BULLARD — Michael Reagan stressed the importance of a Christian education Monday night, telling a crowd at The Brook Hill School that it was that very thing that helped bring him back to God and strengthen his relationship with his father.

“It’s really about changing lives,” he said, adding that lives will change for the better because of Christian education.

He went on to talk about his own education, his faith, and how he became part of the Reagan family. He said he was able to eulogize his father in 2004 because of God, and that neither he nor his father would have gotten to where they did without that relationship.

As for himself, he said he was sexually abused as a child and went through a period where he hated God.

“I didn’t understand then what was going on in my life,” he said.

While he struggled with his relationship with God, his father was “always with God,” he said.

“He saw America as a Godly nation, and he wanted” to serve it, Reagan said.

For instance, he said when Ronald Reagan was shot, he forgave the shooter, John Hinckley.

Toward the end of his speech, Reagan talked about hugging his father and telling him he loved him. He encouraged audience members to embrace students in the same way.

“How you raise them up is going to change the world …” Reagan said. “The future is in that classroom.”

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