Daniel Craig: A couple of years ago, I was attending a home school conference, I think it was actually the first Christian home school conference in Russia ever. And I actually used to live in Russia, you know that, but this was a few years later, and what was interesting is it was a home school conference, but they don't have a word for home schooling. So they actually called it "A Christian Family Education Conference." And that really stuck in my mind because I realized the Bible doesn't speak to home schooling per se.
Chad Roach: It's not in the concordance anyway.
Daniel Craig: No. But it does definitely define the fact that education is the primary responsibility of parents. Education is given primarily to the jurisdiction of the family, that's something that we've lost today.
Kevin Swanson: Well, and Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto said, "We've got to replace home education with social." And he saw that the moving of the responsibility of education under the state was fundamental to the communist vision. We're not communists. We're biblical Christians. And so what we do is we go to God's word and say, "Okay. Well, what does God's word say about the teaching of children?" And you'll find in Deuteronomy 6:7, he places that squarely in the lap of parents. "You shall teach your children as you sit in the house, as you walk by the way, as you rise up." It's your house, it's not the village, it's you, it's not the village instructor. It's primarily the parent who's responsible for the education of the children. Now, that means that there may be liberty and choices that parents make, but parents need to understand that education is fundamentally a function of the family.
Chad Roach: And how can a family accomplish the goal of passing on the faith to the next generation while not using the tool of the daily discipleship of their children?
Kevin Swanson: Well, I think one thing is to remind themselves that education is discipleship. And this idea that we can separate out the learning of philosophy and math and science and history and so forth into this other area and it has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with the fear of God, is a dualistic view of knowledge and a dualistic view of education. What we gotta remind parents of is that the discipleship of kids happens just as much in the science classroom and the math classroom as it does in Sunday school on Sunday morning. And so if they understand the integration of God's word and character and faith into every aspect of that child's upbringing, that child's life, they'll begin to realize more and more that the responsibility for the discipleship of these children are a part of the parents' responsibilities and the parent needs to be sure that their children are getting the right education in the fear of God.
Daniel Craig: And therefore, it's not the responsibility of the humanistic state.
Kevin Swanson: That's right.
Daniel Craig: And added to that, while parents are responsible, if they do choose to send their kids that direction, they're still responsible, even if they've delegated that education and discipleship to the state, they're actually still responsible for what's being taught and that's a grave responsibility to bear.
Kevin Swanson: So what happens when a child receives an education in science that is not rooted in the fear of God and basically presents a human being, and science, and nature, and cause and effect relationships as all happening in a chance universe outside of God's sovereign control? They're being taught a wrong viewpoint of reality and they're beginning to be inculcated in a religion, a world view that is much more materialistic and naturalistic than it would be supernaturalistic. They're being raised in a world without God and after a while that begins to sink in and that's how you get a society that is largely humanist, and has abandoned the Christian faith.
Chad Roach: And that's not the goal, that's not what we want for our children. That's not the goal for our children and our grandchildren.
Kevin Swanson: We wanna pass on the faith.
Chad Roach: We do. Yeah, we want the faith to go into the next generation.
Daniel Craig: David speaks to this issue of, "How are your kids getting discipled?" And I think that's the question that every parent needs to ask, is first to realize, "My kids are always being discipled by someone, it's me or someone else." And David speaks of this, in Psalm 1 he says, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate after school hours." Oh, wait, "In his law does he meditate day and night." And what better way for parents to present this vision of honoring God, of loving God, delighting in his law than through family-based education?