As a way of spreading faith and educating and supporting those who choose to become christians, schools have been set up based on christian principles. This has been so over many centuries and in many countries.
It is now often the case that parents choose these schools because for the most part they do have good results and discipline is also better so that pupils can learn without being disrupted so much. They haven’t always chosen them for the christian faith but have been happy for their children to be taught that faith alongside other subjects and they understand that it is part of being in a christian school.
Parents will often go to great lengths to get children into these schools: they attend church and get to know the priests/vicars and the parishioners and take part in parish life. Some do it and do embrace the faith; others do it and leave as soon as their child gets a place in the school which is a great shame.
Whatever their reasons for wanting their child to attend these schools what shouldn’t and is starting to happen is that parents are trying to say they want their children separated out so that they don’t have to go to assembly or sing hymns; they complain about the Nativity play that is a great tradition with our schools. They basically want the standard education but don’t want their children to learn about the christian faith.
These schools only exist because they were set up to teach and practice the faith; the fact that they are successful shouldn’t mean that parents who have no intention of following the faith or allowing their children to, can ‘opt out’. The place their child takes could have been given to someone whose family is open to learning about christianity and taking part in all that this means.
I read the other day that the Church of England is planning on taking out ‘confessional words’ from traditional hymns so that children who aren’t christian don’t have to sing them. That is turning your back on the whole reason for these schools to exist. Shooting yourself in the foot is one expression that came to me. These school are great because they are christian and are built on prayer; taking away that aspect is denying your faith and letting others dictate when and how you will teach it. Parents shouldn’t be able to do that. They can choose non-christian schools if that is how they feel.
I’m glad my sons went to christian schools and have learnt so much about the faith I follow. They can choose now to follow the same faith and this choice is based on a full knowledge of what I believe.
God bless,
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Widows Mote 