Browsing Tag

Education

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Ten Commandments in Alabama Schools

Posted on August 7, 2026

What do Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama exclusively have in common?

One thing now is that the public education systems require that the Ten Commandments be posted in schools. In Alabama, it is in the history clssrooms in grades five to 12 and in public areas of the schools. Going into effect on January 1st, kids will begin 2027 studying our United States history in the appropriate context of understanding that the Mosaic law greatly influenced the shaping of the Magna Carta, our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, parts of which will also be posted.

In the fifth district (San Antonio) Federal court in Texas, the judge issued a temporary ban on the posting of the Ten Commandments in his district, and the Supreme Court has yet to decide on that case. In the meantime, children in the four states, with the exception of those in the fifth district of Texas, will be seeing the commandments in the mix of important documents in their school history classrooms.

Given the current conservative majority of the SCOTUS, we could see the requirement of the posting upheld for the four states that have already implemented the requirement. Represented by the ACLU,  the families that  brought the suit in Texas are adamant that the posting makes any child who is not Christian or Jewish feel that he does not belong.

The state Bill in Alabama includes the reasoning that many of our founding documents and ensuing declarations and documents, through the years have admitted the influence of God and the Judeo-Christian religion in our country’s foundation and maintenance through the years, listing many such instances, but including, primarily, the following (taken from S.B.99). The bill was sponsored by Senators Kelley and Sessions.

Section 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of

the following:

(1) The Ten Commandments are a key part of the

Judeo-Christian religious and moral tradition that shaped

Western Civilization and ultimately the founding of the United

States. In particular, because they include what John Quincy

Adams described as both “civil and municipal” provisions as

well as “moral and religious” provisions, the Ten Commandments

have historical significance as one of the foundations of our

legal system. Teaching students about the Ten Commandments

promotes historical understanding and helps to foster a common

cultural heritage and awareness.

(2) Documents created to shape civil society during the

founding era of this nation include direct and indirect

references to God and religion. These documents include the

following:

a. The Mayflower Compact of 1620, America’s first

written constitution, was a covenant made among the pilgrims

with “Almighty God” to “form a civil body politic.” The

Mayflower Compact was the first purely American document of

self-government and affirmed the link between civil society

and God.

b. The Declaration of Independence (1776) described all

men as being “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable Rights.”

c. The United States Constitution (1787) stated in its

preamble that one of its purposes was to secure “the Blessings

of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” and closed with a

reference to the date of execution as the Seventeenth Day of

September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred

and eighty-seven.

It will be interesting to follow the Court as it responds to the suit in Texas. In the meantime, I’m excited that the words. “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me” will be displayed in every middle and high school in Alabama. Separation of church and state is a term that has been grossly misapplied as it relates to the removal of God from public buildings and institutions in our United States.

 

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Navigating the School Years

Posted on January 7, 2019

Today, I spoke with a mom who had just made what, to her family, was a tough decision about how and where her children would receive their education…at least, for now. She spoke about some of the good things and some of the things about which she was fearful. She wants her children to grow up honoring God and having a close relationship with God and with parents. Here are a few tips (from an article published a few years ago) for those whose children are in a conventional public or private school. They are important and timely as children return to school after the winter break. 

Navigating the School Years

Do:

  • Know your children’s teachers and textbooks. Volunteer to be the room mother.
  • Have a daily (every day –no exceptions) family Bible time.
  • Converse with your children each day about the school day.
  • Your homework, so that you can successfully refute evolutionary concepts and humanistic teachings,
  • Be a presence in your children’s schools, even on the high school level.
  • Examine, without bias, other education options such as home schooling. Too much is at stake to keep your children in a situation where souls are at risk.
  • Be involved in the homework process. This will help you know when you need to counteract humanistic material being presented.
  • Put a Bible in your kids’ backpacks and encourage them from early ages to take it out and read it through the day. This won’t work if you wait till high school to begin.
  • Go to bat for your children if they face persecution for speaking their convictions. Let them own their beliefs, but when the going gets tough, help them find ways to avoid compromise.
  • Be at home when they get home in the afternoons. Make that time a pleasant and warm homecoming every day.
  • Use school travel time to communicate calmly, listen to Bible reading or to uplifting spiritual singing.
  • Make decisions when your children are young about activities in middle and high school in which they will plan NOT to participate. In our house, they knew from their preschool  years  that they would not attend proms or parties where alcohol was being served. Standards of modest dress and decorum were required way before peer pressure set in. This does not magically dissolve all of the temptations the devil hurls their way, but it goes a long way in giving them resisting power.

Don’t:

  • Adopt the mentality that since you send your children to school, the responsibility for their education is no longer yours.  God holds parents accountable for the education of their children.
  • Allow your children to become distant from you. Never stop communicating (Deut. 6:4-6)
  • Be too busy to spend daily time with each of your children. Make outings and activities with them a priority.
  • Ever, ever skip a scheduled worship service for a school or sports activity.
  • Ever let a day go by in which they don’t hear you pray for their souls.
  • Leave your children at after-hours school day care as a babysitting service. The bare minimum number of hours is enough and often too much.
  • Encourage your children to give in to peer pressure. Get rid of the mentality that you don’t want them to think being a Christian is restrictive and “no fun”. Being a Christian is living sacrificially and is not always fun. But sacrifices strengthen convictions that will serve them well through a lifetime toward heaven.
  • Assume you will find out if your children are questioning the existence of God or the doctrines of the Scriptures. Your job is to communicate, communicate, communicate!
  • Leave your children in a school situation in which faith is being eroded. There are options. This risk is eternal. You can never regain this important time in their lives.

This post taken from an article by Cindy Colley first published  in an earlier issue of THINK magazine. (Focus Press, Nashville, TN) Below are the sources used in the original article.

Bibliography

Anderson, Kerry. “Bible Distribution.” Limbaugh, David. Persecution. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003. 44.

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 05 October 1999. 23 June 2007 .
Hetzner, Amy. JSOnline. 21 March 2001. 23 June 2007 .

Liberty Counsel. “”School Officials Trash Truth for Youth Bibles and Ten Commandments Book Covers.” Limbaugh, David. Persecution. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003. 45.

Limbaugh, David. Townhall. 27 February 2002. 23 June 2007 .
Mohammed, Nisha N. The Rutherford Insitute-Press Releases. 04 November 2003. 23 June 2007 .

More, Thomas. Thomas More Law Center. 25 June 2002. 22 June 2007 .
Potter, Charles Francis. “Humanism: A New Religion.” Limbaugh, David. Persecution. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003. 65.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Homeschooling Again

Posted on January 26, 2017
It seems everywhere I go, the questions come about homeschooling; everything from “What made you decide to do that?” to “How does this affect your life as a preacher’s wife?” This last weekend was no exception. The event was a marriage seminar that my husband and I did, but, even so, it seems like we spent a lot of our one- on- one time discussing home schooling. (We love to talk about it, by the way.)
Of course, you know, if you have been reading the blog, that there’s a lot about the importance of teaching our kids and very few specific instructions about home schooling. However, if I can help anyone understand the motivation, the means or the methods of homeschooling that became such a part of our lives while Caleb and Hannah were growing up, I do think it’s a wise use of space and time. While I am not ready to say that home schooling is always the only method of successfully educating our children, I am sure that it is one very viable alternative for parents who are seeking to be Deuteronomy 6 parents in a world that has largely forsaken principles of truth and morality. For us, home-schooling was a gift from God so large in scope that we would be hard pressed to measure the benefits, many of which, we are sure, will be eternal.
So…all of that say this: If I can help you provide this blessing in your God-centered Christian home, I really would like to do that. I do not have all of the answers and much of what I learned was through trial and error in an era when home schooling families were far rarer than they are today. Caleb and Hannah are surely not products of a mom and dad who were confident and wise at all junctures. They are products of the blessings of a merciful God to whom we appealed daily for His wisdom and providence. They are, quite literally, answers to our prayers.
The homeschooling book on our site (http://thecolleyhouse.org/store#!/Homeschool/c/3290201/offset=0&sort=normal) is there not because I know all about it, but because we put the best years of our lives into the process and we now know something about it. But mostly, because so many wonderful people need to know that they can do it. If Cindy Colley (organizationally and mentally challenged as she is) who had barely even heard of home-schooling when it was time for Caleb to go to kindergarten, could amble her way through the maze of questions and challenges for some eighteen-plus years, then you can do it if you want to do it. If you have specific questions or comments that might help others, please feel free to contact us through the website.
This has obviously been mostly a spiritual blog, to this point. But I’m convinced that questions about educating our children fall clearly under the Titus 2 directive to be guardians of our homes and love our children. They fall under the Deuteronomy 6 principle of diligently teaching our children so that our sons and our son’s sons will follow the statutes of the Lord. I think we all agree that’s the primary objective. Considering the option of home-schooling is a very wise thing to do. If I can help you in your journey, let me know. May He Bless Your Heart as you think and pray about this important decision.