A Christian Response to the Highland Christian Schools Trust

Stafford Humphreys, Isle of Skye

(This letter was sent recently to the ‘West Highland Free Press’ but was not published.)

I was pleased recently to read in the West Highland Free Press reports that there is a Christian Trust in the Highlands with a view to starting schools and especially pleased that there schools are to be grounded in "the word of God", divided "from what's going in schools today" and "Calvinistic". The sad part is that one local government official calls this "poisonous sectarianism" and the Education minister for Scotland calls it "further division of children along religious or ethnic grounds". He says also that there is no question of Scottish Office funding for these schools. Has anyone ever told them that they serve a nation which already has a Reformed Protestant Constitution?

At the Coronation of Her Majesty the Queen a solemn promise was made to God and to the people of the United Kingdom to "maintain the laws of God and the profession of the Gospel". Her Majesty also undertook to "maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law." These vows have filled the hearts of God's people with hope for many years but sadly they have been so much disregarded by our successive governments that we now live in a nation which blatantly mocks God and His laws. Anyone who says "we already have Christian schools with Christian teachers" is either deceived or dishonest.

There was a time when our country knew the value of God's Word in government and education and we wanted Christian schools and teachers who had the freedom to apply Biblical principles. But again, sadly, all of that has vanished. The system that cultivated today's younger generation has also helped to produce a society that is unsurpassed in immorality.

We need to remember that those same people who have set and sanctioned the educational curriculum have legalised the crimes that they now have no wisdom to deal with. When they legislated in favour of adultery and sodomy, prostitution and five million abortions they did not look to the Lord. These are fruits of our nation, the fruits of its educational system.

If our governments had been faithful to God's Word there would be no call for independent Christian Schools. The only schools being funded, indeed the only schools to exist would be Protestant, Christian schools. The real sectarians are those who have no love for our Christian heritage.

The important question then, for all Christians is "Lord to whom shall we go" (John 6: 58). If we go to the state with its National Curriculum and 5 - 15 National Guidelines, we see that knowledge of God is deliberately excluded it is not at all based on Scripture. The concept of sin is not applied to children in disciplinary situations and children are robbed of the consciousness of accountability to their Maker. They are taught every day by omission that God has no relevance to the so called "real world" and taught by example that there is no place for thanksgiving and godly service towards Him. This is not the Biblical norm.

Jesus has said "Come unto me.... and learn of me" (Mt 11: 28, 29) And Christians are commanded to bring up their children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph 6: 4). These aims are only feasible in the hands of the Lord's people.

Lastly, Christian parents, teachers and government ministers. If the Christians of the Highlands seek to obey God in this divine mandate they will have to divide from our anti-Christian government. New Labour's spokesman has made clear that they will have to go it alone. They must look to Christ when the foundations begin to perish.

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