Heritage
Free Will Baptist
12th & Gardner
P.O. Box 912
Poplar
Bluff, MO 63901
Phone
(573) 686-4122
Email Us |
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| Issue #1 Education |
 God's
Word instructs us to diligently teach His commands
to our
Children. ("Thou shalt teach My words diligently
to thy children." Deuteronomy 6:7) and He tells
us ("To train up our children in the way they should
go and, when they are old they will not depart from it." Proverbs
22:6). What have we allowed to happen to our public schools,
the local institutions to which we have come to entrust
the education and the bringing up of the most of our
children? Mostly by court decisions, often made by one
or maybe two judges, Prayer, Bible Study and practically
all teaching of our Christian Heritage have, over time,
gradually been removed from our schools and school curriculums
and replaced with what? Replaced in many schools and
curriculums by mandatory sex education with free condom
distribution and instruction in their use; Darwin's THEORY
of evolution; and foreign non-Christian religions, to
name a few. Is this obeying God's commandments or admonitions?
Teaching any part of the Christian Heritage, on which
our nation was founded, and under which we flourished
for nearly two centuries, has been, and continues to
be, judicially challenged and, more often than not, ruled
to be an act of establishing a religion. Amendment Number
One of the U.S. Constitution states: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF. That is a
very
simple, and should be a very easily understood, statement.
What has happened, and continues to happen? The last
half of this clause of the first amendment has been,
and continues to be, totally ignored by our judiciary,
however it carries the same textual weight as the first
half of the clause. Any act on the part of a school,
or other public official, elected or otherwise, prohibiting
any child from reading his or her Bible, from praying,
or from participating in any recognized form of Christian
worship, is definitely prohibiting thatperson the free
exercise of their religion. Read the U.S. Constitution.
(Question: Why is the compulsory study and reading
of non-Christian religious literature, such as the
Moslem
Bible, now required in some of our schools, NOT judged
to be an act of establishment of a religion, but the
elective study and reading of the Christian Bible and
Christian literature in our schools IS judged to be
an act of establishment of a religion?) Obviously we
should
use every legal means available to return our Christian
Heritage, which included teachings about God, Prayer,
the Bible and other Christian teaching, such as the
Ten Commandments, to our school curriculums, at least
for
those who choose to study those subjects. Study of
the Bible was mandatory in the earliest schools of
our nation,
Yale, Harvard, and other early Universities were founded
as Seminaries, and the Bible was a required course
in almost all of the lower academic curriculums. Some
of
our Nation's greatest leaders obtained their education
by reading the Bible. We believe the sooner we can
return the basis of our educational system to our Nation's
Christian
Heritage the sooner we will see an improvement in the
present deplorable situations in many of our schools.
Your vote for candidates on the national, state, and
local levels who support the required changes hi our
schools and school curriculums that will allow prayer,
and return elective courses hi the study of the Bible
and Christian literature to our schools, is one of
the ways these changes can be brought about. We should
remember
that many of our court judges are elected, and many
who are appointed are periodically placed on our voting
ballots
to receive approval by the electorate as a condition
of continuing in their office. Another way is by collectively,
forcefully, and continuously voicing our dissatisfaction
with the existing conditions in many of our public
schools, drugs, physical violence, low scholastic standing
on
the international level, etc., although we spend more
per capita on our schools than any other nation the
ranking of the quality of the education our children
receive
is now number 7 internationally. We should remember
that our local school board officials are also elected
officials. If you would like to join with us in helping
to return
our schools to the standards of our Nation's Christian
Heritage please contact us locally at our office, on
our Web Site, or at our address, all listed below.
We have some ideas, and would welcome your comments,
ideas,
and participation. |
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