The 4th ‘R’ – Religion

To exclude the Bible is not neutrality, it is warfare

We often think of education in terms of the 3 R's - Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. But, of course, there are 4 R's.  The most important is Religion - passing the Christian faith on to our children. Here is how Dr. RJ Rushdoony put it:

The goal of our humanistic statist education is the goal of the fall, of Satan. It is the goal of Genesis 3:5. Whereas the goal of Christian education is summed up by Moses and our Lord, Moses says in Deuteronomy 10:12-13, “And now Israel, what doth the Lord require of thee but to fear the Lord, to walk in all his ways and to love Him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” And our Lord tells us in Matthew 22:37-40: “Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” These words give us the purpose of life as God requires it, they do not give us a world wherein we can be neutral either in regard to man or our neighbor. The purpose of education can be no different because education is preparation for life. We include or we exclude in terms of that goal, certain things, because we are governed by our faiths. As humanists we exclude God as irrelevant, as Christians we see Him as the starting point of all wisdom and learning, and to exclude God, to exclude the Bible from education, is not neutrality, it is warfare.

Every curriculum is an affirmation of faith; it tells us what we believe is essential for life, what we believe a child needs in order to face this world and become a conqueror therein. Humanistic education does not see Christ as essential, but as a road block. It claims to be neutral but there is nothing neutral about it, only warfare against our faith. Any education apart from Jesus Christ is for us, mis-education and it produces not education nor an educated man but a new race of barbarians who are today busily destroying their civilization. It is our duty through our schools to create a new one, a God-centered one. We are told in Proverbs 8:35-36 “For who so findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he who sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul. All they that hate me, love death.” Humanistic education is the institutionalized love of death. Christian education, because it serves Him who said I am the way, the truth, and the life, is the love of life.

Religious Nature of Education or Can Education Be Neutral? - RR158A1

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Here is a list of resources we used with our family to help pass the faith to our children.

This is a PDF of the different documents we use: http://urclearning.org/wp-content/uploads/3_forms.pdf

And for younger children we use this: http://www.opc.org/sc.html

These were written 300-400 years ago and are very solidly based on Scripture but we need an updated catechism that addresses the same issues that http://www.pocketcollege.com/wiki (for ages 12 and up) does but at a level appropriate to younger children. I hope to get that project going soon with your help.