# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S252
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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294 PARISH EDUCATION

would be paid by the churches, not by the schools. Children whose 4

parents do not want them to receive religious instruction would
be excused in every case.

We concede that even this plan does not give religion the
central place it should have in the child’s education. But in the
very nature of the case, the solution must remain partial, The
child will at least receive religious instruction as a part of his edu-

~eation in the public school, and he will be kept from growing up
with the idea that religion is non-essential or unimportant,

Classes might be held on the church premises where con.
venient. As a general rule, they should be held in the schoo}
buildings to prevent loss of valuable time. Objections will indeed
be raised against the use of public school buildings for religious
instruction classes. We can ,meet these objections by urging tax.
payers’ rights. Do our public buildings belong to an impersonal
institution called the State, or do they belong to persons, to the
taxpayers who sustain the State? By what lawful right can parents
be restrained from using the buildings which their tax money
helped to build? If the use of public buildings by the churches was
not unconstitutional during the first century of this nation’s ex-
istence, how can such use be declared unconstitutional at the
present time?

We are aware of the fact that the practice we are advocating
would seem to go counter to the position taken by the Supreme
Court. We know also that many thoughtful Americans, among them
lawyers well-versed in jurisprudence, have pointed out the defects
of the recent decision of the Supreme Court. American Christians
should not meekly submit to decisions that are favorable to atheists
but unfavorable to the majority of American parents. Christians
should arise and co-operate in an effort to have this decision re-
versed or modified. They cannot accept the argument that the
teaching of religion in connection with the daily public school
program has a factional tendency and accentuates racial and other
differences. They are interested in securing for parents the rights
which should be theirs by the will of God and in accordance with
the religious freedom which the First Amendment guarantees.

Christian Elementary Schools

The International Council of Religious Education and _ the
American Council on Education agree with The Lutheran Church
— Missouri Synod, and with others who have a similar philosophy

' of education, that religion must be an integral part of schooling.
These groups differ, however, in how this should be accomplished.
According to the Lutheran philosophy of education, it is pedagogi-
cally unsound and inadmissible to exclude religious instruction

PARISH EDUCATION 295

from the child’s schooling and relegate it to after-school hours or
to Sunday morning. When this is done, religion becomes merely
an appendage and is not a part of education. From the Christian

int of view, complete education is impossible apart from religion.
Non-religious schools can give schooling, they cannot give children
a complete education. A complete education is possible only in a
school in which religion occupies the central position and motivates
the child religiously for study and conduct.

Christian education requires a Christ-centered and Bible-
centered school. In other words, for a complete Christian education
full-time Christian schools are indispensable. Our fathers sup-
ported the public schools, recognizing the fundamental.need for
education, but they founded Christian schools for their own
children. If such schools were imperative a century ago, when the
public schools still had a religious background, they are even more
imperative today. Since our children cannot receive a Christian
education in the public school, we have no other course but to
expand our parish school system.

Twenty-five years ago most Reformed Protestants were op-
posed to Christian schools. They lived under the illusion that the
public school was the one school for democratic America and that
the Church could successfully supplement the public school by
means of religious instruction on Sunday morning. The fallacy of
this divorce of religion from general education has at last become
apparent. Many Protestants realize that a modicum of religious
instruction on Sunday morning is not even enough to keep the
children loyal to the Church, since the tendency of the non-religious
school is to alienate their children from religion and the Church.
Many Protestant leaders are adopting a philosophy of educa-
tion approximating that of the Lutheran Church. Scores of Prot-
estant schools have sprung into existence, and more are being
planned. Unless believing parents are granted the same rights
that are granted atheists, we can expect to see many Christian
schools founded in various parts of the country, just as several
hundred evangelical Bible -institutes have sprung up in protest
against the modernism and atheism that have been permitted to
invade Christian colleges and theological schools.

The Christian school movement has created considerable ap-
prehension. Some have gone so far as to say that non-public
schools are un-American, an assertion which is disproved by the
history of religion and education in the United States. The early
schools were religious schools. Back of this assertion is a dangerous
fallacy, to wit, all the youth of the nation should attend the one
great educational institution of the State, that they may learn to

live together democratically. A group of progressive educators