The tares continue to grow in the field of our children's education. Does the wheat?

In my view, too many Christians in the West have the hopeful view that the tares will very politely reach a point at which they decide to stop growing, before the harvest. That, once evil has reached a certain stage, it will stop, allowing Christians to pretty much continue to enjoy the freedoms they still enjoy. And so, mercifully, we can all just stick our heads in the sand at hope that problems will go away without us doing much about them.

So, we don't need to build alternative structures to support us for when the tares reach a certain height, to be ready. In particular, we don't need any alternative structures to raise and educate our children, because the state's provision is still more or less approximate to how it was many decades ago. Any small defects can be made up for with half-an-hour's Sunday school and a bit of youth group too, surely?

Meanwhile, in the real world, just as A leads to B and B leads to C, so the people who are actually in charge of the state systems career on with the next stage, which is legislative frameworks permitting "early intervention" to remove your children if they are judged to be "in danger" of being exposed to supposedly damaging Christian world-views: http://christiantimes.com/article/ontario-approves-measure-that-allows-government-to-take-children-from-parents-who-oppose-gender-ideology/72273.htm. It turns out all that stuff about tolerance, freedom and respect was spoken with a forked tongue. Who knew, other than everybody who was paying attention?

This is how the war of the world-views works. It's a war. It might be the case that some bits of territory were not the strategic place for the battle to begin, when the sexual revolution was first launched. But that in no way means that the other side don't intend to establish their complete rule over those bits of territory eventually. They're close now. Is it time to wake up yet? What will our generation of Christians' legacy be to the one after us, in terms of preserving our freedoms to teach Biblical truth to our children, that God created mankind to be male and female, and that our role is to submit to his will, not to fight against it? What will we hand those coming next, when we pass the baton? "Well chaps, the enemy's now arrived at the gate, and we've been experimenting with some pea-shooters, because frankly we don't expect them to actually use those battering rams they're lining up over there. We're pretty sure they've done all the advancing they planned on. They keep shouting and screaming about 'tolerance', so I'm sure what they really mean with those cannons over there is that they plans some advanced tolerance manoeuvres but not to disturb our peace in any way. Have fun! If things get really sticky, we have some large sticks in a cupboard somewhere, though we lost the keys and you'll need to look for them."

I'm not advocating a fear-based, "circling the wagons" agenda. I'm advocating sensible, confident, God-trusting measures to make sure that we do what the Bible tells us to do: raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. A clear-headed recognition that teaching our children to love and fear God in every area of life is our job, not the state's job. That if we involve the state, that's an option, our responsibility, and something to do only if it's clear that the state will not undermine our efforts to teach them about Christ. A withdrawal from having our children taught how to work and think by people who have no place for God and who actively resist him in theory and practice, is not a withdrawal from the world: it is a withdrawing of our children from being harmed by the world. We must always be building relationships with non-believers, so that we can shine the light of Christ's love to them. But that is quite different to handing over major sections of our children's indoctrination to them.

What, practically, needs to be done? Bible-believing churches in each area need to meet together, according to their size and strength, agree on the need for Christian education for their children, and start the hard graft of planning how to open Christian schools, staffed by people convinced that the Bible is God's word as well as being gifted in a calling to teach the children. This needed to begin about 35 years ago, when the future direction of society was very clear. But it is better late than never. God is patient and merciful, and there is still time. But we need to respond to that. There has to be a call to action. Elders need to meet about this subject, and make concrete plans. Wishful thinking has been tried, and is doing nothing for the next generation. Christians used to routinely educate non-Christians in ways of thinking that flowed from Scripture. It is now the other way round. Non-Christians routinely indoctrinate the children of Christians in how to think and act like non-Christians, every day. How, in practical terms, will we reverse this situation for as many children as we can? We need to not just wish that it were otherwise, but work out what means God has placed at hand for us to do it - and start the doing.