Church Planter: Forthcoming from Darrin Patrick, VP of Acts 29 Church Planting Network

Natural Revelation: Its Perspicuity, per Calvin

“Since the perfection of blessedness consists in the knowledge of God, he has been pleased, in order that none might be excluded from the means of obtaining felicity, not only to deposit in our minds that seed of religion...but so manifest his perfections in the whole structure of the universe, and daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him.  His essence is, indeed, incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none, however dull or illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse...the manifestation of the Godhead being too clear to escape the notice of any people, however obtuse.”

John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, I:V:1

Thanks and blessings to my beautiful and dear wife, Fanny, for her eye for Cedar Wax-Wings and gift for photography!

The Hype Against Homeschooling

We often heard—and still hear as former homeschoolers—that by isolating our daughter from the swim of her cohort within the context of the public school system, we were depriving her of the necessary conditions of social maturation and normalcy.  If children are to properly mature and grow into balanced, healthy adults, ready for the so-called “real world,” then they must, above all, experience the allegedly normalizing potion called public school. 

It is safe in the nurturing womb of this venerated social institution that children have their hearts and minds cultivated.  In the bosom of the State, the children have their intellectual, psychological, moral, and spiritual lives fed by the pap of Caesar.  Or so the rhetoric goes.

So insidious is this faulty line of nonsense that, when we returned home to Kansas for the first time, after having been in Virginia a couple of years, some of our closest family made remarks about how “normal” Israel was—despite being homeschooled those two years.  In one subtle form or another, with the exception of this last time—after Israel had graduated high school a year early—it happened every visit thereafter. 

In October of last year, I had a close cousin take me aside at a family shindig, and with as much sincerity as I’ve ever seen in him, he said, “If I am able to raise my two girls into half the young lady that Beaner (i.e., Israel) is, then I’ll feel like I did a darn good job.”  What a humbling statement!  This was obviously a lovely thing to hear, especially from one of our family, since ours is completely unafraid of being obnoxiously honest with each other. 

Of course, Israel is what she is by the grace of God, and I shared that with Nathan my complimentary cousin.  The truth of the matter is, however, that education in the context of the covenant family is a very important means of grace for raising godly offspring.  So, we believe that in good measure Israel’s well-developed character and personality, her gracious heart, and her biblical view of life and the world grew largely out of, not in spite of, her homeschool experience. 

What of this de facto assumption that public education is the formula for augmenting a child’s maturity and normalcy, and preparing them for the so-called “real world”?   What is interesting is that it is the nearly unsupervised co-mingling of children within the context of their cohort, with all its attending allurements and temptations, which cause many youth to mature far beyond what their emotions, minds, and even bodies are prepared or designed to handle.   

Ironically, juvenile justice scholars decry this aspect of the youth culture, accrediting it to be a primary contributor to juvenile delinquency.  As a result of the accelerated maturation, caused by the public school environment, “many suffer from health problems, are underachievers in school, and are skeptical about their ability to enter the workforce and become productive members of society.”[1]  The other irony is that public educators propose themselves and their institution to either be or have the solution to the youth crisis—it's priest craft. 

So, the duped populace will tell you that, if you homeschool your child, then it will result hampering her proper levels of maturation and social normalcy.  However, it is the public school context that cultures the very pre-maturation and pscyho-social problems that are so-called “normal” today, and often lead to a life of delinquency.  Therefore, the concern expressed by unwitting family and friends, interpreted in terms of the facts, actually says: If you homeschool, your child will be more likely to avoid the unhealthy and ungodly influences that lead to an unproductive outlook or problems of a worse nature.  And this, dear friends, is hardly a sound argument against homeschooling; rather, it's one for it.

Finally, what is the “real world” after all?  In this conversation, “real world” is a loaded term.  Most who make this suggestion haven’t really carefully thought through what they are saying.  They usually don’t even have any meaningful content to share, if you ask them what exactly they mean by “real world.”  That has been my experience at any rate.  The unspoken meaning, however, connoted the very crises that are being decried by the so-called experts.  Facing bullying, “Just Say(ing) No” to the manifold pressures to participate in drug and alcohol use, sexual temptations or harassments, learning how to sit quietly under an arbitrary authority, learning how to keep your mouth shut, while a supposed authority figure contradicts every meaningful conviction, belief, and value of your personal perspective, and other such madness.  This is what is meant by “real world,” in the mind of the objector. 

Do you see the underlying premise?  The underlying premise is that the public school is primarily designed for socialization not education.  No one is so stupid as to try to argue that public education better equips the student’s mind and intellectual development over homeschooling—the data against such nonsense is overwhelming.  No; rather, public school is an institution for social engineering, to develop not careful, critical thinkers, who can reason on their own but good little boys and girls, who can perpetuate the myths of naturalistic, secular humanism.  State schools are not academic but religious institutions, and the loaded definition of “real world” is simply the humanists’ historical narrative; the “real world” is just their narration of the world. 

After years in the dog business, literally every aspect of it, I’ve seen so many folks drop their dog of to be boarded for the weekend or longer, weeping, so anxious to hear the promise that little Princess will receive the best care available, that she be protected from all the other dogs in the kennel, and that she receive her mile walk each day, and blah, blah, blah.  Sadly, though, how many Christians send their kids off to a public school, often not even knowing the name of the teacher(s), his religion, sexual orientation, background, worldview, politics, ethics, etc.?  What is wrong with this picture?  The oft quoted Proverb goes, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (22:6).  It should be no surprise that eighty to ninety percent of Christian children wash their hands of the Church and the Faith before the end of their freshman year of college.   

    

  

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[1] Siegel, L. J., and B. C. Welsh, Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, 4^th ed. (Mason, OH: Cengage Learning), 3.

ABORTION: AN INDECENT LIBERTY

In every free society—governed by justice and equity—there are no two rights that are more venerated than life and liberty. When these two rights are maintained in their relative balance, that society flourishes. However, when pitted against each other, our “rights” can strangely result in societal confusion and polarization.

Every sphere of our culture is affected by the polarizing and confusing watershed which flows from the debate over elective abortion. The reason is the pro-abortion party has introverted the logical priority of life and liberty.

After 40 years of fierce contest, the best and loudest argument heard from the pro-abortion position is that pro-lifers are against individual rights to freedom of choice and personal liberty. In other words, “To be pro-life,” they insist, “is to be anti-choice, thus anti-liberty.” This, however, is neither an argument nor true. Additionally, such rhetoric destroys true liberty, perverting it into autonomous/libertine freedom—a sacred cow. The pro-life position, correctly understood, alone, promotes the proper equilibrium between life and liberty, which is necessary for a healthy and free human community. Let me explain what I mean.

First, we know intuitively that in a just society, rights aren’t particularized, exclusive of one another; each has its place of priority within a unified hierarchy of other rights. Every civil culture exists by means of each individual in the community surrendering certain of their personal liberties. For example, moving from the country for the conveniences of city life means you’re giving up the liberty of shooting a gun in your back yard, since this would endanger the lives of others. Thus, none of us has the liberty to jeopardize and/or end the life of another innocent member of our community. Hence, the right to life has priority over individual liberty, in a truly free society.

Neither are liberties morally neutral. Perhaps the distinction between bad and criminal decisions would serve well to further illustrate this point. For instance, many believe getting drunk is a bad decision, but all know that getting drunk and driving is a criminal choice. Further, smoking is a bad decision; smoking crack-cocaine is a criminal one. In many cases, exercising one’s sexual liberty can be a bad decision, but doing so on an unwilling other or a child is always and rightly a criminal one; it’s an indecent liberty, as we say. So, when one exercises one’s liberties at the expense of another’s life or liberty, that one’s liberties are immoral and criminal—in a word—indecent.

From the foregoing, two further observations arise. (1) Once the relative rights of life and liberty are correctly understood within the context of a truly free society, it becomes evident that the pro-abortion party has escalated the autonomous, individual liberty of the mother so far as to extinguish the value and logical priority of the more fundamental right to life; namely that of her child’s. Here, then, is the catalyst of the polarity and confusion surrounding elective abortion.

Moreover, (2) the flip-flopping of these two rights was expressed this way in the past: “It’s not about slavery, it’s about states' rights!” Similarly today, “It’s not about life, it’s about women’s rights!” It’s the pro-life position therefore that seeks to preserve the equilibrium of our society’s most cherished rights, keeping liberty civil by insisting it remains subjugated to the higher right to life. This is justice, equity, and a necessary condition of a truly free society.

Secondly, all this begs the question—the only relevant one—“What is in the womb?” How this question is answered determines whether elective abortion is a civil or indecent exercise of liberty.

Justice Blackmun, in authoring the official decision of the infamous Roe v. Wade case, recognized this much, saying, “If the suggestion of personhood [of the unborn] is established, the appellant’s case (i.e., elective abortion), of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth Amendment]” (Roe, 410 U.S., 157—58). Has the status of the unborn since been established, though? Yes.

Marshaled witnesses are heard from modern embryologies, who unanimously and repeatedly affirm that a genetically distinct, individual human life is present from conception. Additionally, in 1981, after exhaustive testimony from top experts in every relevant field, a bill was passed by the U.S. Senate that declared, “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginnings of the life of a human being...There is overwhelming agreement on this point” (S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7).

In conclusion, it’s been seen that the pro-abortionists’ incessant appeals to “choice” and “liberty” lead to indecent rather than civil liberty. Conversely, by recognizing the proper priority of life over liberty, which is necessary for a healthy society, and that the unborn shares human life with the rest of its community, the pro-life case is sound, valid, and tenable. Hence, any system of law claiming justice and equity exists, first, to protect its innocent human lives; the unborn is an innocent, human life from conception, and therefore demands the protection of our legal system, if, that is, we wish to ever claim again the virtues of justice and equity for all.

Finally! An Honest, even Biblical, Unbeliever--Will the Evangelical Church Listen?

Essential Reading from Justin Taylor

5 Things You Didn’t Know about “Jane Roe”

Today (yesterday from here) is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the controversial Supreme Court ruling that progressives want to enshrine and conservatives want to overturn. Few rulings have been more consequential. According to Planned Parenthood’s Guttmacher Institute, 22% of all pregnancies now end in abortion, with 3 in 10 women terminating their pregnancy by the age of 45. There have been approximately 57 million legally induced abortions in the U.S. since 1973—nearly the current population of California and Texas combined.

Yet a recent Pew study found that 4 in 10 “Millennials” don’t even know that Roe v. Wade has to do with abortion. And even fewer today know the true story of the woman who started it all, the pseudonymous plaintiff “Jane Roe.” Here are five things you may not know about her, culled from interviews and profiles along with her sworn congressional testimony and memoirs...continue reading.