Most Christians are somewhat familiar with the Apostles Creed, especially with the first line: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His Son…” The word “creed” comes from the Latin verb “credo” which means “I believe.” Therefore, a creed is a declaration of what one believes. We get other words from credo like “credit,” “creditor,” and “accredit.” When we say that we believe in God through Christ, we are saying that we are putting our faith and trust in Him. When a school receives accreditation, it is saying that it is putting its faith in a higher institution that gives the school its legitimacy. So, when a school is accredited by the state, the school is professing its faith in the state.
Accreditation is a fundamentally religious matter which is why the state uses accreditation to control Christian schools. The two most frequently asked questions I get from parents who are considering enrolling their children are, “Is your school accredited?” and “Are your teachers certified?” I always love to respond, “No, we are not accredited by the state and we have no desire to be.” “Our teachers are certified by Christ, the actual Messiah, and His Church, not by the false messiah, the state.”
Why is state accreditation so important to parents? Over the last 100 years, parents have been taught to think that the good schools are always accredited and that their kids won’t be able to be accepted if they transfer to public school or they won’t be able to get into college. None of this is true. I always hear stories of students graduating from good Christian schools getting into college. In fact, many universities see the fruit of a rigorous classical Christian education and are actively recruiting the students to their schools! The truth is that if Christians operate excellent schools, they don’t need to worry about their children getting into college. The colleges that are worth going to will want young adults who are interested in things other than partying and drugs. If I had my way, I would want our graduates to go to a good Christian college, but that subject is for another blog post.
What about transferring to public schools? Often, the students that come from a classical Christian school are transferred a full grade ahead of other kids their ages. But, unfortunately, we have often had to put students back a grade when they transfer to us from a public school. We must understand that government schools want every child they can get. The war is raging and the kingdom of darkness needs every recruit they can get their hands on. The more students they get, the more money and power they will have. They are not going to make it difficult to transfer back to their schools but they will give the impression of difficulty so that parents won’t try that “Christian school nonsense” again.
Whoever gives accreditation has control. Whoever willingly receives the accreditation is saying that the accrediting institution has the right to control them. State accreditation means that the state has control. The state has no business controlling education. The Bible says that the parents are in charge of the education of their children. We certainly don’t want an ungodly state controlling and influencing our curriculum, the educational philosophy, the teacher qualifications, or anything else in our school. We don’t want them to tell us that a boy can be a girl and that we better accept this. We don’t want to yield to the doctrines of demons that promote unbiblical gender and sexual ethics. We don’t want them to promote the false gospel of liberation theology to our children. We don’t want our children to be taught that the world’s origins came from the impersonal automated process of evolution. No, God created the universe and Jesus is Lord over the universe, not man! We don’t want the state to command us to have a lower teacher-pupil ratio than is good for effective teaching resulting in a higher cost of tuition without a higher quality of education. Ultimately, this means that some students would not be able to afford to attend the Christian school.
At the end of the day, what the school has been accredited by indicates what the school puts its faith in, whether it is aware of it or not. For the faithful Christian school, its faith is in Christ and His law. Not humanism. Next time, we’ll talk about the state certification of teachers.
