Morning Thanks--Religious, not reactionary

Oostburg Christian School, Oostburg, WI -- circa 1960

My parents were outspoken advocates for the Christian school just down the block, a place that opened its doors for the first time somewhere close to the date I was born. My mother, a "normal school" graduate, taught in rural schools until she was married and had children, but advocated--prayerfully, I might add--for the eternal importance of a Christian education, an education that wouldn't and didn't put Christ on the bench or somewhere lost in the stands. If He was God, they might have said, then he was, in all things, the sovereign creator of heaven and earth. To study anything without that acknowledgement and His guidance isn't education at all, they might have said. They were most certainly pushers, and they were also movers and shakers.

I went through eight grades of Christian education before four years of public high school. There were minor high school skirmishes--for instance, about dancing--but I don't remember ever coming home and being quizzed on what kinds of secularism I was being fed or whether or not the biology teacher mentioned the word evolution. My parents weren't afraid of public education; they simply believed that a Christian education was the correct choice for their children.

When I graduated from college, I took a teaching job at a rural high school in southwest Wisconsin. I will admit that my two years there appear in my memory as almost Edenic. My college education had been "Christian," but when I graduated, during the height of the Vietnam War, it seemed to me that the adjective "Christian" meant "Republican," particularly supporting a President named Nixon.  

I was never a proselytizer. When I left college for southwest Wisconsin I didn't look at the students as if they were ripe for the harvest. I don't think I ever preached from behind that little podium behind my head (above). I was conscious of Blackhawk High being a public school, where such proselytizing would have been against the law. I didn't pray before class, although I did a lot of praying for help in the classroom.

My students who were church people were Roman Catholic or Lutheran or Methodist, but being raised as intensely religious as I was, I couldn't help thinking most of the kids weren't serious Christians. The only religiosity I remember witnessing were the ashes on the appropriate Friday in February, when Catholic kids came back smudged. That was new to me. I didn't giggle, but I'm sorry to say I couldn't help thinking that lick of darkness on their foreheads was a hoot. 

I don't believe my parents were disappointed in my choice of venue, at least they never really spoke about it. I'm sure they would have preferred that I teach in a Christian high school somewhere, but they never said it. They were happy their son had a job; I'd graduated without one. 

What I'm wading through here is a familial background that was profoundly "pro-choice" in education--to use language my parents would not have known or used. They had to have been among the most determined advocates for the new Christian school down the block; furthermore, back then, had anyone tried to build a Christian high school, my dad would have lovingly volunteered to paint the hallways in preparation for my enrollment there.

They were themselves public high school grads, the same high school I'd attended years later. I don't know where their sincere advocacy for Christian education came from exactly. All I know is that it was deep and strong and voiced frequently. It's not difficult for me to say that they believed in the necessity of a Christian education. 

I don't know that the word justice ever fit into the equation. What they understood and stood for was their choice--to send their kids to that new "Christian" school. 

What I am trying to establish here is that the motivation for separate, Christian education had nothing to do with criticism of public education. It wasn't based in some fear that my being enrolled there would lead to a loss of faith. If some slipping away occurred in my life, it did so during and after my "Christian" education, a change that resulted from factors that had more to do with the era than with the classrooms, including bull sessions. Vietnam loomed over all our conversations; we knew that the moment we left college, we could be drafted. 

I'm attempting to compare my parents' Christian school championing with a widespread advocacy today for separate but equal education. It's not difficult to listen to arguments today from the political right that lambast public education and thereby establish alternatives, righteously, for parental choice. DeSantis isn't the only one, but he does use a megaphone.

I don't remember my parents ever criticizing public education. Disenchantment with or anger about public education wasn't a motivation for their sincere advocacy for the Christian school. The motivation was religious, not reactionary. And there is, I'd like to say, a profound difference. 

Does that mean that a "Christian education" is always preferable because it stands foursquare for the truth? Segregationist private education popped up all over the place after Brown vs. the Board of Education and thereby clearly illustrated unhealthy devotion. What I'm saying is that DeSantis's motivation is altogether different from that which I can and do call the legacy I carry.

This morning I'm thankful for the legacy of faith Mom and Dad left for me. I'm thankful for the fundamental priorities they carried and shared and preached because it grew from a peculiar "world-and-life" view that, despite our considerable political differences, I most certainly inherited. This morning I'm thankful for that profound gift.