LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: CHURCHES HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED TO EDUCATE; I ACCEPT

To the Editor:

I'm writing in response to the challenge given earlier this month by Mr. Kent King, executive director of the Missouri State Teachers Association.

Mr. King rightly stated that we have a values problem in our school, as well as in the whole of society. He also maintained that parents have the responsibility to teach their children values.

"Failing that," he goes on to say, "churches should step in." And that is what I consider the challenge.

As you will recall, it was the Supreme Court, acting quite unprecedentedly arbitrarily, which declared Bible reading and prayer in public schools to be unconstitutional. Although the church was caught sleeping, it was the state which hampered the church in doing its job and declared God to be "persona non grata".

Since that time in the early '60s, America has been on a downhill toboggan race both academically and morally. We have wanted to prove that it's possible to be good without God. Our schools have been forced to teach a curriculum that excludes God and makes him out to be irrelevant in today's advanced society.

A God-centered education is one based on reverence for God and respect for men. Values are taught and character is stressed and formed in the student. However, education based on Christianity has been replaced by an education based on the religion of secular humanism.

Humanists believe there is no God to whom man is accountable; that man himself is the sum of all things; that, because there is no Creator, man has evolved from lower life forms. Today we are already reaping the results of the last three decades of secular education. Man is, in many instances, becoming the animal some so-called scientists say he is.

You will also recall that it wasn't the church which initiated the retreat from the traditional baccalaureate services held at high schools all across the nation. Once again the Supreme Court decided that values other than those of the Bible should be held before our youth.

The good news of the Gospel isn't just holding up an unattainable set of values to which man can only unrealistically aspire. The good news of the Gospel is the power to change the heart, nature, and motives of man that he can live up to the standard set for us in the Bible.

Mr. King has made the challenge Here is my response to rise up and step in.

I hereby offer myself to you, parents, to train you an to instill values into your children, to give them hope and blueprint for a better future, to teach them how to love their spouses and children, and to make them self-sacrificing patriotic Americans. All of this is, naturally, free of charge.

I offer my services to you, Cape Board of Education, to train young people to understand and respect authority, to learn self-control instead of violent outbursts, and to become responsible and respectable citizens. And it won't cost our already over-taxed citizens a dime.

Taking a stand, I await your calls and remain

Fred W. Poston

Pastor

New Plymouth Community Church