Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 761 ｜ Is Public School the Best Choice for Christians？

00:00:00.000 The Gospel Coalition hosted a debate in which Bible teacher Jen Wilkin argues in favor of public

00:00:06.360 education. You guys had a lot of thoughts about that. And as you can imagine, so do I. I know

00:00:12.700 this is a long episode, as you can see, but it is worth it. Trust me. This episode is brought to you

00:00:17.520 by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com. Use promo code Allie at checkout.

00:00:21.820 That's GoodRanchers.com, promo code Allie.

00:00:30.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful week. Man, oh man,

00:00:40.760 there's so much to talk about, so much that I want to talk about today and this week. But this entire

00:00:47.680 episode will be dedicated to one subject because of the volume of messages that I've received from

00:00:53.880 you guys over the past week asking me to talk about this very thing. So we're going to talk

00:00:59.660 about other news stories. I'm going to try to cram in as many as possible tomorrow because on

00:01:05.100 Wednesday and Thursday, we have amazing interviews coming out. So I won't be able to talk about the

00:01:10.100 news those days. You won't want to miss it. One of them is a surprise. I'm not going to tell you who

00:01:15.940 it is. It's pretty exciting. Both of them are exciting. Both of them are wonderful people, but one

00:01:21.020 of them, I will keep a surprise for you. So make sure you tune into those. Today, we are talking about

00:01:27.680 the recent public school versus Christian education debate hosted by the Gospel Coalition.

00:01:34.160 Representing each side was Dr. Jonathan Pennington. He's a father of six, professor at Southern

00:01:39.020 Seminary, who homeschooled his children as well as sent them to a Christian private school at a

00:01:44.220 different point in their lives. And then Jen Wilkin, mother of five, an author, Bible teacher who sent

00:01:50.980 her kids to public school all the way through. So both offer in this debate convictions for why

00:01:57.360 they chose the education options that they did. If you're not familiar with who these people are,

00:02:04.040 they have some influence in the evangelical world, especially Jen Wilkin. She has taught many women

00:02:09.820 through her Bible studies and through various teaching avenues. So I think that's part of why

00:02:15.780 these people were chosen. And the reason I'm discussing this debate on my show is because,

00:02:21.380 like I said, many of you, when the debate aired, was published last week, asked me my thoughts on

00:02:27.900 Jen Wilkin's perspective, knowing how much I've talked about and others have talked about on my show,

00:02:34.200 the importance of Christian education, not just private school, whether that be homeschool or private

00:02:40.080 school or some kind of hybrid. The debate also generated a lot of buts on Christian social media,

00:02:47.560 especially from those who are big proponents of Christian education and critics of our public

00:02:52.920 education system. So Jen Wilkin has received some backlash. Some I think is very fair. Some maybe not so fair,

00:03:01.960 maybe blatant misrepresentations of what she said. But some of that, I think, a lot of it,

00:03:09.220 I think is very legitimate and very called for. She responded to the backlash. And I will address

00:03:16.560 her response later after we kind of go through the debate and I share my thoughts. I will share

00:03:22.660 my responses to some of the arguments that Jen Wilkin made. I will play some clips and I will be

00:03:28.800 very careful to give you the full context of what is being said. Careful never to decontextualize or

00:03:34.580 intentionally misrepresent her argument. I will give you my thoughts. If you have not watched the

00:03:39.880 full debate, which I simply don't have time to play here. I will, like I said, do my best to give

00:03:45.540 the full context of everything she's saying. But I can't play the full debate here. I encourage you to

00:03:51.340 go watch it at some point. Don't rely on me or what on anyone else says to get a full picture of what

00:03:59.140 was discussed. Go watch it for yourself. I've done so twice at this point. I've watched the excerpts

00:04:05.120 multiple times just to make sure that I understand what is really being said. Before I get into it,

00:04:12.160 I want to say some things up front. I kind of have a long preamble. So just get ready for that. Now,

00:04:19.040 if you want to skip this part, we will put the time codes for when I'm talking about what in the

00:04:23.560 description of this episode, whether you're watching on YouTube or whether you are listening,

00:04:27.260 go to the description and you can click on that. You can skip this. You can go right to my responses

00:04:32.060 to the video itself. However, however, I will warn you that if you skip my introduction or even if you

00:04:40.600 don't skip this part and then you accuse me of not saying something that I did say in this or have not

00:04:46.380 provided a caveat or a perspective that I did actually provide in this part, I will buy you a ticket

00:04:51.220 on Elon Musk's next ride to the moon. Just kidding. I won't actually do that, but I will

00:04:57.660 block and report you on Instagram. I'm kidding. Also kidding. I also won't do that, but I will

00:05:03.720 probably block you. OK, I probably won't block you, but I will probably just ignore you or I will

00:05:09.840 respond to you and say in all caps, come back to me when you've actually listened to the episode.

00:05:15.680 So that is my warning. You can skip ahead. But if you tell me that I didn't say something that I

00:05:22.260 did say and what I'm about to say, I will be upset. But seriously, I welcome your feedback and I welcome

00:05:30.220 your alternate perspectives. A lot of you have engaged with me in that way on Instagram. So you

00:05:35.600 know that I welcome your respectful yet passionate disagreement with what I say. But please don't

00:05:41.580 message me and tell me I said something that I did not say or that I did not say something

00:05:46.940 that I did say. I understand. I totally understand that this is an emotional. I don't say that in a

00:05:54.340 degrading way. An understandably emotional contentious topic. People feel justifiably in a lot of ways

00:06:02.500 defensive about the choices that they have made for their family as far as education goes. And it is hard

00:06:08.300 to hear someone say that they think that you've perhaps made the wrong choice. I get it. But

00:06:15.240 listen, this podcast is where I share my stance on things. And you are not going to agree with

00:06:22.360 everything I say, just like I wouldn't agree with everything that you said. If you had a podcast,

00:06:26.600 you might not like everything that I say. Maybe sometimes you think I could have said it differently,

00:06:31.280 or you wish that I had included something that I didn't. That's okay. Either you can let it slide,

00:06:37.620 and you can stick around or not. That's totally up to you. But I will just say, here's what you will

00:06:44.400 not get from my podcast that I think is a little uncomfortable for some in the world in which we

00:06:50.900 live, and especially the Christian world in which we live, and perhaps especially the female evangelical

00:06:57.720 world in which most of you and I occupy. You will not often hear me say that two options are morally

00:07:09.220 equivalent. You will not typically hear me say, well, whatever works for you, whatever you feel like,

00:07:16.460 or both sides of this argument are equally valid. Whatever you decide is just fine. Now,

00:07:24.860 before you accuse me, after hearing that of legalism, because I'm actually much closer to

00:07:30.660 a rule questioner than a rule follower have been my whole life, I do believe that there are lots of

00:07:36.080 things that occupy that free personal choice realm. Lots and lots of things. But regarding the important

00:07:43.440 cultural, political, moral, theological things we discuss on this podcast, I typically land on one side

00:07:50.860 or the other based on conviction, which means necessarily that I don't think the other side

00:07:55.840 of the argument holds as much water as the one that I've chosen. And I will passionately argue for my

00:08:01.320 side. I mean, that's part of why I have a podcast. That's part of why you guys follow me. I enjoy that.

00:08:07.200 I really do. I enjoy others doing that too. People publicly respond to my public arguments all the time.

00:08:14.360 And even when they're snarky, which they very often are, I don't, I don't take that as a personal

00:08:20.500 attack. I might not like their argument. I might not even like how they said it, but whatever. That

00:08:25.640 is what being in the public square is. I am choosing to say something publicly, state an opinion publicly,

00:08:32.200 give my perspective and stance publicly. I expect people to publicly and hopefully respectfully,

00:08:39.160 hopefully accurately respond to those things. I mean, there are such things as personal attacks.

00:08:44.060 I've definitely received those, those kind of ad hominem below the belt attacks. That never feels

00:08:49.640 good or purposeful public misrepresentations of something that you said, just deceit and lie,

00:08:57.040 decontextualization. That's never good. I don't like that. But public debate and public disagreement

00:09:04.160 with what someone says publicly, I think is not only fine, but I think can be very healthy. I think

00:09:10.900 that vigorous debate, both in secular culture and in the church, that's the really sad part,

00:09:17.280 is actually lacking today because so many people, women especially, I think, see passionate disagreement

00:09:24.620 as attack. So we kind of embrace this moral relativism. And the most that we'll say when it comes to these

00:09:33.580 contentious topics is, well, I feel like this, and then we'll finish it with, but I don't know.

00:09:41.220 I mean, sometimes that's my response to things too. I mean, sometimes that's the most you can muster in

00:09:46.120 and that's fine when that's honest. But I talk about the things here that I have really thought about,

00:09:54.800 that I've read about, that I've prayed about, that I've talked to many other people about who agree with

00:09:59.200 me and don't agree with me, listen to other people talk about who agree with me and don't agree with

00:10:03.960 me. And I have typically come to a conclusion on the things I talk about. That doesn't mean that I

00:10:09.120 don't change my mind in the future. That doesn't mean that I've never made mistakes. Obviously,

00:10:13.680 I'm extremely fallible, but I'm going to give you like a strong case or try my best to give you a

00:10:19.920 strong case for what I think. And that makes, in my experience, a certain type of Christian woman upset.

00:10:27.700 I can usually pinpoint exactly who this person is and who she follows based on the kinds of

00:10:34.300 messages that she sends me. It is the quote unquote, do batter, constant tone policing type

00:10:40.960 who ironically actually tend to carry in their own words, a lot of judgment and resentment.

00:10:45.420 And they don't like that I present an argument that they don't like with conviction. Even if I go out

00:10:51.880 of my way to respect the other side, even when I offer necessary caveats, they will say that to state

00:10:57.520 my position so firmly is wrong, sinful, dangerous to the Christian community, whatever.

00:11:04.180 And the funny thing is, though, that I've noticed, and I'm saying all this because I think it matters.

00:11:08.600 I think it sets up this, what we're about to talk about. But I also know that a lot of you have

00:11:12.620 experienced this as well. And I just am trying to put words to what you've seen and how you feel

00:11:17.240 and to let you know that you're not alone. That's what the name of this show is about.

00:11:21.840 The funny thing is, though, is that this type of Christian woman is actually very dogmatic

00:11:28.580 themselves in their own way. These are Christian women who are often very dogmatic on, for example,

00:11:35.180 the vaccine being a sign of loving your neighbor or wearing a mask being a sign of loving your

00:11:40.000 neighbor, systemic racism being an ongoing plague in this country, Trump being harmful, etc.

00:11:46.300 So I what I usually find is that they're uncomfortable, not with just the fact that I

00:11:53.720 have a clear stance on something, but that I have clearly stated a conservative stance on

00:11:59.000 something or a stance that they don't like. They prefer either a form of I feel like this,

00:12:05.080 but I don't know, or embracing the more left leaning position, what they would call not the left

00:12:11.660 leaning position, what they would call the empathetic position or the moderate position,

00:12:16.720 but a stance that I usually see as not empathetic at all, but simply as feelings driven

00:12:22.420 and incorrect, like not based on fact. And they don't like that I feel that way and that I talk

00:12:29.880 about these things. I mean, these are people who are so mad that I would not go along with while riots

00:12:35.280 are the voice of the unheard and all of the violence and the recklessness that we're seeing in the

00:12:39.980 wake of George Floyd is just totally justified and we should just listen and learn. And they think

00:12:44.640 that I'm divisive for not going along with a lot of the ideologies that we are seeing professing

00:12:50.600 Christians push forward in the name of racial reconciliation and social justice. They are so angry that I did

00:12:58.740 not believe that taking the vaccine or wearing a mask is a biblical sign necessarily of loving your

00:13:05.600 neighbor. And so these people, because I don't agree with them on those things will call me

00:13:10.260 unloving or divisive or whatever. And it's really just because I am not dogmatic in the way that they

00:13:15.380 are. And these people will say, Oh, you know what you, the reason that you have the opinions that you

00:13:21.460 do, or you talk about the things that you do, or you say the things I don't like is because you just

00:13:25.220 want to make money or you just want to get clicks. It's always the same kind of person who says this

00:13:30.700 exact thing. It's like they all get together. They're on an email chain. They're like, yes,

00:13:34.560 this is what we're going to say to the conservatives that we don't agree with.

00:13:38.420 And it just kind of makes me laugh. I mean, it makes me sad. I'll be honest. It does. That makes

00:13:43.280 me sad. But it makes me laugh in a sad way, how ignorant an accusation this is. One, because I know

00:13:49.760 where it's coming from. This person doesn't like me and it makes them feel better to believe that

00:13:53.960 I'm tricking other people into liking me. And two, because it is so incredibly incorrect.

00:13:59.560 I have two considerations. Two considerations when deciding on what to talk about every day.

00:14:06.880 One, do I think it's important? And two, do you think it's important? Do I think it's important?

00:14:12.960 Do you think it's important? Most of what I discuss, I discuss because a bunch of you have asked me to

00:14:18.860 talk about it. And when I see something is generating interest, and a lot of you guys are like, gosh,

00:14:23.220 I need clarity on this. I need courage on this. I need explanation on this. Sometimes I rely on a

00:14:27.740 guess because I'm like, well, that's out of my realm of expertise. I have no idea if we're going

00:14:31.260 to nuclear war. Can someone smarter than me please come tell my audience what the deal is? But a lot

00:14:36.900 of times these are things like the debate today that I'm thinking about, too. And I'm like, you know

00:14:40.940 what? Yeah, I think that I can help my audience navigate through this because I really I really

00:14:45.600 care about this. And I see that they really care about this. There are so many controversies

00:14:50.820 actually on the show that we avoid so much drama that we do not talk about because we don't want to

00:14:57.020 get in the middle of it that we know would probably get us a lot of clicks, would probably get us a

00:15:01.300 lot of attention that we just avoid because it's I don't want to get in the drama. I don't I don't

00:15:08.520 want to like call out that person. There's so many things, so many people that we do not talk about

00:15:14.480 because even if it generated a lot of attention, it wouldn't be worth it to me. And it's just not

00:15:20.020 something that I want to discuss. There is so much effort. You have no idea behind the scenes

00:15:25.680 that we put into making sure that we don't have clickbait titles or that that don't match the

00:15:31.660 content of what we're actually saying. So much time ensuring that I am accurately representing

00:15:36.140 the other side of the argument. I am obviously imperfect at this as we all are, but that is

00:15:41.240 always our goal. It doesn't help me. It doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help you if I am purposely

00:15:46.120 and consistently misrepresenting someone or their argument. Like that doesn't that doesn't help me in

00:15:52.280 any way. Like if I were just trying to get as many followers as possible by talking about these things

00:15:59.420 like we're talking about today, do you think that I would talk about the things that I do?

00:16:05.360 Like think about some of the people with really big platforms, especially the Christians with really

00:16:09.120 big platforms. You often do not see them talking about the things that I do because it makes segments

00:16:15.700 of their audience mad. And now I'm not saying that they're that that's bad, that that's a that they

00:16:20.460 should weigh into, you know, uh, all of these controversies. That's not their platform. I'm

00:16:25.340 not saying that's a bad thing, but they often will avoid these kinds of controversial things because

00:16:31.580 it's, it's not worth it to them. And so if that were me, like if I were just trying to appeal to as

00:16:37.380 many people as possible, I would avoid the private school, public school debate. I wouldn't talk about

00:16:42.500 reformed theology versus Catholic theology. I would not have interviewed an ex-Mormon. I wouldn't call for

00:16:48.500 the bandit of pit bulls. I am constantly talking about things that probably cut out like a potential

00:16:54.940 portion of an audience. Like I have decided this is, this is the narrow audience of potential audience

00:17:01.740 that I am trying to reach. And I'm going to talk about the things that they care about and that I

00:17:06.300 care about. And I'm going to call it relatable because I am part of this group of thousands of

00:17:10.840 Christian women who often feel neglected by mainstream evangelicalism, certainly by mainstream

00:17:16.020 culture, certainly by mainstream media. And so we're going to relate about the things that

00:17:22.620 we're concerned about and how we're thinking through all of this. This podcast is not for

00:17:26.100 everyone. I am talking about what I care about and what you care about, period. I have always wanted

00:17:31.460 to cast a deep net in this segment of the world, not a wide net, which is exactly why the show is

00:17:37.420 called what it is. Exactly why by the grace of God, we have the community that we do here. Exactly why

00:17:43.320 whenever we meet in person, the first thing you say is, I feel like I know you. Yeah, me too. That's

00:17:48.840 what this is about. So all that to say, take it or leave it. I am here to give you my fallible

00:17:55.280 yet thought out perspective on things. And you are here to listen. We don't need to agree on everything

00:18:00.360 to get along. My IRL friends and I disagree on things and I still love them very much. We can do

00:18:06.100 that. Now, I would not still be friends with them if they were constantly sending me messages saying,

00:18:11.440 do better, disappointed, but not surprised that you're against masks, that you won't be for gun

00:18:18.400 confiscation. This person always claims, by the way, oh, I'm a conservative Christian, too. I'm

00:18:23.860 conservative, too. And yet they're constantly school marming me, chastising me on not agreeing

00:18:29.000 with them on things. So like, no, we probably can't be friends if you're constantly doing that. But if you

00:18:34.560 want to respectfully disagree with me, as I have with a lot of people, especially over the past few days

00:18:39.000 about this public school thing, open to that. Please stick around. As I said, I enjoy debate.

00:18:44.360 I always have. I do not see vigorous disagreement as attack. And it's the oddest and saddest thing to

00:18:50.520 me when people accuse me or anyone else of, quote unquote, attacking someone because we publicly

00:18:55.180 disagree with someone's public argument. Again, that is what the public square is for. That's healthy.

00:18:59.840 That's productive. That's edifying. That's how we learn. Look at the Reformation, the Great

00:19:04.240 Awakening, even the 20th century debates on the inerrancy of Scripture. Look at the New Testament.

00:19:09.060 We see debate. We see calling out. We see rebuke. We see public admonition. Yes, done from love.

00:19:14.380 But we see these things. I'm not talking about Matthew 5, personal qualms. I'm talking about

00:19:18.780 publicly responding to public ideas and or public error. I think that's not only okay, I think it's

00:19:23.520 good. I think it's how we figure out what the truth is. It's part of how we sharpen each other.

00:19:27.840 And we can do that without impugning someone's motives or calling names. That's why I'm extremely

00:19:32.440 careful about using terms like false teacher. I'm extremely hesitant always to tell people

00:19:37.060 not to follow someone or read any of their books. In fact, I almost never knew that unless it's

00:19:42.620 really obvious. I'm like Jen Hatmaker, Glennon Doyle. I will go out of my way to compliment the

00:19:47.040 person with whom I'm disagreeing, but I will still disagree. I think, and I'm almost done with my

00:19:52.040 preamble. I think the church needs more public hashing out of theological, political, and cultural

00:19:58.960 issues. Less, well, this is what so-and-so said, or this is what the Gospel Coalition published,

00:20:04.820 so it must be right. Anything outside of that is extreme and fear-mongering. That's not healthy

00:20:09.920 unity. Healthy unity is worked out through debate, discussion, disagreement, with the same goal in

00:20:15.760 mind of following and glorifying Christ. I think more division—here we go—I think more division is

00:20:21.700 caused by lack of vigorous debate than by the presence of it. And I personally—here we go—we're

00:20:31.780 shifting into this actual public school Christian education debate. I personally did not think this

00:20:39.260 debate, published by the Gospel Coalition, was very vigorous at all. That's why I'm responding to it

00:20:45.900 rather than just saying, yep, the other guy covered it. That's why I think it is good that others are

00:20:52.740 talking about it and that it has sparked public dialogue, passionate public dialogue. I thought

00:20:59.540 Wilkin did a better job than Dr. Pennington of presenting her side persuasively and confidently.

00:21:04.860 Dr. Pennington seems awesome. He seems great. But nearly every answer you will see as you watch it and

00:21:11.320 as we talk about it in just a second, he gave—was caveated by acknowledging first the validity of

00:21:16.280 her point. There was a lot there that was unsaid, too. Like, I don't blame him for that. I've been

00:21:22.560 in discussions where I leave wishing I had said something that I didn't say. But there was so much

00:21:28.660 to be desired after this. I know you guys felt like that, too. He did make good points that I will

00:21:32.940 highlight. But overall, I wished that the Christian education position was presented more confidently.

00:21:39.200 Oh, there was so much to say. So before I start playing the clips, I do have a few—just a few

00:21:45.500 things to say. But it's not—it's not part of my preamble. It's just part of the debate that we are

00:21:52.020 about to enter into that will probably answer some of the questions that you have.

00:21:57.020 All right. So let me say just a couple things. And again, if you tell me that I did not say one of

00:22:14.800 these things, I will—I don't even—I don't know. I don't know. I will call your mom and I will tell

00:22:25.100 her to ground you for not listening. I know she taught you better than that. Okay. So number one,

00:22:31.320 before I get into these responses, I have absolutely nothing against Jen Wilkin. I don't know her

00:22:37.140 personally. I have never done her Bible studies. I've never heard a full talk that she's given.

00:22:41.780 I know many women, many of you out there who have greatly benefited from Wilkin's Bible studies.

00:22:46.840 It seems to me that she loves Scripture. She has a gift for teaching. That's obvious.

00:22:51.880 Now, I know that there are differing opinions, just like there is of everyone. Some of you out

00:22:56.120 there are wary of her teaching. You've sent me things that she has said that you think are off

00:23:01.200 or maybe progressive. I can't comment on these things because I haven't watched them in full context.

00:23:06.700 I am simply acknowledging that there are those of you who have told me that, yes,

00:23:09.800 you love her and she's helped me so much. Others have said, well, I heard her speak and I was really

00:23:14.300 disappointed by blank. Got it. You should be using discernment, as I know all of you are.

00:23:21.040 With all people, including with me, compare what is said to Scripture always, no matter who is saying

00:23:27.040 it. I personally know only a little about her and I'm sure that she's a very nice person. And if I were

00:23:33.300 to guess, she and I probably agree. Like if we were to line up our doctrine, line up our theology,

00:23:38.360 and maybe line up even what we believe about politics and social issues, like we probably

00:23:42.600 agree on most things. Along those lines, while you will hear me disagree with her, I am not

00:23:50.480 questioning her abilities as a mom or whether her family is amazing. I'm sure her kids are wonderful.

00:23:55.060 She talks about her kids. They sound awesome. Also, here's my next thing. I am not questioning

00:24:01.740 your abilities as a mother or whether your kids are amazing. If you choose or did choose public

00:24:09.600 school, you may or may not feel convicted or convinced by what I say, but it is not my intention

00:24:16.160 to make you feel condemned just because I feel very strongly about my position. Now, Jen Wilkins'

00:24:23.360 children are grown up. They're out of school. They have been for a while. A lot of you have reached

00:24:29.920 out to me and said, you know what? I don't feel like I can take her opinion because she doesn't

00:24:34.440 know what it's like to have a kindergartner in these schools right now and what they're

00:24:39.220 teaching. Like things have shifted a lot in the past 10 to 15 years. But listen, my kids

00:24:44.900 are not yet in school. So for those of some of you, for those of you who message me inside

00:24:51.680 that you feel like Jen's opinions aren't as relevant, there are some of you who might think

00:24:56.960 that my opinion is irrelevant because I don't have kids in school yet. And if you think both

00:25:01.680 of our opinions are irrelevant, you should probably go just turn this podcast off and

00:25:06.160 go get a margarita or something. However, I am coming at this openly as someone who is considering

00:25:12.840 schooling options for our kids, who will be there before we know it. So this is something I'm

00:25:19.680 thinking about a lot. This is something that I've thought about for a long time, even before kids,

00:25:23.000 but even more so now. So someone who grew up close to where Jen Wilkins kids grew up,

00:25:27.660 I went to a Christian school, someone who studies our public education system a lot,

00:25:31.600 who talked to a lot of different people about this. And I am trying to make sense of all of that

00:25:35.680 from my vantage point, trying to make sense of all of the chaos of all of this and navigate it with

00:25:41.580 you. So I just want to be upfront about what my experience is here and my lack of experiences

00:25:46.580 and where I'm coming from. Another last thing, I understand that everyone's circumstance is

00:25:54.060 different. Okay? I understand that everyone's circumstance is different. I don't know where

00:25:59.120 you live, your financial situation, your marital status, or your child's special needs. Even though,

00:26:05.160 as you will hear, I am very pro-Christian education, I do understand that there may be situations in which

00:26:12.240 public school is your only or best option. I think this is the exception, not even close to the rule.

00:26:21.220 But I acknowledge that it is possible that this situation exists. Really, my opinion, my position

00:26:28.220 is the exact opposite of Jen's, which, as you will hear, is that she believes Christian parents should,

00:26:34.260 if possible, send their kids to public school for the good of their community. I believe Christian

00:26:39.660 parents should, if possible, give their kids a Christian education for the good of their kids

00:26:43.660 and consequently for the good of the community. So that's it. That's my preamble. Those are some of

00:26:51.720 my caveats. Now I will play you some clips from the show. Some of them are on the little longer side.

00:26:59.600 We typically play like 30 seconds of clips, but I really just like want you to want to make sure that

00:27:05.600 I'm giving you the full picture of what she's saying without playing you the entire, entire,

00:27:11.180 you know, debate. So here is what she says in kind of her introductory explanation of her position

00:27:20.340 on public education. We did choose public school out of conviction, but I always like to make clear

00:27:28.220 up front that we did not have any special considerations in that. Our kids did not have learning

00:27:34.420 disabilities. There were no special concerns that might have played into that decision for us,

00:27:38.920 and I'm very sensitive to that. Not only that, we always lived near excellent schools. So I would

00:27:44.760 never say everyone should choose public school, but I would say that we should try really hard to,

00:27:52.900 if at all possible, because we believe in the public school ideal. We believe that education is a right.

00:28:00.800 It's necessary for human flourishing. It's good for society. It's a mark of civilization that you have

00:28:07.260 an educated citizenry. And so if that is something that you can see, then you would value that you would

00:28:15.900 have quality education for everyone, if at all possible. And we believed that our participation in

00:28:23.120 the public school system was directly related to loving our neighbors. And so if we could opt in at all,

00:28:29.280 then we absolutely wanted to. Okay. So I just want to kind of make clear what was said there. She

00:28:36.880 does say, some people pushed back on me when I said that she said this, she does say right there that

00:28:42.240 she believes that Christian parents should, considering all factors, she does give a caveat there,

00:28:48.180 should, if at all possible, go to public schools because she believes this makes the public education

00:28:54.720 system better, which then makes the community better. And then she says, this was directly

00:29:01.140 related to loving our neighbors. So that is her stance. Before this, she was saying that her stance

00:29:08.860 on homeschool is highly autobiographical. She comes from a long line of educators. There are a lot of

00:29:15.900 people in her family involved in the public education system. And she then after this says,

00:29:22.700 that the worldview starts at home, she talks about the importance of parental involvement in your

00:29:27.860 child's education and their life, which of course I agree with. She talked about, she said that they

00:29:32.860 talked about everything that her child was learning in the classroom. She allowed, they allowed them to

00:29:38.060 kind of navigate their way through the social issues with their help, something that she didn't feel

00:29:43.880 probably would be the case if they went to private schools, because they were exposed to so many

00:29:48.360 different kinds of different kinds of people in public schools. She does talk about, which I thought

00:29:54.340 was an interesting point. She says, you know, issues like so-called gender identity, or I'm adding the

00:29:59.080 so-called gender identity or sexual orientation. They weren't just issues for her kids because they

00:30:04.040 attended a public school with people of all different kinds of backgrounds, but they were actually

00:30:07.240 people. These were embodied issues. And so they, she feels like they were able to talk through these

00:30:12.400 things in a humanizing way rather than in an abstract way. She said that she also loved the

00:30:19.400 involvement that her kids were able to have with special needs kids. Um, and she appreciated the

00:30:26.520 exposure to different family types and socioeconomic backgrounds. So that's kind of the gist of the

00:30:32.460 beginning of her, of her argument. Um, she connects it to loving her community, investing in her

00:30:38.700 community, making the education system better. And yes, loving her neighbor. Now I have a response

00:30:46.280 to those things, but I just wanted to make sure that you set it up and that you heard what she said

00:30:50.060 there, um, really the basis of her argument. And then I'm going to play, um, the next, the next part

00:30:57.020 of what she says. And I agree with a lot of what she says here about kids being missionaries in the

00:31:02.680 public education setting. I do think one of the misconceptions about Christian parents who send

00:31:09.780 children to public school is that we've sent them there to be missionaries, to be salt and light,

00:31:14.460 but we were not trying to send a second grader into a secular space to share the good news. Um, we,

00:31:21.580 we, we wanted to train our kids into that so that anywhere they went, that became something that was

00:31:25.340 intuitive. And I appreciated her saying this because you do hear this a lot. This is a debate that I've had

00:31:30.840 with some of my followers is that, well, my kids, my kindergartner, my second grader, my middle

00:31:36.780 schooler, they're, you know, they're salt and light in these schools. And they are the ones who are

00:31:41.680 sharing the gospel with their friends. Like they're responsible for being the good example. Look, they are

00:31:48.220 not actually responsible as a first grader to be the missionaries to their fellow students or for

00:31:55.700 their teachers. Now that may naturally happen as your child grows in Christ. And they do set a good,

00:32:01.260 good example for their friends. That's going to happen wherever they go, by the way, but you don't

00:32:06.740 put a soldier on the front lines who is not even big enough to hold up his shield like your child.

00:32:12.440 And I, this is not a direct quote. This is not a quote from me. I've heard a lot of Christians say this.

00:32:17.520 Your child is not a missionary in the public school system. Your child is your mission field.

00:32:26.280 Like they are going to be discipled. Okay. They're going to be discipled by the person they spend the

00:32:33.760 most time with. And so they are not actually as a first grader going in and discipling other people.

00:32:41.020 They are being discipled by other people. They are being discipled by the predominant

00:32:47.060 worldview in whatever space they occupy for a large amount of time. And so I appreciate that

00:32:55.060 she acknowledges that she did not send her kids into the public education system to be missionaries.

00:32:59.440 However, I will say I get a little confused about her stated convictions here based on something that

00:33:07.340 she later says, which I'll explain in a bit. Um, she then talks about, um, she talks about fear

00:33:18.180 mongering and how there's a lot of information and misinformation out there, um, about what is

00:33:26.020 actually being taught in the public school system. So here's what she has to say about that.

00:33:30.420 I think now the question that I get most frequently is like, but you wouldn't do that now.

00:33:34.420 Right. Like knowing what you know now. And, uh, my answer would be that yes, I would, because I know

00:33:42.200 what our school district is and isn't teaching. And, uh, what I see happening now around this

00:33:48.460 conversation is a great deal of misinformation and fear mongering. Uh, some of the things even in

00:33:55.100 our own district that parents will say are being taught, I know are not being taught. Uh, and what I

00:34:00.460 think is happening is people read an article about something that happened somewhere else, or they

00:34:05.180 hear a story. There's a lot of hearsay that travels around about what is or isn't going on. And because

00:34:10.340 we live in a time where fear is something that is leveraged at every turn, it takes root and they end

00:34:17.420 up making a fear-based decision instead of an educated decision.

00:34:21.840 So what I found interesting here is that she doesn't actually give any credence to the legitimate

00:34:29.860 concerns that parents have about what is being taught. Like she, she does say, okay, yes, there are

00:34:37.900 some concerns out there that might be happening somewhere, but she doesn't really talk about how

00:34:44.220 these problems seem to have accelerated so much and become so much more pervasive in the past few

00:34:51.560 years. I don't know if she just didn't say that or if she doesn't really believe that, but I just

00:34:55.560 want to make sure that you out there who have concerns about the public education system in general

00:35:00.120 or the district in your area, that you are not gaslit, that you are not convinced by this, that your

00:35:06.700 legitimate concerns, your valid concerns, and yes, in some cases, like justified fear. I'm not saying that

00:35:14.280 you're running scared and that you're paranoid and that you're filled with anxiety, but that you kind of

00:35:19.160 like have a healthy fear and healthy concern when it comes to the upbringing of your child and the

00:35:25.300 influences that your child has in their life. I just don't want you to be gaslit. I don't want

00:35:30.220 you to be gaslit into thinking that you're just being paranoid or that you're being sinfully fearful

00:35:34.980 because you don't want your child introduced to some of the things that you know that your

00:35:39.320 friend's children have been introduced to, or you're not even, um, you're not being a victim of

00:35:46.220 propaganda because you heard that the next district over or a district in another conservative area

00:35:51.300 have started pushing, pushing, for example, racially divisive curriculum or gender ideology to the

00:35:59.240 elementary schoolers and wondering, you know what, is that going to come down the pipeline for me? Is

00:36:04.800 that going to be something that is introduced to my child next year? Maybe I just want to avoid that

00:36:09.980 entirely. Maybe I don't even want my child to be introduced to that at all. That's not a bad basis

00:36:15.660 for your decisions when your responsibility as a parent is to steward their hearts and mind well.

00:36:22.220 That doesn't mean that you're shielding them from all of those things, but you are ensuring that you

00:36:26.700 maintain your rightful position as the authority on those things in their life, as the authority

00:36:32.900 on all things morality and identity and theology. Just remember that public schools are teaching theology

00:36:40.300 too. They're just not teaching biblical theology because there's no such thing as neutrality.

00:36:45.240 Everyone has a worldview. Everything is taught. Typically, I can't say everything, but most things

00:36:51.040 are taught from a particular perspective and a particular worldview. You are not buying into fear

00:36:58.380 mongering by saying, you know what, I just want to make sure that the worldview that from which my kids

00:37:04.460 are being taught eight hours a day for five days a week lines up with my worldview and not a secular

00:37:10.780 progressive worldview. That's not you being scared. To me, that is simply you being wise. And like, I'll just

00:37:17.220 remind you that this kind of stuff is happening in conservative districts. Now, I agree with her. You should

00:37:23.280 check to see if these things are happening in your district. I'm not saying that everything that happens in

00:37:29.040 every other district is happening in your school. You need to be really aware of what is going on in your

00:37:34.780 district, whether you have kids in public school or not. But I'll just remind you of a woman named

00:37:41.340 Sherry Clements who came on my show a couple of years ago when she had gone viral for a speech that

00:37:46.420 she gave. This is a Christian woman. This is a woman who has the same convictions that you and I do.

00:37:51.920 And she was from Richardson, Texas, which is a pretty conservative area. It's probably very similar to the

00:37:57.600 area in which Jen Wilkin grew up and sent her kids to public school. And Sherry Clements is a big proponent.

00:38:04.780 Of public school. She ran for school board. Unfortunately, she lost. Shouldn't have happened.

00:38:09.520 But she did. Because actually, all of the people, a lot of the people, even like in her church and

00:38:14.840 Christians who say that they're like pro-public school, they didn't even like rally to support her

00:38:22.220 race, unfortunately. And so she should have won that. But she's very pro-public school. This is a

00:38:28.320 largely conservative area. She knows a lot of the teachers. She is very involved in her community.

00:38:33.500 And she was shocked by what her middle schooler was learning and the kinds of books that he was

00:38:41.260 receiving. So this is part of what she said. She gave a speech to the board of trustees of the

00:38:49.000 Richardson Independent School District. And she said this September 20th, 2021, there is sexually

00:38:53.940 explicit content in seven out of the 10 books that were recommended to her explicitly by her child's

00:38:59.820 teacher, one of them having 53 incidences of sex. Example from Burn, Baby, Burn. This is a book

00:39:05.740 that her child was given. Angel was my first experience with a guy, a fact that I try to forget

00:39:09.740 daily. One minute we were kissing in Angel's room and a little while later, he was driving me home,

00:39:14.380 my shirt buttoned, my shirt buttoned wrong and a wad of toilet paper in my underwear to catch the blood.

00:39:19.540 She said, there's no approved book list and teachers are given full autonomy as to what

00:39:26.640 books they select. How can every teacher be responsible to know the appropriateness of every

00:39:30.720 book? How is it that my daughter, so this is actually her daughter in eighth grade, could be

00:39:34.620 reading books with major profanity and sexual content because it's the goal of RISD to reach

00:39:39.240 all students? I demand better for my children. Now, they did apologize for this, but she had a lot

00:39:46.320 more complaints. She said books that her middle schoolers were reading also provided ways, and

00:39:51.380 these were, some of these were required books, required or included ways in which they could

00:39:56.720 commit suicide. Look, there are problems in private schools, Christian education. That's not something

00:40:03.660 that you are seeing. That kind of thing is not something that you are seeing in Christian education.

00:40:10.000 Sure, you can talk your child through those things if you have the kind of relationship and the

00:40:14.560 kind of time in which you can, and that could be a good opportunity. That's not what I would prefer.

00:40:19.260 I would prefer to be the one to first talk to my child about things like sex and things like

00:40:24.800 identity and things like so-called orientation, things like suicide. Maybe I don't want them to

00:40:30.220 encounter those things under the authority of a teacher whose worldview is completely opposed to

00:40:35.220 mine. Look, that's not fear-mongering. That is showing you, look, this is what is happening

00:40:39.920 in some conservative school districts. Make sure, check to see if it's happening in yours. But this

00:40:45.320 is one example of a conservative school district that is presenting kids with the kind of thing that

00:40:51.180 is so depraved and so disruptive to their healthy development that I think it is simply wise for

00:40:57.340 parents to care, to care, and to say, maybe, and this is not going to be the choice for everyone,

00:41:02.980 maybe I don't want my kid to encounter that in that way at all. And I don't have time. Actually,

00:41:09.560 we have so many examples. I wanted to show you examples from conservative school districts of

00:41:14.460 this same kind of thing happening in Montana, in Florida, in Georgia, in different parts of Texas,

00:41:21.380 in Oklahoma, in Alabama. Okay, I know because I hear it so much. Well, this would, this kind of stuff,

00:41:28.500 the racially divisive curriculum in which white kids are told that they're oppressors, black kids

00:41:34.940 are told that they're oppressed, gender ideology, hiding stuff from parents where kids are socially

00:41:40.600 transitioning and parents don't know, talking about pronouns. That would never happen at my school

00:41:47.200 because I know the teachers, they're Christian teachers, whatever. And then so often I get messages

00:41:52.040 from those very same people who say, I never thought that it would happen here, and it has.

00:41:57.000 And maybe you still feel convicted to stay there. I'm just saying that if you have concerns about

00:42:04.760 those things happening in your district or even the next district over, that is an okay justification

00:42:10.100 for you to say, that's not something that I want to be involved in, or I want my kid to be involved

00:42:16.160 in. Maybe you're still involved in a lot of different ways because you care about your community and you're

00:42:20.260 already making an investment in these schools through your tax dollars, but it is okay. It's not just

00:42:25.560 fear-mongering for you to say, yeah, our public education system in general doesn't seem to be

00:42:30.780 going the way that I want it to go. And if I'm making disciples of my kids, that's not the strategy

00:42:35.200 that I'm going to take. I just want to make sure you know that that is okay. And I personally think

00:42:42.360 good reasoning to say, yeah, my kids aren't going to be a part of the public education system today.

00:42:49.500 And I don't think that's the only reason. I don't actually think that should be your central

00:42:53.580 motivation. And I'll talk about that in a second, but I do think that's okay if that's part of it.

00:42:58.460 Okay. Don't think that you're just being like naive and believing Fox News propaganda

00:43:02.340 because you see these things. I mean, lips of TikTok is not lying when she's posting the evidence of

00:43:09.940 what is happening at public schools. That doesn't mean that that's happening in your district,

00:43:14.220 but it's okay for you to say, hmm, I wonder if that's coming down the pipeline for me. Again,

00:43:20.060 I don't think that that is the primary reason not to public school. I think that there's bigger and

00:43:24.940 a better reason not to send your kids to public school, but just, I don't want you to be gaslit.

00:43:30.180 I don't want you to feel bad because it, you know, it sometimes sounds like people think that you're

00:43:36.340 just some kind of paranoid freak for being worried about the things that you're seeing

00:43:40.280 in public schools. I agree that we shouldn't be misinformed or we shouldn't exaggerate things

00:43:45.720 or we shouldn't say something's going on that is not going on. Absolutely agree with that.

00:43:50.380 But your concerns are valid. All right. This next part is the part that I think really kind of,

00:43:56.160 I don't know, worked me up the most that I have probably the biggest response to

00:43:59.540 when she talks about that really families should not make their education decisions based on this is

00:44:07.340 best. This is best for my family because the Bible tells us to put others before ourselves.

00:44:12.360 I have a big response, a big response to that. And again, like respect her position,

00:44:17.760 where she's coming from, respect her as a person. Adamantly, adamantly disagree with that. And I will

00:44:23.740 explain why. All right. All right. All right. The moment that we've all been waiting for the clip

00:44:38.700 that is probably circulated the most that has made people the most angry. Let me let me play this for

00:44:43.620 you. And then I will respond. While I cannot tell you to put your children in public school and

00:44:49.620 certainly never would, because there are so many factors that are at play, that it is important

00:44:54.340 for us to understand that our decision regarding this and even our demeanor toward this has an impact

00:45:02.480 on our community. It doesn't just impact our family. The most common phrase I hear thrown out in these

00:45:08.640 conversations is, well, I just need to do what's best for my family. And I think that's something that

00:45:14.500 as Christians, we have to push back on. Philippians tells us each of you should look not just to your

00:45:20.940 own interests, but to the interests of others. Okay. So she does say, though, like she says here,

00:45:27.020 I would never tell you to put your kids in public school. But she does in the very beginning say that

00:45:33.480 Christian parents should try, if at all possible, to go to public school. And she does, you know,

00:45:38.840 acknowledge the acknowledge some caveat there. But she does say, try,

00:45:43.020 if at all possible, to go to public school. And then she links that to love of neighbor and the

00:45:46.980 good of your community, which is I will read later. She says that she did not say in her response,

00:45:51.420 but in the first 30 seconds, you can go back and listen, watch the whole thing for yourself.

00:45:54.700 She does argue that Christian parents who can't send their kids to public school should.

00:45:58.200 That's her position. Okay. That's her position. But here argues that it is out of selflessness

00:46:04.200 and love that we should do so. And she's referencing Philippians 2, 3 through 4 that says this,

00:46:09.180 do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than

00:46:14.240 yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

00:46:21.180 So she is arguing that looking out for the interests of others may mean sending your kids to public

00:46:27.020 school because everyone being invested in the public education system is better for the community.

00:46:34.060 But a couple of things here. One, and this is just a, like a peeve of mine because I've seen this a lot

00:46:43.240 recently. And I just like want to scream out sometimes to Christians, your children are others,

00:46:49.220 your family, they are others. They are not you. And I think that Jen agrees with this because she wrote

00:46:55.280 an article about our children being our neighbors several years ago, I think eight years ago.

00:46:59.180 So I'm sure that she aligns with that statement, which is why I found this a little confusing and

00:47:03.760 a little troubling. Listen, again, because I know I got a message from someone telling me

00:47:09.580 that they watched this and because they understandably, they admire Jen Wilkins so much,

00:47:15.280 they started feeling guilty about sending their kids to private Christian school or homeschooling

00:47:20.040 their kids. I don't think that was her intention. So I'm not putting that on her, but I just want to

00:47:24.200 speak to that person. Listen, you are putting the interest of your children above yourself

00:47:29.520 when you choose to homeschool or go to Christian school. I'm not saying that parents who choose to

00:47:34.600 go to public school are also not sacrificing something for their kids, but I'm speaking to

00:47:39.260 the person who maybe you started to feel guilty or you're worried about that you are putting the

00:47:45.400 interest of your kids, the interest of others who are your kids above yourself by sending them to a

00:47:51.240 private Christian school, hybrid option, homeschool, whatever it is, giving them a Christian education.

00:47:55.700 It is in your financial interest and your time and energy and convenience interest to send your

00:48:02.700 kids to public school. Parents who choose to homeschool or a Christian school, they make so

00:48:09.020 many sacrifices for that. They're not thinking about themselves at all. Gosh, I can think of so many

00:48:15.520 kids that I grew up with, so many families that come to mind right now who have to work so hard to

00:48:20.980 make sure that their kids have a Christian education. They are not rich. Like, do you know

00:48:25.320 most homeschooling families? They're not rich. They're not privileged. And yet they work hard and

00:48:30.120 they trust God to equip them to give their kids the education they know they need. I just don't want

00:48:36.600 any of you to have heard that and think that you're making a selfish or unloving or a biblical choice by

00:48:41.260 using what's best for my family as the deciding factor in your child's education. Yes, that is what you

00:48:47.540 should be asking. Really, it's how can I help my kids best love and glorify God? But of course,

00:48:53.960 that is best for your kids. And it is okay and I think right to think that. These kids that God has

00:49:03.020 specifically given you, you should be asking yourself, how can I best steward their hearts and

00:49:10.540 minds? How can I disciple them the best? How can I give them the best education with the most Christ-centered

00:49:16.320 values possible? How can I show them as often and as best as I can the true and the beautiful

00:49:23.200 recognizing that when they are in their educating years, they are not spending most of their time

00:49:28.220 with you, but with other people who are also, again, teaching them a worldview. There is nothing

00:49:34.300 your neighbors, your community, your city, your country benefits more from than kind, wise, virtuous,

00:49:41.580 loving children who grow up to be kind, wise, virtuous, brave, loving adults who know their

00:49:49.980 Bibles. That is not to say that that can't happen when a kid graduates from public school. I'm not

00:49:56.880 saying that. I know amazing Christians who graduated from public school. I know apostates and heretics

00:50:01.420 that graduated from Christian school. I see their Facebook posts or their tweets and I'm like,

00:50:05.400 what in the world? But to me, to me, that is not a good argument for public school. I see that a lot.

00:50:12.080 Well, I know bad kids that go to private school. I know great kids that go to public school.

00:50:15.640 Look, I don't think that's a good argument because to me, the ins don't justify the means.

00:50:20.380 The question is not whether, ooh, how do I think that they could end up? Of course, we all hope that

00:50:25.640 our kids end up loving Christ and on fire for him and loving the word and being smart and educate,

00:50:30.500 all those things. But the question I have right now is whether I want my kids to hear the Bible

00:50:37.360 taught every day for 13 plus years at school or not. That's it. I personally do. My husband and I

00:50:45.480 personally do. If that is an option for people where you live and in your circumstance, I think

00:50:52.060 that is the best option. I just don't buy the idea that I have to sacrifice my kids for the

00:51:00.400 sake of some vague idea of the common good. Because I actually believe that I am contributing

00:51:05.920 to actual common good by being light in the darkness, by ensuring that my kid is discipled

00:51:11.580 and equipped the best possible for as much time as possible before they're released into the world.

00:51:16.500 Now, I am sure that Jen Wilkin didn't see it as sacrificing her kids at all. But from my vantage

00:51:22.340 point, I do. And this is an increasingly popular argument in general that we're seeing,

00:51:27.780 oh, to be selfless and to put others above yourself means disadvantaging kind of in a lot of ways,

00:51:34.080 your family, not from her necessarily, but you see it a lot when it comes to like the vaccine,

00:51:39.320 get the vaccine to love your neighbor, wear a mask to love your neighbor, give up your guns to love

00:51:42.700 your neighbor. I've never thought that those were good arguments. I never thought that there was any

00:51:49.280 credence to the idea that we should do something that could be very bad for our children,

00:51:56.200 for our family. And by the way, isn't actually backed by the science in order to say that we

00:52:04.740 are loving our neighbor. I just didn't see biblical support for that. And the same way that I don't

00:52:10.500 think a law abiding person giving up their guns is in any way tangibly loving your neighbor. Like

00:52:16.880 there's no correlation. There's no correlation between that. And I just see the spirit of that

00:52:24.320 argument here that, well, I'm not going to give my kids a Christian education because some other

00:52:30.000 people don't have a Christian education. And I think that my kids not having a Christian education

00:52:37.100 like the other kids who don't have a Christian education is somehow going to help everyone be

00:52:41.600 better. Like I just don't see a whole lot of credence to that argument. Now, I also, she says

00:52:48.600 that she's coming from personal experience and she'll talk a little bit more about that. And I'll

00:52:52.320 mention it in a second. But I am also coming from personal experience because I know what

00:52:57.180 a Christian education did for me. I went to a private Christian school, kindergarten through

00:53:02.280 12th grade. It wasn't perfect. I don't think any education option is perfect, by the way.

00:53:07.520 There were years that I hated it. I didn't like this school. I didn't, I didn't like the setup,

00:53:11.280 whatever. Honestly, I didn't really fit the mold completely. I made decent grades. I always excelled

00:53:16.080 at certain subjects. You can probably guess which ones. Did mediocre and others like science.

00:53:21.160 did great in English. But the problem was I could never keep my mouth shut kindergarten

00:53:26.160 through 12th grade. That was my problem. Always talking in class. I know it's shocking that I

00:53:30.720 have a career talking for long periods of time. I was always late to class because I was talking

00:53:35.760 in between class. I was bored in class. I was distracted in class. I had some teachers who

00:53:40.680 helped me find my strengths along the way. But I had a lot of teachers, especially elementary

00:53:45.160 school, middle school, who simply punished me and would say things like, you're so smart.

00:53:51.200 Why don't you apply yourself more? And, you know, I didn't excel every year. I'm not sure

00:53:59.180 that I would send my kids there if that were an option today. There just, in my opinion,

00:54:05.160 wasn't enough latitude for kids who learned even slightly differently. And there was, as there

00:54:10.340 is, I think, at all schools, public or private, politics, cliques, things like that. However,

00:54:17.560 even with my not perfect experience at a Christian private school, we will still, with every fiber

00:54:26.400 of our being, be pursuing Christian education for our kids. Because even with its imperfections,

00:54:32.400 what I got, as far as a theological foundation, is absolutely irreplaceable. And this is so

00:54:40.280 important. Again, probably not a perfect theological foundation, but you guys ask me all the time,

00:54:47.200 hey, how do you know so many Bible verses? How does it seem like you're able to recall Scripture

00:54:52.620 from memory and then incorporate that into what you're talking about? I hope you don't hear this,

00:54:56.420 by the way, as any kind of like arrogance or braggadociousness, because that's not what this is

00:55:01.680 at all. It has very little to do with me and a lot to do with hearing the Bible read and talked about

00:55:09.640 every single day of my life at home and at church and at school from the time I was five until I was

00:55:16.680 18. You just can't argue with what a difference that makes in a person's worldview and their

00:55:22.240 theological foundation. It just does. Now that, and we had a stellar English department that could

00:55:28.280 probably rival most college English departments today, it was a great combination for me as far

00:55:33.820 as laying a foundation for understanding the world from a biblical worldview. My fourth grade teacher,

00:55:42.400 my junior year Bible teacher, my senior year English teacher, they didn't just show me Christ,

00:55:47.580 as you often hear in public schools, by being kind of like covert Christians, but by showing us

00:55:52.100 how the gospel is interwoven in everything in our world, in literature, in history, in science,

00:55:58.500 that's what I got from a Christian education for 13 years of my life. This is my father's world is my

00:56:05.100 favorite hymn for many reasons, especially nowadays, but one of them is because my education was

00:56:10.200 characterized by that belief. This, all of it is God's world. Every number, every discovery, every letter,

00:56:17.220 every idea, it is all his. My parents didn't have to squeeze that idea in when they got a spare moment

00:56:24.540 with us before going to bed at night. They knew it was reiterated every day. Sure, parents can make

00:56:31.140 sure their kids are reading their Bible and reading Christian books at home, that they're part of youth

00:56:35.620 group. Of course, at-home discipleship, I agree with Jen Wilkin, is the most important thing.

00:56:40.560 But what about knowing that they're discussing and debating the Bible and apologetics and theology

00:56:46.120 with their peers every day? I got in my first predestination debate in sixth grade. That education,

00:56:52.640 it was invaluable to me. And my husband and I will literally do anything, will do anything to give

00:57:03.140 our kids the gift that our parents gave us. My parents gave me so much growing up, but that a 13-year

00:57:10.460 Bible-centered education might be the best one. It's the one that I use the most. I use it every

00:57:18.180 day. I wouldn't be able to do this job without it. There is no way. So for us, it's simple. When we look

00:57:24.940 at the options between, well, I can send my kids that God has so graciously given me as gifts to

00:57:31.240 steward and to care for and disciple and to raise up in what is good and right and true. I can send them

00:57:35.600 40 hours a week to a place that at best teaches them no worldview at all, which I don't really

00:57:41.140 think is possible, but tries really hard to be neutral. And at worst, teaches one that is directly

00:57:47.780 opposed to a biblical worldview. Or I can send them somewhere or teach them at home in a way that is

00:57:54.880 continuing the work that my husband and I are doing as parents. If those are our two options,

00:58:00.720 then we're going to pick the last one. We're going to choose the latter. And I don't know yet exactly

00:58:06.880 what that will look like. If I need to quit this podcast to full-time homeschool, I will do it.

00:58:12.140 That will be hard. I promise you that I will be putting the interests of other people

00:58:16.020 above myself if we radically shift our lives to do that. But we will also be doing that if we

00:58:22.620 choose some kind of private school option. We will simply do what it takes to give our kids a

00:58:29.160 Christian education because, gosh, I can't even describe how thankful I am to have that foundation

00:58:36.820 that will be paying off for the rest of my life. And I also want to note something that she says in

00:58:44.160 this, that you can involve yourself or something that she says. I can't remember if she said it in

00:58:50.900 this clip or she said after. She talks about involving yourself if you don't have kids there,

00:58:56.920 that you still need to be making that investment. I totally agree with that. When we can, different

00:59:01.620 stages of life are different. So maybe you don't have time right now to go to all the school board

00:59:05.020 meetings, but paying attention to what's being taught. I agree with that. We're taxpayers. We're

00:59:09.280 part of the community. We have a vested interest in what our kids, like future peers and colleagues

00:59:14.300 are learning. But if we can involve ourselves as adults in our public school system by knowing what's

00:59:21.480 going on, volunteering, why do my kids need to go there? Like if they're not the missionaries,

00:59:28.040 which she acknowledges, and we are, then why should I deprive my kids of a Christian education

00:59:32.500 in order to have an impact? I mean, she acknowledges that there are other ways to get involved. So why

00:59:36.660 do my kids need to go to public school in order to make a difference? Why can't I give my kids

00:59:40.580 a Christian education and still be involved in other ways? Like, doesn't that count as loving your

00:59:47.520 neighbor? So I'm a little confused then. Like, what is the argument for not giving my kids a

00:59:52.060 Christian education and sending them to public school? So to me, there is a little inconsistency

00:59:56.080 there. All right, let's bring in some arguments, or I'm not even going to play it because we just

01:00:00.700 don't have time. We're already over an hour. I knew this was going to be long. I knew it was going to

01:00:04.460 be long. I knew it was going to be a mega episode because I have a lot to say. That's what happens when

01:00:08.340 you have such a long preamble, but also when you have to respond to a lot of these clips. So Dr.

01:00:13.340 Pennington, um, as I said, six kids, he sent his kids to a private school, but he also homeschooled

01:00:21.760 them. I think it sounds like when he was younger. And even though like, I just felt like he caveated

01:00:26.480 too much of what he said, um, and just wasn't strong enough. It seemed to me like they were afraid

01:00:34.040 of hurting her feelings or of like dogpiling on her because both the host and Dr. Pennington said

01:00:40.640 their kids like gave their kids a Christian education. So it just seemed like in a lot of

01:00:44.260 ways they were kind of tiptoeing, but he did make some good points undoubtedly. And I think the best

01:00:50.020 point that he made was the first point that he made when he asked the simple question, but what

01:00:53.940 is an education? Like, why do we educate our children? He talks about the Greek word paideia

01:00:59.720 and how this kind of education is, um, taking people from childishness to maturity to help them

01:01:07.120 love what is true, good, and beautiful. I love that definition of education, taking people from

01:01:13.140 childishness to maturity to help them love what is true, good, and beautiful. That's what education

01:01:18.740 should be. And we should just honestly ask ourselves, like, do you think public schools,

01:01:22.920 even the best public schools are doing that? Most public schools can't by law, even openly define

01:01:28.340 what is objectively good, true, and beautiful. So I just think, I think that's a really good question.

01:01:32.840 Like, I love defining our terms. What is education? And he argues, or he talks about,

01:01:39.780 that this idea of education is actually what Christians spearheaded and used to shape Western

01:01:46.000 civilization. When they pioneered education and academia to be this, education hasn't always been

01:01:52.760 this kind of secular, progressive endeavor like it is today. I mean, it's always been an endeavor

01:01:59.260 in conformity. If you go back to the beginning of really the public school system, I'm not just

01:02:03.500 talking about like schoolhouses and homeschooling, which is really kind of what it used to be. But

01:02:08.800 the public education system in the United States has always been about conformity. It's always been

01:02:13.140 about implementing a particular worldview and posing it onto the children to make them behave a certain

01:02:17.820 way and think a certain way for the good of society. And now it's not the worldview that it was

01:02:25.040 then, which was a form of a Protestant worldview, trying to make, you know, the Catholics more

01:02:30.560 Protestant, trying to make the immigrants more American. But the worldview today is a secular,

01:02:37.240 progressive worldview. Again, there is no such thing as neutrality. Our public school system is not

01:02:41.160 neutral. I think you have lots of wonderful teachers out there who are doing their very best

01:02:45.740 to teach well and to not implement some kind of secular, progressive worldview. But you can't deny that

01:02:51.920 that is the worldview of the teachers unions and the education department and most of the bureaucracy,

01:02:58.700 the administrative bloat that kind of guides our education system. There are certainly outliers of

01:03:04.180 schools that may not be teaching the full scope of secular progressivism, but that is the dominant

01:03:09.860 worldview. I think we can probably agree on that, right? If you have come to the realization that

01:03:15.040 really there is no such thing as a worldview neutrality here. And so I think he's just making

01:03:22.260 the argument, look, Christians used to understand really what education was. They were not thinking

01:03:26.660 about giving their kids over to a discipleship program, which is also what education is, that is

01:03:33.380 actively opposing their values. I mean, he doesn't say this, but I'm like, but I'm thinking again, not

01:03:38.820 trying to be offensive. I'm like, why would you do that if you have the option? Like you work so hard for

01:03:43.500 the first six years of their life to disciple them. Now you are giving them to a different

01:03:47.140 discipleship program that is saying, oh, what's your parents say? Either we're just not going to

01:03:51.720 talk about it at all, or we're going to talk about something that directly opposes them. Hope you can

01:03:55.300 make it, six-year-old. And I think this is a lot worse today than it was 15 to 20 years ago. I mean,

01:04:00.500 would you allow your kid to go to a church that you knew was preaching a false gospel every week

01:04:07.880 for two hours? Like, if you knew that, like, there was some youth group or something that every Sunday

01:04:19.700 was teaching kids about, like, pronouns and changing your gender, like, would you send your

01:04:24.360 kids to that? And yet a lot of parents send their kids to a school 40 hours a week that is at least some

01:04:31.320 of that time teaching those things. And they're surrounded by peers who support it. So I know a

01:04:37.420 lot of you aren't going to like what I just said, but that is, like, how I'm kind of thinking through

01:04:42.460 some of this. He also brings up Deuteronomy 6. And he's referring to Deuteronomy 6, 5 through 6. And

01:04:50.560 he's talking about, like, what education has been for God's people since the beginning. God says,

01:04:55.740 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

01:04:59.500 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to

01:05:03.280 your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way,

01:05:07.700 when you lie down and when you rise. Jen Wilkin, you know, would probably say, well, this starts in

01:05:11.540 the home, which I absolutely agree with. I absolutely agree that it starts with the home and that it

01:05:16.940 ultimately ends with the home. But you can see the spirit of these words here. It's not just, okay,

01:05:22.420 the maybe two hours of time that you have with them in between homework and extracurriculars and

01:05:28.520 dinner and all of that stuff that you get to spend time with your kids and talk to them about

01:05:33.380 the Bible. It's not just weekends. Like, you can see that the spirit of this verse is that it's

01:05:37.580 constant. It's constant. It's as constant as possible that they are being discipled in these

01:05:43.100 things. The host mentions there's 15,000 hours of education in an adolescent's life. That's a lot of

01:05:50.540 time. That's a lot of time to be inundated with an opposing worldview or a worldview that aligns with

01:05:57.360 your own. One thing that she said that I really liked is that she limited extracurriculars that her

01:06:02.700 family did and that that kind of made them countercultural. Totally agree. I think that's an awesome idea.

01:06:07.260 She talks about, like, a lot of students have alternate identities, like, in their athletics or whatever

01:06:13.340 it is, and then you never have time together. I think that's true of a lot of students who probably go to

01:06:18.780 Christian private schools, too. Maybe even more so because they feel like their athletic department isn't strong

01:06:23.300 enough, and so they have to do all these club sports. I'm not saying all of that is bad, but I think that she

01:06:27.700 makes a good point that, you know, she made sure, she and her husband made sure that their kids did not have an

01:06:33.540 identity in those extracurriculars and that they spent a lot of shared time together. I think that's really

01:06:37.840 important. I took something away from that because I'm already starting to feel the pressure of, like, oh, my gosh,

01:06:42.220 what do I need to get my kids all involved in? How do I make sure that they're doing all of these things to

01:06:47.640 ensure that I'm, you know, building up their strengths and they know who they are? And so I

01:06:52.140 love that she created, like, peace and community in her home in that way. The host talks about the

01:06:58.960 concern of diversity. How do you make sure in a private school that they're exposed to different

01:07:04.420 kinds of people? Here's also the thing with this is that that I think is interesting is that public

01:07:11.560 school proponents will say we lived by excellent schools and typically they will. Most people who

01:07:18.420 are attending public schools who have the ability to do this are moving to districts that have

01:07:24.740 that have good academics that are excellent schools. Typically, you can hate on me for this, but this is

01:07:31.860 typically true. They're typically less diverse, depending on how you define diversity, than the schools that

01:07:38.420 are not doing very well. And yet you don't see a lot of these, like, Christian public school

01:07:42.720 proponents say, yeah, you know, I'm going to send my kids to the inner city Chicago schools to love our

01:07:49.200 neighbor. Like, yeah, or, you know, in Jen Wilkins' case, I'm going to send my kids to the South Dallas

01:07:54.940 schools to, like, to love our community. Very often, like, yes, they talk about diversity, diversity

01:08:00.220 of viewpoints, but they understandably do what a lot of parents do that are sending their kids to a

01:08:06.220 different kind of education, and that is choose the schools that are best and choose the schools that

01:08:12.560 offer the best opportunities. And so I don't know that it's really sincere for, I'm not even saying

01:08:21.440 Jen Wilkins, for anyone to say, oh, yeah, we're choosing public school for the sake of diversity.

01:08:25.220 Are you going to the most diverse school in your area? Are you choosing to do that? Or are you choosing

01:08:29.900 the best school in your area, the school with, like, the wealthiest people,

01:08:34.180 the school that has the most conservative values? Because if so, then you're simply doing,

01:08:39.120 like, the same thing that parents are doing who give their kids a Christian education,

01:08:43.500 except you're not taking that other step. Like, you are looking for, like, the best environment for

01:08:51.640 your children, right? I mean, there's a reason why you're probably not sending your kids to the

01:08:56.960 inner city schools, and you're sending your kids to the safer community. Like, you are thinking about

01:09:01.440 the well-being of your kids before you're thinking about, okay, well, would it help if I went to these

01:09:06.780 inner city schools? So I think we just need to be honest with this. And by the way, I'm not as

01:09:12.660 concerned about the diversity aspect in education as I am with the exposure of wrong ideas at public

01:09:22.660 school. Like, life is diverse. And like she talked about the importance of talking about things at

01:09:29.180 home. I think that there are plenty of lessons that we can learn in everyday life. And again,

01:09:35.060 I don't think that's a worthy sacrifice for my kids to make just because they may get a little bit

01:09:40.580 more exposure to different people of different backgrounds at public school. To me, that's not

01:09:44.520 worth not giving them a Christian education for. Okay, here's an interesting point that

01:09:52.200 Jen Wilkin makes about she doesn't want Christians to necessarily take over public schools.

01:09:57.100 I'll hear a lot from parents who will say, well, it's a public school, but all the teachers are

01:10:02.480 Christians. And I'm like, well, I want my children to be exposed to all different kinds of teachers,

01:10:09.480 and then I can parent them through whatever those are. So I don't want to covertly take over the public

01:10:15.180 schools and make them Christian schools. Although I value, you know, the ethics that that would involve

01:10:21.260 being in place in the public schools. But I think that because they're public schools,

01:10:27.100 they need to serve a general population in a way that a Christian school doesn't.

01:10:33.200 So I think this is, I think this is interesting. Because, again, this goes back to the lack of

01:10:40.880 neutrality argument. So what worldview is a better one to teach kids of all kinds? Like, what's the

01:10:52.940 better set of values? What's the better set of morals than the ones that Christianity offers that

01:10:59.840 would do a better job of accommodating people of all different kinds of beliefs? Oh my goodness,

01:11:07.720 of course I want my kids' teachers to be Christians. We can talk about different religions. We can meet

01:11:13.800 people of different religions. We can talk about that kindness and respect, all of that. I think

01:11:18.160 that's important. But again, education is discipleship. Why would I want someone who does not believe Jesus

01:11:24.160 is the way, the truth, and the life to disciple my child? And again, there's always a worldview in

01:11:29.880 education. Why would I want to not just introduce them to, but inundate them with a worldview that is

01:11:39.380 directly opposed to the one that I've worked very hard to ensure that they're implemented? That doesn't

01:11:44.060 mean lack of exposure. That doesn't mean putting them in a bubble altogether so they don't ever know

01:11:50.860 that anyone else exists. But again, I would ask, like, what set of values is a better one to teach

01:11:57.940 pupils with, to teach the larger community with than the Christian one? Is it the Hindu one? Is it

01:12:02.840 the Muslim one? Is it the secular progressive one? Is it the atheist one? Is it some mysterious

01:12:08.340 neutral worldview that is somehow out there? Like, is there some alternative between God's truth

01:12:14.080 and a lie? I've never seen it. They talk about the financial aspect too. Many people just can't do it.

01:12:23.040 But I would just say, look, we spent a lot of money on a lot of things. People go into debt for a

01:12:28.620 mortgage. I'm not saying that I'm not recommending debt. I'm just saying we spent a lot of money on a

01:12:34.140 lot of things. And also homeschool parents are not rich. I think there are a lot of people who probably

01:12:41.340 could homeschool. They say that they couldn't, but really they just don't want to. And okay, that's

01:12:45.660 fine. You don't want to. But most homeschool families that I know are not wealthy. Dr. Pennington

01:12:52.160 talks about, what about single moms who can't spend time discipling kids or for different reasons,

01:12:59.000 people can't spend time discipling her kids. Jen, she pivots to expense, but I think he makes a good

01:13:05.280 point that parents who don't have time to disciple their kids and they're sending their kids to public

01:13:09.520 school, when are they supposed to get that like at-home involvement and discipleship that she says is

01:13:14.000 necessary if you send your kids to public school? Now, I will say that I think it's more important to

01:13:20.960 have parents involved than to send your kids to a Christian school. I do. And that's, I mean,

01:13:25.920 obviously I think that's a false choice. I think that you should have involved parents discipling

01:13:30.020 your kids and that they should be discipled through Christian education. But if there were a choice out

01:13:35.180 there between parents who are absent because they have to work so much and they're sending their kids

01:13:38.940 to private school and they never have any time with them versus parents who are present and are

01:13:43.740 discipling their kids and sending them to get kids to public school, yeah, I would choose the last one.

01:13:47.780 I don't, I think that is very rarely like a true binary, but I think parental presence and

01:13:53.260 involvement is so important that I would choose that. All right. Let's talk about, I think this is,

01:14:01.680 yeah, this is the, this is the, this is the last clip. My exposure to the Christian schools that I

01:14:08.580 know of is not overly positive. I think when you're charging a premium to educate children,

01:14:13.960 you have a vested interest in trumpeting the value of what you're doing in a way that

01:14:18.200 doesn't always translate into outcomes. I'm not saying that's the way every Christian school is.

01:14:24.060 My daughter actually had an overwhelmingly positive experience in a Christian school

01:14:28.400 that was, that didn't, didn't come out of desegregation. You know, it was just a really sweet

01:14:37.700 place to teach. And it was good for me to see that positive expression of Christian education

01:14:43.860 because my mother had taught in Christian schools and had a negative experience. I had some baggage.

01:14:48.320 So I do know it can be a great environment for kids, but it's never going to be a widespread

01:14:54.560 solution for people, um, just due to the necessary expense that, that it requires.

01:15:01.560 Yeah. And she's absolutely right about the expense. And I don't want to minimize that at all

01:15:06.260 to send your kids to a Christian private school can be over the course of their lives,

01:15:11.220 hundreds of thousands of dollars that a lot of people don't have. And look, I, I do wish also

01:15:16.340 that it was more affordable. I like, what can we do to make it a more widespread option? I've actually

01:15:21.240 seen churches get really creative in this and they have created, um, charter schools. And so they are

01:15:28.620 free of charge and they're not necessarily, they're not necessarily teaching outright theology,

01:15:34.620 but they are following a classical model and they're not following a lot of the secular

01:15:39.720 progressivism that you're seeing in public schools. So she said, it's not a widespread option. Let's

01:15:45.640 not leave it there. Like Christians have been in the business of building institutions, changing culture

01:15:51.400 and, um, building refuges for the most vulnerable since the beginning. Like what can we do

01:15:59.800 to make education better? That doesn't involve like sacrificing our kids and robbing them of

01:16:08.180 a 13 year discipleship opportunity by giving them a Christian education. I see Christians doing this

01:16:15.120 a lot. And I think that's amazing. And I'm thinking like, how can I, how can I get involved in something

01:16:20.740 like that? Because I do want that to be a widespread solution for more people. And you did hear her say

01:16:27.100 segregation. She actually mentions this earlier too, or she implies it. She said, you know, we can

01:16:32.840 look back in history and see what happens when Christians pull their kids out of school and the

01:16:37.380 people that's left, left behind. And what she's talking about is segregation that some Christian

01:16:42.220 schools were created because white parents didn't want their kids going to school, um, with,

01:16:48.400 with black kids after integration happened. Look, I don't know if she's trying to use it in this way,

01:16:55.720 but I don't think that that is a good argument at all against Christian education. We can talk about

01:17:00.520 the origins of a lot of things. Again, we can talk about the origins of public education in this

01:17:04.760 country. We've got a lot of problematic things there when we are looking at the history of public

01:17:09.520 education in this country. And so again, the question isn't whether, isn't about like why private

01:17:15.420 education started or why private schools started. My question is like, what is it today? And again,

01:17:23.140 what gives my kid the best discipleship opportunity? What pushes them more towards what is

01:17:28.580 good, true and beautiful and gospel centered in what pulls them further away from it? Like those,

01:17:34.140 those are my, those are my questions. Um, and there are a lot of other things that, uh, that are talked

01:17:41.900 about. Dr. Pennington says that each child's unique capabilities and development were really worked on

01:17:48.640 when they were children because of the focus that they had and because of just the knowledge and the,

01:17:53.240 um, intimate, you know, the intimate knowledge they had of their child and their strengths and

01:17:58.160 their weaknesses. And he does talk about, he makes a really good point that you help the community and

01:18:03.260 bless the world by developing your child. Well, and I think that's absolutely, absolutely true.

01:18:09.700 Um, now Jen Wilkins, she had a response to the criticism and I will read that. And then I'll just

01:18:14.420 talk about just a couple other things in my closing argument that other much wiser and older

01:18:18.820 Christians, um, have said about education just kind of as a period exclamation mark on this whole

01:18:25.380 conversation. All right, we're almost done with this mega episode. I promise. Um, all right,

01:18:42.040 Jen Wilkins response to the criticism. Um, and actually let's see, it was on Instagram too.

01:18:50.560 Let's see. Um, I have it, I want to read the caption too. I have it pulled up on this document,

01:18:56.040 which is the Twitter version, but I want to,

01:19:00.640 I will, I want to read her caption too, because I think that's important. All right. So she says this

01:19:10.640 thread. Uh, it seems my recent remarks on public school are being misrepresented. So I'd like to

01:19:17.300 clarify. I get it. It was an hour long debate in an age of short attention spans clips and tweets

01:19:20.820 can too easily obscure the flow of a longer argument. So a lot of people take issue with

01:19:25.320 that first tweet that they read is kind of condescending that, and I don't know if she

01:19:29.260 meant it like this, but a lot of you have told me, and I saw this on Twitter, people saying that

01:19:34.160 she seems to assume that the only reason people might really disagree with her argument is because

01:19:37.920 they didn't watch the full thing and they just saw some decontextualized tweet or a clip or

01:19:44.360 something and they responded to it and they misrepresented it. But all of you who have

01:19:48.700 talked to me about it, you watched the full thing and then you gave me your response or your thoughts

01:19:53.280 for better and for worse. She said, I did not say Christians should send their kids to public school

01:19:57.820 to love their neighbor. Well, in the first, in the first answer that she gave, she does say

01:20:06.180 that her choice to send her kids to public school is linked to love of neighbor. She does say in her

01:20:14.240 first response that she believes parents who can should send their kids to public school for the

01:20:21.620 better of the community, the betterment of the community, she said. And we believe that our

01:20:25.040 participation in the public school system was directly related to loving our neighbors. And so

01:20:30.340 if we could opt in, we absolutely wanted to. And so I don't know what to say. That is something that

01:20:37.260 she said. I don't think that she said that you can't love your neighbor if you don't go to public

01:20:40.720 school, but she does link it to love of neighbor. She said, I did not say Christians should send their

01:20:44.640 kids to public school to love their neighbor. This is a mischaracterization of my point. I did say

01:20:50.620 what's best for my family is only one lens for families who have a choice in education.

01:20:53.820 She did link it to love of neighbor. Again, I don't know. I just quoted exactly what she said.

01:20:59.920 You can go back and listen for yourself. And yes, she does say what's best for my family is only one

01:21:06.240 lens for families who have a choice in education. She actually said that we should push back on that

01:21:10.160 because Philippians 2.4 says that we should think of the interest of others before ourselves. And she

01:21:14.880 includes like her, her family in that we should look to the interest of others before you just look for

01:21:19.660 the interest of your families. She said, I suggested considering an additional lens the impact

01:21:24.540 withdrawing from public schools has on our communities, particularly on families without

01:21:27.740 a choice in education. I did not say the love of neighbor means we must choose public school.

01:21:34.100 Okay, you can go back and you can listen to her first answer and you can see if you deduce that.

01:21:38.280 She might not have said that verbatim, but it's not really difficult to see why people picked up on

01:21:42.800 that. Like I've said things I don't mean to say. I've said things that were taken the wrong way.

01:21:47.240 Like personally, I think the best thing is to say, I could see how people thought that because

01:21:51.740 that's what I said, but that's not what I meant. And here's why. She said, I did say that it's good

01:21:57.700 for the community, for those who opt out of public school to find ways to support them through mentoring

01:22:03.480 programs, supply drive, service products, board meetings, et cetera. Yes, I agree. She did say that.

01:22:08.360 I did say not all public school districts are equal by any means. And to learn firsthand what yours is

01:22:12.280 actually teaching versus listening to here is I did not say our kids should be missionaries explicitly said the

01:22:16.440 opposite twice. That is true. I did see some people say that, oh, I don't want my kids to be

01:22:20.180 salt and light. Jen Wilkins, she said explicitly that your kids shouldn't be. Now, I still see some

01:22:25.020 inconsistency with that because she says your kids shouldn't be missionaries. That is up to the

01:22:29.340 parents to be salt and light. But then she says you can be salt and light without sending your kids to

01:22:33.920 public school. And so I, I again, don't know the purpose of sending my kids to public school then.

01:22:39.820 She said, I do recognize our children are first, our neighbors. I've written an article by that title.

01:22:43.620 Yes, she has. It is possible to recognize this and also recognize our neighbor next door. Yes, I

01:22:48.860 absolutely do. But as many people have pointed out, there is an order of our loves. And I know that

01:22:56.900 she knows this. There is, I'm looking it up right now. Okay. First Timothy 5.8. But if anyone does not

01:23:04.920 provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith

01:23:09.180 and is worse than an unbeliever. Now, I'm not saying that this is true of people who send their

01:23:14.840 kids to public schools. That's not the characterization I'm making, but there is an

01:23:17.600 order of loves. So I don't care about my neighbor's kids as much as I care about my kids. Like people try

01:23:24.160 to make this argument with immigration too, that we should, that putting our country first and our

01:23:27.700 interest in security first is somehow bigoted. It's somehow wrong. It's somehow unchristian. No, God has,

01:23:32.860 God is a God of order and he has made us to order our loves and societies, families. We are all in kind

01:23:40.100 of these concentric circles and there is only so much that we can care about. We have to prioritize

01:23:45.220 our loves or else that's not order that's actually chaos. Yes, I can love my neighbor's kids, but I am

01:23:51.520 not going to deprive my kids of a meal to feed my neighbor's kids. I'm going to do everything possible

01:23:58.620 I can to do both. But yes, I love my children more than I love your children. God did not give

01:24:04.660 me your children to steward and to care for and vice versa. And so I am going to first look to the

01:24:11.280 interest and security and wellbeing of my children, not to ignore the wellbeing of everyone else. I

01:24:17.460 absolutely agree with that, but we have to so order our loves in a way that reflects how God created us.

01:24:22.840 And I think what he also says in scripture, and to me, that means, yes, when I'm looking at education,

01:24:28.620 and I'm looking at lifelong discipleship for my kids, I am going to first look at, okay,

01:24:32.680 how do I best disciple and shape their minds? How can education be a part of that?

01:24:39.200 She says, I do not think every family with a choice in education has to arrive at the same

01:24:43.340 education choice. I explicitly said this more than once. To some, my call to those with a choice in

01:24:47.760 education is do your homework on your own district. Stay if you can, but if you can't, be an active source

01:24:51.760 of blessing to teachers, administrators, and students who are in your local schools. And I disagree with the

01:24:58.080 stay if you can part. She says, and resist the urge to vilify your neighbor who sees things

01:25:02.340 differently than you. That's it. And if you read opinions or interpretations that my thoughts are

01:25:06.580 more than this or different than this, don't buy it. The entire debate is there for watching. You

01:25:09.940 don't have to rely on or amplify someone else's potentially bad faith interpretation of a good

01:25:15.200 faith debate. And disagreement doesn't have to mean denigration. Let's do better. So let's do better,

01:25:21.820 do better. Um, I, I'm sure that there were people who were denigrating her and I think that that is

01:25:28.060 wrong. I'm sure that there were people who personally attacked maybe and said some things

01:25:32.080 about her that were not true. I didn't see that as much. I saw a lot of people adamantly disagreeing

01:25:36.900 with her. Yes. They shared some clips. Um, most of the clips that I saw were actually in context and

01:25:41.740 the context of what she said didn't change what she said. Um, again, go listen to the hour long

01:25:47.000 debate. I put it on, I sped it up a little bit so I could listen to the whole thing. Did that twice,

01:25:53.040 went back, looked at all the clips before commenting. Um, I had watched it all the way

01:25:57.680 through and looked at the clips to verify what she had said. Some of this response and what she says

01:26:03.360 simply is not, it's not true. So like I would, I would just not even not don't rely on me completely.

01:26:09.000 Don't rely on her response either to look at what she said and also don't take public

01:26:15.200 disagreement as denigration. Again, we can publicly disagree with public ideas. That is totally okay.

01:26:20.980 And I think actually very edifying. All right. I just want to read you some quotes by someone who

01:26:26.400 is much, much more skilled to talk about this than I am. I wish that the debate had been between him

01:26:31.380 and Jen Welkin or anyone. Votie Bauckham is really strong against public schools. And I've had

01:26:38.520 him on my show twice. And we talk about on, uh, the last time I had him on, like the whole public

01:26:43.580 school missionary thing and how a lot of people seem to think that that is a justification for

01:26:47.840 sending your kids to public schools. So he wrote this article that I think makes some really good

01:26:52.820 points at the Exodus mandate.org. And he talks about some reasons to leave public education,

01:26:59.000 top five reasons not to send your kids back to public school. This is his stance. And he says

01:27:05.000 things like, I would say a lot more strongly on this than I do. And he has homeschooled his kids.

01:27:10.180 I believe he has eight children from grown to still school age. Uh, he says one, the Bible

01:27:15.600 commands Christ centered education. He says, uh, we should be training ourselves and our children

01:27:21.140 intellectually, spiritually, philosophically, and morally. We have numerous warnings against

01:27:24.760 allowing others to influence us intellectually, spiritually, philosophically, and morally.

01:27:28.380 Psalm one, Romans 12, one and two, second Corinthians six, 14 talks about Deuteronomy six,

01:27:34.400 six and seven Proverbs one, seven Ephesians six, four. We can link this article by the way.

01:27:39.040 You can read it for yourself. He says, government education is anti-Christian. Our education is

01:27:43.180 either based on biblical truth or some other alleged truth. There's no such thing as neutrality

01:27:47.300 in this regard. All education is religious in nature, which I think is really important for us

01:27:51.160 to know since it is illegal for students in our government schools to be taught from a Christian

01:27:54.640 perspective. Then it follows that they must be taught from a non-Christian perspective.

01:27:59.220 Um, he says America's schools are morally repugnant. Homeowners are forced under threat of the

01:28:03.420 loss of their property to pay for the education of others' children. How is that appropriate?

01:28:09.780 He says, number four, America's schools are among the worst in the industrialized world. America's

01:28:14.980 students continually rank at the bottom in math, science, and reading compared to other industrialized

01:28:19.480 nations. That's right. Our educational system is among the world's worst. We are the richest country

01:28:24.560 in the world. Our education system is among the world's worst. That's something that Jen Wilkins

01:28:28.080 talks about a lot is that the main priority for her was getting a world-class education. Look,

01:28:34.500 I'm sure that there are a lot of private or public schools that do well academically and give excellent

01:28:41.100 academics. I also happen to know that in that area, there are some of the best and strongest

01:28:47.000 and most academically excellent Christian private schools in the world that probably like are not even

01:28:57.760 on the same level as a lot of the even good public schools in their area. So I just think that that's

01:29:03.520 something to consider in general, like our public education system does not do well. That doesn't

01:29:08.520 mean your district, but in general. So that's something that he's saying. And he says, look,

01:29:14.520 the last reason is you don't have to. Your children are yours. They do not belong to Caesar. You don't have

01:29:19.900 to take them back to the local government indoctrination center next semester. That's what he says.

01:29:23.820 He often says, if you send your kids to Caesar, don't be surprised if they come back Romans.

01:29:28.680 That's not a guarantee. Your kids could come back Romans after Christian education.

01:29:33.240 They could be indoctrinated in a million different ways. They could come out of public education being

01:29:38.260 very strong believers. That's true. He understands that there are exceptions to that rule, but he also

01:29:43.280 understands that public education systems, just like all schools, are training soldiers in a particular

01:29:48.500 worldview and ideology. It is discipleship. All education is a form of indoctrination. All education

01:29:55.320 is a form of discipleship. He says, if someone asks me, should I give my child a Christ honoring

01:30:01.660 education or should I have my child be an influence on people who are unbelievers? Yes. Why do we assume

01:30:06.680 that the only way a child can have an impact and influence on unbelievers is if they give up a Christ

01:30:11.200 honoring Christ centered education. So I think that's a categorical error. He talks a lot more about this.

01:30:16.860 And then there's, I don't have time to get into it. Gosh, this is so long. This might be one of my

01:30:21.620 longest episodes ever. I'm sorry. It's so much to say so much to say, but the Puritans and the early

01:30:28.460 reformers all the way up to Charles Spurgeon. And then of course, still Christians today had a lot

01:30:34.060 to say about education. One thing that Martin Luther said, he said, I am afraid that the schools will

01:30:38.680 prove the very gates of hell unless they diligently labor and explaining the Holy scriptures and engraving

01:30:42.980 them in the heart of the youth. Is that not biblical? Is that not Deuteronomy 6? The Puritans cared a lot

01:30:48.880 about education, building education, and making sure that education was Christ centered because they

01:30:54.580 understood that nothing is neutral. Everything that is true is God's truth. Education is discipleship.

01:31:02.680 If there is an option, if there is an option between giving my kids an education that is characterized

01:31:08.900 by a biblical worldview and an education that is not, if that is an option, if that is a choice,

01:31:16.360 then we will do everything that we can. We will do everything that we can to pick the first one

01:31:20.860 because gosh, their little lives and their little minds and their little hearts, they're so malleable.

01:31:25.840 They're so vulnerable. They're so precious. We have such a short amount of time with them.

01:31:29.940 Of course, I'm going to take every opportunity possible to make sure they're discipled in what is good

01:31:34.300 and right and true. God is sovereign over them. He's sovereign over their souls and he is sovereign

01:31:39.800 over their salvation and even their sanctification. Yes, but he has given them to me. He has given them

01:31:45.640 to my husband and me to steward the best way that we can. So I'm going to try everything that I can

01:31:51.220 to glorify him by ensuring that they are discipled in the beautiful and the true.

01:31:57.400 All right, we're done. Over an hour and 40 minutes later. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that. We'll be back

01:32:04.740 tomorrow with a bunch of crazy stuff that's going on. I got plenty of commentary on that. Tomorrow

01:32:09.280 will be a shorter episode. Don't you worry. All right. See you guys back here then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 27, 2023

Ep 761 ｜ Is Public School the Best Choice for Christians？

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