As of July 1, federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Administration for Children and Families, implemented new policies for all state-run foster care programs. Advocates claim these changes provide “safe and proper care” for children by ensuring their safety “from harassment, mistreatment, and abuse.” Specifically, the new rules require states to support a child’s “self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression,” and provide access to resources that support their health and wellbeing. This means that foster parents would be required to ensure access to “affirming” mental health providers and “gender-affirming care” such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures.  

Of course, this would squeeze Christians out of a system already in desperate need of willing families.
The recent movie, The Sound of Hope, tells the true story of 77 foster care children finding homes with 22 families from a small church community in Possum Trot, Texas. The movie depicts the struggles and abuse that many children in foster care experience, including mental health struggles, depression, self-harm, and other coping mechanisms. Still, the 22 families in Possum Trot followed the Lord’s example of being “fathers to the fatherless,” as Psalm 68:5 says. Their story is a chapter in the long history of how Christians have, from the beginning of the Church, obeyed Christ’s words:  
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. 
Increasingly, Christians are being prevented from their good work, especially in adoption-related situations. In the past two years, two families in Vermont, who had both previously adopted, were refused additional children because of their religious beliefs. The state revoked the foster care licenses of Bryan and Rebecca Gantt and Brian and Katy Wuoti after new policies regarding sexual orientation, gender ideology, and gender expression were implemented. The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Vermont on their behalf.  
Even worse, Vermont banned these two loving (and licensed) families, despite the growing number of children without a home in the state system. According to ADF, Vermont’s Department for Children and Families has placed children with unlicensed families, in hospitals, and in police stations to temporarily address the need.  
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If Christians are to truly take advantage of the disruption in state-run education, much will depend on the training and formation of teachers. Well-trained teachers educate. Indoctrinated teachers indoctrinate. Thus, Christian educators have an incredible opportunity right now to make a difference in this culture. A few years ago, the Colson Center, in partnership with the Association of Christian Schools International, developed Colson Educators, a set of Christian worldview training and formation resources for Christian educators.

The list of reasons for parental rebellion against public education has grown long in recent years. From trans ideology to DEI curriculum to the constant push for activism, many public school classrooms are more committed to indoctrination than instruction.  
Though recently intensified, the ideological push to reject objective truth and teach social conformity is not new. Karl Marx promoted removing children from families and enrolling them in state education. Adolf Hitler targeted youth with social propaganda well before the beginning of World War II. And for decades, the heavily federally funded Planned Parenthood has monopolized sex education, teaching risky behavior, abortion, birth control, and LGBTQ theory under taxpayers’ noses and with their dollars.  
More recently, even as reading, writing, and math scores plummeted, classrooms and libraries have been stocked with radically sexualized books with no other educational value other than to … radically sexualize kids. Students are forced to comply with the latest “trans equality” efforts and punished if they do not. Third through 5th graders are given “anti-racist reading lists,” and The 1619 Project, which redefined the founding of America as entirely slave-based and racist, boasts that “thousands of teachers across every state” use their content.  
This last point may be the most significant. 
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Every video in the What Would You Say? series offers thoughtful, reasoned, and reliable answers to common cultural questions. This video explains how the Bible shaped Western culture, how the Bible’s description of reality provided the grounding for modern science, and why there will be a growing demand for the Bible as more and more people come to faith around the world.  

Recently, a school district near Salt Lake City, Utah removed the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries. Though it quickly reversed course and returned it to the library shelves, the original decision was made in response to a complaint that the Bible contains pornographic content, and that certain parts are too “violent or vulgar” for young children. Meanwhile, school districts across the country require LGBT content, much of it grossly explicit, in elementary school classrooms as well as libraries. Some even refuse to allow parents to excuse their children from such content. 
It is, to put it mildly, upside down to silence the Bible in order to “protect” children while forcing radical ideas about identity and sexuality on them. Though the Bible speaks plainly about the violence and barbarity of fallen humanity (see the final three chapters of the book of Judges, for example), it is not gratuitous. More importantly, the Bible portrays evil as evil, rather than celebrating the brokenness under the guise of “authenticity,” “autonomy,” and “diversity.” 
Eliminating the Bible from education also ignores the crucial impact the Bible has had on the world, especially in shaping Western culture. On one hand, this is simply part of the wholesale condemnation of Western culture so common today. However, even if the Western heritage in the sciences, technology, human rights, freedom, and the arts are downplayed or ignored, at least some knowledge of the Bible is basic to knowing human history at all. 
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