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IN 1849, WHEN THE organized Protestants of Massachusetts debated whether to back the public school movement, which was being promoted by the Unitarians, they decided in favor of support, but with well-expressed conditions. They wrote:

"The benefits of this system, in offering instruction to all, are so many and so great that its religious deficiencies - especially since they can be otherwise supplied - do not seem to be a sufficient reason for abandoning it, and adopting in place of it a system of denominational parochial schools....

"It is however a great evil to withdraw from the established system of common schools the interest and influence of the religious part of the community. On the whole, it seems to be the wisest course, at least for the present, to do all in our power to perfect as far as it can be done, not only its intellectual, but also its moral and religious character.

"If after a full and faithful experiment, it should at last be seen that fidelity to the religious interests of our children forbids a further patronage of the system, we can unite with the Evangelical Christians in the establishment of private schools, in which more full doctrinal religious instruction may be possible.

"But, until we are forced to this result, it seems to us desirable that the religious community do all in their power to give an opportunity for a full and fair experiment of the existing system, including not only the common schools, but also the Normal Schools and the Board of Education."

I don't believe any Christian can doubt that there has been a "full and fair experiment" of public education for the past 150 years and that its fidelity to the religious interests of Christian children has been proven to be decidedly negative. In fact, thousands of Christian parents, without knowledge of what was written in 1849, already have taken their children out of the public schools and either decided to homeschool them or place them in Christian schools. Their responsibilities as Christian parents have led them to make this necessary decision for the sake of their children's well-being.

But it is disturbing that most Christians still patronize a system that is undermining the religious beliefs of their children. One wonders what must happen before these parents realize the harm they are doing to their children by keeping them in the government schools.

The simple fact is that the present government education system has as its foundation an anti-Christian philosophy known as secular humanism. To confirm the truth of this assertion, read the first and second Humanist Manifesto. The first was written in 1933 by young Unitarian ministers who believed the spiritual power of orthodox religion was in decline and should be replaced by a rational, man-centered, nontheistic religion. They wrote:

"Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modem science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.... Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now...

"Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human fife. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, control, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism. Certainly religious institutions, their ritualistic forms, ecclesiastical methods, and communal activities must be reconstituted as rapidly as experience allows, in order to function effectively in the modern world."

Humanism is the only religion in America that has as its purpose and program the reconstitution of the institutions, rituals, and ecclesiastical methods of other religions. This is an overt declaration of war against biblical religion.

Forty years later, Humanist Manifesto II stated: "As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. [W]e can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species.... No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."

In the January/February 1983 issue of The Humanist magazine, a young scholar by the name of John J. Dunphy expressed the aim of humanists in education:

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of educational level preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new, the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love they neighbor' will finally be achieved."

The humanist war against Christianity is going on every day in the classrooms of America. But the real battle is being fought in the courtrooms of the nation. In March 1987, U.S. District judge W. Brevard Hand ruled in Smith vs. Board of School commissioners of Mobile County, Alabama that the public school curriculum was based on the tenets of secular humanism, so he ordered humanist textbooks removed from the schools. However, this ruling was overturned by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which stated that "none of these books convey a message of government approval of secular humanism."

In other words, humanists are free to teach their dogma in the public schools as long as the government does not convey a message of approval. But at the same time it is said that the mere inclusion of anything Christian in a public school curriculum automatically implies government approval, and this argument is used to keep Christianity out of the schools.

The notion that public schools are neutral when it comes to religion is belied by the strong prejudice against Christianity, as openly expressed by such humanists as Dunphy. This is not neutrality but warfare. Until Christians recognize that government schools are establishments of religion, and that education is fundamentally a religious activity, we shall not be able to deal realistically with our educational crisis.

This is the key question for Christian parents: Does educating a child in a public school violate God's commandment in Deuteronomy 6 to raise a child in the love and admonition of the Lord? There is no substitute for a godly education. In place of God, the public schools offer evolution, sex education, death education, multiculturalism, transcendental meditation, situational ethics, drug education, and other humanist teachings. These programs are creating the new nihilists, amoral barbarians that are devastating the fives of thousands of parents. There is hardly a Christian family that has not lost a child to the satanic culture growing in the public school environment.

If Christians wish to restore America as a nation under God, they shall have to educate their children in schools that revere Him.

Samuel L. Blumenfeld, a former teacher, is the author of eight books on education, including Is Public Education Necessary?

Reprinted from TABLETALK, August, 1999.