This is a picture taken by one in attendance at a conference on Christian Education in Richhill Presbyterian Church on February 3rd and forwarded on to me.
It has been reported that a Presbyterian minister in attendance at the conference stated to all that “he thinks the Free Presbyterian Church is doing a significant and vital job in creating Christian schools that needs to be replicated in the UK, as the state is really changing the schooling system.”
Now I welcome such sentiments though I have little hope of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, with its close alliance with the Government on educational matters and its involvement in setting the ecumenical religious curriculum in State schools, ever supporting such a proposal.
What is disconcertingly sad, is that such should be said publicly by an Irish Presbyterian minister in an Irish Presbyterian sponsored conference while so many Free Presbyterian ministers are silent, indeed some even opposing Christian Education!
May the Lord mercifully stir our ministers, elders and parents to see the the evil tactics of the devil at work in the State school system, as dastardly a scheme in its objective as that of Pharaoh’s — “And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: and he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live,” Exodus 1:15-16.
Sadly, all too many Christian parents are as were many of the Hebrews back in that dark time. Stephen, the first martyr, said, “But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, till another king arose, which knew not Joseph. The same dealt subtilly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live,” Acts 7:18-19.
It is hard to believe that there were parents who cooperated with Pharaoh and yielded to his murderous purpose and yet what do we see today??
Is it not the same spirit at work within Ulster, even within the Free Presbyterian Church, which is causing Christian parents to submissively send their children to be educated under a system which will poison their minds and souls to the truth of God with unspeakable eternal consequences?
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)