Is Christian education really necessary?
19-03-2025
Christian Life
Elina Placentino, CNE.news
A maths lesson in Finland. Photo AFP, Olivier Morin
Christian Life
Our children only have one childhood. And before God, I am sure we don’t want to mess it up. But do our children really need Christian education? Isn’t all the fuss about problems in state education just a bunch of Christians overreacting? A mother in Finland shares her side of the story.
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It was an idyllic Finnish village where I followed our children’s schooling. After this, I could point to two main problems in secular schools. One is company, the other is content.
First about company. Christian children who attend a non-Christian school every day are obviously in touch with non-Christian children and teachers. Although we may hope and pray that they will influence their classmates with the gospel, it is also very probable that their classmates and teachers will influence them.
If accepted in their class, they will face the temptation to compromise; if rejected, they will face a complicated social situation daily. The tension they will experience can lead to emotional fatigue and, as we saw with one of our children, even depression.
If this situation continues throughout their school years, their identity and sense of worth will be seriously challenged.
Second about content. Having home-schooled our children for the past four years, I have had ample time to get to know the available school books. And it is sad to say that I have been confronted multiple times with theories of evolution, climate craze, blatant immorality, witchcraft and humanism. One book was so confusing that its authors even defined a family as those who share the same fridge!
Not all of us can home-school our children, but once we realise this need, there are some things we can all do to help them through their school years. Below, I have outlined a few suggestions that might be helpful.
1. Read through school books. Is this really necessary? Yes. We need to be aware of what our children will be taught, so that we can help them recognise the lies they will encounter. Let’s remember that the devil is the father of lies, and he is committed to destroying our children as much as he can.
2. Teach our children first. Someone once said that the first person to speak about a topic will be seen as an expert in the eyes of the child. We need to make sure we get there first. This might mean educating ourselves concerning the Christian worldview, searching for reliable children’s books concerning questions such as sexuality or creation, or initiating discussions with our children about controversial topics they will soon encounter.
3. Familiarise ourselves with parents’ rights in our country. Thankfully, in Finland, schools have the duty to support parents in the education of their children. This legal point proved useful to us in explaining why we did not want our children exposed to rainbow ideology or to participate in relaxation exercises that smacked of New Age.
4. Begin Christian parents’ evenings to discuss and pray for problems at school. Take initiative as a group regarding these issues. This may mean presenting a petition to the local school or asking for a meeting with several school principals in our town.
5. Switch to an online school. It is easier to keep track of what our children are learning when they are at home. We can help them filter out teaching that is unbiblical and harmful.
6. Switch to home-schooling, if this is possible in our context. This is a very simple way to know precisely what our children are being taught, since we are doing the teaching ourselves! There are even free online curricula available to help us get started in this endeavour.
7. Start a home-schooling group where teaching responsibilities can be shared. The challenges of home-schooling do not have to be met alone. As parents, we can lean on each other’s strengths.
8. Enrol your child in a Christian school that teaches a Biblical worldview. Sometimes, this can mean significant changes, such as moving to another location. But the result is worth the effort if it means keeping our children safe.
9. Consider beginning a Christian school in our area. This is undoubtedly a process that cannot be initiated lightly. Still, it can be done with a clear calling, proper preparation, and practical support. New Christian schools have been born in the lowliest of places (including a garage).
Whether we home-school our children or support them through their studies at a secular school, we need to take responsibility for educating them thoroughly in a Christian worldview. God’s desire for our children is that they may know the truth about Him, the world and themselves. And they can only know the truth if we make sure it is taught to them. In fact, learning God’s Word will help them to be “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (from 2 Timothy 3,17).
Of course, no two families are in the same situation or have the same possibilities. Even so, God has promised to give us wisdom to educate our children if we ask Him for it. However, the starting point needs to be a profound realisation of our children’s needs for Biblical education.
Elina Placentino is an English philologist and language teacher by training (MA, University of Turku). She is also the author of a children’s book about the Bible’s impact on society. At present, Elina enjoys home-schooling her two daughters, creating content for young people, and working with youth at church. She lives in Mikkeli, Finland, with her husband, Cédric Placentino.
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