Freedom

Dewey's secularist faith

Educational leaders like John Dewey saw the public schools, often called the "common" schools, as the mechanism for indoctrinating children into a new democratic faith.
The worldviews and eccentricities of the various ethical and national backgrounds would be erased and a new melting pot of Americans would emerge.
Dewey, the most influential shaper of the public schools in America, understood that the success of his effort would require children to be liberated from the prejudices and values of their parents.

In his book, A Common Faith, Dewey advocated a radically secular vision
for the public schools and the larger public culture.
His concept of a humanistic faith, stripped of all supernatural claims, doctrines, and theological authorities, would replace Christianity
as the dominant culture-shaping worldview.
"Here are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class, or race," he claimed.
"Such a faith has always been the common faith of mankind. It remains for us to make it explicit and militant."

It has taken longer than Dewey expected,
but this secularist faith is certainly explicit and militant now.
Of course, this is not equally true in all places and in all public schools. As a rule, schools in more rural areas, with local political control more concentrated in the hands of parents, the effects of this educational revolution are less evident. In some school systems, the majority of teachers, administrators, and students share an outlook that is at least friendly and respectful toward Christianity and conservative moral values.

In other places, the situation is markedly different.
In many metropolitan school districts, the schools have truly become engines for the indoctrination of the young.
This process of indoctrination pervades, not only the more recognizable aspects of radical sex education programs and so-called "health education," but other aspects of the curriculum as well. Unless something revolutionary reverses these trends, this is the shape of the future.

With control over the public school system increasingly in the hands of the courts, educational bureaucrats, the university-based education schools, and the powerful teachers' unions, little hope for correction appears.
Federal mandates, accreditation requirements, union demands, and the influence of the educational elite represent a combined force that is far greater than the localized influence of many school boards, not to mention parents.
Those who doubt the radical commitments of groups such as the National Education Association should simply look at the organization's public statements, policy positions, and initiatives.

The breakdown of the public school system is a national tragedy. An honest assessment of the history of public education in America must acknowledge the success of the common school vision in breaking down ethnic, economic, and racial barriers. The schools have brought hundreds of millions of American children into a democracy of common citizenship. Tragically, that vision was displaced by an ideologically-driven attempt to force a radically secular worldview.

How will Southern Baptists respond? We do not even know if any education-related resolutions will reach the convention floor. As a former chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, I...
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