Salt and Light in the Public Schools: A Biblical View

I am repeatedly told by well-meaning Christians that the public schools need Christian children to be a light in a dark place. My initial thought when I hear this is that in order to be the light of the world, you must overcome the darkness. Light pushes out darkness. That’s a good thing! But are small children capable of pushing back darkness? Are they adequately trained and prepared to go into the mission field that is the public school?

The only reason I can imagine that parents might think this is that they are ignoring the real danger of the modern classroom. They are assuming that their 6 year old, or 12 year old, or 18 year old are all well trained and well versed in the biblical worldview and are ready to be a louder voice for reason than the teacher, the curriculum, and their peers.

Are these children prepared to defend a biblical view of marriage? Are they prepared to defend common sense biology in the wake of pronoun and gender confusion? Are they equipped to defend the biblical view of creation? Are they prepared to defend life in the womb? Because these issues are all deceptively woven into the school curriculum at an increasing pace, from kindergarten to graduation.

The Bible does not give the evangelism of the world to children. There are only a couple of specific addresses to children in scripture: to honor and obey parents. Further, it is to parents that the training of children in character and spiritual matters is given.

Defenders will readily admit that they send children into a dark place (hence the need for light). But nowhere in His word does God say that our children should even be in a dark place.

God’s word is clear: Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them (Ephesians 5:11).

The unfruitful works of darkness are at the core of the public school curriculum. They include (but are not limited to):

  1. Genesis is a lie; God did not create the world

    Since Charles Darwin introduced his theory of evolution, the public schools have lapped it up and presented it as the “new truth.” Genesis has long been presented as a mythical account, a fairy tale that only ignorant Christians believe.

    But it is Genesis which tells us the beginnings of the history of the world and the basis for all natural science. When government education reduces Genesis to a lie, history can be revised and basic science can be updated to match the culture.

    Once Genesis is dismissed as a lie, the rest of the Christian worldview can easily be dismantled. Evolutionary theory shapes so much of our modern thought that even Christians don’t always realize how steeped we are in it. Growing up with the belief that we just happened to appear out of nowhere through the process of evolution leads to a meaninglessness of life that affects every area. It allows us to deny the wisdom in the principles of God, and when we do this, we live without the order and blessing that comes from those principles.

    It’s very important to understand just how foundational Genesis is to the Christian faith. If one book of the Bible can be dismissed as false, where does that leave the rest of scripture? Can your children be taught 5 days a week that the Bible is just a storybook, and believe that it is also the inspired word of God?

  2. Kids are inundated with sex

    No one can deny that our society is sexually driven, and this culture of sexuality permeates schools. Homosexuality and transgenderism are among the most deviant forms of sexual behavior, and yet these behaviors are taught as normal and are embraced in the name of personal freedom. Parents are often seen as an outdated authority that students need protection from. Too many teachers see the classroom as their own personal activism grounds. Jesus had something to say about this in Luke 17:2.

    “Sex in the schools—by which I mean the sexualization of children on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity—is America’s twenty-first century kulturkampf. This is the subject about which very clear lines have been drawn, and this is where the final cultural battle of our time is to be fought.” (Bradley Thompson)

  3. Gender is fluid

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: basic biology has been dismissed in favor of feelings, and that is completely anti-science. Biology deniers now co-exist in the same institutions that pretend to offer your child a solid foundation in science. Boys in girls’ bathrooms, boys playing girls’ sports, teachers changing their pronouns…this is all anti-science. One education training organization states “smashing heteronormativity” as its goal (and they use DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as a means of doing so).

    All basic science stems from the natural world that God created. There is order and meaning to every part of it, and men and women are no exception. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).

  4. Life is expendable

    We see this illustrated in many forms, but two significant ideologies permeate the school culture: abortion and overpopulation. Woven throughout history and social studies curriculum is the idea that women are only empowered when they are free from children, and the fear that too many humans are overpopulating the earth. Both of these claims lead to one place: the extinction of life for convenience. School-based clinics provide an underhanded way for teen girls to access birth control and abortions without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Social studies curriculum includes lessons on “sustainable world population” topics. Advocates for population control know that it begins with teaching children to have smaller families, and that comes through birth control and abortion.

    Life is a gift. Humans are created in the image of God. But secular education teaches that our comfort and ease are more important than offspring. This is certainly not biblical.

    How can we answer to God for allowing our children to be daily exposed to such evil?

What Did Jesus Mean?

Matthew 5:13 is the scripture reference commonly given by Christian parents to explain why their children should be in public school. Sending young children to be “salt and light” is equated to being missionaries in a secular school environment.

Consider what Marissa Boonstra points out in her post 10 Problems With the Salt and Light Argument in Education:

“We usually ignore verse 14 of Matthew 5, which says “but if the salt becomes tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled…” Jesus provides an important caveat here. He is giving us a warning that we can become spoiled, and therefore ineffective as witnesses. Because of their nature, even born again children are extremely vulnerable to ruination.”

You need to go and read her whole post. It’s spot-on.

Jesus was speaking to a crowd of people when he said that we are salt and light. He was teaching adults. He did not, nor does the Bible in any way, say that children are to be trained missionaries in the culture war. Jesus did not say, “Your kids are the salt and the light, so send them out to do the best they can.”

The Bible is very clear on the role of children. They are to be trained up by their parents so that when they grow up, they will not depart from the truth (Proverbs 22:6).

As Israel Wayne points out in his book Answers for Homeschooling, Jesus said these words, but Jesus did not run out into the world to preach the gospel at the age of 12. He was submitting to the authority of his parents in the home. He was 30 years old when He began his own ministry.

“Jesus is the one who told us that we are salt and light. Jesus was the ‘light of the world.’ He was the example we should all follow. The reason Jesus was so effective in His ministry was because He lived in contrast to the darkness. He wasn’t assimilated into the darkness. When Jesus’ public work of evangelism began at the age of 30, He was prepared. He was equipped and ready. Even though He knew His calling at the age of 12, He wasn’t ready yet. He needed more time and more preparation. This should be instructive to us as we seek to raise our children to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.”

Children are learners. They learn by hearing, by observing, and by soaking up what’s around them. They are so easily influenced by the atmosphere around them. Without constant training, they follow the crowd. They do what looks fun, or what seems popular, or what their friends are doing. So if the majority of their day is spent in the company of other impressionable children, under unbiblical teaching, and even dangerous cultural ideas, how bright is that light going to be?

The Results

“Before we can win the children of this world, we have to stop losing our children to that world.” —Douglas Wilson, The Case for Classical and Christian Education

Ken Ham, in his book Already Gone, talks about the sad epidemic of young adults who leave the church after being raised in Christian homes.

“Clearly, we do have a problem on our hands. The causes for the problems are many, but one thing is for sure: Sunday school isn’t solving it. High school is when we lost nearly half of this group; a big group was lost even earlier in middle school due to doubt in the accounts and stories in the Bible being true. Of those who don’t believe all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true and accurate, four in nine said they had their first doubts in high school.” (Read a short free version of this book here.)

As Christian parents, we must examine the Scriptures more closely in our role. God’s principles haven’t changed just because our world has changed. The salt and light argument is an erroneous one for sending children into an atmosphere that daily undermines God’s word and parental authority. It is not a prescription for raising children.

The public school is no longer a safe place for Christian children. Don’t let the convenience of a free school system undermine the authority of scripture in your children’s hearts. Please don’t let the false notion of missionary service lull you into losing your children to the world.