve seen too many instances of this kind of anti-Christian bias in our institutions of “higher learning” to think that SUNY is acting even-handedly out of an impartial concern for justice. Also, SUNY isn’t alone in this matter:

• The University at Buffalo is the second college in the last two weeks to tell an InterVarsity chapter to revise its constitution or lose the right to operate on campus. Last week, Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos reiterated his intention to enforce the school's revised nondiscrimination policy, which no longer grants religious groups the right to require elected leaders to share their beliefs. Four campus Christian organizations, including InterVarsity's Graduate Christian Fellowship, have until mid April to submit new constitutions that comply with Vanderbilt's policy.

From my understanding of the law, private institutions, like Vanderbilt, have a right to exercise their biases. However, I just wish that they would lay aside their hypocrisy - that they are merely pursuing a policy of “nondiscrimination.” At least, they should admit that they have a bias, and that they are discriminating according to their bias. Let them put their deceptive cards on the table!

I also wish that New York City would reconsider their hypocritical ruling that churches can no longer rent space in their NYC schools on Sundays. Although they base their ruling on the “separation of church and state,” their high principles don’t prevent them from renting space from churches when their own schools require the additional space. I wish they would come-clean and fess-up that they are using a double-standard.

I also wish that if the law is going to allow Vanderbilt and many other institutions to practice stealth discrimination, they would also allow church organizations to discriminate according to their faith and conscience. However, many recent rulings have denied them this constitutionally guaranteed prerogative – the free exercise of religion.

Why this hypocrisy? My final wish is that our underlying motives will be exposed for the world to see them – the very thing that our Lord has promised to do!