In the wake of the California scandal of a 'homeschool'
family that was starving and torturing its children there has been a wave of
'hit' pieces circulating throughout the media landscape. This is but one of
them.
Personally in the case of these rather sick people from
California I think a great deal of blame belongs with the extended family. They
knew something was odd and yet did not pursue it. When people fail to act
within their own spheres they will inevitably abdicate their authority to the
state. And now, everyone is viewed with suspicion.
We have always been careful to make sure our children are
seen. People see our kids out riding their bikes, going to the post office,
walking about etc... They are visible, not hidden though in many ways our lives
are private. I know people see them because they comment on it. Many older
folks are happy to see kids doing things outside, getting exercise, doing yard-work
etc... I think (I hope) it's part of our testimony.
I have known of some cases of homeschool neglect, situations
in which the kids are not really being educated and in other cases are being
basically worked or ignored. I can think of several instances of this and
sometimes the story doesn't end very well. The reasons are many. In some cases
the parents may not have the education or organisational skills to effectively
homeschool. In other cases they are simply defiant and are willing to hold
their children back, just to avoid the public school.
But you know, in the end it's their kids and people have very
different conceptions of what we're called to do and expect in this life. Some
parents are perfectly happy for their sons to grow up and dig ditches or drive
a tow-truck. Others aren't and expect their kids to go to college and become
professionals.
Separatist that I am I probably tend to the former rather
than the latter but I still want my kids to be educated. I don't care if they
dig ditches as long as they know Christ and with both knowledge and wisdom understand
the world they live in.
The world will not understand why we do what we do. Sadly
many Christians are homeschooling their kids for Dominionist purposes and
society will see that as subversive and threatening. And they're right. I still
don't want the state to intervene but there are Christians who will give them
reason to fear and a desire to intercede.
Modern schooling is less about education than it is about
social integration. Modern educators can't say too much about homeschooling
when they themselves are failing spectacularly when it comes to education. We
have a lot of semi-literate and wholly ignorant high school graduates running
about. Though they've been set up to fail they at least don't represent a
threat to the system. They might end up in jail for drugs but they still don't
represent an existential threat. There is a difference.
Kids that are raised to think differently, whether for the
purposes of Dominion or Separatism are subversive. I would argue the Separatist
position is not politically subversive (in accord with John 18.36) because it
will always constitute a small minority (Matthew 7.13-14) but statist thinkers
won't see it that way nor are they capable of making the distinction.
They want your kids because they want them to 'fit in', to
learn how to stand in line, to obey and submit to the maddening and degrading corporate-state
bureaucracy and to be heavily propagandised by both the 'educators' and their
peers.*
This is exactly why I won't let them have my kids. And were I
to do so I would be abdicating my calling as a Christian parent. I would be a
fool.
Of course the idea that homeschool kids are in danger is all
but absurd. These cases are rare, extremely rare. The truth is there have been
many cases like this that happen that have nothing to do with homeschooling.
Are kids safe in school? Aside from some of the nightmare situations in which
evil counselors and perverse minds convince them to 'switch genders' and other
such nonsense, we have school shootings. This is despite the growing
totalitarian police state transformation of the public school. Even with these
measures which are part of the whole brainwash that is modern schooling, they
still can't keep the kids safe.
Additionally we have a rash of rather bizarre instances of
young attractive female teachers sleeping with male students and of course
there have always been male teachers chasing after pretty teenage girls.
Apparently the coaching ranks are filled with perverts and pedophiles,
something I have long suspected. I do not mean to impugn the reputations of all
teachers and coaches. My point is that for all the institutional credibility
and safety they would promote, even the public system and its crushing
bureaucracy is failing to keep kids safe from predators and certainly evil
ideologies, and it's falling far short in the realm of education.
And yet no one is for a moment questioning the validity let
alone the viability of the public school model.
Nor am I.
I differ on this point from many homeschoolers. We do not
live in an agrarian society. Modern public education was born of the industrial
age. Its origins are somewhat cynical but I can see why it's come about and at
this point its eradication would probably be catastrophic.
That said, the notion of its continued existence status quo is also dire and calamitous
to even contemplate.
What's the solution? There isn't one apart from an
abandonment of social decadence and a reconstitution of family life. Both of
the political spectrums, their parties and their cultures are guilty. There is
no one factor that has led to social collapse or the deterioration of public
schooling. It's a toxic brew at work and it's not easily broken down let alone
filtered.
That said, though I think public schooling is probably
necessary, I would like to see the compulsory element removed. I think the vast
majority of parents will still send their kids to school.
What I fear is that certain states will turn to a
life-coach/life monitor model along the lines of what Scotland is attempting to
do. That could prove to be something of a nightmare.
The irony here is that Christians bear much of the blame for
all of this. I'm not speaking of the abusers and torturers of children but
instead the social model that calls for state compulsion and enforcement of
morality.
Some Dominionists are delusional and think their theology is
somehow compatible with Libertarianism. The Theonomists have always been more
honest in this regard. Their model calls for heavy state control, licensing,
building codes, censorship, coercion and forced participation. It's part of the
legacy of Protestant Sacralism and in the United States... the legacy of the
Puritans.
The Puritans of New England believed in social engineering.
They intervened in families and many aspects of daily life such as dress and
grooming, they wouldn't let single people live alone, they assigned housing and
were involved in economics and the monitoring of profits. Dissent was crushed
and education controlled.
Their descendants, even though they had switched to liberal
theology and eventually secularism maintained the social doctrine and helped to
produce the authoritarian stifling climate of contemporary New England... a
legacy that has been carried across the United States by varying degrees to
places like New York and California. Each state has its own story and there
have been other influences to be sure. 19th century German
immigrants to the Midwest brought another form of state heavy-handedness that
was rooted in different ideas but produced similar results... in certain but
often different spheres.
And yet it was Protestants who in the late 19th
and early 20th century pushed so hard for compulsory education and
control of the curriculum. They wanted to ensure that all the Roman Catholic
and Orthodox immigrants who were filling the cities (of today's Rust Belt)
would leave aside their old values, their personal and familial traditions and
would instead embrace the values of the culture at large... the White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture.
They certainly experienced a degree of success. Few left the
Church of Rome but they changed it... to the alarm and dismay of the Vatican.
And the story hasn't ended as today it's the Protestants who are doing more of
the changing.
The Protestant Ascendancy created these institutions,
empowered them and wielded them to shape society. They've lost control of them
and now they're being used against them. There's a real irony here, even if it
is a bitter one.
It's hard to pity Sacralists when their own Frankenstein
monsters rise up and turn on them.
And yet as is always the case, even Christians who reject the
Dominionist-Sacralist doctrine of Magisterial Protestantism are forced to share
the label and share in the burden of social ire.
We're in a frustrating place. These hit pieces do a lot of
damage even when they're somewhat lame... like the linked BBC piece. There's no
doubt Gothard and others have done a lot of damage to both the Church and its
testimony. The Gothard people I've encountered are ignorant, of both Scripture
and culture. They're indoctrinated in the ideas of Bill Gothard and cannot seem
to separate them from what the Bible teaches... as I said, a book they're not
terribly familiar with. It's sad but the state has no answer and in fact its
answers are often worse.
Of course I had to chuckle when reading about the complaint
over space and living conditions. You're not going to earn a lot of sympathy
from Brits when it comes to packing 2-3 or even 4 kids into a bedroom. While
many Americans consider it barbaric, the rest of the world doesn't feel that
way and the UK has out of necessity come to accept rather tight quarters. As a
rule they do not live in the massive 2000-4000 square foot homes many decadent Americans
inhabit.
* As my oldest son is entering adulthood, working, filing
taxes, wrestling with health care and other bureaucracies, all I can say is
"Welcome to the Machine". I'm afraid that old song from my pagan days
comes to mind a lot as of late. The parallel is not exact but the song's ethos
of disillusion is something I think he's beginning to feel. My wife and I
always chuckle when we're at a gathering of college age kids. It's refreshing
to witness their optimism and energy. They have that 'life hasn't happened to me
yet" look on their faces.
See also: