Resolution to focus on holiness, not pulling kids out of public schools

Resolution to focus on holiness, not pulling kids out of public schools

Will be introduced at annual meeting

By Bob Baysinger
Managing Editor

October 12, 2004

TROY – Roger Moran, research director for the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association, will introduce a resolution at the 2004 Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) annual meeting calling for Missouri Baptists to “give serious consideration to the importance of sound doctrine, the seriousness of sin, the requirement of repentance and the necessity of holiness.”

WorldNetDaily, an internet news service, reported Sept. 28 that Moran would introduce a resolution in Missouri similar to the resolution that was defeated at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in June.

The proposed SBC resolution urged Southern Baptists to remove their children from government schools. WND said Moran would spearhead the effort in Missouri.

Moran said his resolution will not call for a pullout of children from public school. Instead, he said, it will urge Missouri Baptists to seek the Lord with “all their heart, mind, soul and strength and pursue with passion the pathway of holiness.”

The resolution does call for Missouri Baptists “to give serious consideration to the inherent dangers of the secular educational philosophies that now permeates America’s public education system.”

Moran’s proposed resolution also encourages Missouri Baptist “to give serious consideration to the importance of systematically training ourselves and our children in the ways of authentic, biblical Christianity, understanding that the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ is what the Spirit of God produces in us when we put to death the old man and abide in Christ.

Moran will attend the convention as a messenger from Ridge Road Baptist Church, Troy.

Moran said a life marked by holiness is pursued through intense spiritual training, a biblically informed self-discipline and an acute awareness of the conflict that rages between the old man and new man.

“Whereas there are cultural forces of influence that nurture carnality, impairs our spiritual perseverance and robs many of their biblical understanding of the seriousness of sin,” the resolution says.

Cultural forces, according to Moran, include:

• Secular music which too often glorifies the very sins for which Christ died;

• Television programs we too often welcome into our homes which assault our biblical understanding of the seriousness of sin;

• Hollywood movies we too often choose as entertainment which nurtures our fleshly nature; and

• Public education which systematically trains our children to think and reason within the framework of the secular philosophies of this world and according to the godless principles of this age.