A Republican candidate for South Carolina lieutenant governor says Christians should remove their children from public schools.

“It’s our hope and prayer that a fresh obedience by Christian families and educating their children according to biblical commands will prove to be a key for the revival of our families, our churches, and our nation,” said Ray Moore, a retired Army Reserves chaplain and president of Frontline Ministries.

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Moore told a gathering of Tea Party activists at the April 12 Liberty Rally that Christians must leave the “Pharaoh’s school system” for religious schools or home schools.

“We cannot win this war we’re in as long as we keep handing our children over to the enemy to educate,” he told the crowd.

Moore announced his candidacy last month, and he’ll face real estate developer Pat McKinney, attorney Bakari Sellers, and GOP activist Mike Campbell in the Republican primary.

He questions spending additional money for “students living in poverty” or to improve school technology in South Carolina, saying the public education model has been proven a failure.

“All of the symptoms, the things that we’re fighting and complaining about today has been caused because the culture has changed,” Moore said. “The culture has turned against God, against the Constitution, and against traditional values.”

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Moore, who founded the Exodus Mandate organization and backs the “School Risk Audit” of LGBT tolerance in schools, claims 40 percent of public school students turn away from the church by the end of elementary school, and he claims that number jumps to 80 percent by the end of high school.

“It’s fundamentally and largely responsible because of the public school system we’ve had (for) six or seven generations, when most of us have put our children in the godless, pagan school system,” Moore said. “It cannot be fixed, the socialistic model, and we need to abandon that. As conservatives and Christians, if you think you’re going to win this war you’re in, and leave your children in those schools, it will not happen.”

Watch Moore speak in this video posted online by Dennis Wenger: