In recent days, our family faced a decision that many Christian parents around the world will understand: how should we respond when a school promotes an initiative that, although wrapped in the language of peace and civic harmony, relies on ideas, methods, and symbols that are difficult to reconcile with a Christian worldview?
In our case, the school organised a Peace March for all students. It was presented as a public demonstration involving songs, posters, and the participation of political or institutional figures.
The intention behind the event was, on the surface, positive and widely appealing. Yet upon closer examination, at least three concerns emerged—concerns that deserve open discussion. Not out of hostility or contrarian spirit, but out of educational responsibility.
The family remains the primary place of education
Both Scripture and common experience tell us that the primary responsibility for moral and spiritual education rests with the family. In Italy—where we serve—even the Constitution affirms that. It is the family—not the school, not the state—that God entrusts with the task of shaping a child’s conscience.
For Christians, teaching children about peace goes far beyond encouraging politeness or emotional harmony. Peace is not a vague sentiment nor a utopian ideal. It is the fruit of truth, justice, and reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is a reality rooted in the work of the Son of God, not in a well-choreographed public event.
Schools certainly have a valuable role in civic education. But they cannot take over the ethical, spiritual, and theological discernment that parents cultivate daily at home. When public demonstrations are proposed as educational tools for children of all ages, tension arises between what children learn in the family and what is presented to them as a supposedly “shared value”.
When the method becomes the message
The second concern is not so much what the school wants to emphasise, but how it wants to teach it. The use of a public march as a pedagogical tool reflects a cultural pattern more ideological than it may initially appear.
Across much of the Western world, especially in the last decades, certain strands of progressive thought have often prioritised public activism over critical reflection. They tend to favour the crowd over the classroom discussion, slogans over real dialogue, shared emotion over genuine understanding.
A march easily becomes a kind of social ritual: walking together, singing together, holding up colourful posters. All of it creates the impression of standing “on the right side”. Yet none of it necessarily leads to a deeper grasp of the issues involved.
The problem is not the desire for peace. The problem lies in an approach that encourages emotional alignment rather than informed discernment. Activism replaces thought. Participation replaces comprehension. Appearances replace truth.
And what of the children? They are swept into a symbolic gesture whose assumptions and consequences they cannot possibly understand. They are not discussing history, not examining causes, not learning through reason. They are merely taking part. But participation is not understanding.
Imagine: a powerful tune with a powerless vision
As part of the preparation for the march, the children were asked to learn John Lennon’s Imagine, presented as an anthem for peace. There is no denying the song’s emotional impact or cultural weight. But its message, theologically speaking, is notoriously incompatible with a Christian understanding of peace.
And our kids noticed it immediately. As soon as they read the opening line—“Imagine there’s no heaven”—they objected, confidently and simply, out of their faith in Jesus. Thank God for that clarity.
As I summarised for the school in a written reflection, Imagine promotes a vision of peace achieved by removing God, heaven, eternal hope, moral boundaries, and even the diversity of nations. It imagines peace not through reconciliation, but through subtraction—subtracting everything Scripture considers essential for human dignity and true restoration.
Biblical peace, as Paul writes, is born from justification by faith: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Without God, what remains is a fragile utopia built on human longing rather than truth.
Presenting this message to children as a “universal model” risks confusing Christian faith with an explicitly secular, humanistic worldview—one that denies transcendence altogether. Christian parents cannot ignore that risk.
Our calling: to stand firm and remain faithful
These experiences reveal how urgent it is for Christian families to live their educational calling with clarity and conviction. We live in a culture that turns every value into a slogan, every virtue into a gesture, every principle into a visual performance. Schools, often unintentionally, absorb these methods: marches, songs, posters, catchphrases, and emotional simplifications.
But the peace of Christ does not grow in such soil. It is not born in a square, but in a regenerated heart. It does not rest on collective sentiment, but on revealed truth. It is not an emotion, but a gift God gives when He reconciles a person to Himself.
For that reason, there are times when parents must simply, calmly, say “no”. Not as rebels, not as contrarians, but as guardians of their children—protecting them from things that may look good yet lack substance.
And why not, such moments can also become opportunities to proclaim the gospel. This was our approach when we wrote to the school principal, reminding her:
“We raise our children with the conviction that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the fruit of justice, truth, and—above all—eternal reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus, the Son of God and Messiah.”
In a time when everything feels unstable, the Christian home remains a place of solidity. A place where peace is not a song to perform but a reality to live, upheld by the certainty that Christ “is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14).
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