On Southern Baptist Schooling

Thanks to Ethics Daily for keeping us posted on plans by Southern Baptists to develop a "new" public school system -- public in the sense that it is open to the public but owned by Southern Baptists who will "get to call the shots about what's taught and who does the teaching."

Southern Baptists already have a school system where they call the shots about what's taught and who does the teaching. They have six seminaries. A quarter century ago, when they started the movement to take them over, they were all setting record enrollments with students working on graduate degrees. Today their programs for graduate students are empty shells. Now they are offering expanded undergraduate programs to attract enough students to continue to justify the enormous contributions that Southern Baptists give to keep them running.

The chief difference between these denominational schools and the Baptist church schools they are preparing to foist on America will be the source of the funding for the schools. Southern Baptists are preparing to receive financial gain for all the time and energy they have invested in electoral politics. They know that it is only a matter of time before the newly configured Supreme Court rules that vouchers to private religious schools are constitutional. The revenue to run their system of public indoctrination centers will be coming from your pockets, my pockets, and the pockets of every other taxpayer in the U.S.

When public money for private, parochial schools starts flowing freely, you can bet your bank account that America's political and religious right will turn on a dime from their current "no taxes" position and start promoting taxes for education.