This essay is free, but with Premium Membership you get MORE. Join today.
NOTE: The following essay is adapted and abridged from Virgil Walker’s keynote (which you can and should watch above) at the October 2025 Fight Laugh Feast Conference: “School Wars - Rebuilding Christendom With Your Kids”. — RDM
by Virgil Walker
December 7, 2025
Something remarkable is happening across America.
Families are quietly withdrawing their children from public schools — not because they’re afraid of the world, but because they’ve seen through the illusion.
For decades, we were told education was neutral. That classrooms were just places where facts were taught, skills were learned, and everyone could decide their own values later. But many parents now realize schools don’t just teach what to think; they shape how to think, why to think, and ultimately, who to worship.
This awakening isn’t fear — it’s faith.
It’s not an exodus from culture; it’s an act of dominion.
Across kitchen tables and church basements, families are rebuilding the ancient idea that education begins in the home and belongs to the family.
They’re not retreating. They’re reclaiming what was never the state’s to own.
The Myth of Neutral Education
Public education didn’t fall apart; it was founded on the wrong philosophy.
From Thomas Jefferson, who kept the classical form but replaced its biblical foundation with Enlightenment reason, to John Dewey, who completed the secularization of the classroom, the American system was built to form citizens for the state, not disciples for Christ.
It promised enlightenment but delivered indoctrination. It offered democracy while demanding conformity.
Dewey and his heirs replaced biblical truth with pragmatism — if it works, it’s good. If it feels useful, it’s true. That idea became the heartbeat of public education. Over time, it shaped not only what children learned but who they became.
As Voddie Baucham famously warned, “If you send your children to Caesar, don’t be surprised when they come home as Romans.”
That’s not hyperbole. Whoever educates the children shapes the future. And education in America has been catechized by the state.
The Rebellion Is Righteous
This modern homeschool movement isn’t a retreat — it’s a righteous rebellion.
It’s parents saying, “Enough.”
Enough of state-sanctioned confusion about gender and morality.
Enough of systems that despise truth and reward conformity.
Enough of surrendering our children’s minds to bureaucrats who believe truth is fluid and morality is subjective.
The Reformers understood this five centuries ago. Martin Luther called the Christian home “a little church.” John Calvin described the family as “the seminary of the Church.” The Puritans built their schools not to serve the state but to serve the Savior.
They knew what we must recover:
You cannot have a free people without a formed people, and you cannot form people without faith.
Homeschooling today stands in that same tradition. It’s not isolation — it’s discipleship. It’s not escapism — it’s resistance. It’s how believers push back against the spirit of the age by forming children who love truth and live courageously.
The Return of the Household
The modern state says, “Give us your children, and we’ll give you progress.” But history proves that when government controls education, wisdom dies.
When God commanded parents in Deuteronomy to teach His words “diligently” to their children, He didn’t add a footnote for the Department of Education.
Education is not a government program; it’s a parental calling.
And that’s what makes this rebellion so powerful. It’s not just rejecting a bad system — it’s restoring God’s design.
The home was meant to be the first school.
The family table was meant to be the first classroom.
Parents were meant to be the first teachers.
Homeschooling isn’t running from responsibility. It’s reclaiming it.
It’s not an escape plan; it’s a construction project for Christendom.
Every lesson, every discussion, every act of training becomes part of the blueprint for a civilization that reflects the glory of God.
When we teach our children to reason, to love truth, to live virtuously, we are rebuilding the foundation of the West.
The Classical Blueprint
If homeschooling is the rebellion, Classical education is the architecture.
The Trivium — Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric — gives children the tools not just to learn, but to think.
Grammar lays the foundation of knowledge.
Logic teaches discernment.
Rhetoric shapes persuasion.
Or as I like to say: Grammar builds the sword. Logic sharpens it. Rhetoric swings it.
This model assumes truth exists and can be known because God exists and has spoken. It connects every subject — history, math, literature, science — back to its Creator.
Modern education teaches children to question everything except its own authority. Classical education teaches them to trace everything back to ultimate authority — God Himself.
Movements toward Classical Education are restoring what the Enlightenment severed: the unity of truth under Christ’s lordship. These aren’t just academic programs. They’re training grounds for wisdom, courage, and virtue.
They’re producing children who can read deeply, reason clearly, and speak boldly — children ready to rebuild what modernity destroyed.
The Paideia of Christ
The Greeks used the word paideia to describe the full formation of a person — the shaping of intellect, morals, and manners. It was about forming civilization itself.
When Paul commands fathers in Ephesians 6:4 to raise their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” the word for instruction is paideia.
That’s not accidental. It means education is discipleship.
Two paideias are battling for our children’s souls.
The Paideia of the State begins with self and ends in confusion.
The Paideia of Christ begins with God and ends in wisdom.
One produces activists.
The other produces saints.
One catechizes in chaos.
The other cultivates order.
This is not a fight over textbooks. It’s a fight over truth itself.
Rebuilding the Ruins
John Calvin once wrote, “Let the home be a little church, where the children, being daily instructed, may learn to revere God.”
The Reformers understood what we must recover: the home is the seedbed of both faith and civilization. A decaying nation isn’t first a political problem; it’s an educational one.
Every reformation begins at home.
Every renewal begins around a table.
If the foundations of truth have been destroyed, the faithful response is to rebuild. And that’s exactly what Christian families are doing — brick by brick, book by book, prayer by prayer.
We are building schools that serve the home, not replace it.
We are raising children who love wisdom more than wealth.
We are creating communities where truth is not debated, but declared.
We are rebuilding the ruins.
The Future Belongs to the Faithful
This rebellion isn’t easy. It demands time, sacrifice, and conviction. But history belongs to those who build, not those who bow.
Parents, you are not just teachers — you are architects of eternity.
When you open a book with your child, you open the windows of civilization.
When you teach them to love truth and hate lies, you’re shaping the conscience of the next generation.
When you form their hearts around the fear of the Lord, you’re striking blows against the darkness.
We are not victims of this age. We are stewards of the next.
The state may have the buildings, the unions, and the budgets.
But we have the truth. And truth always wins.
We’re not retreating. We’re rebuilding.
We’re not escaping. We’re advancing.
We’re not surrendering our children. We’re raising them to rule.
This is The Education Rebellion.
And we’re just getting started.
Soli Deo Gloria.
— This essay originally appeared at Virgil Walker’s Substack, which you should follow. The address from which it is adapted is at the top of this post, and appears on YouTube here.
