SUNDAY SCHOOL, VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL & CHILDREN'S CHURCH PART 1...

Mom, apple-pie, all-American practices like Sunday Schools and Children's Church although common now, were not always practiced in America.  As amazing as it may sound to some, they were unheard of in the New Testament church.

Click to enlarge

Again, we turn to Google books to analyze the popularity of the terms, Sunday Schools, Sabbath School, Vacation Bible Schools, and Children's church.  This will give us an idea of the origins of the terms and their popularity during the years to the present.

THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS

Robert Raikes (1736-1811)

According to most histories, the first of such institutions was started in London in 1780 by a William King.  King appealed to Robert Raikes, an Anglican philanthropist to fund such schools.  At first, these school served a useful purpose, to educate children who, before child labor laws, were working during the week and thus had not time to receive an education.  This traditional account of the origins of Sunday Schools, is not completely accurate as can be seen from the deeds of a Hannah Ball (1734-1792) who established a Sunday School in 1769.  The difference between this earlier one and the ones established by Raikes late seems to be that Ball's Sunday School did include church attendance and thus had religious instruction involved.  The ones established by Raikes seemed to be purely for the teaching of reading and writing.  

Gilbert Beebe (1800-1881)

Old School Baptists, have never been against such institutions, as can be witnessed by Gilbert Beebe's comments on such schools in the Blackrock Address of 1832:

But whilst we thus stand opposed to the plan and use of these Sunday Schools, and the S.S. Union, in every point, we wish to be distinctly understood that we consider Sunday Schools for the purpose of teaching poor children to read, whereby they may be enabled to read the Scriptures for themselves, in neighborhoods where there is occasion for them, and when properly conducted, without that ostentation so commonly connected with them, to be useful and benevolent institutions, worthy of the patronage of all the friends of civil liberty.

What Old School Baptists oppose is the idea of a religious Sunday school.

The King's School

But Sunday Schools in their religious sense, go back in time much further.  If we start from the beginning of the Christian era, one of the oldest would be the Canterbury Cathedral School founded in 597AD and still in existence today (now known as the King's School).  The very idea that a person could be taught the scriptures from childhood by the church itself originates with the Roman Catholic Church and they received this idea from the Jews.

In early Judaism the religious education was strictly the role of the family.  There is no passage that can be produced in the Old Testament where anyone but the family teaches the children.  At times, the family (with the children) gathered together to hear the torah read, but never were the children taught by any others outside the family.  This can be seen from the earliest practices of Abraham in Genesis 18:19:

For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.

It was not until 64AD that a Yehoshua ben Gamla, a Jewish High Priest in Jerusalem appointed by Herod Agrippa II.  It is

described in the Talmud Baba Bathra

...the concluding words refer to school children, from the time of the regulation of Joshua b. Gamala, 1 of whom Rab Judah has told us in the name of Rab: Verily the name of that man is to be blessed, to wit Joshua ben Gamala, for but for him the Torah would have been forgotten from Israel. For at first if a child had a father, his father taught him, and if he had no father he did not learn at all. By what [verse of the Scripture] did they guide themselves? — By the verse, And ye shall teach them to your children. 2 laying the emphasis on the word 'ye'. 3 They then made an ordinance that teachers of children should be appointed in Jerusalem. By what verse did they guide themselves? — By the verse, For from Zion shall the Torah go forth.  4 Even so, however, if a child had a father, the father would take him up to Jerusalem and have him taught there, and if not, he would not go up to learn there. They therefore ordained that teachers should be appointed In each prefecture,  5 and that boys should enter school at the age of sixteen or seventeen. [They did so] and if the teacher punished them they used to rebel and leave the school. At length Joshua b. Gamala came and ordained that teachers of young children should be appointed in each district and each town. and that children should enter school at the age of six or seven.

So as is the case with most errors, this enterprise began with reasonable questions about orphans and before a short time developed into formal giant enterprise far from its original premises and purposes.

In a book titled, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, by Emil Schurer, he states:

That this education in the law was, in the first place, the duty and task of parents is self-evident. But it appears, that even in the age of Christ, care was also taken for the instruction of youth by the erection of schools on the part of the community. It does not indeed say much. when later tradition fells us that Simon ben Shetach already prescribed that children (תינוקות) should frequent the elementary schools (בית הספר). For this Simon ben Shetach is quite a point of meeting for all kinds of myths. In any case however, in the period of the Mishna, and therefore at latest in the second century after Christ, the existence of elementary schools is assumed. There are e.g. legal appointments with regard to the חַוָּן (servant of the congregation), who instructs children (תינוקות) in reading on the Sabbath. Or it is ordained, that an idle man shall not keep a school for children, לאילמוד אדם רוק סופרים. Or it is appointed, that in certain cases the testimony of an adult with respect to what he saw as a child (קטן) in the elementary school (בית הספר) is valid. Hence the later tradition, that Joshua ben Gamla (= Jesus the son of Gamaliel) enacted that teachers of boys (מלמדי תינוקות) should be appointed in every province and

in every town, and that children of the age of six or seven should be brought to them, is by no means incredible. The only Jesus the son of Gamaliel known to history is the high priest of that name, about 63– 65 after Christ (see above, vol. i. p. 201). It must therefore be he who is intended in the above notice. As his measures presuppose a somewhat longer existence of boys’ schools, we may without hesitation transfer them to the age of Christ, even though not as a general and established institution.

So the Jews of the time of Jesus, whom he accused of teaching the commands of men as if they were from God (Matthew 15:8-9) added to the commands of God in His scriptures when they decided to take the teaching of children out of the hands of the families.  The proof of this is that there is no command in the scriptures (in those times they also had orphans) to form schools to teach children.  Indeed, as Beebe wrote:

In searching the good book we learn that the old Pharisees used to keep a Sabbath School, and by time same authority we learn they were very tenacious in attending it on every Sabbath day. At these ancient schools they used to read Moses in their synagogues, and they were very much engaged in winning souls, making proselytes, &c. But the apostolic church being anti-Sabbatarian, (See Col. ii. 12-17.) chose to remain far behind those denominations, whose zeal ‘was not according to knowledge.

HOW DID THE DEFENDERS OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS SEE THEIR WORK?

From an 1805 publication by the British Sunday School Union titled, A  Plan for the Establishment and Regulation of Sunday Schools, To Which is Prefixed An Address to the Public, on Their Importance and Utility.  The sweeping view of prophecy and the final days, 

"...till every congregation shall be enlarged by the attendance of its Sunday School and every child, however wretched and obscure, shall have the means of instruction placed within its reach. Were this universally the case, it is more than probable that in less than half a century, such a reformation in manners and conduct would take place as the world has never yet beheld."


produced the idea that with their misdirected effort, men could accomplish the work of God.

Providence is preparing for the fulfillment of these prophecies: the means are put into our hands; it only remains for us to use them diligently, depending on the Divine blessing for success.

 "Success" here is never defined, unless it means large numbers of attendees.  Success in this case was transformed from a good goal of teaching reading and writing to teaching spirituality, something which only the Spirit of God can teach.  As Anne Boylan from the University of New Mexico wrote in The Role of Conversion in Nineteenth-Century Sunday Schools:

The founding of Sunday schools began in urban areas in the 1790s as an attempt to provide rudimentary instruction in reading, writing and religion to working children who, in the view of founders like Benjamin Rush and Samuel Slater, lacked other means of acquiring this knowledge. These schools quickly died out, to be replaced in the 1810s by new Sunday schools which, although superficially similar to their predecessors, had very different goals and curricula. Modern Protestant Sunday schools evolved from these later schools which by 1832 numbered over 8000, and enrolled almost ten percent of American children 2 aged 5 to 14.

Compare this to a description of the evolution of Sunday Schools to get the larger picture of their purpose in an editorial titled, Missionary Boxes published in the November 1836 Signs of the Times, Vol. 1 (pgs. 335-338):

When Sunday Schools were first, introduced among us, they professed to be for the benefit of the poor, as charitable institutions, intended only for the benefit of the suffering and much neglected class of community; but what are they now become? Not only are they now viewed as nurseries to the church, auxiliaries to religion, and indispensable to the political security of our government...

And here Beebe sees the larger picture of where things are headed for:

...but they are used as a connecting link, to unite the church and state, and in the following extracts the reader will see that they are now to be made a source of revenue to their pious originators and conductors. Missionary Boxes are to be circulated among the children of Sunday Schools, who are of course supposed to be poor and needy, and for whose aid thousands of pounds have been annually collected from the public, which the poor children never knew anything of or received any benefit from.

"...all to teach the children what neither this lady, nor Ezra Going, nor any of their order themselves appear to believe, viz: that it is more blessed to give than to receive; for if they believe the doctrine they wish others to believe, why are they forever begging, and never allowing themselves the blessed luxury of giving?" Beebe


Further proof how central money was to this organization can be seen for the requirements needed for membership - money and only money.

Any person may become a member of this Society, by paying the sum of one dollar or more annually.  The payment of ten dollars at one time shall constitute a person a member for life; and any person paying twenty-five dollars shall be a director for life.

So the only requirement to be a member of this society was to contribute money.  Satan himself could have joined and, if he gave enough money could have been a director of the society for life!  Judging by the claims made by this society, it appears some of his followers did join the society and made decisions for it.  

The most shocking claim they made for Sunday Schools was the same claim made for the American Baptist Missionary Society and the Triennial Baptist Convention.  Writing of Sunday Schools in a book titled, The Sunday School: An Essay in Three Parts, (originally written in 1846) Louisa Davids states:

...the sabbath school system, faithfully carried out, is the most mighty agency that was ever devised for the subjugation of the kingdom of the evil one, and the building up that of the Redeemer...where, even now, are myriads bowing to Jehovah's presence, praising him that on earth he directed their youthful feet to the sabbath school, where they first heard of a Saviour's love, and first felt the subduing influences of the Holy Spirit...

This is a fascinating statement to make considering all the scenes represented in the Bible concerning the Lord's people in the presence of God are too busy in awe of His resplendent beauty and glory to praise anything else but Him person!

The Sunday School can subjugate the kingdom of the evil one?  Where is this mentioned in scripture?  If this was such an essential and important institution, then why is there no mention of it in the New Testament?  Was the church advanced by the Lord Jesus lacking anything necessary to glorify and serve the Lord?  Apparently so according to Ms. Davids!

Leonard Woods

Another abuse of these societies, which still goes on today as we shall demonstrate in a future article, is their usurpation of authority properly belonging only to God, concentration of power and funds!

In a typical hagiography of Luther Rice (an important force behind the American Baptist Missionary Society and other "benevolent" societies), titled, Luther Rice: Dreamer and Doer by John Mark Terry, it mentions the ordination sermon for Luther Rice delivered by a Leonard Woods (a supposed "calvinistic" professor at Andover Theological Seminary) which he sent Rice off with these words:

We, in the mean time, will pray, that the salvation of souls may be your joy, and crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord. Amen.

Salvation of souls may be Rice's joy?  Why his?  Is not God the only one who can save a soul?  Can Rice or any other missionary, preacher or creature under heaven do it?

Adoniram Judson

These societies would decide where their hireling missionary was to be sent.  Instead of the New Testament model where God himself would direct the Apostles where He wanted, now God needs the assistance of the Board of Directors of a society to make the decision for Him.  Even in this sympathetic and supportive paper about Luther Rice we find this passage speaking of Rice's leave the United States and return to Burma to join his comrade in missionary endeavors Adoniram Judson.

He wrote the Board in 1817 expressing his desire to join Judson in Burma. The Board decided, however, “that it is not the duty of Mr. Rice, as yet, to depart for the Burman empire.”

How would these men know what the duty of Rice was?  The answer is simple. Since they were funding him, they controlled him.  Obviously, Rice had a credibility problem, since Judson, disappointed that he would not be joining him in Burma wrote:

Your great work is mainly done. If you should close your American labors by actually embarking as a missionary, it would add great weight to all your past deeds, and be most suitable and worthy consummation. You would perhaps do more good in America, by such a measure, than your presence would effect. It would at least stamp a character of sincerity on the whole affair, which multitudes will otherwise question.

We use the missionary society here an an example, but the same methods were used by all the societies.  The controlled the funds, they would then control their employees.  Rice was asked to form the American Baptist Publication Society which published tracts as well as Sunday School materials in 1824.  His life ended in a financial scandal through his mismanagement of money, resulting in his dismissal from his position as the President of Columbian College, later to become George Washington University.

The next installment of this series will cover the unscriptural Vacation Bible Schools and "Children's Church".