The following is an excerpt from our latest book “Failure: What Christian Parents Need to Know About American Education.” The book can be purchased here.
CHAPTER 1: CASUALTIES OF THE WORLDVIEW WARS
The church is in trouble. Over the last few years, we have seen a greater acceptance of instrumental music over a cappella singing along with an expansion of the role of women in worship and leadership. Although the church has grown some, that growth is rather disappointing in light of the fact that it does not even come close to matching the growth of the general populace in America. Even worse, however, is the fact that we can’t seem to effectively keep those who grow up in the church.
You have undoubtedly heard the claims that our youth are leaving the church in droves. Dr. Flavil Yeakley, a statistician among the churches of Christ, reported in 2008 that 55 to 60 percent of young people remain faithful as members. According to this study, 40 to 45 percent of young people turn away in their post–high school years, and nearly half of the young people raised as Christians will not remain faithful. Dr. Yeakley also cited a study from around 20 years ago that lists the dropout rate at around 55 percent. One campus minister estimated the dropout rate to be 80 percent.[1] As we know, merely being listed in a church directory as a member does not make one faithful, nor does attending regularly. So, the amount of souls lost inwardly is likely even higher than the numbers these studies have revealed.
Of course, the churches of Christ certainly aren’t the only group facing this issue. The Southern Baptist Convention estimated in 2002 that 88 percentof children reared in evangelical homes leave the church.[2] The Barna Group stated in 2006 that 61 percent of those in their 20s who had spent their teen years in church are now spiritually disengaged, and only 20 percent of that same group maintain a level of spiritual activity consistent with what they did in high school.[3]
Consider the implications of this problem in terms of souls. Picture two children from your home congregation: the odds say one of those two won’t be faithful at the age of 20. Think of children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, children of friends, or any other young people in the church’s next generation. How many of them will be faithful as adults? To answer that, we simply need to look to the last generation. Take out a church member directory from five to 10 years ago (if you can find one) and look at all of the people who were in the 10- to 20-year-old age range at that time. Where are they now? How many can be found faithfully living the Christian life? Usually the answer is not many. If a change isn’t made somewhere, the trend will continue. Who will become our next generation of preachers, elders, preachers’ wives, and elders’ wives? We simply can’t afford to let any more souls go.
These unfortunate statistics bring up two questions. First, is this just the way things go? Maybe we should just accept the loss of (at least) half of the children raised in the church and hope the others become strong Christians. To believe that would be to believe God’s methods are insufficient for training the young to be disciples, for that thought openly contradicts the statement of Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The answer, then, is no; this is not just the way things go. Also, the mass exodus from the church is something that had not really occurred at the current rate until the last half-century. This isn’t just something that is bound to happen to half of the church’s next generation. We have to look deeper for the root cause of this unfaithfulness. This brings up the second question.
Since we can be sure there is a causative factor behind all of this, we have to ask: What is it? It seems that factor can be found in another study done by the Barna Group in 2009. The goal of this study was to learn the impacts of faith on thought processes of adults in various age demographics. More specifically, its intent was to find what percentage of the population had a biblical worldview. Their working definition of the term “biblical worldview” was simple: one must believe in the Bible’s accuracy and Satan’s existence, reject salvation based on meritorious works, assert Christ’s sinless life, and have faith in God as the omnipotent Creator. The results of this study are even more eye-popping than the numbers detailing how many young people leave. Only 19 percent of “born-again” adults have a biblical worldview. Of all the adults in the United States, only 9 percent have a biblical worldview, but when you narrow that down to adults between the ages of 18 and 23, the percentage drops all the way to 0.5 percent.[4]
In other words, out of every 200 college-aged people in the country, only one has a biblical worldview. Assuming that number remains constant for the next generation or two in a nation of 300,000,000 people, within 50 years that will leave 1,500,000 people with a biblical worldview. This, more than any other reason, is why the attrition rate among young Christians is skyrocketing. They are not taught to think like Christians. The Bible is not the basis for how they see the world, how they make their decisions, or how they act. If there is no biblical foundation, why should we expect faithfulness?
While the numbers from the Barna Group’s worldview study are bad enough, they would look even worse had a stricter definition of “biblical worldview” been used. In this book, we will be using the definition given in David Noebel’s Understanding the Times. It is more specific in capturing the idea that a worldview should be a part of every area of life.
The term worldview … refers to any set of ideas, beliefs, convictions, or values that provides a framework or map to help you understand God, the world, and your relationship to God and the world. Specifically, a worldview should contain a particular (and clear) perspective regarding each of the following ten disciplines: theology, philosophy, ethics, biology, psychology, sociology, law, politics, economics, and history.[5]
This definition tells us that each person’s worldview factors into every single thought he or she has. With less than 0.5 percent of all college-aged people holding to a worldview based on even the most basic premises of the Bible, it’s really not surprising that churches around the country have such a noticeable shortage of younger Christians. If they can’t claim belief in even the most basic tenets of Christianity, they certainly won’t actively practice those principles. Another Barna Group study demonstrates the behavioral differences seen in those who hold the biblical worldview and those who subscribe to some other viewpoint.
People’s views on morally acceptable behavior are deeply impacted by their worldview. Upon comparing the perspectives of those who have a biblical worldview with those who do not, the former group were 31 times less likely to accept cohabitation (2% versus 62%, respectively); 18 times less likely to endorse drunkenness (2% versus 36%); 15 times less likely to condone gay sex (2% versus 31%); 12 times less likely to accept profanity (3% versus 37%); and 11 times less likely to describe adultery as morally acceptable (4% versus 44%). In addition, less than one-half of one percent of those with a biblical worldview said voluntary exposure to pornography was morally acceptable (compared to 39% of other adults), and a similarly miniscule proportion endorsed abortion (compared to 46% of adults who lack a biblical worldview).[6]
Certainly no one would argue against the need for a biblical worldview, but somewhere between believing it is necessary and passing it on to others, it gets lost. Why isn’t that mindset passed on to the next generation?
That question should be answered with another question. Aside from a lack of a biblical worldview, what else do the vast majority of teens have in common? While there are differences in race, sex, income, number of parents in the home, and religious preferences, education at public schools is something that over 85 percent of all children have in common. This connection can’t be dismissed.
What this book endeavors to find out is whether public schools can impart a biblical worldview. If young people leave the church because they don’t think like Christians, are schools to blame? The history of education in America will be examined all the way from the one-room schoolhouse to the modern-day Common Core. Various chapters will examine exactly what schools teach when it comes to God, truth, sex, world religions, and more.
Through the course of this book, two other worldviews will be mentioned frequently in conjunction with various teachings and theories. The first is secular humanism, and it is based on three key foundations:

  1. A naturalistic philosophy (denying the supernatural)
  2. A cosmic outlook rooted in science (placing man’s knowledge of the universe at the pinnacle of all beliefs)
  3. A consequentialist ethical system (consequences, not God or an objective standard, determine morality)

The homosexual agenda relies heavily on humanism. You can’t say homosexuality is sinful by appealing to the Bible because what God says doesn’t matter, and if it isn’t hurting anybody, it can’t be wrong. As much as its proponents might deny it, secular humanism is the religious/philosophical wing of atheism.
The other major worldview present today in classrooms (and everywhere else) is postmodernism. This worldview is also defined by three foundations:

  1. A commitment to relativism (all truth is relative to the individual)
  2. An opposition to rationalism (we can’t know anything outside of ourselves)
  3. The promotion of culturally created realities (experience trumps fact)

When there is no absolute truth, there’s really no point in believing anything or being convicted by whatever belief system you might hold. If you’ve seen the “Coexist” bumper stickers with all sorts of different religious symbols on them, you’ve encountered postmodernism.
Now we must consider how so many children from Christian homes come to buy into these worldviews. If they don’t learn secular humanism or postmodernism from their faithful Christian parents and if they don’t learn those things in their Bible school classes, the next setting that draws our attention is the classroom. Considering students spend roughly 13 years and 14,000 classroom hours among their teachers and peers, the natural assumption would be that such godless theories and ideas are transferred here. But we can’t just assume. We must ask questions and find answers, and that’s what this book will strive to do.
Do American government schools teach secular humanism and postmodernism? If so, how? Are schools good for the family, bad for the family, or relatively neutral? How do government officials, educational theorists, and teachers unions view schoolchildren? What does the Bible say about education, and how can we best apply those principles to build a stronger next generation of the church?
As we begin to venture into the classroom and find out what is being taught along with what the founding fathers of education believed, keep those two key worldviews in mind. Ironically, though they teach tolerance, keeping your beliefs to yourself, and coexistence, such worldviews do not tolerate and cannot coexist with a biblical worldview. One will win out in the end, and that’s what we’re seeing in the souls of so many young people who grow up in the church. What we have to find out is what role education plays in that transformation and what each Christian family needs to know before making a decision for their children’s education.
 
[1] Dr. Flavil Yeakley, “Where Have All The Young People Gone?,” http://www.fhu.edu/churchresources/yeakley.aspx.
[2] Jon Walker, “Family Life Council Says It’s Time to Bring Family Back to Life,” http://www.sbcannualmeeting.net/sbc02/newsroom/newspage.asp?ID=261.
[3] Barna Group, “Most Twentysomethings Put Christianity on the Shelf Following Spiritually Active Teen Years,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/147-most-twentysomethings-put-christianity-on-the-shelf-following-spiritually-active-teen-years.
[4] Barna Group, “Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years.
[5] David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times, 3rd ed. (Manitou Springs: Summit Press, 2006) 16.
[6] Barna Group, “A Biblical Worldview Has a Radical Effect on a Person’s Life,” December 1, 2003, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/131-a-biblical-worldview-has-a-radical-effect-on-a-persons-life.