A place 'to learn what life is all about'

North touts value of religious education

The hope for America's future lies in religious education.

So said Retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North on Thursday at Stillwater Christian School's annual celebration and fundraising banquet "For Such a Time as This."

About 570 people packed a room at the Red Lion Hotel Kalispell to hear North discuss issues relating to faith, family and freedom.

"I am here tonight because I am deeply concerned about the future of this country," North said. "Christian education is the last place in America as an institution open to anybody where you can legally, legitimately talk about the Judeo-Christian values of this country."

North was a student when the U.S. Supreme Court decided, in Engel v. Vitale, to ban staff-led prayer in schools. Ever since the 1962 decision, he said, "public education has gone into a free fall."

It is not the fault of public school teachers, administrators, mayors, city councils or even state legislatures, he said.

"We've simply decided as a nation we wouldn't talk about these things," he said.

Beginning in 1963, SAT scores began to fall and school violence, divorce rates and teenage pregnancies began to rise, North said, quoting statistics from "The Conspiracy of Ignorance" by Martin Gross. In math, American public schoolchildren rank 19 of 38 countries; students rank 18 of 38 in science.

In contrast, children in every age group at religious schools score above national averages on certain standardized tests, he said - sometimes two grade levels above the national average.

In 1962, fewer than 250,000 American children were educated in religious schools, he said. Since then, that number has swelled to 1.5 million.

The reason, North said, is that concerned parents, grandparents and communities decided, "We have to have a place where young people can learn what life is all about."

Public perception of Christian education is not unlike public opinion regarding the war in Iraq, he said. Both are misunderstood, thanks largely to the press and politicians.

But the soldiers in the Middle East are heroes, North said, and "an astounding number of them are the product of schools just like Stillwater."

He recounted the story of a soldier he met on the march to Baghdad in March 2003. The young man wrote him a letter some time later and told North he had wanted to be a Marine since the eighth grade, when North spoke at an assembly at his Christian school.

He told North he thanked God for his experience in Iraq - for the men he served with, for a new perspective on life and for a better appreciation of what men in the Bible had suffered. The letter's tone was one of hope and gratitude, yet the young Marine had written it while lying in a hospital, being fitted for a prosthetic leg to replace the one he had lost in the war.

Brave men and women like that are the product of schools like Stillwater Christian, North said.

"This commitment that this school is making to this community is going to turn this country back to how it should be," he said.

Students who receive an education that promotes Judeo-Christian values learn to be good citizens, North said.

"Youngsters learn something about why this country is worth defending."

More importantly, he added, they learn to be good husbands and good fathers, "and ultimately, that's what it's all about."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com