FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2004
CONTACT:
T.C. Pinckney: ,
Bruce Shortt: ,
E. Ray Moore, Jr.: ,
n NEWS RELEASE n
Will Southern Baptists Abandon Public Schools?
If Well-known SBC Leader T.C. Pinckney And Attorney Bruce Shortt Succeed
Southern Baptists Will Soon Embrace Christian Education
ALEXANDRIA, VA. - T.C. Pinckney, retired brigadier general and prominent Southern Baptist leader and Bruce N. Shortt, a Houston, TX attorney and home school father of three children have joined forces to ask the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to consider a resolution urging parents to pull their children out of public schools and provide them with a Christian Education.
Co-authors Pinckney and Shortt submitted their April 26, 2004 resolution to the SBC Resolutions Committee. The Committee will consider whether to present the resolution for a full vote by the SBC Convention when it meets June 15-16, 2004 in Indianapolis.
The strongly worded Resolution urges all officers and members of the Southern Baptist Convention �to remove their children from the government schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education.�
It also encourages SBC churches to �counsel parents regarding their obligation to provide their children with Christian education� and �to provide all of their children with Christian alternatives to government school education, either through home schooling or thoroughly Christian private schools.�
Pinckney was quoted May 6, 2004 in an Associated Press story saying �God gives the responsibility of children to the parents, not to the government, and parents should be taking responsibility, primarily through homeschooling.�
Pinckney and Shortt cite numerous reasons for the need to remove Southern Baptist children from �government schools,� including research from the Nehemiah Institute which �discovered through its extensive surveys of student attitudes and beliefs that acceptance of a secular humanist worldview by Christian children attending government schools has increased dramatically over the past fifteen years.�
They also cited research gathered by the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life which reported in 2002 �that 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return.�
The resolution also states that public schools are �adopting curricula and policies teaching that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable.�
Shortt was quoted May 4, 2004 by World Net Daily: �The issue is this,� he said, �the government schools are killing our children morally, spiritually and academically. The question we confront as Christian parents is, how dead do we want our children to be?�
Resolution co-sponsors, Pinckney and Shortt are active members of Exodus Mandate (www.ExodusMandate.org); a national organization founded by E. Ray Moore, Jr., a retired Chaplain (Lt. Col.) USAR. Bruce N. Shortt serves as the Texas State Coordinator for Exodus Mandate. T.C. Pinckney is a retired Brigadier General USAF, and former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pinckney�s three children home school his twelve grandchildren.
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Additional Media:
- Washington Times: Southern Baptists Eye Exiting Public Schools
~ By Julia Duin, (5/12/04) http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20r.htm
Resolution urges members to reject government education ~ By Ron Strom (5/4/04)
- Family News in Focus: Southern Baptists to Consider Schools Resolution:
Is it time for Christian parents to give up on public schools? ~ By Stuart Shepard (4/30/04)
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/A0031873.cfm
TEXT Of the Proposed Resolution:
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION RESOLUTION
Submitted Jointly by T.C. Pinckney and Bruce N. Shortt
To The 2004 Annual Meeting Of The Southern Baptist Convention
April 26, 2004
Whereas, the Bible commands that fathers are to bring up their children in the training and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), and all parents have an obligation to strive by all means to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and
Whereas, all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus, and He has commanded us to make disciples of our children and teach them to observe everything He has commanded (Mt. 28:19-20), and
Whereas, teaching our children everything that Jesus commanded involves their learning to think biblically about all the spheres of human thought, activity, and life (Dt. 6:4-9) so that they take every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), and
Whereas, our thinking is not to be conformed to this world�s way of thinking, but our minds are to be renewed and sanctified by the truth of God�s Word (Rom. 12:2; Jn. 17:17), and
Whereas, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Pr.1:7) and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col.2:3), any instruction that does not begin with the fear of the Lord, teaching the centrality of Jesus Christ for understanding all of life cannot properly be said to impart wisdom or knowledge to children, and
Whereas, Jesus said, �He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters� (Lk. 11:23), the government school system that claims to be �neutral� with regard to Christ is actually anti-Christian, so that children taught in the government schools are receiving an anti-Christian education, and
Whereas, the government schools are by their own confession humanistic and secular in their instruction, the education offered by the government schools is officially Godless, and
Whereas, the government schools are adopting curricula and policies teaching that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable, and
Whereas, homosexual organizations are present as approved student "clubs" in thousands of government schools and are spreading rapidly, and
Whereas, the Bible says, children are like arrows in the hand of a warrior (Ps. 127:3-5), we must understand that children are weapons (arrows) to be aimed for the greatest impact in the kingdom of God. Just as it would be foolish for the warrior to give his arrows to his enemies, it is foolish for Christians to give their children to be trained in schools run by the enemies of God, and
Whereas, training to be a faithful witness should be a vital part of a Christian child�s education, and
Whereas, hundreds of thousands of parents who are members of churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention send their children to the government schools, and
Whereas, the children of those parents are receiving a Godless, anti-Christian education, and
Whereas, the millions of children in government schools spend 7 hours a day, 180 days a year being taught that God is irrelevant to every area of life, and
Whereas, many Christian children in government schools are converted to an anti-Christian worldview rather than evangelizing their schoolmates, and
Whereas, the Nehemiah Institute has discovered through its extensive surveys of student attitudes and beliefs that acceptance of a secular humanist worldview by Christian children attending government schools has increased dramatically over the last fifteen years, and
Whereas, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported to the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention that 88 percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at the age of 18, never to return; and
Whereas, it is anti-intellectual to artificially divorce God from his creation, and many excellent curricula are available that demonstrate the beauty and working of God throughout His creation, and experience has proven the superior intellectual accomplishments of children educated in such curricula, and
Whereas, the Bible teaches that the companion of fools will be destroyed (Pr.13:20), and that people are prone to be deceived into thinking that evil company will not corrupt them (1Cor.15:33), it is incumbent upon ministers of the gospel to warn God�s people that their children are being corrupted by spending half of their waking hours instructed by teachers who are required by law to inculcate a Godless education, and
Whereas, many adult members of our congregations teach in government schools, this resolution should not be construed to discourage adult believers who labor as missionaries to unbelieving colleagues and students; rather, they should be commended and encouraged to be salt and light in a dark and decaying government school system:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention encourages all officers and members of the Southern Baptist Convention and the churches associated with it to remove their children from the government schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education, for the glory of God, the good of Christ�s church, and the strength of their own commitment to Jesus, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention encourages all churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention to work energetically to counsel parents regarding their obligation to provide their children with a Christian education, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the 2004 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention encourages all churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention to provide all of their children with Christian alternatives to government school education, either through home schooling or thoroughly Christian private schools.
