(The Lion) — It’s been coming for a while, but now it’s bold and public: Southern Baptists are urging churches to start and host Christian schools.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, is rolling out resources to encourage its 47,000 member churches to involve themselves in Christian K-12 education.

Chief among them is The Education Reformation: Why Your Church Should Start a Christian School, a book written by Florida pastor Dr. Jimmy Scroggins and Trevin Wax, who works for the SBC’s North American Mission Board (NAMB).

The book sounds the battle cry for Christian schools, arguing that public schools have turned against basic Christian values. It also says more Christians, and even some non-Christians, are seeking alternatives to the woke and sexually confused agenda being promulgated in many schools.

To combat that, believers can “recover the powerful partnership between the home, the neighborhood church, and the church-based school,” Scroggins writes. “We are calling for a recommitment. A recovery. A renewal. A return to a dynamic partnership that can reshape our families, restore our churches, and reach the lost. And maybe, just maybe, this reformation can bring spiritual revival to our nation.”

Even if some schools have not embraced the leftist agenda, it’s almost inevitable, leading to a call for urgency.

“We are urging neighborhood churches to mobilize now,” Scroggins writes. “Even if, in your own part of the world, things appear to be fine, you must understand the times in which we live. This world is changing – and fast. The sooner your church begins creating church-based schools, the stronger and further along those schools will be in the future when they are really needed.

“We believe that in the near future and in most places, the majority of Christian parents will do whatever it takes to put their kids in Christian schools,” he continues. “They will need options. The ideological gap between Christians and the secular educational philosophies, along with a myriad of other concerns, will simply become too great.”

The book and resources such as “Case Studies of Christian schools” are available from NAMB. Wax says the organization is responding to requests from pastors grappling with how to respond to the trends in public schools and whether to start a Christian school.

He credits the pandemic, the woke agenda and the rise of school choice programs with creating demand for alternatives.

“The question of how we disciple the next generation is always at the forefront of pastors’ minds, and if church-based schools could be a part of that solution, and if all of these other elements are coming together to make for an interesting cultural moment in this regard, it just makes sense that there would be some attention given to schools.” Wax told The Lion.

Although the effort is non-binding and member churches have autonomy on how to respond, Wax and Scroggins are strong in their call. “Every neighborhood church with a neighborhood building should consider starting some sort of neighborhood Christian school,” they write.

This also represents a break from past SBC practice of supporting public schools and sending kids there to be ‘salt and light.’ Many wives of pastors worked as public school teachers since the job was portable if they moved to a new church, says Mark Wingfield of left-leaning Baptist News Global.

“Prior to the ‘conservative resurgence’ in the last 20th century, the SBC was known as a staunch ally and advocate for public education,” Wingfield writes. “Unlike Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and Missouri Synod Lutherans, most Southern Baptist churches eschewed calls for church-based schools, believing they could have a greater influence inside public schools than outside them.”

There was an attempt in 2004 for the SBC to pass a resolution calling members to pull their children out of public school, but it never made it to the floor. Wax says that such a resolution probably wouldn’t pass today, but the changing environment has put the education discussion back on the table.

“There are more options available in many states that suddenly make other educational opportunities more affordable, and there have been cultural turns that make it just more challenging and more difficult for faithful Christians doing admirable work in the public school system to be able to do so in good conscience,” he says.

The missions board, which serves pastors and church planters across North America, has partnered with the Association of Christian Schools International, the largest Christian school network, to provide school-based resources.

“We are calling upon pastors to envision a generation of ambassadors for Jesus Christ, molded through Christian education,” said ACSI President & CEO Larry Taylor in a release.

A smaller organization, founded in 1979 as the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, has networked and helped plant schools primarily across the South and Eastern United States. That group, which is now known as the National Alliance of Christian Schools, continues its mission, but is not directly part of NAMB’s thrust.

Wax and Scroggins emphasize that Southern Baptist churches should not abandon public schools altogether, even as more Christian schools start.

Scroggins’ Family Church in West Palm Beach has started a Christian school but still actively assists local public schools. He urges churches to partner with principals, serve teachers and needy families, help out with after-school programs or provide other types of aid to public schools.

“It’s really not a retreatist sort of mentality,” Wax says of the call for more Christian schools. “It’s a way of opening up a new front of engagement to the culture.”