A Theocratic Campaign Against Public Education in South Carolina
As shrill and alarming as all this may sound, it is unsurprising. For a generation, leading Christian Reconstructionists and those influenced by them, including Moore, have declared that the public schools are a major obstacle to their goals. Indeed, the public schools are intended to help children become citizens in a constitutional democracy, organized on principles of religious pluralism. I detailed the Christian Reconstructionist movement's approach to education in in The Public Eye magazine in 1994. Here is an excerpt:
...it is in the next generation that most Reconstructionists hope to seize the future. "All long-term social change," declares [Reconstructionist theorist] Gary North, "comes from the successful efforts of one or another struggling organizations to capture the minds of a hard core of future leaders, as well as the respect of a wider population." The key to this, they believe, lies with the Christian school and the home schooling movement, both deeply influenced by Reconstructionism.
In 2007, Bruce Prescott, (aka Mainstream Baptist) connected the dots when he reported on Moore's close colleague, Bruce Shortt: Those who still doubt there are links between Southern Baptists and theocratic Christian Reconstructionists should look inside the front cover of the December 2004 issue of the Chalcedon Report. There the chief publishing house for Reconstructionist thought, Chalcedon, [founded by R.J. Rushdoony] announces that it has published Bruce Shortt's book, The Harsh Truth About Public Schools. Bruce Shortt, along with T.C. Pinckney, leads the movement against public schools within the Southern Baptist Convention. The late televangelist and Christian Right leader D. James Kennedy blurbed the book this way: This book presents an idea whose time has come. Modern public education in America has too often degenerated into indoctrination in secular humanism. This books presents the solution to the problem. Moore stated at the time: The Southern Baptists are setting the pace in debating this critical issue. Other denominations such as the Presbyterian Church in America are also having this debate. It is our prayer and hope that this debate will take place in all Bible based denominations over the next few years and that both Christian parents and the institutional church will come to understand clearly the urgency of rescuing our children from the government schools. One of the first to cheer Moore's candidacy was Joel McDurmon, the director of research of American Vision, a Georgia-based Christian Reconstructionist think tank headed by Gary DeMar. McDurmon agrees with Moore that Christians' "top priority" should be "abandoning public schools and seeking--running--to private Christian alternatives." Moore has compared the organization he led for 15 years and its goal of leading Christian children out of the public schools to Moses leading God's chosen people out of Egypt. "Exodus Mandate," he declares, "is a Christian ministry to encourage and assist Christian families to leave Pharaoh's school system (i.e. government schools) for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling." While the movement Moore called the Exodus Mandate has not taken off as he hoped, Christian Right-supported elected officials in many states are taking it forward. Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has supported religious charter schools and vouchers for private religious schools as well. Moore may not have much chance in this, his first foray into electoral politics. But that may not be his goal so much as to mobilize Christian home schoolers and supporters of private conservative Christian education and to help to maximize their role in 2014. But win or lose, he will be highlighting his distinctly theocratic point of view into the Republican discussion of public education.
A Theocratic Campaign Against Public Education in South Carolina | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
A Theocratic Campaign Against Public Education in South Carolina | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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