The Importance of Christian Education in Today's World
Christianity has been of the greatest importance to the USA since the
time when the first settlers stepped on the Plymouth Rock. Ever since
the USA has upheld the Christian values teaching them as mandatory in
schools and even conducting witch hunts. At present the church is
separated from the State to assure the normal functioning of other
religions, while being no longer mandatory, but rather optional for
studying. In the following essay I am going to speak about the Christian
education as always being the option for the citizens of the USA and to
explain the importance of Christian education and the role it plays in
our society.
Christianity has constantly played a great role in
human education in Europe as well as in the USA. The first schools in
both Europe were Catholic that taught high moral standards and
compliance with the God's rules. After the Protestant reformation, the
role of Catholicism was drastically reduced. When the first settlers
arrived to the USA, the religion they were teaching in schools was
Protestantism. Christianity educated people in schools while placing
certain limits on the human development. Unlike Catholic and Orthodox
churches that highly believed in God's dominance and written scrutiny
and therefore rejected various sciences that are anti-religious (genetic
engineering, nuclear sciences, etc.), protestant churches considered
good deeds and helpful behavior to be of the ultimate importance to God.
Protestant churches believed that God created any sciences possible;
therefore it was a human duty to study as much as possible as well as
proclaiming God and expressing God in all human achievements.
Christianity
if taught at schools leaves a great stigma on the students. The
statistics say that students who study Christianity and Christian values
at school are much less likely to engage in illegal activities such as
underage drinking, promiscuous sex, and carrying arms. In US schools
from all students who engage in the illegal activities only 12% of them
are students studying Christianity or are engaged in Christian schools.
On
a more personal level I believe that Christian education is of great
importance to the whole country. Students in their teens are only
forming their future character and certainly need various people to take
example from. It is no wonder that in poor schools and in what we call
bad neighborhoods, the crime rates are much higher--children that grow
up in violent environment are in my opinion are going to be violent. It
is a common fact that boys that grew up in families where fathers beat
up their wives are more likely to also beat up their future spouses like
their fathers. All these examples indeed show us the importance of
education in the early years of human life and make us understand that
education should be of great value to the society. Christianity on the
other hand discourages arms, sex before marriage, as well as drinking.
When exposed to Christian morals, students are more likely to develop
personal attitude that would allow them to resist the peer pressure,
engage in profound studying and strong desire for excellence. This shows
the important role of domestic security that the Christian education
provides for the society that promulgates Christianity in schools.
At
the same time, Christianity being only optional provides the necessary
freedoms to students of other religions, or even atheists who do not
want to be influenced by the religious thought. The freedom or choice,
makes the Christian teachers compete for the students and therefore not
to abuse the Christian moral as it happens in areas of the world where
Christianity is dominant (e.g. in Serbia and Horvatia Christianity
prompted the people to eradicate the Muslims from the Christian land).
In
conclusion I would like to say that the Christian educational option in
fact provides a wonderful complementary material to students in the
USA. The statistics that show reduction in violence, loose behavior or
engagement in illegal activities corroborate the practical importance of
Christian education, while the separation of church and state assures
that no single religious leader can take control of the political life
in the USA. The role of being the crime reducer that the Christian
education represents the true need of such education in the society.
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