Train Up a Child

When Ben-hadad besieged Samaria, his demand for Ahab’s gold and silver aimed to cripple Israel’s strength, and his demand for the king’s wives intended to humiliate him but his greatest weapon was the demand for Israel’s children, who would be taken, re-educated in an alien faith, and returned as servants of a foreign power. This strategy has been repeated throughout history, from ancient empires to modern Prussia, whose architects of state schooling like James G. Carter and Horace Mann’s associates openly saw state-controlled education as a means of people-control. By taking the child from the faith and the family, the state could reshape future generations and weaken parental authority, producing the now-common conflict between teenagers and parents. In response, many Christians have turned to Christian schooling, recognizing that Proverbs 22:6 gives parents not the state the God-ordained duty to train up their children in the way they should go, because our children belong to the Lord.