# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1063
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

PARISH EDUCATION 865

&.. poses God does not exist. Secularism excludes God from human
». life, from business and politics; it relativizes the standards of the
Moral Law and thus opens the floodgates of crime and immorality.
‘ In view of this growing secularism, which threatens our Chris-
_ tian civilization, even liberal churchmen are urging that religion
t ~6be given some consideration in the course of study of the public
© schools. Some conservative Protestants are asking that they be
y permitted to teach religion in connection with the daily public
§~6school program. Roman Catholics criticize the public school be-
' cause of the exclusion of God from its program. On the other hand,
F’- some citizens are crying for the exclusion of all religious elements
from the public school. .
a . A growing number of parents have come to realize that some-
F thing fundamental is lacking in the schooling of their children.
’ While some religious parents do not favor any religion in the pub-
lic school, not even Bible reading or released-time classes, because
B they think such practices involve a mixing of Church and State, a
* large percentage of American parents wish their children to re-
. ceive religious instruction as a part of their schooling. We have,
5. however, this situation: The children of religious parents may
not receive religious education in connection with the daily public
- school program; the children of godless parents, however, are
E receiving at public expense the kind of education their parents
want them to have. While Christian parents should be willing to
* pay the expense involved in founding and maintaining Christian
t schools, the State should give some consideration to the children
who do not have the opportunity to attend such schools.

' As Christians and as citizens we are vitally interested in the
. public school. We are concerned for the children of our own
Church who are enrolled in the public school, lest the schooling they
: receive there undermine their faith, And we are concerned for all

_other children attending the public school, that the schooling they
receive there will be such as to promote civil righteousness. The
Board for Parish Education believes that in view of divergent
opinions and the controversial nature of the problems, some in-
tensive and scholarly studies ought to be made. The following
paragraphs represent the thinking of the Board and suggest the
areas in which such studies are imperative.

Parents’ Rights
Much has been written about the rights both of the State and
the Church to educate. Much has also been written about parental
.. responsibility, but little about parental rights. So little has been
’ said and written on the subject that parents are scarcely conscious
of their rights and therefore exert only a negligible influence in
determining the education which their children shall receive. Yet