The education of the hearts, souls, minds and bodies of our children is very important to Alabamians. Our state puts three to four times more financial resources towards education than the general operations of our state. Much of the time, discussion and debate during the annual legislative session revolves around education.
Yet this evident interest in education also signals a great battle. On the one side are conservatives, who follow Western civilization and Christian cultural traditions, teaching the importance of raising the next generation with a covenantal, family-focused mindset. On the other side are the woke, left, liberals – many of whom are atheists and humanists – who also understand the importance of reaching our youth with their ideologies. Ironically, this second group has historically depended upon Christian households to carry, birth, and provide for these children, then turn them over to woke, liberal indoctrination.
Thank God, times seem to be changing. Many of our teachers and leaders understand the importance of prayer, faith, and Christian foundations and want to see these restored in our schools. In keeping with this, the Alabama Legislature recently passed legislation to put the 10 Commandments, prayer, and the pledge back in our schools, an accomplishment of which I’m very proud.
Yet how did these foundations get out of our schools in the first place?
The truth is that Christian citizens and Christian pastors retreated from the battlefield. We embraced the absurd idea of education neutrality – and education devoid of any religious and moral ethics – forgetting that education inherently and essentially teaches children who they are, where they come from, and where they are going.
The neutrality lie was a trojan horse used to neuter courageous voices from our pulpits and pews. It sought to replace the Christian worldview in the hearts, souls and minds of our children with an anti-God, anti-Jesus, anti-family, government-centered worldview. It replaced the voice of God with the voice of man as the starting point for truth, reality and beauty. It seeks to replace the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone of American Western civilization with the ugly and bloody religion of humanism and Marxism.
To successfully disengage the Church from the cultural battlefield of education, the woke ideologues and revolutionaries had to peddle the idea of neutrality as the only “scientifically respectable” position. In truth, neutrality was the very means that allowed the progressive left to reshape much of the American consciousness about faith, morality, ethics and family.
It’s time to reject the lie of “religious neutrality” in education. But it’s also time we come to grips with what education actually is or is not.
Education is NOT the mere learning of facts, the test-crazed obsession of “educrats” who fixate over certifications and test scores while overlooking or promoting morally bankrupt textbooks and atheism. Instead, education passes down a way of life.
This means that when I look at my rising high school senior and wonder what kind of citizen he will be, I consider how he treats ladies, how he worships and walks with God, whether he has a strong work ethic, and whether or not he has developed sound thinking skills and enjoys solving problems. Do I want my son to know history dates and how to solve for the unknown variable? Sure. But raising tomorrow’s Alabama is so much more than producing people who can make data-driven decisions or be functionally useful in the workplace. It means raising a generation that loves, moves towards, and replicates the good, true and beautiful in all they do because the truth of the Gospel and the wisdom of the Bible sits upon the throne of their hearts and minds.
THAT is the battle in which we are engaged.
Do we want a generation of young people to arise who love God, love their neighbor as themselves, and view work as the opportunity to worship by using their God-given talents to build and create? A generation that loves the nuclear family, marriage and children?
That way of life is our heritage. It’s what made America the shining beacon of the world. And this is our moment to pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to unapologetically and courageously fight for that way of life to be passed down to Alabama’s future. In so doing, Alabama will become a beacon of light to our beloved America, and to the world. Hide it under a bushel? No! It’s time to let it shine!
State Rep. Ernie Yarbrough serves in Alabama's Seventh District.
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