Category Archives: Articles written by Craig

A War Going On

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A War Going On

by Craig Smith
Last year sometime the NZ Race Relations
Commissioner (did you know we had one? His name is
Joris De Bres) called for submissions on a Draft
National Statement on Religious Diversity. This
statement was endorsed by the National Interfaith
Forum in Hamilton in February 2007. (Have you even
heard of such an event? It is an annual event.) The
Statement on Religious Diversity made a more
publicized appearance at the Asia-Pacific Interfaith
Dialogue held at Waitangi on 29 May 2007 when our
Prime Minister addressed the Forum by saying in part,
“My government works hard to ensure that all
ethnicities and faiths are valued and included in 21st
century New Zealand,” while Brian Tamaki of Destiny
Church introduced his own Statement on New
Zealand’s Religious Identity, the Waitangi Declaration,
which opened with the words, “We formally recognize
New Zealand as a Christian nation.”
In the NZ Census of 2006, 51% said they were
Christian, 32% said they were of no religion, 13% did
not say what they were, and all the other religious of
the world only added up to 5%. And yet the
Government spends our tax dollars through the Human
Rights Commission (HCR) to focus on ways they can
manipulate the 51% majority into thinking they should
accommodate that 5% minority. Here’s how:
“The Human Rights Commission facilitates the New
Zealand Diversity Action Programme which includes a
national interfaith network and a range of government
and community interfaith projects (www.hrc.co.nz/diversity).
There is a national interfaith website
(www.interfaith.org.nz), a network of regional interfaith
councils and a number of national councils such as the
Council of Christians and Jews and the Council of
Christians and Muslims. There is an annual National
Interfaith Forum in February and a National Religious
Diversity Forum at the [annual] New Zealand Diversity
Forum in August… The 2006 forum [in Wellington]
was attended by faith community representatives and
members, government ministers, key government
department chief executives and local government
representatives. The forum addressed three issues:
government and faith community cooperation,
education and the development of a statement on
religious diversity.”1
There is clearly something cooking here. You cannot
even get to the interfaith.org.nz home page unless you
are authorised. And as you explore the Human Rights
Commission’s website pages on religious Diversity
(two good starting places are: http://tinyurl.
com/23zu3z and http://tinyurl.com/ywqtsm) you will
find that these initiatives to bring religious
communities together and foment harmony and
tolerance come for the most part from the central
Government rather than from Christian churches. Even
more worrying is the official commentary of the last of
the eight points in the New Zealand Statement of
Religious Diversity that was presented at the Asia-
Pacific Interfaith Dialogue in Waitangi:
“8. Cooperation and Understanding. Government
and faith communities have a responsibility to build
and maintain positive relationships with each other,
and to promote mutual respect and understanding. The
right to religion, like all rights, entails responsibilities.
This statement delineates the responsibilities of faith
communities in relation to government and other faith
communities. These responsibilities include fostering
relationships with other religious communities that
promote not just tolerance but understanding, respect
and cooperation. Likewise government, both local and
national, has a parallel responsibility to seek to develop
and sustain good relationships with religious
communities in New Zealand.”This represents the quiet
approach of the enemy to undermine and subvert the
robust and victorious nature of Christ’s Church here on
earth. It is often hard even to recognise this stuff as
subversive, but it clearly is. It starts off by saying, “The
right to religion, like all rights, entails responsibilities.”
Since when does anyone need the central government in
Wellington to affirm that we have a right to religion? Does
Parliament tell Christians what our religious
responsibilities are? The government’s approach to
this, you see, is that they are the dispenser of rights, a
position they took up in 1990 with the NZ Bill of
Rights Act and re-emphasised with the Human Rights
Act of 1993: as far as the state is concerned, rights are
bestowed upon the populace (and revoked) by a simple
majority vote in Parliament. In addition, this
government statement wants Christians to respect,
understand and cooperate with those religions which,
sadly, blind people to the truth of their need of
redemption through Christ. It says we have a
responsibility to do so. (Will this be backed up in law
one day if we don’t?) We Christians as individuals
should always treat other people, even in-your-face
reprobates, as image-bearers of God and with all due
respect. But we do not treat false religions as anything
other than a blindness that leads to hell. In addition,
our Lord makes some fairly exclusive comments in the
Scriptures such as, “He who is not for Me is against
Me; he who does not gather with Me scatters,” (Luke
11:23); “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you,” (Matthew
28:18-20); “He who believes in the Son has eternal
life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God rests upon him,” (John 3:36); “I
am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the
Father but by Me,” (John 14:6). It is our privilege to
show respect and understanding to the lost, pointing
out that they are lost due to their false religions.
Another approach of the enemy is the aggressive
attack. This is easier to recognise and oppose.
Elizabeth McKenzie, President of the NZ Association
of Rationalists and Humanists, wrote a submission on
15 December 2006 addressing this Statement on
Religious Diversity in which she commented directly
on this point number eight by saying, “I think that
homogenising the population by removing separate
religious schools and the option of home schooling for
the religious would go further in reaching this goal
than a Statement on Religious Diversity.”
Elizabeth sure recognizes where the battlefield lies: in
the hearts and minds of the children, the next
generation. Her answer is to get religion out of
education, including home education, and presumably
let the state and rationalists and humanists continue to
do it in the school institutions and in the home. I
submit to you that she says such an approach would
homogenise the population (make us all the same as
her) since state education is coming from the same
stable as her favourite horses of rationalism and
humanism.
Folks, there is a war going on. We must not go into
denial and decide to ignore it and just enjoy the good
life, for then we and our children will become
casualties. This war started at least as far back as the
Garden of Eden. There are only two sides to this war.
And the war will go on until one side wins.
Now, we already know Who wins, and in fact, He has
already won the war at the Cross of Calvary. We are all
now engaged in mopping up exercises, offering terms
of peace, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to those rebels
who still sniper at us Christians. When our Commander
in Chief comes on Judgment Day, He will show no
mercy to these rebels…as ambassadors of Christ we do
what we can to show them the need to surrender to
Christ, repent, lay down their arms and take up the
Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God and the other
parts of the Christian Soldier’s armour and fight with
us.
Sure, we appear to be outnumbered at present and
losing the battle. That may be, but it is only a
temporary situation. There were only 120 in the upper
room on the Day of Pentecost, but more than 3,000 by
the end of the day. Since then, Christianity globally has
only grown, though there have been localized setbacks.
These phony peace initiatives wrapped in phony
religious garments such as this “National Statement on
Religious Diversity” is designed to neutralise, to
castrate the potency of fully-Biblical, Christ-centred
Christian Faith. We must not have a bar of it.
But we must understand our situation in New Zealand:
three times recently the MPs voted against the wishes
of the overwhelming numbers of voters: in
decriminalizing prostitution, establishing civil unions
and criminalizing parents who correct their children.
We must understand that what used to be underground
(homosexuality and prostitution) is now paraded in the
streets; and what once was talked of openly on the
streets (that children need to be smacked and that
homosexuality is a perversion) is now being driven
underground.
Let me quote from R.J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of
Biblical Law, page 164: “In the Marxist scheme, the
transfer of authority from the family to the state makes
any talk of the family as an institution ridiculous. The
family is to all practical intent abolished whenever the
state determines the education, vocation, religion and
the discipline of the child.” Have we not seen most if
not all of these things right here in NZ of late? And NZ
has added a Families Commission to further destroy
and marginalise and render irrelevant the Biblical norm
of family being husband and wife joined in holy
matrimony under God with the children God gives
them.
Christianity, Biblical Law, the Christian Faith applied
to all of life and individual consistent Christians are all
under attack here in NZ. Those who do not recognise
that a war is on and who fail to take up arms will suffer
the obvious consequences.
Notes:
1. Building Bridges: The Third Asia Pacific Regional Interfaith Dialogue
Waitangi, New Zealand, May 29-31, 2007 at http://tinyurl.com/23zu3z.


From Keystone Magazine

July 2007, Vol. XIII No. 4
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:

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“How Did You Stick At It?”

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“How Did You Stick At It?”

We were convinced about home education from
Scripture and the nature of the state schools. We stuck
to it as pioneers by faith. Today we are thrilled with the
results. More than that, we can see how much more
effective we could have been if we had not had the
negative responses, the doubt, the insecurity, the lack
of support and the lack of vision. All of these things
have today been rectified.
II Corinthians 3:18 is one of those key passages that
guide my entire outlook on life. It says (in my beloved
RSV): “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the
glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness
from one degree of glory to another; for this comes
from the Lord Who is the Spirit.” This says change is
part of the Christian’s life. But not just change for the
sake of change. No, the change is specific and
directional: into the likeness of Jesus Christ and from
one degree of glory to another. To me that clearly
communicates that it is an uphill climb in which I am
to be engaged for the rest of my life. I don’t like the
idea of slogging uphill all my days,
but that is clearly what this is telling
me is a normal part of Christian life.
It is not an isolated idea, by the way:
it is all though Scripture. The Ten
Commandments of Exodus 20 call us
to certain standards which the Lord
Jesus explained in the Sermon on the
Mount (Matthew 5) were actually far
more stringent than most ever
thought, saying we must hunger and
thirst for righteousness, not assume
that He came to abolish the Law,
have a righteousness that exceeds the
Pharisees, be perfect as our heavenly
Father is perfect. Deuteronomy 6:5
says we are to love God with
everything we’ve got, just as our
Lord Jesus also said. Paul writes in
Philippians 3:12-16 to forget the past
while maintaining the standards
gained in the past and press onwards
and upwards to the prize.
In addition Romans 5:17 (RSV) says,
“If, because of one man’s trespass,
death reigned through that one man,
much more will those who receive
the abundance of grace and the free
gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man Jesus Christ.” Death reigns
on earth at the rate of nearly 100%: I
suppose Enoch did not see death nor did the
prophet Elijah, nor will those left alive when the
Lord returns to wrap up the whole show on
judgement day. But we who received grace and
righteousness (a gift, note, not one we earned by
our good works which the verses in the previous
paragraph and James 2:14-26 and others say we
must still perform); we who are born again
Christians should reign in life more, much more,
than death reigns! But we reign in this life through
Jesus Christ. We reign in life! We don’t just get by; we
don’t just survive; we don’t just struggle through each
month financially and emotionally, wondering what the
purpose of it all is…we REIGN in life!!! We’re on the
top, not the bottom; we’re the head and not the tail; we
are as the wealthiest yet possessing little of this world’s
goods…because we reign through Jesus Christ.
OK, so how do we do that? Colossians 3:1-3: “If then
you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that
are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of
God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on
things that are on earth. For you have died, and your
life is hid with Christ in God.” Romans 8 talks about
how we can now fulfil the just requirement of the Law
by walking according to the Spirit, setting our minds
on the things of the Spirit, not on things of the flesh.
Galatians 2:20 is probably the clearest: “I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the
flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me.” Jesus is to continue to live
on this earth vicariously as it were though us. We get
the blessings of an orderly, obedient, peaceful and
purposeful life. And we get persecutions…if we do the
same work as He did on this earth, we need to expect
all the same working conditions as He endured. This
really is what we are all called to do anyway. Luke
9:23-24: “If any man would come after Me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow
Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and
whoever loses his life for My sake, he will save it.”
Our whole lives are to be given over to Him that we
may be used as instruments of righteousness in His
hands.
Home education is for us foundational in
accomplishing this kind of life to which we are called.
It is fulfilling one of the first, most primary callings we
have as humans, and even more so as parents: to tell
His praises to others, to inculcate His word into the
next generation, to evangelise and disciple the lost, to
train up our children to live for Him only as totally
committed soldiers of the cross. When I look to the
Scriptures about doing this, I see a very full
curriculum, one that includes the three Rs, all the hard
sciences, exceptional communication, language,
negotiation, mediation and teaching skills all to a high
standard of excellence in the three passages of Genesis
1:28, Matthew 28:18-20 and II Corinthians 5:17-20. In
doing these things we have found we are living, not for
ourselves, but for the glory of God, through Jesus
Christ…the purpose of living, of parenting, of home
educating is to see Christ live through us and
through our children, to see His Word living
and active and motivating and directing our
thoughts, words and deeds and those of our
children. Being focussed on our children has
FORCED us to get our own personal acts
together as committed followers of Jesus
Christ, and suddenly all the traditional goals
of Western life: to gain a bigger house,
flasher car, more paid holidays, a more
prestigious career, comfort, ease and
pleasure…none of these things appear on the
radar screen anymore. But we couldn’t be
more happy or fulfilled or excited about the
present as well as about the future. This is
how we stick at it…because we love it with a
passion!
But wait…there’s more! We Christian home
educators love children so much, many of us
have more than the bare replacement of 2.1
children per woman. Europe is dying: look at
what used to be the bastions of Roman
Catholicism which encourages large
families: Italy now has a birth rate of 1.2 per
woman; Spain’s is a mere 1.15. Of the 10
lowest birth rates in the world, 9 are in
Europe: the 10th is Japan. In addition,
unbelievers are increasing the slaughter of
their children who are conceived and also
engaging in lifestyles that ensure an increase
in infertility and early deaths. If we keep
having large families of 4, 5 & 6, just give us
a couple of generations and we’ll take over
by force of numbers! And then factor in the
advantages of strong family background, excellence in
education because of our desire to do all things well
and God’s favour upon His elect, and I see a bright
future indeed for our posterity…as long as we can
effectively communicate the vision to the third and
fourth generation so that they’ll do the same.
Everything about the state schooling system is so far
from any of this that it is simply irrelevant at best and
at worst is a mix of hostile philosophies and practises
designed to keep Christians lost in the woods of sinful
secularism and worldliness. Once we shed any desire
to be blessed by the MoE or ERO, to be approved by
them more than is legally required, to stay abreast of
their schooling system, to receive resources or advice
from them…once we became more or less one-eyed
about living for Christ alone, we lost a huge load of
useless baggage that clung pretty tightly. As a
consequence we became so much more free and
unencumbered to home educate (that is, live for
Christ). We have been freed to love and indulge our
passion for seeing Christ live in and through ourselves
and our children even more!
We are seeing the fulfilment of Psalm 37:4: “Take
delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of
your heart.” When the desires of our hearts start to
parallel His desires (as opposed to our own or those of
the state schooling system), then He obviously delights
to give us those desires!!

From Keystone Magazine

March 2007, Vol. XIII 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

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Leading Our Children Towards a Sincere and Pure Devotion to Christ

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Leading Our Children

Towards a Sincere and

Pure Devotion to Christ

by Craig Smith
I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to
one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
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. — II Corinthians
11:2-3
Paul is here very soberly and softly laying down some
absolute basics of the Christian faith, things with which
we should each be thoroughly familiar. Are we? Let’s
check it out.
Paul evangelised these folks from the dominion of
darkness and led them to the light of Christ. They were
spiritually dead, and now they are alive in Christ. As
the new-born creatures they were, he presented them as
pure, chaste virgins to their (and our) husband, Jesus
Christ the Lord, to await the final consummation with
Him in heaven.
This is also, of course, our situation as believers: we
are Christ’s betrothed, and we are to be busy preparing
ourselves for that marvellous Day when He comes to
take us to Himself. Preparations include getting to
know as much as we can about Him and performing all
the tasks He has assigned to us to do until that
heavenly Day arrives. It includes remaining pure and
chaste, staying away from whatever might defile us in
body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions, affections, desires,
etc. That is, we are in training until He arrives so that
all our thoughts, all our words, all our actions might be
beyond reproach, might reflect only pure and
praiseworthy motivations, might bring blessing and
edification to those around us and might honour our
Lord by causing others to give glory to our Father in
heaven even though it is our good works they see.
Quite a challenge, isn’t it? But nothing when you
suddenly realise that this is also the way we are to be
raising our children, discipling them for Jesus, training
them to be soldiers of the Cross, totally sold out to one
Lord and to one Lord only, our sovereign Saviour
Jesus Christ. Does He want us to let these children, for
whom we have every hope and promise of believing
that Christ died for them as much as for us and that
they are indeed among the elect…would He be
impressed if we casually let them experiment with
lifestyles and substances and philosophies that He
declares in His word are abominations? He has
delivered these children to us as a stewardship,
that we might raise them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, being in full-time service for
Him as His possessions from conception onwards. Yes,
they must do personal business with God and
individually repent at the foot of the Cross and
consciously, sincerely embrace Christ as their only
Lord and trust Him as their only Saviour. These things
we remind them of constantly as we also train them to
think God’s thoughts after Him and perform all that He
has commanded us in His Scriptures. The children
belong to God not only because He created them but
also because He claims them for Himself through His
substitutionary death on the Cross to redeem them
from futility, a promise conveyed to them through us
their parents as we live the Faith before them and
inculcate the Faith into them (Exodus 20:6, Acts 2:39,
Romans 4:13, I Corinthians 7:14).
How could we possibly take a hands-off approach to
our children’s development, letting them dabble in
things that are not only foreign to Biblical standards
but actively hostile to them? This is the approach the
media, the government, the schools and every single
non-Christian child-advocacy group in the country
pushes ad nauseum—that children are well-nigh
autonomous, and how dare we parents impose our
beliefs and standards on these independent little people
we only have for a short time? Well, we train them up
for Christ alone because they do not belong to the state,
to us parents or to themselves…they belong to God
alone, and He alone is worthy to receive their full
allegiance. What’s more, He demands it (Acts
17:30), and as far as it depends upon me, He
shall have it.
Brothers and sisters: what then does this say
about the vast numbers of believers’ children
who are being shipped off to the temples of
Moloch, the compulsory, secular state
schooling institutions where any serious
consideration of Christ’s claims to Lordship
and the Christian faith are excluded by law?
You know the serpent is going to use such
places to deceive them away from a sincere
and pure devotion to Christ. How can anyone
be immersed in such anti-Christian
environments and come out as a “pure virgin
to Christ”, whose thoughts, words and actions
have not been led astray time and time again?
Why do believing parents compromise their
children’s futures like this? The state schools
teach that homosexuality, sleeping around
and prostitution are all valid lifestyles, that
evolution is fact and that truth is relative.
These are abominations. The Nehemiah
Institute’s (www.nehemiahinstitute.com)
worldview test shows that 83-percent of the
children from committed Christian families
who attend public schools adopt a secular
humanist or Marxist socialist worldview; that
is, they think like pagans, not Christians. At
the Southern Baptist Church’s 2002 annual
meeting in the USA, the Southern Baptist
Council on Family Life reported that 88-percent
of the children raised in evangelical homes
leave church at age 18. Barna Research (www.barna.
org) reports that only 9-percent of born-again teens
believe in moral absolutes, and more than half believe
that Jesus sinned while He was on earth.
Giving Christian children over to indoctrination by
pagans is not just unwise….it is foolish in the extreme
and precisely opposite of what we’re instructed to do…
and doing it to those least able to resist error: immature
Christian children….and being done by those who
should know and want far better: their own parents.

From Keystone Magazine

January 2007, Vol. XIII 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

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Fishing Expedition

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Fishing Expedition

by Craig Smith
Below is a story from the USA about their CYFsequivalent
making false charges, being shown that they are false
charges, then proceeding to file court orders to inspect
the children privately away from the parents (what is
known as a “fishing expedition”), and all the paperwork
being done illegally, that is, without the required
documentation.
This kind of stuff happens all the time over there. It
happens here too, by the way, and Barbara and I have
had the unpleasant experience on a number of
occassions to review such cases that happen right here
in Kiwiland.
CYFs has legal powers to enter homes and remove
children apart from, over and above court or police
findings. You must understand this. It is because of this
the lady in Timaru (the riding crop case) had her son
taken and, even though found not guilty in court, CYFs
continues to hold her son in another town at a boarding
school being paid for by your taxes and mine.
Fortunately the father in this case below had a few
clues and trumped the social worker trying to do them
in by simply having the social worker return the next
day giving them time to tidy up, remove the children to
another place and get legal advice. We too must
become aware of what’s what and have a plan to
thwart CYFs workers’ objectives when they appear to
be less than above board. If Section 59 is repealed or
amended according to the ridiculous suggestions of the
Select Committee, virtually all parents will be suspect,
for it will be illegal to correct your child using any kind
of force, no matter how reasonable or light….and how
many parents will quite happily stop correcting their
children, I ask, simply because the state says you
shouldn’t do it? And since our children our out of the
sight of the normal eyes and ears of the state’s
agents—state school teachers—our children and our
families will become the most mysterious and because
of that, the most suspected.
It is scary that the case was dropped on a technicality
rather than the facts. Note that in the case below, in the
land of the free, the lawyers for the family (and these
are Christian lawyers, home schoolers every one of
them) suggested the family take the children for a
pediatrician’s inspection and report to get the social
worker off their back. I’ve noticed they suggest this
fairly routinely in such cases over there. I would
personally take that as an insult, assuming as it does
that the social worker may be onto something and has a
right to know the children’s bottoms are not covered in
bruises and welts even though the original complaint
was of untidy bedrooms! Freedoms and personal and
family integrity is apparently given away rather freely.
Let us not allow that sort of thing here, please.
By the way, do be aware that the ERO, when they enter
your home for a review, are also on “fishing
expeditions”, looking, listening, smelling for anything
that might cause them to have “reasonable grounds for
believing” that a child “is suffering or is likely to suffer
ill treatment” or other such undefined “abuse”. They
are probably not going to be as aggressive about it as a
CYFs social worker, but ERO staff in head office have
told me that they would be obliged to pass on to the
appropriate state agent any concerns they may have as
a result of encountering something in your home.
That’s just the way state agents, state bureaucrats are.
They are getting worse because of the breakdown of
our society; that is, they suspect more people more
often because of the escalating violence of our
dysfunctional society. But since we almost assuredly
represent the least dysfunctional segment of society,
since our entire families are generally so eagerly
focussed on this big family enterprise of home
education, we have less reason to give way to their
invasive requests, exposing our homes and lifestyles to
their ideological judgementalism and exposing our
families to possible further interventions by other
agencies and exposing our children to the possible
trauma of inspections and interviews by aggressive,
unfriendly strangers hoping to find something wrong.
Sadly these are the times in which we live.

Social Worker ‘Fishing Expedition’

Case Dismissed

The Warner* family was faithfully homeschooling
their eight children in Lenawee County, Michigan.
Little did they know the trouble that was around the
corner—false allegations, threats, an attempted fishing
expedition, an improper court order—and a happy
ending with the case dismissed!
It all started when an anonymous tipster contacted
social services to report the Warners for allegedly
having housing that was inadequate, particularly the
family’s sleeping quarters. The social worker visited
the home unannounced, but the father wisely refused
entry and set a time the next day for her to come back.
The father then voluntarily let the social worker into
their home—but had the rest of the family gone. The
social worker found the family’s home to be very
clean, neat and adequate, especially the sleeping
quarters. The social worker also mentioned that she
was looking for neglect and abuse, but she did not find
anything that evidenced that. However, the social
worker was not satisfied because she had not
completed her protocol in interviewing the children
separately and alone. The Warners, shocked that the
investigation did not close immediately because it was
obviously false, contacted Home School Legal Defense
Association.
HSLDA’s Senior Counsel Chris Klicka immediately
drafted a letter on the family’s behalf, stating he
believed the anonymous tipster to be malicious, since
the allegation was so absurd. Klicka also instructed
the Warners to give a number of character reference
letters from people in the community who could vouch
for them being good parents. In addition, he instructed
the parents to take their children to their pediatrician to
prove that all eight of their children were in perfect
health.
Klicka’s letter explained to the social worker that an
interview was not necessary since the social worker
would receive doctor’s reports, as well as letters from
the community vouching for the family’s innocence.
He also indicated that since the social worker had
already determined the allegation to be false, he was
advising the family that they were under no legal
obligation to have their children interviewed. The
social worker has a track record of getting her way, but
the family remained steadfast, refusing an interview in
order to protect their children from a fishing
expedition.
Finally, a month later, the social worker contacted
them again, insisting on an interview or else. But the
family held firm, refusing this unnecessary trauma to
their children.
Then surprise! On the evening of November 6, the
Warners were served with a court order. Apparently
the social worker had a hearing with the prosecutor and
the court referee and asked for a court order—without
the other side being present.
The court order stated, “it appears to the court upon the
filing of a petition, together with further proofs as
required by the court, that there are reasonable grounds
for removal of the children… Because conditions or
surroundings of the children are such as to endanger
the health, safety or welfare of the children, and it is
contrary to the welfare of the children to remain in the
home because the Department of Human Services is
asking to talk to the Warner children per Department
policy. Parents have refused to let the Department talk
with the children… it is ordered the Department of
Human Services may talk to the children… without the
parents being present within 72 hours of service.”
However, the court order had no petition attached,
which is required by law. The social worker by petition
has to present actual evidence of wrongdoing—not just
verbal complaints about the family not cooperating
with the social worker’s unconstitutional demands.
Parents have the right in Michigan to refuse an
interview if there is no evidence of a crime or neglect.
Also, the court order did not have a case number as
required by law. Upon being secured to represent the
Warners, Michigan attorney Dave Kallman immediately
called the court referee to ask for a hearing to cancel
the court order. But he first inquired why the order did
not have petition or case number.
The court referee said, “that is just the way we do it
here.” But as Kallman pushed the impropriety of the
court order further, the court referee began to falter.
Then he finally said he would check on it and talk with
the judge.
The next day, Kallman checked with him and he said
the court order was withdrawn. Praise God! The
Warner family was elated.
*Not their real name.
From http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/mi/200612070.asp.
Used with permission

From Keystone Magazine

January 2007, Vol.XIII 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

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Having “The Discussion” with Our Children

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Having “The Discussion” with Our Children

by Craig Smith
This presents a real problem. Our society is drenched
in sexual overtones Every form of media, entertainment,
advertising, fashion, music and much else in
daily social intercourse, such as the accepted sense of
humour one can use even in mixed company, is sexualised
to such an extent that there is simply no escape
from the subject. I was going to say that much of these
sexual overtones are perverted. But they are all perverted,
without exception, not just the homosexual
stuff. Why do I say that? Because sex outside of marriage
is perverted – that is, it is morally wrong, which
means it is perverted. Sex within marriage is a private
not a public affair. Consequently, as soon as it hits the
public arena, it too is perverted.
When we asked ourselves, “What exactly do our children
need to learn about the sexual facts of life before
they are married?”, we came up with the answer, “Very
little.” Yes, they will need to know the biology of reproduction,
but not just human conception, gestation
and birth. There is an incredible variation of reproductive
systems in the animal and plant worlds, the study
of which can again raise exclamations of wonder and
praise to our most wise and creative Father in heaven.
Sadly, however, when we think of telling our sons and
daughters about these things as they approach or are in
puberty, the cues as to how to proceed and what to say
that we have been getting from our secular society for
the last 40 years or so have been separated from a Biblical
understanding of sex as something holy and sacred.
And so it becomes a subject requiring a cold, unemotional
scientific approach on some occasions or the
casual, non-judgmental approach at other times. It has
become separated from marriage and from the intent to
conceive children and from the intent to co-operate
with God in filling and subduing the earth. Today it is
simply viewed as another activity that one may pursue
for both fun and profit, as long as one becomes aware
of and takes steps to reduce the risk factors. The NZ
government operates and funds at great expense a
number of organisations and websites specifically designed
to pour into our children’s minds graphic and
perverted sexual information that would cause adults to
gag. And they don’t even have to trouble us parents
with the fact that it is taking place.
(The fact that I actually wrote these comments about
“fun and profit” and “risk factors” shows how desensitised
we are to hearing such things. We pretty much
just accept it when we should all find such comments
to be totally offensive and outrageous. And certainly
we would never present such ideas to our children until
after their 21st or they get married, and we can discuss
such things as one adult to another.)
So when we come to think of fulfilling this particular
task in the education of our children, we tend to be reasonably
explicit, using correct scientific terms for parts
and processes. Or we may fall back on the old kiwi
farmer approach of taking the kids to the paddock to
watch the ram in among the ewes with the simple explanation,
“That’s sex.”
But this will hardly do. We are people made in the image
of God. That means we are not like sheep or cattle
or dogs whose reproductive lives are indiscriminate,
promiscuous and public. Neither do we want to be
overly descriptive. Why put graphic images of human
nakedness and sexual intercourse into the minds of our
children? And then tell them it is sinful to think such
thoughts. And then say that such actions are wrong and
not to be done until they are married. While my parents
were not so clear with their explanations and admonitions,
the books, magazines and films they let me see
were very clear, focussed and in colour visually…..
with the appropriately crisp commentary, trimmed of
any excessive adjectives or adverbs. Such things never
helped us when we were kids. They in fact acted as
stumbling blocks for us. These kinds of things made us
unhealthily curious, as youngsters, about what might
be seen under people’s clothing, especially as we
picked up on all the clues on TV shows and advertising
that something there was mysterious and alluring. And
of course our little friends all had their own store of
“forbidden knowledge”, images and experiences. Our
sinful natures already gave us enough trouble in this
area without parents and teachers and friends and porn
merchants putting extra illustrations and images before
us. So we do not trouble our children’s hearts and
minds with such things either.
Let me repeat: when we think of telling our children
about the “facts of life”, “the birds and the bees” or
whatever other euphemism you may use, the tendency
is to speak to the lowest human common denominator,
which includes all the unbelievers, rather than look for
a thoroughly Biblical approach; we tend to examine
things as if we had low goals or no goals at all. Example:
at a camp where we spoke on purity for four days,
the camp mum asked Barbara if she could help out.
Specifically she said she’d had lots of experience talking
to girls about sex….we were going to talk about
sex, weren’t we? As a matter of fact, no, we never did
have such plans. When you talk about sex, out come all
the facts surrounding biology, conception, contraception,
temptation, how far is too far, what happens if
you “get into trouble” and all the rest of it. So young
people, who are always told about their raging hormones
and how we older folks understand how difficult
they’re finding it at the moment trying to rein
themselves in….these young folks are left with these
images in their minds and told to go forth and NOT do
likewise. Instead of this we focussed on how the Lord
would have young people live. The New Testament
hammers this theme over and over once you start to
look for it. Take this from 1 Timothy 6:11-14: “But as
for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness,
gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the
eternal life to which you were called and about which
you made the good confession in the presence of many
witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who
gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his
testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession,
to keep the commandment unstained and free
from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” Instead of looking at the area that is causing
the problem – human sexuality in developing youngsters
who we want to live as holy and pure disciples of
Christ in the midst of a crooked and perverse and sexsoaked
society – let us look instead at the uncharted
virgin territory of godliness and holiness and love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control; for as it says in Galatians 5:22-23,
this is the fruit of the Spirit, we obviously should be
aiming at this, and against these things there is no law!
Here we do not say, “Now, don’t do this,” but instead
we say, “Go for it 100%!!!” Instead of describing everything
that is just over the line we don’t want our
young people to cross, let us describe and lead the way
IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, away from the line
and toward this bundle of Christ-like characteristics.
The strategy in our family for dealing specifically with
sex was perhaps tinged with idealism, thinking to say
as little as possible and to train the children up to value
modesty. Consequently both Barbara and I stopped
swimming in public long ago, for it meant baring most
of our bodies in front of others. We never bath or
shower with our children, nor do we allow them to see
us dressing or undressing. We instructed them in what
constitutes modest dress for both males and females,
and why it is desirable:
1) Baring yourself is one of the precious gifts you will
save for your spouse once you are married. The Scriptures
teach us that our bodies are precious and wonderfully
made and to be treated holy for they are the temples
of the Holy Spirit. Since the Scriptures tell us that
the two become one, the young man and the young
woman, anticipating marriage, should be striving to
present their future spouse with a holy and pure body
as well as a holy and pure mind and heart. And I will
venture to say, all of us parents have, since our own
weddings, found out that the newness, freshness,
brightness, purity and expense of the rings, gowns,
flowers, suits and presents are as nothing in comparison
to the holy and pure hearts, minds and bodies we
found – or wish we could have found – in each other.
2) As our children surely will have noticed, it is the
unbelievers in our society who advertise their unbelief
by dressing immodestly, showing what little respect
they have for their future and even present spouses. We
mention how nakedness has been one of the sure signs
of rabid paganism all through history, and that the
other mono-theistic religions (Islam and Judaism) understand
this and always cover up well. It is only the
post-Christian West among the mono-theists who have
taken to public immodesty, clearly as a result of turning
away from God and His laws.
3) We explain to our daughters that males in particular
have a problem with seeing too much of a female’s
body exposed, leading to the lust of the eyes and in the
heart which the Lord specifically condemned. Here is
one way the girls can be of great assistance to all males
and their Christian brothers in particular: by dressing
modestly. We did a whole weekend talk on purity a
while back, and in the session Barbara took with just
the girls, it was very sobering to them as she explained
just a little of what exposed midriffs and cleavage and
curve-accentuating clothing does to their Christian
brother’s mind, heart and physiology. Many had never
considered this. It was scary as they considered this in
relation to all the unbelieving men they passed on the
street and what message their dress standards were
sending to some of these onlookers….it didn’t bear
thinking about. The idea is to train our daughters to
have a long-term vision on this, so that “She does [her
husband] good, and not harm, all the days of her
life” (Proverbs 31:12). Would her future husband want
her dressed in such a way that other men perved at her
walking down the street? No. Then she will dress even
now, at age 12, 13 or 16, with that future husband in
mind, doing him good even today!
We tried to explain to our children how the marriage
relationship is unique and special in many, many ways,
one of which is how a husband and wife need little privacy
between them as “the two become one”. This is
done by talks around the table, when the subject comes
up in our Bible reading, by the way we have switched
off the TV and fast forwarded videos and take all junk
mail straight to Barbara for her to screen before anyone
else sees it. We don’t watch any TV now, as it is just
too sensuous virtually any time of the day, whether it
be the ads or the show. We’ve walked out of two G
rated movies recently. We’ve also found that most videos
are not to be trusted.
And we’ve said to the boys that we don’t think they
need to know anything about the husband-wife sexual
relationship until just before they get married. You see,
all knowledge carries a degree of responsibility as to
how you handle that knowledge. In today’s society,
given the way it is running full speed toward immorality
of all kinds, such sexual knowledge is too heavy
and burdensome for their shoulders at present and has
proved to be a source of much stumbling for many.
Later on it will be part of the responsibility they will
need to assume upon marriage. We’ve said simply that
all sexual activity is to be within your marriage. It is
wrong, immoral and harmful outside of marriage. Just
like fire: it is great within the fireplace, but a total disaster
running through the rest of the house.
We don’t just leave it at that, of course. We help them
come to grips with the applications of I Timothy 5:1-2
where it says to treat younger women like sisters, in all
purity; or I Timothy 4:12, “Let no one despise your
youth, but set the believers an example in speech and
conduct, in love, in faith, in purity”; and other Scriptures.
Our rule of thumb is: “Attention to all, intention
toward none.” We help the boys understand that girls
are motivated by emotions, colours, textures, scents,
sounds and especially the sound of words that are kind,
complimentary and personal. So they must be careful not to toy with a girl’s emotions, either on purpose or
by accident, by using flattery or “buttering her up” to
get your way. They need to keep their own emotions in
check and realise that pairing off and dating is a very
unwise course of action. When the time comes to court
a maiden, a young man would ideally state his intentions
up front to her father first. (A great book dealing
with guy/girl relations at this level is Emotional Purity
by Heather Paulsen.) And in the meantime, young men
especially, keep your hands to yourself.
Of course they will want to know more; of course they
will be curious about all kinds of things. We explain to
them that all will be revealed when they get married,
that they will have total freedom at that time to ask,
explore, question, experiment to their heart’s content….
and that they will have a willing spouse….and that they
will have all the rest of their married lives….and that
then – within marriage – all they do will be totally
righteous, totally moral, totally healthy, totally joyous!
We explained how this was part of living by faith: that
taking our word for it now would pay great dividends
later. And let me tell you, being products ourselves of
the sensuous ‘60s with lots of friends who did not survive
it well or at all, we can speak with conviction
about these things; we know what we’re talking about
from front-line experience, not pie-in-the-sky theory.
There is a time and place for most things: the time and
place for investigating all the details of human sexual
intercourse is after marriage with your spouse in the
privacy of your own home.
Now this is all very fine, except that our children and
your children have friends whose parents or schoolmates
or teachers or whatever do not hold to this same
approach. Consequently they’ve picked up all kinds of
stuff from other sources. We’ve tried to warn our children
that they would hear stuff and be in conversations
they’d need to suddenly walk (or run) away from. This
is what we call “internal insulation”. We cannot isolate
our children from the world, but we can train them to
insulate themselves by learning to flee sexual talk and
developing a conviction about the necessity of doing
so. This is especially necessary because of the curse of
pornography so freely available on magazine racks and
on the internet. We parents must declare total war on
pornography, for it causes permanent brain damage by
the images it forever burns on the mind within two seconds
of time. And it can be as addicting as heroin.
Never compromise. Train your children to be uncompromising,
to trust your warning here if nowhere else
and to flee at the faintest hint of the stuff. Once trained,
by the grace of God, your children will be internally
insulated.
Then there is the “external insulation” where we ourselves
protect our children from the junk. When visiting
friends, they’d always ring if the friend offered to
screen a video for them. We would say no usually so it
was us, not our child, who was the spoil sport. (Today
we rarely let our younger ones visit away from home
on their own the way our older ones did when they
were young.) We discovered another principle of child
rearing in this regard: sleep-overs are no good. Youth
camps are worse. Young people in tents or a bedroom
at night, with no adults around, being all revved up
from a day of fun will often turn to topics of conversation
that are not normally brought up, just as their present
situation at the camp or sleep-over is not a normal
one. We now do not allow sleep-overs, no matter who
it is, even the most trusted friend’s children. Nor do we
allow overnight camps with youth groups of any kind
unless we are going to be in the same tent as our children.
The danger is not the sleep-over or the camp: the
danger is being unsupervised.
We discovered these principles after the damage had
been done. A couple of our children came to us in tears
months after events of this kind because the things of a
sexual nature their good, lovely, Christian friends had
told them had played so much havoc on their minds.
These friends were asked by our children to stop telling
them these things, but the friends had only just been
told themselves and were burning up inside with the
desire to tell someone else. Our children proved to be
easy and perfect targets: they had not heard such things
before; and lying in a tent late at night made it hard for
our children to flee. It is better not to put our children
into situations where such things can, and will, happen.
We are talking about unsupervised children of whom
the Bible says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of
a child” (Proverbs 22:15). Two or more children together
unsupervised simply means concentrated foolishness,
not a good recipe.
The key is to have your children’s hearts: that they
would want to discuss these kinds of things with you
first and foremost. That they would trust your judgement,
whatever it was, in these areas, and if you said
they needed to know so much and no more, they would
accept that and try themselves to keep it that way.

From Keystone Magazine

September 2004 , Vol. X 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