Posted on 08/13/2003 3:04:46 PM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
During the colonial era of the 1700s, the most important battleground in America was in our churches. It was from the pulpits of Christian churches that faithful preachers of the gospel of Christ sought to ignite the glorious flame of God-given freedom and self-responsibility in the hearts and minds of Americans. And they applied the practice of this godly freedom and self-responsibility to the home, to the church, to business and society as a whole, and to the state. Without this continual educational effort by Christian preachers, which lasted for generations, there would have been no American Revolution, no history of Christian-based education in our country, nor would there have evolved an America which came to be known all over the world as "the home of the free and the brave." Indeed, the British crown so feared the power of America's preachers that they were dubbed the "black brigade!"
But the stentorian cry of freedom from most of America's church pulpits has long been silenced. And the scene of our spiritual battlefield has now shifted to the classroom — from pre-kindergarten to college and even post-graduate. It is in the humble classrooms of America's struggling Christian schools — homeschools, elementary schools, high schools, and colleges — versus the classrooms of richly endowed, secularly oriented private and tax-supported educational institutions — that the continued battle of freedom for the hearts and minds of American youth will be won or lost. And this ongoing intellectual and spiritual battle must be fought anew for each generation. Secular Education
Some years ago I was invited to speak to the combined student body and faculty of a state university in North Texas on their "Free Enterprise Day." I chose "The Biblical Basis of the Free Market" as my topic. And, believe it or not, I received a very warm reception from the students. Then I got a surprise. The head of the Business Education Department asked me to meet with him in private.
"I liked what you had to say in your talk," he said. "How can I implement what you talked about here, at a state teachers' university?"
I replied that I didn't think he could do so on a consistent basis.
"Why not?" he asked.
"What view of man does your state university hold to?" I queried.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Doesn't your school hold to the view that man is the result of organic evolution, instead of being created in the image and likeness of God? As long as your institution holds to an anti-Biblical view of man," I explained, "you will eventually run afoul of the bureaucratic structure here if you attempt to consistently teach the Biblical view of man that I spoke about today."
"I see," this fine Christian man replied. "What you are saying is that I should quit my job."
"No, though that is always an option. What I'm saying is that you must recognize the basic conflict of views that exists between the humanistic view of man your institution holds to and the Biblical world-and-life view I expounded today. And then you must be willing to pay the price when the eventual confrontation comes to a head and you are asked to change or to resign."
I don't know what choice that well-intentioned Christian man made, but it is practically impossible for anyone who is part of a humanistically oriented institution — especially a tax-supported one — to consistently present a Biblical view of man to students. To do so would strike at the roots of the secular institution. This is also why parents put their children in grave spiritual danger by allowing them to attend tax-supported schools and universities.
John Dunphy, a "New Age" leader, clearly laid out the spiritual battle that Christian young people will encounter by attending tax-supported schools:
[T]he battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity....
The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and miseries, and the new faith of Humanism, ... will finally be achieved.1
Dunphy's statement of the spiritual warfare that exists in tax-supported education not only warns parents against the foolishness of entrusting their precious children to humanistically oriented educators, but it also should warn them about the textbooks that are used in tax-supported institutions: True Christian education also requires Biblically oriented textbooks! Christian Education
To develop a consistent approach to Christian education, we must first start with a Biblical view of man — that man is created in the very image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-28) and that man, therefore, has the right to be free2; but he also has the duty to stand before God as a self-responsible individual (Ex. 8:1). In other words, freedom and self-responsibility to God go hand in hand. Then, too, we must recognize that man is a fallen creature in need of salvation by God's grace alone and that he is condemned to live in a world that has been adversely affected by Adam's sin as man's federal head (Gen. 3). This presents a number of problems and contradictions: First, while it is God's plan for man to be free and self-responsible, he can't be trusted to wield power over others (Jer. 17:9) because of his sin problem. Thus the need for a civil government with limited authority. In short, the civil authority is to be a negative force in society (Rom. 13:3-4; 1 Tim. 2:1-2).
A starting point for our thinking about how to teach Biblically is to understand how man thinks and acts to improve his feeling of well being. As indicated above, we must consider what man is (a fallen sinner), his origin (a God-created being), and his destiny (to spend eternity either in heaven or hell). He is a self-responsible individual who is subject to God's universal law-structure that reigns over the whole creation.
For analytical purposes we can divide God's law-structure into:
With regard to the spiritual sphere of life, we should recognize that it encompasses all of God's creation. It envelops both the economic and political spheres. Accordingly, because of man's fallen nature, we must recognize that there is a constant tension between the political sphere and the broad economic sphere (of family, church, work, and play in society). For instance, we see through the study of history how civil rulers have always shown a seemingly inescapable tendency toward tyranny by attempting to overrule God's established laws.3 It is because of man's fallen nature and his tendency (even the Christian) to sink into humanistic thinking, that all teaching must be based on God's Word. If we are to replace ungodly foundations and institutions with godly ones, we must be guided by the Apostle Paul's admonition in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds:)
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
The points listed above touch upon just a few of the rich insights regarding education that can be garnered from the Bible, which was the daily handbook of the early Christians who settled in colonial America. Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America in the 1830s, was amazed to see the strong influence of Biblical Christianity in our young republic, and he specifically wrote in his Democracy in America about finding the Bible in daily use on the far frontiers by backwoodsmen and their families. America was built on the Bible and the Christian world-and-life view the Bible produced. We have largely lost this necessary and blessed influence in our modern society, but it can be regained if Christian families become more faithful to God by turning away from the false promises of secular-based, tax-supported education to true Christian education either by homeschooling or by attending honest-to-goodness, real Christian schools and colleges.
The choice between government-imposed tyranny or self-responsible freedom is always but one generation away, depending upon whom we invite or allow to inculcate our children, our most precious heritage and responsibility. J. Gresham Machen said it well:
But while tyranny itself is nothing new, ... the tyranny of the scientific expert is the most crushing tyranny of all. That tyranny is being exercised most effectively in the field of education. A monopolistic system of education controlled by the State is far more efficient in crushing our liberty than the cruder weapons of fire and sword. Against this monopoly of education by the State the Christian school brings a salutary protest; it contends for the right of parents to bring up their children in accordance with the dictates of their conscience and not in the manner prescribed by the State.4
Notes
1. John Dunphy, "A Religion for a New Age," The Humanist Magazine (Jan./Feb., 1983).
2. Man's right to be free follows logically from the creation account: God shared His free nature with man.Would God gift man with an attribute He did not expect man to enjoy and use? Biblically, man's freedom cannot be separated from his responsibility to God. Readers who are interested in a more-in-depth treatment of this topic can refer to: Tom Rose, Economics, Principles and Policy and God, Gold, and Civil Government (Mercer, PA: American Enterprise Publications).
3. See: Tom Rose, Economics: Principles and Policy, Chapter 4, "The Relationship Between Economics and Political Science" (Mercer, PA: American Enterprise Publications, 1996), 61-88.
4. J. Gresham Machen, "The Necessity of the Christian School," chap. in Education, Christianity, and the State, ed. by John W. Robbins (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1987), 67-68.
Tom Rose is retired professor of economics, Grove City College, Pennsylvania. He is author of nine books and hundreds of articles dealing with economic and political issues, including economic textbooks for use by Christian colleges, high schools and home educators. Rose's latest books are: Free Enterprise Economics in America and God, Gold, and Civil Government, published by American Enterprise Publications, 177 N. Spring Road, Mercer, PA 16137. Phone: 724-748-3726; Website: www.biblicaleconomics.com.
Twenty years ago this month, an ad hoc commission established by then-Education Secretary Terrell H. Bell released a report entitled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform. The report quickly became the most widely discussed educational reform blueprint in American history. One sentence in the report summarized the commission's take on the status of American education: "If an unfriendly power had attempted to im-pose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."
Although the report generated a landslide of attention and multiple reform efforts, our education system is still in crisis. We have not solved the problems identified in the report because the teacher unions have consistently blocked meaningful reforms. Teacher Unions vs. Good Schools -- May 2003 Education Reporter
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author is warning that widespread ignorance of American history among students and teachers at high schools and colleges is a major threat to the nation's security.
According to McCullough, who is a past president of the Society of American Historians, American citizens cannot function in a society if they do not know who they are and from where they came. He said only three colleges in the United States require a course on the Constitution in order to graduate -- and those are the three major military academies (the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs). Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat
The Washington Times notes other speakers who appeared before the panel voiced similar concerns.
The Heartland Institute Where Do Public Education Dollars Go?
Author: School Reform News staff
Published: The Heartland Institute 06/01/2003
U.S. public education spent a total of $410.6 billion in school year 2000-01, according to Public Education Finances 2001, a March 2003 report from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau. Out of each public education dollar spent, 85.4 cents went for current spending, 11.9 cents went for capital outlays, and 2.7 cents went for other expenditures.
The 85.4 cents for current expenditures was made up of 51.8 cents for instruction, 28.9 cents for support services, and 4.7 cents for other current spending.
The Commerce Department publication also reported $402.4 billion in total public education revenues for 2000-01. Of each public education dollar raised, 49.9 cents came from state sources, 43.0 cents came from local sources, and 7.1 cents came from federal sources.
Total school district debt outstanding at the end of the year was $201.6 billion, roughly half of annual revenues. Fall 2000 enrollment in public schools was 47.2 million students.
Finding: The five top reasons parents cited for homeschooling their children: "Can give a better education at home (48.9 percent); "religious reasons" (38.4 percent); "poor learning environment at school" (25.6 percent); "family reasons"(16.8 percent); and "to develop character/morality" (15.1 percent).
Sample or Data Description
Data from the 1999 Parent Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program
Source
Stacey Bielick, Kathryn Chandler, and Stephen P. Broughman
"Homeschooling in the United States: 1999"
U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics .
Vol. , Number . July, 2001. Page(s) .
Why Should Congress Abolish the Federal Role in Education?HSLDA | ... A Violation of the 10th Amendment
The federal role in education is a violation of the 10th amendment of the United States Constitution which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government delegated the power to regulate or fund elementary or secondary education. Department of ED: A Bureaucratic Spending Trough
In the face of stiff opposition, the federal government formed the Department of Education (ED) in 1979. Supporters promised that the ED would have a relatively small budget of only $14.5 billion and less than 100 employees. Today, the ED enjoys a hefty budget of over $32 billion and employs 5,100 people (89.4% of whom were deemed nonessential during the November 1995 government shutdown).1 The education spending rate since the department’s founding has risen three times as fast as non-defense discretionary programs (29.5% versus 7.9%).2 Federal Programs Actively Seek to Usurp States’ Authority
In 1989, most of the nation’s governors drafted a comprehensive set of federal education goals. These goals would center on a ten year plan to improve education by setting high achievement standards (federal standards) which states would have to meet by the year 2000. Thus, Goals 2000 began its unpopular legislative career. States would be given partial funding for the Goals by the ED. Several states (Alabama, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Montana) balked at the program, fearing the federal regulations which would naturally follow the money. This did not matter to the ED, who simply made the funds available directly to the local school districts regardless of the Governor or legislature’s position. Again, this represents a radical, unconstitutional usurpation by the Federal Department of Education. Federal Funds Create Red Tape
Although statistics show that only seven percent of an average school’s budget is subsidized by the feds3, local districts complain about massive paperwork and red tape required to receive these skimpy funds. A 1991 survey of Ohio school districts found that each district was required to fill out an average of 330 forms, of which 157 were from the state and 173 were from the federal government.4 The federal government, responsible for only seven percent of the budget, causes 55% of the red tape. The Cost
On February 28, 1996, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives held a comprehensive meeting on abolishing the Department of Education. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), flanked by Congressman Goodling (R-PA), McKeon (R-CA) and others, produced the results of an investigation by the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee. The committee documented 760 unconstitutional federal education programs located in 39 separate agencies, departments, commissions and boards. The combined, unconstitutional funds totaled $120 billion! Further, the committee found that only six percent of these programs have as their primary function the teaching of math, reading, or science!
Goodling stated, "This massive list of federal education programs clearly demonstrates what many of us had suspected for quite some time that Washington is out of control and out of touch." Pointing out a huge stack of papers required for all the Education Department’s programs, McKeon remarked, "The Clintons say that it takes a village to raise a child, but that is only because it takes a village to fill out this paper work."
We are Christians, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, denouncing the Democratic party as constitutionally anti-Christian. DNC: The Godless Party, Practical Atheism - Touchstone, April, June 03
The thermometer results show that white fundamentalists have positive feelings toward Catholics. Their score of 62 degrees was identical to the average score that Jews gave to Catholics and significantly warmer than the mean rating given to Catholics by the religiously nonaffiliated or by secularists. Our Secularist Democratic Party (Long, Important Analysis)
For the average American today, as for the average individual in Nietzsche's Germany, it simply makes no practical difference whether God exists or not. This is true in spite of those polls that show that 98 percent of Americans believe in God. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and the Death of God
Now, 25 years later, I am ashamed to be a Democrat. More than that, I have come to fear my own party. Hatred and corruption - the roots of fascism - are on the march in America as they have never been before, and leading this march is the Democratic Party. Increasingly, mainstream Democrats are uncomfortable with what we see in our party. We may not have a real name for it, but we know it is dangerous. DNC Fascists -WorldNetDaily, Bob Just, July 25, 2000
Aldrich is afraid the Hard-Left might use American national security and our War on Terrorism as a veil for its goal of a massive authoritarian government. Book Review: Thunder on the Left by Gary Aldrich
The rest of the table demonstrates that secular voters and most religious minorities fell squarely in the Democratic camp. Secular voters favored Gore over Bush by an almost two-to-one margin. FT October 2001: America Fifty/Fifty
It was the issue of education which caused me to realize how far the Democrats had strayed from any semblance of being for "the little guy."
Education, more than any other issue, can be the "wedge" in peeling off voters from the Democratic Party. These voters would find themselves in agreement with the thrust of this article.
It's hard to argue with the truth.
I shall read it later tonight.
Off to make dinner!
When in the Course of EDUCATIONAL events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.(4)
[…]
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these STATES, solemnly publish and declare, That these STATES are, and of Right ought to be Free TO CREATE… Independent LOCAL SCHOOLS; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the FEDERAL GOVT, and that all political connection between them and the FEDERAL GOVT, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent SCHOOLS, they have full Power to…. do all other Acts and Things which Independent SCHOOLS may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Depends on your job. What is it?
"The same is true of science. Although Christianity is often mocked as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, the reality is that everything in human history except for the Judeo-Christian tradition is superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Science, as we know it, was exclusively the invention of Christians. Aside from a few ancient Greeks - notably Pythagoras and Archimedes - science as an explanation for reality did not exist among the ancients."
"Islam produced a smattering of mathematical geniuses, but no great physical scientists at all. India and China were vastly wealthier and more ancient than Europe, but science simply did not exist in either of these ancient civilizations. The Amerindian societies of the Inca and Maya both achieved prodigious technological feats, but no science."
"More significantly - and this ties in directly to the complaints about Mel Gibson and The Passion - science arose exclusively out of Christian and not out of Judeo-Christian tradition. The mockery often made of medieval reaction to Galileo and Copernicus has produced a legend of intolerant Christians."
"It was rather specifically the tolerance of science, the tolerance of differences, the tolerance of those seeking fearlessly the truth of a loving God that made science the exclusive province of professing or at least nominal Christians. Galileo, Copernicus, Pascal, and Napier were all orthodox and serious Christians. Newton and Kepler were nominal Christians who were deeply concerned about religion. These men created science as we know it."
"The complete domination of science by Christians continued through the Middle Ages and well into the modern era. James Clerk Maxwell, arguably a greater scientific genius than either Newton or Einstein, was a profoundly serious Christian. Lord Kelvin, to whom we owe the law of entropy, chaos theory, the finite limits of thermodynamic activity (absolute zero), and most of the principles of thermodynamics, was equally pious."
"The immense and dramatic contribution of later Jewish scientists - Michaelson, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli and many others - did not come until long after Christians had created modern science. Medieval Judaism, like Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism and every other metaphysical system except Christianity, was hostile to science."
"Why does this matter?"
"Because one of the charges against Mel Gibson and The Passion is that reliance upon the Gospels is typical Christian hillbilly mentality - and yet this is the ... ... precise belief structure --- that created the vast majority of intellectual understanding of the modern world. Fidelity to truth, confidence that our truth is the shadowy outline of a loving Creator, and unprecedented genius which flowed directly from that confidence is the surest evidence serious Christians cannot be dismissed by serious critics as hayseeds or kooks."
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