Southern Baptists will mull school idea

For the third year in a row, some Southern Baptists are lining up to dismiss themselves from the nation's public schools.
Two years ago, they asked fellow delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention to declare public schools "officially godless" and "anti-Christian." Their request was denied.
Last year, they got the convention to adopt a watered-down resolution urging "Christian parents to fully embrace their responsibility to make prayerful and informed decisions regarding where and how they educate their children, whether they choose public, private or home schooling."
In a few weeks, they plan to ask the nation's largest collection of Protestants to:
*Leave the nation's public school system.
*Start their own parochial school system.
"I believe that now is the time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from the public schools," Dr. Albert Mohler, the influential president of Southern Baptist Seminary, wrote nearly a year ago.
An "exit strategy" is exactly what some Southern Baptists plan to ask the convention for when it meets again in June.
What they mean
I spent 13 years developing an exit strategy from public schools, but I don't think that's what they're talking about. What they are talking about is creating a separate Baptist school system.
"Government schools are required by law to be humanistic and secular in their instruction," says a proposed resolution by Houston attorney Bruce Shortt and Missouri pastor Roger Moran (also a member of the SBC's executive committee).
I'm not even sure some of the "government school" teachers I had were human, let alone humanistic.
Shortt and Moran go on to suggest that Southern Baptist congregations "can draw upon many existing buildings and other resources to provide an alternative to educating children in government schools."
These government schools they keep talking about: Aren't they the same government schools found along government roads, served by government water and power lines, protected by government firefighters and police officers, and defended by government soldiers?
Just wondering.
Don't forget Jesus
In a quick bow to Jesus, the proposal also calls on SBC agencies to "coordinate efforts, including partnerships with churches in low-income areas, to provide a Christian educational alternative to orphans, single parents and the disadvantaged."
The nongovernment schools you build for the least of these, you also build for me.
I shouldn't be so flippant about it. Southern Baptists wouldn't be the first group of public-school exit strategists.
Roman Catholics, by far the largest collection of Christians in America, have always chosen to have their own schools. So have Orthodox Jews and Muslims. So have the wealthiest among us.
Somehow the Republic survives.
Besides, being committed to public schools is easy, until it's time to choose a school for your own child.
Some of the most broad-minded, civic-minded parents I know look over the options and choose private schools, in part to shield their children from the riskier aspects of public schools, in part to give their own children the best education money can buy.
Even many of us who choose public schools are choosy about which ones we will allow our own children to attend and which we'd never even consider.
How do we "fully embrace" our responsibility to our own children without leaving other children behind?
How do we ensure safe, encouraging and enriching schools for all children, not just the chosen ones?
Those are the "prayerful and informed" decisions we all should be making.
Scripps Howard News Service