HOUSTON (RNS)—A resolution calling on Southern Baptist churches to “create more Christian alternatives to the public schools” has been drafted and submitted for the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting June 12-13 in San Antonio.
Bruce Shortt, a Houston attorney, and Voddie Baucham, pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, drafted the resolution. They have introduced an education resolution every year since the 2004 convention.
The 2005 resolution received a great deal of attention because it called on Southern Baptist parents to investigate their school districts for homosexual clubs or curriculum that was pro-homosexual. The 2006 education resolution died in committee.
It “will be hard for this resolution to make it out of committee,” Shortt predicted. “The committee system was added several years ago so the guys [at the SBC Executive Committee] in Nashville can control everything.”
Southern Baptists first approved resolutions supporting home-schooling in 1997 and 1999.
Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Seminary, called on fellow Baptists to develop an “exit strategy” from public schools in 2005.
Last year in an interview, SBC President Frank Page encouraged churches to start more Christian schools while making sure provision is made for people who can't afford tuition.
Shortt sees that as evidence momentum is building to remove Baptist students from public schools.
“We've had the wrong model of education all along,” Shortt said. “An aggressively anti-Christian institution will produce an anti-Christian worldview.”
The resolution also “applauds the many adult members of our congregations who teach in government schools … and should be construed to encourage adult believers who are truly called to labor as missionaries.”