Yearly Archives: 2011

Deciding if You Are a Humanist

Posted on by

Deciding if You Are a Humanist

by Craig Smith
(The following in italics is from Humanism as the Next
Step by Lloyd and Mary Morain, Humanist Press, Amherst,
New York.)
Have you been a humanist, perhaps without even
knowing it? To help you make up your own mind we
offer the following guidelines:
(1) Do you believe that we will continue to learn more
about the past, present, and future of planet earth and
its inhabitants?
(2) Do you believe that humans are a part of nature
and that there is no God or supernatural power especially
concerned for their welfare?
(3) Do you believe that religions’ sacred scriptures and
ethical and moral systems were the creations of mortals
and that these have served different purposes at
different times and places?
(4) Do you believe that the kind of life we live and the
helpful and just relationship that we have with other
humans is of primary importance?
(5) Do you feel that our environment needs to be taken
care of and protected for future generations?
(6) Do you frequently experience joy and comfort and
an undefined mystic sense from the realization that you
are a part of nature and of all that lives?
(7) Do you believe that the meaning of life is that
which we give to it?
(8) Do you recognize that many philosophical questions
such as, “What is the meaning of life?” and
“Why am I here?” are irrelevant when our existence
and experience are viewed as processes within the totality
of nature?
If you answer “yes” to most of these questions you can
classify yourself as a humanist, for you view humankind
in naturalistic and humanistic terms. You have
faith in our future here on earth and believe the highest
goal for human endeavor is a better world for all.
Are you willing to consider new evidence of any kind
and in every field of human thought and behavior, even
though this may lead to a revision of some of your most
cherished beliefs? We cannot see how anyone who is
consistent in belief in a theistic religion or a nonnaturalistic
philosophy would be able to answer this in
the affirmative. Humanists can.

Worldviews are reasonably easy to work out when you
realise that in all the universe there are, ultimately, only
two worldviews. One emanates from the mind of
God the Creator. The other, of which there are thousands
of variations, emanates from the mind of man the
creature. The two worldviews simply are not on the
same planet!! Our one is bound by the fact that we are
created, finite1 and human, that we are made from the
dust of the earth on which we walk. God’s one is outside
of and totally, utterly separate from ours since He
is uncreated, infinite and divine. In fact, we humans are
but a tiny portion of God’s total worldview, for we ourselves
originally emanated from His omniscient mind.
In His grace and love and mercy to us humans, He has
revealed all He reckons we need to know about His
worldview (but not about the world) in the Bible.
Now just to show you how totally different the two
worldviews are and even how perverse, arrogant and
180 degrees wrong humans get it, a common thread
running through the thousands of human worldviews,
showing that they are all ultimately one worldview,
says that God is an emanation from the mind of man!!
(The reality, of course, is that man is an emanation
from the mind of God.) Now the variations on this
theme go from those who say God in His totality is a
figment of human imagination to those who actually
honour and seek to submit to Him, yet who still project
onto Him some attribute the Scriptures never say He
has. The humanist who wrote these eight questions
clearly espouses this kind of warped thinking: see his
questions #2, #3, #7 and #8. The two worldviews are at
their cores inverses of one another, antagonistic and
mutually exclusive.
In the final paragraph he makes it sound as if humanists
are seekers after truth, willing to consider things
even if they lead to changes in their most cherished
beliefs. Yet questions #3 and #8 demonstrate that regularly
changing what they believe is an essential part of
their belief system. They do not believe in unchanging
propositional truth; they do not believe in absolutes.
They like the idea that things change from time to time,
for that gives them two things all sinners want above
all else. First, a measure of control over what goes on
in their own and others’ lives. Since change is a constant,
they can instigate change whenever they like,
large scale or small scale, from personal likes and dislikes
right through to what constitutes right and wrong.
The NZ Parliament is engaged in such macro-change at
the moment by legitimising the prostitution industry
and redefining bedrock concepts such as marriage and
family to mean virtually any ad hoc arrangement or
liaison. This is all totally deceptive, since they cannot
change the essential reality of anything — for reality
was created and set once for all by God — but only
how they think about it! Second, the idea of constant
change eliminates the possibility, theoretically at least
(not in reality, of course), of ever having to give an account
of themselves, of being held ultimately responsible,
because the parameters keep shifting.
Being one’s own boss. Never being held accountable.
This is a fool’s paradise, for it can only exist if God
does not. This is the world the humanist hopes in and
by faith believes in. He is at his most pathetic when he
believes he can call such a world into existence simply
by saying it does. As with trying to be their own
autonomous boss, and to never be called to account,
this too is an attempt to copy God, to be like Him, to
supplant His authority over the earth with their own
authority. God created the world by fiat; that is, His
all-powerful Word, when spoken, called into existence
things which did not exist. Not content with such mere
creative powers, the humanist attempts to work far
greater changes. He would call his version of reality
into existence as well as cause the extinction of the
infinite, omniscient, omnipotent God of all the universe….
and all by his simple humanistic fiat word.
It is interesting that this humanist tries to entice us with
the mysterious question, “Have you been a humanist
without knowing it?” Well, the scary bit is that ever
since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, humanism has
been the default position of all us humans! We are all
already humanists….the question for us Christians is:
having been redeemed from the Pit by the blood of the
Lamb, born again by the Sprit of God, given a new
heart and a new mind and adopted as His children,
“Are we still thinking and functioning like humanists?”
when we should be thinking and functioning as Christians
with a thoroughly Biblical worldview.
Think about your own position. Have you ever worked
to un-learn the humanist ways you picked up from the
secular school system, the secular society all around
you, possibly the secular home and family life you may
have grown up in and the fallen stuff which comes out
of your own sinful heart? Not all secular humanist
ways are blatant. II Corinthians 11:3 indicates things
can be very subtle: “But I am afraid that as the serpent
deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led
astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” And
the classic warning of I Corinthians 10:12 must be remembered
at all times: “Therefore let anyone who
thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.” For one of
the defining characteristics of our sinful natures, of
which we will not be fully rid until we reach Glory in
heaven, is deceitfulness (Jeremiah 17:9, Ephesians
4:22, Hebrews 3:13, James 1:22).
Have you worked to adopt thoroughly Biblical understandings
of various aspects of your life? Over the
years we have critically examined our taste in music,
humour, reading and viewing material, recreational
activities, how we handle our finances, family devotions,
the neighbours, our attitude toward Sunday and
the Fourth Commandment and especially educational
and child rearing/child discipline issues. It would also
be a profitable exercise to regularly evaluate ourselves
to see if we can identify areas of our lives where we
have changed, where we have moved closer to a more
consistently Biblical position.
Let’s look at these eight questions: I reckon Christians
can answer “Yes” to #1 and #5 without hesitation and
have a fair amount of sympathy with #4. Questions #2
and #3 are clearly anti-Christian. Question #6 is typical
of a troubled mind unwilling to accept that we humans
are at the pinnacle of creation, for the thought that in
this position more responsibility is heaped upon us and
more accountability will be required of us is simply too
frightening to contemplate. Question #8 reveals the
materialistic nature of humanists, unwilling to get serious
about life if it is only the random bumping around of atomic particles.
Question #7 is one of the most clear, concise and comprehensively
anti-Christian comments you’re ever
likely to read. Where is the source of meaning, of purpose?
We cannot control any aspect of our personal beings2;
therefore, to grasp at least an illusion of being in
charge of his own destiny, the humanist reserves to
himself alone the power to impart meaning to his existence.
Again, he attempts to do this by fiat. Haunted by
the drive for meaning which God wires into him; able
to recognise and articulate the dilemma of ascertaining
the meaning and purpose of all that is seen around him,
using the God-given intellectual capacity to do so yet
without acknowledging the Designer/Creator/Sustainer
who gave it to him; identifying and isolating the core
issue of authority which God has built into the universe,
that he who imparts ultimate meaning and purpose is he
who will also wield ultimate authority, and desiring that
authority for himself; all of this reveals that the humanist
must rely totally and completely on God even while
he is climbing up onto God’s lap in order to slap Him in
the face.
Secular humanists are losers. They hold to a totally
bankrupt worldview. Yet such folks are running our
Parliament, financial institutions, hospitals, museums,
libraries, all forms of media, the schools and universities.
These same folks have captured many theological
seminaries and today occupy far too many pulpits and
pews throughout the country.
Sadly, some of the most able Christians, working hard
to understand a Christian worldview and to bring it to
bear on the political and social systems of this country,
are whipping the carpet out from under their own feet in
that while they try to think Biblically in formulating
their worldviews, they insist on “speaking secularly”
into the public arena. This neatly trims off God’s voice
of ultimate authority, that He is the moral force behind
their pronouncements, that their research statistics reflect
His determination of how reality will operate, that
they try to base all their working assumptions upon His
revealed word in the Bible: that is, right at the point
where such acknowledgement is most essential, when it
is introduced into the marketplace, they reduce His
word and His wisdom to just another human voice in
the marketplace.
Question #1 also needs to be read along with the final
paragraph. Notice that the writers cannot comprehend
how a consistent Christian could willingly consider new
evidence or learn more about life on earth, for such
knowledge might cause the believer to change his beliefs.
They must see Christianity as a stagnant body of
propositions and statements. Further, it seems they believe
that should Christians allow their faith to be exposed
to open investigation or to allow themselves to
investigate “new evidence of any kind….in every field
of human thought and behaviour” no consistent believers
would be left!
These humanists have made at least two hugely erroneous
assumptions regarding the Faith. It is more accurate
to say they’ve exposed their ignorance of the nature of
Christianity (and of philosophy, logic, epistemology
and the scientific method). First, the Faith is not a stag nant body of propositions whose integrity would be
compromised and probably damaged beyond repair by
the introduction of “new evidence” from wherever. The
essentials of the Faith are composed of both propositions
that cannot be proved (but must be accepted by
faith) as well as historical facts. In the first category are
the existence of God, His omniscience and omnipotence,
His inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, our everlasting
souls in need of salvation, hell and the coming
judgment. Historical facts include the Fall, the Flood,
the virgin birth, Jesus’ death on the cross, His resurrection,
His ascension and fulfilled prophecies. New evidence
properly interpreted (see next point) will always
eventually serve to further confirm and further elucidate
the propositions and the historical facts.
Second, a Biblical worldview is not threatened by
“new evidence”; instead it interprets the evidence according
to its own presuppositions. The humanists do
exactly the same. That is, a piece of evidence comes
along, and the humanists will interpret it as something
which supports their position while simultaneously
mitigating against Christianity. This same piece of evidence
is interpreted by Christians as supporting the
faith while at the same time undercutting humanism.
For example, the fossil tooth upon which the entire
story of “Nebraska Man”, a supposedly humanoid forerunner
of modern man found in North America, turns
out to be a pig’s tooth. This evidence, say the humanists,
goes to show that truth is always self-correcting,
new evidence giving rise to a new and more accurate
picture of reality. It does not disprove materialistic,
Darwinian evolution but only illustrates the fact that a
free flow and exchange of information and ideas will
produce an ever-more-useful picture of the data. The
Nebraska Man scenario was useful for a time, but the
positive pig’s tooth identification is even more useful
in closing down dead-end and ultimately fruitless areas
of postulation, research and investigation. The Biblical
worldview, on the other hand, says that a fossil tooth
will either be that of human or some non-human animal,
probably pre-flood. For experienced researchers to
mis-identify a pig’s tooth and, further, to use this one
tooth alone to construct full-sized models of male and
female “Nebraska Men”, complete with excess body
hair, sloped foreheads and heavy lower jaws is to demonstrate
an excessively confident pre-commitment to
evolution when no corroborating information exists.
In addition they fail to recognise their own reliance on
a set of basic assumptions accepted by faith, such as:
the material world is all there is, existence ceases at
death or that Darwinian evolution is random yet ever
onward and upward. The humanists’ claim that, being
materialists, they alone are able to assimilate any new
evidence — even contradictory or mutually-exclusive
“evidence” — shows that their overall philosophy is
ultimately indefinable. Because it holds to no absolutes
or unchanging truths, it can offer no sure answers.
Note:
1. While God alone is infinite, our souls are everlasting.
2. I have some choice over where I live, but not that I
am alive; I have some choice over what I eat but
not that I need to eat; I can have a bit of influence
on my future, but my past is totally out of my reach.

From Keystone Magazine

January 2004 , Vol. X No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

To order a subscription to Keystone Magazine do one of the following:

send email to sales@hef.org.nz with visa number

post cheque or visa number to PO Box 9064, Palmerston North, New Zealand

fax: 06 357-4389

phone: 06 357-4399

Trademe (fees added):  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2366144

Sella (No added fees):  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4ym9qg/home-education-foundation/display-100

Compulsory Schooling is Not a Christian Concept

Posted on by

Compulsory Schooling is Not a Christian Concept

by Craig Smith
Men, we need to understand many things in order to lead
our families aright. Elijah condemned the Israelites of his
day for faltering between two opinions (I Kings 18:21),
and James condemns double-minded men who apparently
do nothing more than harbour some doubts (James
1:6-8)! From a simple pragmatic point of view, if we
don’t have a firm grasp of issues with which we deal
everyday, issues that define and greatly affect our daily
lives, we may find ourselves pushed by circumstances in
directions we do not want to go simply because we cannot
muster a clear argument against doing so.
The concept of “compulsory state education” is one such
issue. It forced us to coin a name for ourselves (home
educators, home schoolers, home-based learners or whatever
we are) and to appear to others to be a tiny minority
fringe group. “Compulsory education” has assumed the
defining benchmark position against which all things
else are measured. If one is not part of the compulsory
school scene, one is “outside the system”, not operating
along normally accepted lines. In NZ we need to approach
the Ministry of Education in order to gain an
“exemption” from the “normal” state of affairs, which is
compulsory attendance at a registered school.1
Further, compulsory education is of necessity defined as
state education, organised and run and funded by a centralised
civil government, for they alone have the legitimate
power to compel school attendance. The law of the
land is enforced by the police and the armed forces. That
is their legitimate role, as we see in Romans 13. But this
same chapter tells us that civil governments are to carry
out only two functions: reward those who do right and
punish those who do wrong. “Right” and “wrong” are
also defined in the Scriptures, and providing children
with an education is not part of these definitions. Education
is primarily reserved for parents, fathers in particular
(Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Ephesians 6:4), with a secondary
role for the church (Nehemiah 8:2-8, Ephesians 4:11-13).
History clearly shows that when civil governments take
over a social responsibility that is not part of their Biblically
defined role, they create more of the problem they
were set up to solve. State schools were going to close
down the prisons and eliminate crime. Have they? No.
Prisons are full to bursting. Three times as many police
in NZ were stabbed in 2003 as in 2002. Unemployment
benefits were going to help people back into work. They
have created permanently unemployed, people now dependent
on these benefits. Sex education to curb teen
pregnancies and STDs has caused both to skyrocket.
State education has seen the overall educational level
of the entire population go into free-fall, including
the occurrence of genius and child prodigies.
It is becoming increasingly hard to deny that today’s
state schools resemble prisons. One can find barbed
wire fences, remote cameras, floodlights, metal detectors,
security officers and ID cards students must
swipe here and there as they move around campus. It
is all for the safety and security of the students and
school property, we are told. Let me get this straight:
the students are being kept safe at public schools
from hoodlums and society at large, almost all of
whom are public school graduates??! Well, I’m not
be surprised when the children start to behave like
inmates or people under siege and the teachers like
prison guards or crowd-control security agents. Actually,
this guard-inmate relationship has been in place
for many decades already. Two Palmerston North
newspaper journalists wrote this month describing
schools in this city back in the 1950s and 1960s:
Mervyn Dykes wrote: “The deputy principle had a
line of boys waiting outside the prefects’ room to be
caned. At the end of the line was a little third former
who became increasingly agitated as the line shortened
in front of him. ‘Sir, I…’ ‘Shut up!’ He was
grabbed and hauled into the room. Whack! Whack!
‘But sir, I only wanted to buy a monogram for my
blazer.’”
Tina White wrote: “They all graduated from teachers’
college with an LTS – Licence to Strap. The rule
was, if you did something wrong, you got punished.
End of story. Unfortunately there were times when
they got the wrong person, and if you talked back,
trying to explain, you’d just get a couple of extra
whacks for good measure.”2
The concept of compulsory education has an almost
totally unperceived stranglehold on everyone whose
ever been through the system. Occasionally I hear
long-time home educators say something that shocks
me to the core. “If we didn’t have a compulsory
school system, how would all those children who
wouldn’t otherwise attend ever get an education?”
We need to be clear about some basic elements of
compulsory state schooling:

Schooling Is Not Education

The real question is, “How will all those children
who are compelled to attend state schools ever get an
education?” That which is dispensed by state schools
is “schooling”: it is not at all the same as
“education”. The two things barely have any overlap.
Forcing children to attend school is not giving them
an education….well, certainly not the useful academic
kind we all like to think they’re getting (see
“Secular Education Is Not Education” section below).
Being schooled for 10 years does not guarantee
children will learn anything useful at all. It can only
guarantee two things: that the children “do their
time” and that they’ll be consistently exposed to the
highly-prized state school brand of socialisation. Just
as in state prisons, school inmates are training the
other inmates in the arts associated with being street-wise.
That is precisely the socialisation from which we
home educators fled so gladly in the first place. What
about the bullying, the drugs, the finger signs, the attitudes,
the porn-behind-the-bikesheds, the negative peer
pressure, the “dummy” or “weirdo” labels from teachers
and fellow pupils alike that follow children all
through school? Why do some of us who should know
better ever wish it on other people’s children?
Research is clear that children who do well at school
do so because their parents are totally supportive at
home, so much so they might as well home educate
and miss all the junk which forms the “hidden curriculum”
of every school institution.

Secular Education Is Not Education

The Education Act’s Section 77 says of state primary
schools, “The teaching shall be entirely of a secular
character,” which means “without any form of religious
instruction or observance”. The Lord God above,
His Son Jesus Christ, “in Whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3)
and the Holy Scriptures are obviously banned from the
classroom. Since it is the fool who says in his heart,
“There is no God” (Psalm 14:1, Psalm 53:1), what are
we to think of the state school classroom teacher who
embraces that very philosophy in order to teach others?
Since it is the fear of the Lord which is the beginning
of knowledge and wisdom (Job 28:28, Psalm
111:10, Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 9:10, Proverbs 15:33),
and since the Lord is officially banned from the classroom,
where does that put the best which secular
schooling has to offer on the scale of true knowledge,
wisdom and understanding?

Compulsory Means Control

Compulsory schooling is a method of control and social
engineering. Why are most of us parents so slow to
admit this, when the bureaucrats count on it and speak
of it freely in their literature and to the media? Dr
Colin Knight, past principal of Christchurch College of
Education, lamented the social, emotional and intellectual
damage being done to children due to unresearched,
government-decreed practices in schools. He
said changes in what went on in schools were mainly
brought about by politically initiated reviews and reports
on questionnaires and Gallup polls, by parliamentary
debate and political expediency.3 “What I would
like to see in the political debate about education,” declared
PPTA past president Phillip Capper, “is a recognition
that public education is an exercise in social engineering
by definition.”4

Control Is the Creed of Communism

Communism has proven to be the most evil and destructive
social/economic/political system ever yet devised
by the mind of man. Its anti-Christian architects,
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles, insisted in their Communist
Manifesto that compulsory, state-funded, secular
schooling was one of the essential ten points for the
political takeover of communism throughout the world.
For communism to succeed, they needed to strictly
censor all media, which the former communist countries
did by pulling down the “iron curtain” in Eastern
Europe and the former USSR and by pulling down the
“bamboo curtain” in China. They needed to simultaneously
pump the citizens full of communist world view
propaganda and forbid the teaching of contrary views.
This they did via compulsory schooling, where students
were encouraged to revile the ideas and religious
beliefs of their parents and grandparents and even to
turn them in to the authorities should these oldies dare
to disagree with any pronouncement of those paragons
of wisdom and virtue, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Khrushchev,
Pol Pot, etc.

Divide and Conquer

By severing the children from their parents and breaking
the monopoly parents naturally have over their
children’s affections and character development –
which includes attitudes and values (see next paragraph
below) – state schools have proven to be very efficient
at delivering a peer-dependent, malleable population
who do as they are told with a minimum of objection.
Politicians world-wide and of every political persuasion
(except consistent libertarians) have seen the
benefits such a schooling system can have for their particular
cause. In New Zealand, a past Undersecretary of
Trade and Industry, Mr Neilson, publicised a six-point
plan of his, point three of which was the introduction
of “peace studies” into the schools to help ensure future
voters would look upon Labour as “the natural
party of Government.”5

The State Pushes Attitudes & Values

An MoE document titled “Education in the 21st Century”
was introduced by Lockwood Smith when he was
Minister of Education back in 1990. Right there, on
page 21 for all to see, is the statement that the purpose
of state schooling is to ensure the students develop the
“attitudes and values” (as well as knowledge, skills and
understandings) that they’ll need for the 21st Century.
Lovely words. But since when does a secular, politically
guided and tax-payer funded body ever have the
competence to determine which attitudes and values
anyone’s children should have? Assuming the readers
here are Christians, surely we all agree that such state
organisations don’t even get near the ballpark as far as
the attitudes and values we want for our children are
concerned. This is clearly, obviously a grab for mind
control and social engineering at its most blatant.
And let us not think this was some aberration that occurred
14 years ago which has since righted itself. Let
me quote the current Minister of Education, Trevor
Mallard, from a speech he made in July 2000 at the
launch of the UNESCO and Living Values Trust
“Values Education” seminars: “Whether we like it or
not schools and teachers have a strong influence on the
developing values of young people, and they have that
influence whether they plan to or not. We have to acknowledge
that all people live by a set of values and
that there is certainly no such thing as value neutrality
in education. It is not an easy thing to meet the obligation
to include attitudes and values as an integral
part of the New Zealand curriculum.” (Emphases
added.)

Loss of Authority and Responsibility

Compulsory schooling raises the question, “Who’s in
charge here? Who’s responsible for children’s education?”
When parents have had the authority and responsibility
for their children’s education forcibly removed
from them, there will be serious consequences down
stream. We home educators sometimes fail to see or
even comprehend these next points, for we have made
the effort to obtain exemptions from compulsory
schooling so that we may go to the extra effort of fully
educating our children: that is, we got the authority and
responsibility for our children’s education back from
the state. We, therefore, do not suffer these consequences.
So what are the consequences of losing this authority
and responsibility to the state? Are the consequences
really so bad? Well, just think about it for a moment. If
you are no longer responsible, why would you expend
more than the minimum effort to think and plan and do
anything for the children? Schools and teachers are the
professionals, not like those slovenly parents, who
hardly spend any time with the kids and only complain
about it when they do, wishing fifth birthdays and the
end of holidays would come sooner than they do. And it
makes good economic sense to herd all the kids into
one place, does it not: division of labour, economies of
scale and all that? Teachers teach; we parents need only
feed and water them and get them to school, the place
of learning, on time. Even if parents wanted to impart
something to the kids, it had better not contradict or
cause confusion in regards to the school programme. It
would also have to be done when the kids are at home
and when parents are not overly committed or exhausted
from their involvements outside the family.
And the fact is, these outside involvements grow and
overshadow concerns for the children since children are
rarely home anyway and are under the care of professionals….
so who needs to worry?
Some parents, themselves graduates of the state school
system, worry so little they never quite get the knack of
even feeding and watering the kids. So schools now
provide breakfasts and lunches for growing numbers,
matching the growing sense among parents that since
they don’t have to be responsible for education or social
training or dental care, hey, why be responsible for
feeding all the time? And then we find that a growing
number of parents are also leaving to the
“professionals” the responsibility for really basic training.
I am referring here to toilet training, hygiene, dress,
grooming, speech and basic social graces. All those
other emotional and psychological needs of children,
what the schools refer to as “pastoral needs”: sex and
sexuality education, drug education, grief/stress/
loneliness counselling, etc., are also provided for at
school by careers and guidance counsellors, social
workers and those wonderful experts from the Family
Planning Association and the AIDS Foundation.6
The schools actually use the phrase “pastoral needs”…..
as in pastor, minister, priest of a church. Slowly but
surely the truth is coming out of the closet: the official
“secular” philosophy of state schools is another religion:
that of secular humanism, one opposed to virtually
every tenet of Christianity. It is hard to understand how
we got into this position: Christians are not only required
by law to send their children to be instructed in
this foreign religion five days a week, but through compulsory
taxation, they are even made to pay for the subversion
of their own children. The worst part is that
many “Christian” parents are exceedingly happy about
how well their children are doing in the enemy’s camp.
They don’t see the issues.

Conflicting Authorities

When children perceive they have conflicting authority
figures over them — the teacher(s) at school and the
parents at home — what are they to do? I recall that
many of my peers at school told their parents (not the
teachers) where to go. They became sullen and rebellious,
“turning on, tuning in and dropping out” as we
said back then. But nobody worried too much for, as all
the experts told us, rebellion is a natural part of the turbulent
teen years.7 I personally developed a split personality
and became a master of deceit really, being one
kind of person at school and a totally different kind at
home. Most kids fell into one of these two groups. Why
would we say such consequences are not so bad, especially
when many of us home educators have discovered
that, once outside the school system and away
from the peer pressure of the playground, the classroom
and the youth group, teen rebellion just plain fails to
materialise? I’m not saying teen rebellion is a myth: it
is a serious condition. But it is one brought on by institutional
schooling situations and the malady spawned
by these institutions: parental abdication.

Abdication or Meddling

If MoE bureaucrats are not competent to map out my
children’s educational, social and pastoral needs….and
as far as this writer is concerned, they definitely are
not…. and if these same bureaucrats ought not to be
doing so in a compulsory way….and this writer also
believes they most definitely ought not….then how can
any of us come out with statements in favour of compulsory
schooling for those children who, we opine,
“wouldn’t otherwise get an education”? Yes, there are
incompetent, irresponsible, dead-beat parents out there:
and more are being raised up every year due to the previous
generation of incompetent parents, compulsory
dumbed-down schooling and welfare dependency. For
these folks the churches need to re-gain their Biblical
calling: that of providing social welfare services
through the deacons’ committees. The church needs to
take the government in this area back away from the
state. In assuming this role to itself, the state has created
a growing social welfare dependency problem. Not all
parents are drongoes: if most had to see to the education
of their own children in the absence of a state schooling
system, they would: just as they did for thousands of
years before compulsory state schooling appeared less
than 200 years ago.
What is the real problem, the one we’re thinking about
when we say we should hang onto compulsory schooling
for those kids who wouldn’t otherwise go to
school? It is the usual: sinful hearts wanting to abdicate
their own responsibilities on the one hand and meddle
in responsibilities not their own on the other. People
want convenience first and foremost: Dr John Clark,
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education in the Department
of Policy Studies in Education at Massey
University, says the number one reason we have
schools in this country is as a baby-sitting service!
That’s the abdication. And when we say that some people
really shouldn’t be allowed to home educate, that’s
the meddling: it’s the same offensive game the state
plays, social control of those of whom we disapprove.
One crazy form of abdication is framed in terms of
fairness and justice: how could parents be so callous
and manipulative as to impose their will onto their children?
Such ideas are absurd: if we parents don’t impose
our will, wisdom, knowledge and understanding
upon our children, it is certain that someone else’s version
of these things is going to be impressed upon
them. This is precisely what takes place at schools, and
this needs to be recognised by us fathers in particular
as one of the main reasons we home educate: we want
our children to embrace our beliefs and understandings,
our religion, our faith, our worldview, our Saviour,
our God and definitely not the secular version of
these things or the pot-luck milieu of whatever multicultural
mix they may get at school.

Political Correctness

Now I’ve done it! Political Correctness demands that
no one speak against multi-culturalism. It sounds so
intolerant, racist and prejudiced. That’s only because
the politically correct have captured the language so as
to make someone sound like a bigot when he does not
want his children coming home with certain ideas from
outside of his mono-cultural, Christian paradigm. I for
one am happy to confess that I really don’t want my
little primary aged children to pick up ideas about it
being OK to have multiple wives; to construct one’s
own meaning from interacting with a text rather than
assume the author had a specific meaning in mind; to
practise female circumcision; to offer daily, colourful
sacrifices to Rama and Sita; to believe we evolved
from pond slime over millions of years; to pray to
idols; to watch and even participate in orgies, incest
and all forms of pornography; to rely on bullying and
intimidation and blackmail as valid forms of negotiation;
to wear nose rings; to look at history as a series of
totally meaningless, random events; to use Christ’s
name as a cuss word; to see women as nothing more
than sexual playthings and servants of men; to hold the
pursuit of money and pleasure as the highest good; to
believe that the four most important authorities in the
world are the UN, the majority vote of your national
parliament, your school teachers and your own personal
choice; to view mathematics as a human invention
rather than as God’s invention that man discovered;
to think that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle or
that divorce, de facto set-ups, serial boyfriends and
girlfriends and abortions are all acceptable social
norms. This is the kind of multi-culturalism one will
find in today’s New Zealand state schools. My four
eldest aged 24, 22, 20 and 17 have, are and will continue
to face and deal with these things – graciously
and friendly, but also firmly and clearly – without
themselves being confused by any of these things, for
they were taught from a solid Biblical foundation of
unchangeable truth and from a reasonably consistentworld view. They did not grow up in a multi-cultural
environment which said all cultures and cultural practises
are equally valid, that truth is negotiable or relative
or changes from place to place or person to person.
We are quite happy to be called intolerant: we do in
fact refuse to tolerate the intolerable.

We’re Always Responsible

We fathers need to come to grips with the fact that we
are responsible and will always be responsible for our
children’s education. Even when the state forcibly removes
our responsibility to see to the schooling/
education of our children; even when it forces us to
ensure they attend the state schools for six hours a day,
five days a week, nine months a year for 10 years;
guess who will be blamed (that is, said to be responsible)
if our little Johnny still turns out illiterate? You
got it….you will, little Johnny’s parents!
The great news in all of this is that by the grace of God
the home always exerts the greatest influence over
children. This explains why some children from godly
and orderly homes can come through the state system
still intact, sane and with positive habits and attitudes.
But all the studies tell us that schools cause far too
many casualties.
The sooner we can get rid of compulsory schooling as
well as the effective monopoly the state has over
schooling, the better off our country will be.
Notes:
1. Of course, in NZ all schools must be registered – with the
state – even totally private schools. And the state reserves
to itself the right to define a school as it sees fit in the
circumstances. You will not find a definition of a school
in the NZ Education Act, which helps explain why we
actually have the absurd situation of a state school being
open, staffed and consuming tax dollars while there is not
a single student enrolled or attending.
Now that presents an idea: why don’t we individual
home educators, or maybe a group of us, band together
and apply to become a registered school? Just think of all
the funding we’d get! And the unbelievable provisions of
the Integration Act would guarantee that we could keep
our thoroughly Christian character! I am told at least one
family of home educators in NZ have in fact taken this
route. Well, it appears the Minister of Education, Trevor
Mallard, has declared a temporary stop to integrating any
more private schools into the state system, so maybe that
route isn’t open any more. I would actually object to this
route because of the other regulations we’d automatically
be subject to as a registered school (building codes, OSH
regs, square meters per child, wheelchair access, etc.).
The money isn’t worth the loss of freedom. Our family
has enjoyed nearly two decades of freedom, and we’d
never give it up for government money. What a lousy
deal that would be.
2. Manawatu Evening Standard, 6 March 2004, “The Best
and Worst of Days”, p. 4.
3. Manawatu Evening Standard, 4 December 1990
4. Phillip Capper, PPTA, Dominion Sunday Times, 14 October
1990
5. Christchurch Press, 5 November 1985.
6. Experts in perversion. Don’t just take my word for it. Ring
the local hospital or health board and ask for the sexual
health services and ask them to please send you a set of
the materials handed out to high school kiddies aged 13
and over at sexuality workshops: a “tutu pak”, a sexual
health W.O.F. questionnaire and a condom/lubricant/
information card pack. Then explore the websites promoted
therein: you will be treated to tours of incest and
sex-with-the-teacher possibilities and tips from the FPA
to young bucks on how to seduce young girls. All courtesy
of your tax dollars.
7. This is not true, of course. Such rebellion is a function of
feeling rejected by parents and getting conflicting messages
from the other authorities in their lives: the teachers

From Keystone Magazine

March 2004 , Vol. X No. 2
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

To order a subscription to Keystone Magazine do one of the following:

send email to sales@hef.org.nz with visa number

post cheque or visa number to PO Box 9064, Palmerston North, New Zealand

fax: 06 357-4389

phone: 06 357-4399

Trademe (fees added):  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2366144

Sella (No added fees):  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4ym9qg/home-education-foundation/display-100

Limit the TV

Posted on by

Limit the TV

by Craig Smith
When talking about this subject
of limiting TV viewing,
feedback from parents suggests
that frequently it’s the
parent who wants the TV on, not necessarily the children.
Children are trained to watch TV so that parents
can get some work done. TV appears to be a great tool
for controlling children or keeping them occupied for
a while. But hopefully most of us are learning that TV
is not without its side effects.
The more difficult job as parents is probably not the
weaning of our children off too much TV – it is weaning
ourselves off the tube. If we have trained our children
to watch TV so that they leave us alone, it means
they haven’t learned how to play independently. If
they have become dependent on us to provide entertainment,
we have not done them any favours. They
do need to learn how to find their own activities if we
really cannot have them helping us out just now.
Or perhaps we need to re-examine why we want them
to leave us alone so much. Are we trying to do too
much, things outside of our calling as home educators
and as parents? Is the “good” represented by these
other projects of ours robbing us of the ability properly
to perform our calling, our “best”? Do we too often
put the children on the back-burner “just until I get
through this busy patch”? Perhaps, especially as home
educators, we can far more profitably use that time
building into our children’s lives ourselves, rather than
letting whatever happens to be on the tube (or the
VCR) get built into them.
Will our children get bored if they don’t watch TV? If
they have access to a variety of activities, art and craft
supplies, playthings, etc. (as appropriate for their ages)
they will prefer to engage their minds in activity rather
than staring at a blank wall or grizzling to us. Unlike
watching TV, children engaged in activities are thinking.
They may think up activities we wouldn’t desire
(like emptying all the shampoo bottles down the sink)
which means they need a bit more monitoring than the
genuine TV-induced couch potato does.
Some say children need to blob out in front of the TV
to relax. Test out the thesis: objectively observe their
behaviour after an hour of racy TV viewing and then
after an hour of reading a good book (or having one
read to them). Most of us already know instinctively
the outcome of such observations. Boys especially like
to watch action-packed adventure and will come away
revved up. They may also be really discontented,
somewhat confused and frustrated by the way evil and
vanity are glorified, the way righteousness is scoffed
at, the “adult” themes contained in many “children’s”
shows today and the degree of violence portrayed.
What about limiting TV in our homes? As with most

parenting issues, it’s amazing how compliant children

become when they know you mean it! They seem to

thrive on clear, bold boundaries consistently and rigorously

enforced.

Our children really enjoy the “Friday night only” rule

we have. (This is for videos: we almost never allow

the TV to go on). Their anticipation of those evenings

is half the fun.

Surely the argument that our children need to be totally

clued-up on the latest TV offerings in order to

maintain friendships or be culturally relevant in order

to witness to them is nearly antithetical to what Christian

home education is all about. Our Christian home

training, where they are more socialized by us parents

than by their peers, makes them really different already.

They’ll learn about the TV shows if they hang

around many TV-watching friends. (Actually that is a

pretty good argument for being a lot more vigilant

about them hanging around such friends! So much

pollution is to be had from that source and often so

very little of value to gain.)

I know for a fact that my brain was definitely hurt by

all the TV watching I did my first 27 years. It molded

by attitudes from an early age in ways that are totally

contrary to Scripture. Those attitudes I am still trying

to weed out, even though I cut TV viewing back to a

point approaching absolute zero nearly 25 years ago.

Just think what I could have learned if I’d invested

that earlier TV-time more profitably! It pretty well

goes without saying that the best lessons learned in

life, the most valuable experiences, were acquired

through living in the real world, not by a vicarious TV

experience.

Even today with videos only once a week, I feel the

tension creep in almost immediately, feel unsettled for

hours afterwards and sometimes regret the waste of

time and/or the way it cut into sleep or reading time.

One needn’t be a rocket scientist to realise that almost

any activity will stimulate greater intellectual development,

nurture the imagination, reduce cynicism and

foster a closer child-parent relationship than watching

the box. Since many of us were raised with the tube as

our mentor, it is not always immediately easy for us to

provide alternatives now.

A few starting points are a must: Do not put a TV in

your child’s room. Do not allow unsupervised access

to TV. Set a maximum amount of TV allowed per

week: consider making this limitation binding on the

entire family, parents included, to be really effective

and to gain extra benefits for us parents as well. Insist

our children ring us before watching a TV show or

video at a friend or even a relative’s place. If we say,

“No,” our children are not likely to suffer the social

penalty and be thought of as weird: we parents will! It

protects our children from ugly TV/video shows as

well as from most of the social fallout and forces us to

come up with a sound viewing policy

(Adapted and edited from material by Christine Della

Maggiora, www.limitv.org.)

From Keystone Magazine

January 2004 , Vol. X No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

To order a subscription to Keystone Magazine do one of the following:

send email to sales@hef.org.nz with visa number

post cheque or visa number to PO Box 9064, Palmerston North, New Zealand

fax: 06 357-4389

phone: 06 357-4399

Trademe (fees added):  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2366144

Sella (No added fees):  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4ym9qg/home-education-foundation/display-100

How Can Home Educators Socialise an Only Child?

Posted on by

How Can Home Educators Socialise an Only Child?

by Craig Smith
We have six children, so I cannot speak from personal experience. But I have talked to a few and read others and offer the following for your consideration.
How much of what most of us think of negatively in relation to an only child is formed by our own experiences at school? The socialisation we experienced is immediately drawn upon subconsciously as the standard by which we will judge the issue of home educating an only child. There is an element of nostalgia attached to what we did, even though some of us had a lousy time overall at school and on the playground. We immediately think children need other  children without actually stopping to think about it. And therefore, in the case of an only child, he or she would most definitely need to be around other children for there are no built-in sibling socialisers.
Think of the typical classroom. The mix you get is not of your choosing. There may be some lovely children there. It is also true that they may not be all that lovely by the end of a year of bullying or being the bully, intimidation, rivalry, humiliation, learning how to gangup on others, tease the odd-balls or be teased, etc. There may, in fact, be few other children there who you’d want influencing your child, assuming those few could do so positively in the school environment and not themselves be drawn into the negative and aggressive behaviours and survival techniques.
Think of the children in your neighbourhood. We used to have some nice kiddies our children could happily play with. No more: our street is populated by some undesirable types, and we’ve noticed that all children seem to be far less conspicuous than they used to be, possibly because they spend more time watching TV or doing computer games. We also know that there is a growing number of acutely dysfunctional “families” and other ad hoc groups out there, some more than a little perverted in their ways. These are found both in the schools and in our neighbourhoods. It could well be that the friends the only child’s parents would choose are from church or other Christian friends anyway.
Note I said the parents would choose the friends. This is an element of socialisation that comes to the fore when you stop to think it through carefully. Normal practise is to let children find and keep their own friends. Yet we all know about coming under the influence of a “friend” who really only teaches us bad habits, disrespectful attitudes and fosters in us an appetite for forbidden fruits. When you factor in the high levels of obscenities, nakedness, immorality and violence that many parents allow their children to be exposed to these days, being a lot more strict about who you let your child mix with is no longer seen as paranoia. In fact, if we are endeavouring to disciple our child for the Lord Jesus Christ, training him or her in godliness and righteousness, we will acknowledge it does not happen all by itself or with a wee bit of Bible reading here and Scripture memory there with something tossed in for them at church on Sunday. No, there will be a constant and consistent guiding, training, modelling and molding. You are hand-crafting this child to take on the lifetime career of Ambassador for the King of Kings. To achieve the best result we most certainly do not leave things to chance: we choose their friends.
Here is another area that will not look after itself, but one that we parents need to supervise, think about and become creative in order to finish the race as the Lord directs us to do: striving for excellence. Excellence means out of the ordinary, straining toward and surpassing higher standards. What are our standards for our child’s socialisation? Have we ever even thought about it? Let’s list a few: respectfulness to all, especially the aged; the ability to converse with much older and much younger people; showing deference to others, that is, letting others go first, especially women and children; having a servant heart toward others; having a clean sense of humour and one that does not laugh at another’s humiliation or character assassination; knowing how to choose conversation topics that are not centred on self but are edifying to all and/or inquiring after another’s welfare and interests; knowing how to avoid and/or direct conversations and proposed activities away from inappropriate themes.
This requires training in discretion and judgement, learning how to discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad, wise and unwise. Now please notice: as soon as you embark on such a journey, you will immediately incur the wrath of a great portion of our society, for they have been indoctrinated into Political Correctness which says one must never discriminate or be judgemental. Therefore, understanding why you do certain things, learning how to stick to your guns and resist peer pressure are also essential ingredients of socialisation. Again, these things do not happen by themselves. We parents need to work on these things ourselves and seek out other like-minded parents of children from whom our child would glean good things and to whom our child could be a blessing.
There is often concern about your child having a close friend or a best friend. Again, much of the thinking around this subject is coloured by rose-tinted glasses and an illdefined nostalgia for getting up to fun things and sharing secrets. A bit of this is surely ok….too much is unhealthy, especially when the fun things progress (downhill, as any unsupervised activity is likely to do) past “high jinx” and into naughtiness, destructiveness, vengeance, etc. The obvious on-the-spot solutions are being yourselves (Mum and Dad) your child’s best friend. Since your attentions are not divided among many children, take advantage of the opportunity to invest heavily into this one child. Spend lots of time together reading all those incredible books out there, investigating everything that comes to mind by staging another impromptu field trip, impart skills a 7-year-old would normally never have (how to weld, drive a sewing machine, analyse the power bill and balance the cheque book.
What about team activities? Join one or start your own. Sports can be a bit of a bind with weekly practises plus weekend games. Music groups will expect regular attendance, but missing one does not cause the same crisis as missing a soccer forward. Submitting to the grind of coming up with a fresh programme every single week need not happen if you run your own club. Institutionalising fun things can drain the fun out of them. Staging your own activity only as often as you can fit it in, without sacrificing other priorities or suffering burnout, can in fact allow everyone concerned to fully savour the anticipation and planning, as well as the execution and afterglow stages, of an occasional wellplanned event, rather than settling for the hurried, slapped-together offering of the traditionally institutionalised programme dished up relentlessly every week or fortnight. This is not to say one should be slack in meeting commitments or wary of making them. It’s an alternative to the regular scheduling society expects which so often becomes a bind due to its inflexible nature. The social benefits of club commitments may not be worth being a slave to the calendar.

From Keystone Magazine

January 2004 , Vol. X No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

To order a subscription to Keystone Magazine do one of the following:

send email to sales@hef.org.nz with visa number

post cheque or visa number to PO Box 9064, Palmerston North, New Zealand

fax: 06 357-4389

phone: 06 357-4399

Trademe (fees added):  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2366144

Sella (No added fees):  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4ym9qg/home-education-foundation/display-100

Taking Possession of a Forceful Political Statement

Posted on by

Taking Possession of a Forceful Political Statement

by Craig Smith

The very act of keeping or bringing our children home to educate them ourselves is a rather forceful political statement. It is so contrary to “the way things are done”; it is such a challenge to the status quo; it is so totally incomprehensible to most people when they first hear of it, that people cannot help but think we must be some kind of radically unbalanced ideologues.

But we’re not even trying to make a big political statement. Some of us actually loathe politics and politicians. We don’t want our actions to be thought of as “political”, nor do we want all the negative social implications that go along with it.

Sadly, these things are largely inescapable as home educators. It’s all part of the territory. Let me illustrate.

As if the political thing isn’t bad enough, for fellow Christians who know we home educate in order to more consistently disciple our children for our Lord Jesus Christ, yet who themselves send their children to the local temples of secular humanism (state schools), there is the added repelling factor that we have taken the moral high ground. We have chosen the hard way through the narrow gate, and our fellow Christians are greatly intimidated by this position. Why? Because they have not, even though their Lord calls them to do so just as He calls us to do so.

Fellow Christians who have committed their children to Christian schools plus our unbelieving friends who don’t home educate are both often a bit wary of us as well, especially when we start getting enthusiastic about how home education is bonding our family closer together, causing us to feel more fulfilled, massively reducing the stress of everyday life, socially maturing the children so they’re attitudes are far less rebellious and peer-oriented, etc. Again, although they see that we’re onto something good, and even though they’d like those benefits too, the huge changes home education would make to their current lifestyles and income levels is just too big a hurdle to think about.

Then there are those who simply know very little about home education, who have a totally erroneous view of what it is, how it works and why we do it. They can only assume that we are cultic or fanatics of some kind who are best avoided.

And sure enough, some friends start to avoid us. They are scared the conversation might stray into areas such as education, schooling, the children, godliness, etc., and they feel they might have to justify – out loud – why they aren’t home educating or why they think what we’re doing is daft. It is no wonder we make some people uncomfortable by our very presence.

Teaching our children at home is an in-your-face declaration, a statement of faith, an act of witnessing people simply cannot ignore. Make no mistake: it is highly noticeable, it is emotionally charged, and it carries some very weighty personal and political implications as well. Onlookers are plagued by questions such as, “How do they comply with Ministry of Education requirements? Who checks up on them? Why don’t they want to be involved in the community? How will their children ever get qualified for anything? Isn’t our local school good enough for them?”

These are the kind of vibes we are putting out, either intentionally (as in my case!!) or unintentionally. It affects our relationships and may well determine the degree of fellowship we can enjoy with others outside home education circles. As if this wasn’t a bad enough cause of stress, our chosen lifestyle may be causing our children some real intellectual, emotional, social and even spiritual difficulties as well. Because this can be such a large, over-arching kind of thing, it is up to us Fathers to nail it before it becomes a problem….or tackle it as an existing problem head-on before it becomes any bigger.

What we are talking about here is how comfortable we are, or our children are, at being labeled “home schoolers”, “home educators” or whatever, and how well we have come to terms with the wide-ranging implications of the home educator’s lifestyle.

One aspect of this we have all faced is among that first lot of hurdles we had to jump over: “Is this for us? Am I doing the right thing?” (It is different from the other hurdle which can haunt many of us, totally unnecessarily I am convinced; the one that nags, “Am I capable of doing this?” I always answer, “Of course you are. In fact, as a parent with your own child in a tutoring or mentoring situation, you automatically have vast logistical and relational advantages over conventional teachers.”) This question, “Am I doing the right thing?” hits at the whole idea of home education as a package deal. It wants to know how it measures up to conventional schooling over the long term.

To carry doubts about the very nature of home education will hinder every thing you do every day as a home educator. You need to take full possession of the title “Home Educator” and be at peace with the package. Otherwise it is like being lame, or as Elijah said back in I Kings 18:21: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?” Or as James says in 1:8, “He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” Strive for unity of purpose. Maybe that need be only for a season: that is, give it your total dedication, your best shot, for a bite-sized period of time only: say one year and re-assess the situation after that. Such a strategy may be a lot easier to visualise, to take hold of emotionally, than thinking in a vague sort of way that you’ll be burdened with what you’re struggling with now for the next 15 years! Get that monkey of doubt off your back, either permanently or just for a year, and you’ll immediately notice a rise in your confidence level.

Once thus committed, you will not only be a lot more confident yourself, you will be able to inspire so much more confidence in your wife and children as well.

The attitude we carry around with us about our home education: whatever it is, one of insecurity, being unsure about it, worried it will stunt the children’s growth somehow, or being totally convinced, excited about its benefits, a wild-eyed missionary for the movement….this attitude we carry is an integral part of yours and – intentionally or unintentionally – your children’s Christian witness. We home educators need to be aware of this first of all, and then we need to take possession of this in-your-face declaration we make simply by being home educators. And we need to help our children become comfortable – even proud – of making this declaration as well.

We have always told our children that they are different from the vast majority of people out there, not only because we are Christians but also because we are home educators. We are hated by the world, the Lord tells us, and will definitely suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12). Home education ensures we will suffer a degree of persecution even from fellow Christians. Barbara and I delight in being different for Christ’s sake, and this must rub off on the children. Their identity has been wrapped up in this: I tell them they are “Smiths” and that we Smiths belong to the Lord and fear Him, not the people around us. We told them the day would come when their friends would not just call them strange but would tell them that their parents (Barbara and I) were so unbelievably strict and old-fashioned that they’re just plain weird. When that day came, our children looked at us with awe! We could foretell the future: we were prophets indeed!

Not bad, eh? Prophesying this kind of thing is a piece of cake for parents: we can think of a whole bunch of things our children will undoubtedly encounter, including attitudes they’ll develop. “You know what’s wrong with teenagers?” you innocently ask your 11 year old. “They think mum and dad don’t understand.” Your words will come back and haunt that 11 year old two or three years later when s/he says those very words, “But Mum, you don’t understand!” All parents should prophesy regularly!

This and subtle things like calling children on the school playground “prisoners let out into the exercise yards” let your children know your mind is clear and made up. Of course, one of our responsibilities is to love both neighbours and enemies, so as far as it depends upon us, we live peaceably and harmoniously with others, outdoing one another in showing honour. Even so, your family unit wants to be self-sufficient socially, children best friends with their siblings, mum and dad obviously in love, so that hankerings to be somewhere else, doing something else with someone else don’t subvert your home environment nor your children’s contentment with your leadership.

From Keystone Magazine

September 2003 , Vol. IX No. 5
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

To order a subscription to Keystone Magazine do one of the following:

send email to sales@hef.org.nz with visa number

post cheque or visa number to PO Box 9064, Palmerston North, New Zealand

fax: 06 357-4389

phone: 06 357-4399

Trademe (fees added):  http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=2366144

Sella (No added fees):  http://www.sella.co.nz/store/4ym9qg/home-education-foundation/display-100