SBC Urged to Support “Exodus” from California Schools

Now that state law requires California public schools to promote a positive view of homosexuality, will the Southern Baptist Convention finally proclaim it’s time for Christian children to be removed from those schools?

Once again, Bruce Shortt and Dr. Voddie Baucham have submitted a resolution to the SBC’s annual meeting, scheduled for June 10­–11 in Indianapolis, Indiana—this time specifically calling for Southern Baptist parents to withdraw their children from California’s public schools. The SBC is the most numerous Protestant denomination in the United States and is represented in California by half a million members in 2,000 churches.

The Resolution

“A coalition of sexual deviants and their friends have laid their cards on the table in California,” said Shortt, an attorney from Houston, Texas. “Their agenda is to destroy 2,000 years of Christian moral teaching on sexuality, marriage, and the family through control of how these matters are taught to children in California’s public schools.

“The question now is whether pastors and parents care enough about their children to protect them from the spiritual and psychological molestation that is now mandatory in California’s public schools.”

The key word here is mandatory. In the words of the resolution,

“[L]egislation recently enacted in California mandates that all children in California public schools, including kindergartners, be indoctrinated to believe that the homosexual, bisexual, and other sexually deviant lifestyles are normal, acceptable, and the moral equivalent of biblical heterosexuality.”

“[T]he Bible clearly teaches that homosexual behavior and other forms of sexual deviancy are sin,” the resolution reads; and, “Christians must not place their children under false teaching.” The authors note that “Southern Baptist organizations have terminated support for universities that promote acceptance of homosexual behavior as a legitimate lifestyle to 18 to 22-year-olds.” So why continue their support for public schools?

The resolution asks the SBC to urge California parents “to withdraw their children from California public schools at least until Senate Bill 777 and all other legislation mandating that schoolchildren be indoctrinated to accept various forms of sexual deviancy as normal or acceptable are completely repealed.”

The SBC should encourage its churches in California “to support the expansion … of (1) Christian schools, (2) homeschooling and homeschool co-ops, and (3) alternative models for providing Christian education such as University Model Schools and Christian One Room Schoolhouses, giving particular regard to the needs of children from low income and single parent families.”

Finally, the resolution urges the SBC “to communicate repeatedly with California parents, pastors, and Christian California school employees about: (1) what has been done to California’s public schools by SB 777 and its related legislation, (2) what that legislation means for California’s children, families, churches, and culture, and (3) what Christian educational alternatives are available.”

Cannibals in the Classroom?

Shortt sent a long letter to the SBC Committee on Resolutions explaining why the resolution ought to be approved. The only response he has received so far was a letter from the committee acknowledging receipt of the material.

“I don’t have any feel, this year, for what the people on that committee might do,” he said. “The SBC has yet to denounce SB 777. I guess it’s an issue that’s very difficult for them.”

Since 2005, the SBC has declined to adopt any of Shortt’s “exodus” resolutions. But California’s new state law changes things, Shortt said.

“Until now, the gay activists were flying under the radar,” he said. “Now it’s all out in the open. Now it’s the law.”

Some churches in California, he said, “are already beginning the process of getting the children out of those schools.” As we have reported, the California Exodus project is trying to mobilize churches and communities, hoping to remove several hundred thousand Christian children from the California public schools before the year is out (see http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2847).

The biggest obstacle to all such projects, Shortt said, is that “most parents and pastors still don’t know what SB 777 is, or what it does. There’s been a virtual news blackout imposed by the media, and there are so many parents and pastors in denial. They just don’t want the confrontation.

“The SBC must communicate!” he said. And in his letter to the committee, “The SBC and the California Southern Baptist Convention have considerable resources that can be used for communicating … If both the SBC and the California Southern Baptist Convention aggressively communicate and promote and provide Christian educational alternatives, the growth in our California churches may be explosive. We have never been handed as good an opportunity to win hearts to Christ by serving.”

Shortt declined to speculate on his resolution’s chances of being adopted by the SBC this year.

“I keep asking myself,” he said, “if the provisions of this California law don’t cross the line, what would cross the line? Ritual cannibalism in the lunchrooms? Child sacrifice in the gymnasium?

“For the churches to do nothing would be an admission that there is no line. It would mean the church has been completely compromised by the public school parents in the congregation.”

Conclusion

Most of Shortt’s cover letter provided the SBC committee with a detailed analysis of what SB 777 means and what it will do. With Shortt’s assistance we have already reported on this legislation in detail (see “Now It’s the Law! California Schools Must Push Homosexuality,” http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2786): the reader is urged to revisit this article. In the interests of space, suffice it to say that the new law forbids schools to practice any kind of “discrimination” against any kind of sexual behavior. It requires public school teachers to present all sexual “lifestyles” as morally equal.

Will the law provoke the SBC to turn away from public schooling?

We would not be having this discussion if families and churches in the 19^th century had not abandoned their responsibility to educate Christian children in a Christian way, just as they had done for centuries. Up until that time, there was no such thing as public schooling, and civilization got by without it.

Shortt’s resolution asks SBC families and churches to reassume that responsibility. If they don’t, at least in California they will be leaving Christian children to the mercies of SB 777.

It may seem like asking churches to take up a heavy burden, devoting time and space and personnel to the support of Christian schooling, not to mention money. But some churches always seem to find money and resources for other things—a new sound system, bike path, coffee shop, bookstore, field trips for the youth group, and whatnot. Are such things more important than a Christian education?

Similarly, many parents are positively ingenious when it comes to finding “reasons” to leave their children in the public schools. We will not dissect those reasons here: they are as many as the grains of sand on California’s beaches. The bottom line is that California’s public schools now teach Christian children that sodomy is right and Christian morality is wrong. If that’s something a Christian parent is willing to live with, what can we say to him?

This is what the public schools are doing now, and now is the time for Christian children to leave. If not now, when?

In SB 777, in “comprehensive sex education” programs, evolution lessons and “global warming” seminars, America’s Christian community is reaping the fruits of almost 200 years of surrender to the secular public schools.

It seems a high price to pay for habit and convenience.