Stonestreet, Kuyper, and Schools

https://www.breakpoint.org/parents_find_support/

As usual Stonestreet presents a dishonest assessment of the issues. In this case he's referring to questions of education, parental rights, and so-called sphere sovereignty, the doctrine usually associated with Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920).

In his commentary he fails to note (or perhaps understand) that Europe had already succumbed to pluralism by the late 1800's, the time period in which Kuyper was active. Kuyper's context and what he was trying to do was quite different when viewed from the vantage point of American Evangelicalism. In fact Kuyper's model actually presupposed a type of social pluralism, a present reality he had no hope to change. And thus he was formulating a kind of social theology and ethic for the Church so that it could function in the post-Revolutionary milieu, one in which various stripes of Protestantism (liberal, confessional, and otherwise) would have to function alongside Roman Catholicism and the growing wave of secularism and the political systems it produced.

The American Evangelical movement did not begin to embrace any kind of principled social pluralism until faced with the secularising court decisions of the 1960's and after. It was only when the Supreme Court blocked prayer and Bible reading that suddenly Evangelicals grew concerned about parental rights and notions akin to sphere sovereignty.

Prior to this, the Christian assumption was anti-pluralistic and sceptical of those who claimed 'parental rights'. It was Roman Catholics and groups like the Watchtower which challenged this and looked for educational alternatives that challenged the status quo. Catholics would form parochial schools so as to avoid having their children indoctrinated with Enlightenment categories and the cultural predilections of the WASP-Establishment. The Witnesses suffered a great deal over issues like the pledge of allegiance – once again the WASP majority was unwilling to brook any dissent (or respect for parental rights or questions of religious conscience) when it came to their Christo-nationalist educational programme. The McAuliffe comments regarding parents not telling schools what to teach was virtually the line of several generations of Evangelical leaders. They wanted control and sought to compel children to follow their programme and practices and were more than willing to suppress parental prerogative or dissent, and free speech was not tolerated – a point further emphasized by the programme to censor books and the like.

The wishes of parents were not respected. In fact they were despised. If you were a Catholic or Orthodox immigrant, a member of a dissident form of Christianity or Jewish, you were expected to acquiesce when it came to mainstream Protestant Bible reading, prayer, holidays and the like. The Christian Establishment (which was Evangelical and Mainline for many decades) had syncretised all these elements along with the Decalogue into some kind of Christo-patriotic mold and it included a highly selective and at times mythological reading of American history. All these elements were forged into a theologically, philosophically, and historically coherent albeit dubious metanarrative.

It was admittedly weak, often poorly thought out, largely ineffective, and in the end indefensible. And in hindsight it's easy to understand why it led to a backlash.  

And what was the context for the Christian Establishment's push toward public schooling and practices like the pledge of allegiance? It was the same industrialisation that Stonestreet mentions. Society had been turned on its head and a new type of person, a new type of citizen acting within society was emerging. Dissident groups were viewed as a threat to the dominant social consensus and thus there was an aggressive attempt to indoctrinate children and make certain they would turn out to be something quite different than their already character-formed immigrant parents.

It took several generations but in the 1960's the reaction finally came. Catholics had already largely pulled out and when they could, sent their kids to parochial schools. But there were other Americans that didn't go along with the WASP programme and yet they didn't have the parochial option. And so they chose to take it to the courts.

Ultimately the parents (in some cases Jewish) that fought school prayer were making the same kind of arguments Stonestreet is making today. They argued that they were taxpayers and didn't want the public school which they helped to fund teaching their children principles and doctrines contrary to their beliefs.

Essentially they were arguing for a form of sphere sovereignty and in their view the state (in pushing a specifically Protestant Christian form of religion on their children in the public school setting) had violated its sphere limitations. Those weren't the terms they used but the concept is there. Most of the discussion centers around the question of the First Amendment which is salient in terms of constitutional law, but the fundamental or ideological issue from the parent's perspective was that the state violated their rights and it was intruding into an area of private life that the state did not belong in – essentially a sphere-type argument.

Sixty years later the past has been rewritten and ignored by Evangelicals who have decided to selectively and conveniently forget that they played a part in trying to indoctrinate children and for several generations had no regard for the rights, prerogatives, or wishes of parents.

Facing defeat in the public school system, Evangelicals looked to Christian schools in the 1970's, and the homeschool movement arose in the 1980's. 

So be it. They lost a significant battle in the culture war. It was and is foundationally misguided to begin with. But now some (like Stonestreet) are conveniently and disingenuously relying on the same types of arguments that were once used against them.

Theonomy has exerted no small amount of influence on the larger sphere of theological Dominionism and for many the idea of 'surrendering' a segment of society remains unthinkable. Kuyper's view of social pluralism that limits the state actually sounds pretty decent when compared to the erroneous monolithic view of Theonomy which twists and distorts the Church's mission in the world – and ultimately through its sacralisation programme turns everything into the Holy Kingdom. The role and meaning of the Church in such a monistic system is diminished and ultimately confounded.

The Kuyperian view remains popular and it could be argued that Kuyper would still like to have seen what might be described as a 'Christian Preference' – a view that many Evangelicals hold. Unlike the Theonomists, they don't necessarily want to see forced conversion and the shutting down of private schools which dissent from the Christian mainstream. Rather, they would like to see other religions and groups respected but that the public school system and the government should exhibit a Christian preference in terms of prayer, Bible reading, Scripture on public buildings, public holidays and the like. Other groups are allowed to function, but under the aegis of second-class citizenship.

I would argue this is more or less the default view in conservative Christian circles. Unfortunately it's not the Biblical view as the Kingdom of Christ cannot be wed to, promoted by, or defended by the state. As Verduin and others have argued, the minute this happens, a hybrid begins to emerge that in the end only distorts and ultimately destroys the identity of the Church and the ethics of the Kingdom.

Stonestreet in the end is a dominionist – he believes it's the Church's task is to transform society and sacralise it – to make it holy, sanctified, and an expression of Christ's Kingdom. His own confused theology, profane ethics and mercenary politics only demonstrate how impossible this is and how far removed he is from New Testament teaching. Kuyper was also a dominionist but his context was one in which the Church was reeling from the social and political changes that swept across Europe in the Nineteenth Century.

Kuyper wanted the Church to possess dominion but at the same time his political ideas represented a kind of strategic retreat, a means for the Church to survive amid the chaos of industrialisation, secularism, and political revolution. It was a means to survive with the hope of a better day ahead. It can be argued as to whether or not Kuyper really looked for a turn-around in European society but in light of his immediate cultural and political pressures he was trying to develop a viable model that the Church could work with, one that was deduced from the select texts he chose to employ. In many respects Kuyper's formulation was a near-echo of Catholic Social Teaching which also emerged around the same time. Again, CST and Kuyperian Sphere Sovereignty are better options than Theonomy and its call to return to a kind of monolithic and authoritarian Christendom, but it doesn't make these alternative if less-flawed systems Biblical by any long shot.

Stonestreet is not representing Kuyper's context accurately and he's being quite dishonest when it comes to the American Church history that has led up to this moment. The real answer is for Christians to remove their children from the public school system but Stonestreet is evidently among those who are unwilling to 'surrender' a social sphere. He wants to capture it and sanctify it – as if that were possible. And, in pragmatic terms he (and others like him) is unwilling to argue in imperative terms for a public school exodus because it would result in a loss of numbers, a reduced audience and thus a smaller stage and ultimately less income for 'ministries' such as his.

Stonestreet reaches his audience and scores the political points that he intended but his argument is neither historically or Biblically sound. He presents himself as a conservative but as always there are hints from his commentaries that expose the fact that he's just as culturally compromised as those he critiques.