A secularized math class that never explores how numbers
fit into God’s plan for humans to govern over all of creation is
as senseless as a secularized Sunday School. Once education
becomes secularized, God’s Word can then be marginalized,
privatized, and made solely personal. When dualism reigns,
Christianity is not applicable to the public square or the
daily workplace. It’s only good for Sunday morning services,
inside the walls of a building, and nothing beyond.
Regrettably, the secularization of academics can happen
in Christian schools as well as state schools, because many
Christian school teachers aren’t trained to teach academics
in the light of God’s Word. Few universities provide instruc-
tion in this acquired skill. Adding the trappings of chapel
services, Bible verses on the wall, and “Spiritual Emphasis
Week” will not fix the problem. It can actually magnify the
problem by reinforcing the Sacred-Secular Divide.
And if we think state education is religiously neutral, think
again! Millions of children from Christian homes are indoc-
trinated daily in the tenets of Secularism while the church
remains silent. Indoctrinated is the correct word. Because
it is indoctrination in the religion of humanism, which as
John Dewey, the Father of so-called “Progressive Education”
maintained, is a non-theistic faith. A man-centered religion.
So, if it is a religious position to teach—or to imply—
that God’s Word is relevant to math, science, history, and
language, is it not also a religious position to teach—or to
imply— that God’s Word is not relevant to these subjects?
Both are religious positions, guided by one faith or another.
A teacher does not have to stand in front of a class and say,
“the Bible has nothing to do with our subject” to communicate
the message that the book is immaterial. All they need to do
is never mention how any subject relates to the overarching
truth of God’s Word and thus give students the impression
that Secularism is true, by never saying otherwise. Are such
teachers really being “neutral?” This is the underestimated
power of silence! For schoolchildren, this silence is far more
effective than speech.
If the Bible is irrelevant to the most important things
taught in school, then it will certainly be irrelevant to the
most important things outside of school as well. This is the
devilish outcome of dualism. In the end, we all lose.
Is it any wonder the biblical foundations for law, civil
government, economics, and family that once provided
accepted harbor lights for our society have been replaced?
The incessant move toward the secularization of education
14
and the privatization of Christianity has been enormously
successful, being expedited greatly through elementary and
secondary schools. Is it any wonder our youth are disinter-
ested in church today since Christianity is deemed irrelevant
to the majority of their waking hours?
In divorcing the light of God’s Word from language,
literature, science, history, civil government, the arts, and
sports, we have created a Sacred-Secular Divide that has
spanned several generations. The free exercise of religion is
now defined as freedom of worship restricted to a building
called “church.” What’s more, Christianity (having first been
secularized and then privatized) is now being demonized.
Christians are branded as intolerant, bigots, and haters.
What doesn’t make sense is why the church has remained
so silent about the secularization of education. Bible-
believing pastors would never tolerate secularized Sunday
Schools! Yet to what degree does the silence of their leaders
account for the fact that 85-90 percent of Christian parents
continue to send their children to secularizing schools that
are indoctrinating yet another generation into a dualistic
way of seeing life that will only shape their future for ill—
and everyone else’s as well?
Sending children to such schools to be “lights in the world”
sounds noble, until they come home thinking like their text-
books, making no connection between any academic subject
and the bigger picture of God’s Word. In the end, they are
quite comfortable thinking that Christianity is for church, or
for one’s personal life, or for getting souls to heaven but not
for directing a business, designing software, or performing
civil service in the here-and-now. They become practicing
Monday-morning atheists and think nothing of it. Our
culture is suffering greatly because of this.
As the United States continues its transition from a
post-Christian to an anti-Christian culture, churches still
stand in the center of town. The congregants are fewer
these days, and (as with other Western nations) the virtual
disappearance of biblical thought from the public square
is not far away.
Dr. Christian Overman is the Founding Director of Worldview
Matters® (biblicalworldview.com). He is the author of Assump-
tions That Affect Our Lives and God’s Pleasure At Work & The
Difference One Life Can Make. Dr. Overman has taught on
the topic of biblical worldview and Christian education across
America, as well as abroad. He and his wife, Kathy, have four
adult children and twelve grandchildren. Contact Dr. Overman
at [email protected].