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by T. M. Moore

Since the other participants in this colloquium will undoubtedly argue the particular virtues of their preferred approaches to the question of "choice" in education--tuition tax credits or vouchers--and since each of them is better qualified than I to address such matters in a cogent manner, I thought it best that I should confine my remarks to the "dark side" of this question, to peer underneath these twin glittering gems in order to discover any slimy things that may be lurking in the unexplored shadows.

Several caveats seem to be in order. First, both tax credits and vouchers contribute to the furthering of the myth of governmental responsibility for the education of our children. Each implies some form of ultimate governmental authorization or approval, if only in the fact that parents who appeal to either of these vehicles are seeking some kind of advantage or opportunity that they can only gain from state or federal authorities. This is to continue on the manifestly disastrous tack that allows government to be the final arbiter in matters of educational policy-making.

Similarly, both tuition tax credits and vouchers run the risk of creating dependencies that Christian parents and Christian schools may not be able to survive without, should they ever be withdrawn. Those who become accustomed to receiving a tax credit for sending their children to government-approved schools--and there is always the threat, given our first caveat, that the definition of such schools can be differently delimited at any time--the temptation will be great to follow that tax credit wherever the shifting winds of political or moral change might be blowing. For schools that become dependent upon vouchers as a source of financial undergirding, there could develop a similar tendency to follow the trends of the competition, rather than to strive for Christian excellence regardless of what our secular counterparts might be trying or doing.

Both of these caveats remind us that Christians cannot expect to fulfill their Kingdom duties by relying on the unbelieving state for assistance. As Gerald Strauss has shown in his excellent survey of 16th century Lutheran educational efforts, Luther's House of Learning, this way lies only frustration, disappointment, and failure.

In the third place, vouchers and tuition tax credits may spawn impure motives on the part of otherwise well-meaning parents, and, as we know, the Lord is as concerned about our motives in any activity as He is the degree of our external conformity. Will we send our children to private school to decrease our tax liability each year? Will vouchers foster a competitiveness among area schools that, as in the world of business, ensures that some will gain an advantage for the long term and some will be forced to accept a status of mediocrity, in the process perpetuating classes of winners and losers, not unlike the conditions that exist already? And, should such conditions persist, would we not expect to see people appealing to government for "equal opportunity" and "equal rights"? How would this be an improvement in the system overall?

Finally, both these approaches to the education of our children to keep alive the myth that what matters most in education is the acquisition of knowledge and skills related to finding one's place in the economy and the polis. It is to accept the argument of Francis Fukuyama that history has reached its climax in the democratic state and man has arrived at the acme of his evolutionary development as a participant in the free market. And it is to run the risk of continuing the sad neglect in the education of our children in Kingdom values, godly morality, and a biblical world view. This is a task for the Christian home and the local church, and no amount of bolstering the survivability of Christian schools will be able to plug the gap left by our ongoing failure to educate our children properly through these two most important discipleship vehicles.

So the question of "choice" in education may, in the end, boil down to one of by which poison we will decide, for the appearance of some temporary gain, to continue polluting our distinctiveness as a community. Without a massive rejuvenation of effort in the work of Christian education in home and church, no amount of trying to prepare our children for Christ-like living through formal educational structures will suffice. Yet with such a revived effort, no attempt to thwart the advance of God's Kingdom can succeed.

T. M. Moore is president of Chesapeake Theological Seminary.

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