Category Archives: Articles written by Craig

Is It Sinful to Send Christian Children to State Schools?

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Is It Sinful to Send Christian Children to State Schools?

by Craig Smith
Something is really going to hit the fan in the USA
soon. It promises to be so big, it will very likely splatter
all the way over to New Zealand, Australia and the
UK.
The Southern Baptist (SB) denomination in the USA
has 16.3 million members. A couple of SB gentlemen,
totally pro-home education, are also totally convinced
that for Christian parents simply to be consistent in
their profession of the Christian religion, they must
ensure their children receive a thoroughly Christian
education. They say this against a backdrop not too
different from the rest of the Western World: the public
schools are now so openly and totally anti-Christian in
official attitudes, pedagogical practise, educational philosophy
and hidden curriculum, that they are positively
dangerous and certainly no place for Christian children.
These two gentlemen have drafted a resolution
for the SB national convention 15-16 June 2004, calling
on all these 16.3 million members to pull their children
out of these godless public schools and either
home educate them or find a decent Christian school.
The resolution measure is sponsored by T.C. Pinckney,
a retired US Air Force Brigadier General whose three
adult children all educate their children at home, and
Bruce N. Shortt, a homeschooing dad and attorney who
holds advanced degrees from both Harvard and Stanford
Universities.
These men understand that a person’s worldview is
important and that it is developed as part of one’s education.
The resolution itself says, “Many Christian children
in government schools are converted to an anti-
Christian worldview rather than evangelizing their
schoolmates.” This at once answers a major objection
Christians raise as to why their children should be in
the state schools…..to evangelise. It would appear it is
the nonChristians who are evangelising the Christians.
What else would one expect? Throw a young and immature
Christian into a sea of secularism and he or she
is bound to wash up on the beach secularised. If you
throw a glove into the mud, you never expect to see the
mud become glovey. Instead you know the glove will
become muddy….every time.
Mr Shortt uses harsh words – more than justifiable
given that it is the very eternal lives of children at stake
here. He says Christian parents who do not see the
problem are in denial; that since government schools
are killing our children morally, spiritually and academically,
we need to ask how dead do we want our
children to be; that the fondly remembered little red
schoolhouse of “the good old days” has really become
the little white sepulchre, a seething cauldron of spiritual,
moral and academic pathologies; that it is nothing
less than “spiritual blindness” that causes Christian
parents to balk at the perceived “inconvenience” or
“financial challenge” of kicking the public-school
habit; that sending Christian children to these temples
of secular humanist philosophy is “the grossest kind of
sin.” Preach it, brother!
Shortt also predicts that if 10-15% of children are
pulled from government schools, the “US$500 billion
behemoth” which is the US public school system will
be de-legitimized and will collapse financially. He welcomes
both results! Here indeed is a man who understands
that the state has no Biblical authority for running
compulsory schools and is not afraid to spell out
how Christians should respond and to embrace the inevitable
fallout: many of his friends, and probably
some relations, would lose their teaching jobs and
could henceforward bad-mouth and cold-shoulder Mr
Shortt. To live consistently with the Scriptures has always
and will always exact a price: under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Indeed
all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will
be persecuted” (II Timothy 3:12).
Here following are listed the points made in the resolution.
These points simply spell out where the SBs are
coming from, that is, their worldview. Take careful
note, dear brothers and sisters:
1. The Bible commands that fathers (and by implication
all parents) are to bring up their children
in the training and admonition of the
Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
2. Having all authority in heaven and on earth,
Jesus has commanded us to make disciples of
our children and teach them to observe everything
He has commanded (Matthew 28:19-
20).
3. This means our children must learn to think
Biblically about all the spheres of human
thought, activity and life (Deuteronomy. 6:4-
9) so as to take every thought captive to obey
Christ (II Corinthians 10:5).
4. Our thinking is not to be conformed to this
world’s way of thinking but is to be renewed
and sanctified by the truth of God’s word
(Romans 12:2; John 17:17).
5. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge (Proverbs 1:7). In Christ are hidden
all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
(Colossians 2:3). Therefore, any instruction
that does not begin with the fear of the
Lord, teaching the centrality of Jesus Christ
for understanding all of life – such as that offered
in state schools – cannot properly be
said to impart wisdom or knowledge.
6. Since Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is
against Me, and he who does not gather with
Me scatters” (Luke 11:23), then it logically
follows that any state school system that
claims to be “neutral” with regard to Christ is
actually anti-Christian. Consequently, children
taught in state schools are receiving an
anti-Christian education.
7. Since the state schools are by their own confession
humanistic and secular in their instruction,
the education offered is officially Godless
and totally unacceptable to Christians.
8. State schools are adopting curricula and policies
teaching that the homosexual lifestyle is
acceptable. (NZ schools are obliged in addition
to recognise divorce for any reason, de
facto setups, serial partners and prostitution as
valid.)
9. Homosexual organizations are approved student
“clubs” in state schools.
10. Since children are like arrows in the hand of a
warrior (Psalm 127:3-5) to be aimed for the
greatest impact in the kingdom of God, it is
foolish for Christians to give their children to
be trained in schools run by the enemies of
God, just as it would be foolish for a warrior to
give his arrows to his enemy.
11. Training to be a faithful witness should be a
vital part of a Christian child’s education.
12. Since thousands of Christian parents send their
children to state schools where they receive a
Godless, anti-Christian education seven hours
a day, 180 days a year, being taught that God
is irrelevant to every area of life, many of
these children are converted to an anti-
Christian worldview rather than evangelizing
their schoolmates.
13. Research by the Nehemiah Institute has discovered
that acceptance of a secular humanist
worldview by Christian children attending
state schools has increased dramatically over
the last fifteen years.
14. The Southern Baptist Council on Family Life
reported in 2002 that 88% of the children
raised in evangelical homes leave church at the
age of 18, never to return.
15. Since the Bible teaches that the companion of
fools will be destroyed (Proverbs 13:20), and
that people are prone to be deceived into thinking
that evil company will not corrupt them (1
Corinthians 15:33), it is incumbent upon ministers
of the gospel to warn God’s people that
their children are being corrupted by spending
half of their waking hours instructed by teachers
who are required by law to inculcate a
Godless education.
16. Since many adult Christians teach in state
schools, they should not be discouraged from
labouring as missionaries to unbelieving colleagues
and students; rather, they should be
commended and encouraged to be salt and
light in a dark and decaying state school system.
With these points as givens or starting points in their
thinking, the Resolution authors then proceed with a big
“therefore, because of all these things, we strongly urge
the SB Convention to:”
1. encourage all officers and members of the SB
Convention and the churches associated with it
to remove their children from the government
schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly
Christian education, for the glory of God, the good
of Christ’s Church and the strength of their own
commitment to Jesus, and
2. encourage all churches associated with the SB
Convention to work aggressively to counsel
parents regarding their obligation to provide
their children with a Christian education, and
3. encourage all churches associated with the SB
Convention to provide all of their children
with Christian alternatives to government
school education, either through home schooling
or thoroughly Christian private schools.
There are some fairly heavy implications emanating
from this document for all Christian home educators as
well as for all Christians. First, it would appear, from
the way the SBs have presented their understanding of
the Scriptures, that for Christian parents to send a child
to a state school is by definition disobedience to the
Lord. That means it is a sin. Second, if it is a sin, it appears
that our involvement in home education is a lot
more than a mere preference of some kind, but is in
fact a vital step of obedience to the Lord. Third, if our
home education is a matter of obedience to Christ, it
seems to immediately impart to our home education
enterprise a more holy or a more serious tone: we have
to do this right, for we really have no choice. That is,
the option some of us have in the backs of our minds,
that we can always send the children off to school if
this home education doesn’t work out….that this is not
an option. Fourth, if it is a sin then we now have an
obligation to warn our fellow believers, those who are
sending their children to state schools, of their disobedience.
Of course there are all kinds of downstream
implications of doing this: coming across as some kind
of self-appointed judge going around condemning everyone,
upsetting many very comfortable lifestyles,
alienating good friends and family, putting church
leadership in the position of either having to side with
you or side line you. None of this is at all attractive.
I must say, I have been thinking along the lines of this
resolution for a couple of years already. I see a need to
warn others that state schools are thoroughly unacceptable
places to send children from Christian families.
(Now, there may be the odd exception: I know a small
school near here where the principal is a Christian, all
the staff are Christians and they basically filter out a lot
of the garbage. However they are not free to deal with
anything from an overtly Christian perspective, for if
any unbelieving child should report it to an unbelieving
parent and that parent were to complain to the MoE,
that school staff could get into a world of trouble.) Yet
the impact of such a warning is such that it seems to
me we need to formulate a strategy in how to go about
it. Publicising this SB Resolution is a good start: for us
outside of the SB denomination, we can let the issue be
raised by these total “outsiders”. The international media
is already picking it up, and we can each help
spread the awareness of this move. That in itself will
spark off debates about the issue in many places or
simply raise awareness of the issue. I can see myself
re-working the SB Resolution into a form I could then
present to my own church denomination, either a discussion
document for the congregation or just for the elders.
In any case we see the truth of the simple saying,
“Ideas have consequences.” That’s why it is so important
that we understand our own world view and as
Christians seek to ensure that the world view we are
carrying in our minds is as thoroughly Biblical, by
God’s grace, as we can make it. For it is inescapable:
we do behave according to our world view….in fact,
our world view is exposed for everyone else to see in
our behaviour patterns, should anyone care to observe
them closely. And when it comes to obedience, that is
not an optional thing: we must follow His commands
wherever they lead us, even into inconvenience, economic
hardship and persecution. As James 1:25 says,
such a doer (as opposed to a mere hearer) of the Word
will be blessed in his doing.
(I have modified the SB Resolution a wee bit in this
article for readability. The Resolution in its original
form may be seen at: http://tinyurl.com/36h4v . This is
the Exodus Mandate website, people who have been
warning of the dangers of state schooling for years.
Another site which gives a lot of background and possible
avenues of action is at: http://tinyurl.com/3y94c .
Both are well worth a look.)

From Keystone Magazine

May 2004 , Vol. X No. 3
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

What Is Your Stand with the State?

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What Is Your Stand with the State?

by Craig S. Smith
Gentlemen, the Lord is constantly and consistently calling
us to higher ground. It means we need to claw our
way “uphill” in a spiritual and behavioural and attitudinal
sense, fighting the world, the flesh and the devil to
make any progress along the road of sanctification. A
part of me dislikes the implications of passages such as
Philippians 3:13-14 where it says, “…forgetting what
lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I
press on….toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,”
for I see there a whole entire life of hard work,
pressing on, always moving to higher ground. And that
is not just struggling with my personal self, it includes
husbanding my wife properly and fathering my children
as I should. Here is a challenge that will try even the
most worthy of Christian men!
In addition, there are other areas of vast importance
with which we must struggle in order to shepherd our
families aright. Not only do we need to struggle to work
out what we must do, we must also comprehend the
issues so that we can then instruct our children in the
way they should go in regards to these areas.
One such area that seems to be almost a no-brainer is
how we as home educators deal with the Ministry of
Education (MoE) and the Education Review Office
(ERO). I know many of us see no problem: tell them
what we’re up to, show the ERO around, answer their
questions, hide nothing for we have nothing to hide.
The people with whom we deal within both the MoE
and ERO are generally not only very reasonable people
but also quite friendly, decent and nice to get to know.
In itself this is great! The problem is that these lovely
folks are the face, but not the heart, of these huge, powerful
state institutions of civil government. We may
read from their personableness and friendliness messages
that are not shared by the MoE or ERO official
policy positions in regard to us home educators or home
education in general. We must, therefore, be alert and
on guard lest our personal freedoms and those of generations
to follow be compromised by our relaxed attitude
and quick compliance to any request.

Ministry of Education

The first thing to note about schooling in New Zealand
is that it is compulsory. We are talking naked force here
in the face of mountains of evidence that compulsory,
taxpayer-funded and secular schooling is a very poor
baby sitting service, let alone educational institution.
The schools cannot guarantee either the physical safety
of their inmates nor their educational enhancement,
even though students are compelled by law to attend. It
is worth noting that in many other countries, their Education
Acts state that students must be “educated” or
receive “education”, whereas in NZ, students must
both be enrolled at and attend registered schools. That
is, in NZ schooling is compulsory while in other countries
education is compulsory. The two things are not
synonymous.
The next thing to note is that classroom instruction is a
rather mediocre method of teaching either academics
or social graces. But it is the only logistical solution to
the division of labour philosophy or the efficiency of
production philosophy which both levered the task of
educating one’s children out of the hands of NZ parents
via the first Education Act back in 1877. (One
could argue that the real mistake was in viewing the
educational task of one’s children as a task that was
totally transferable, one that could be just as efficiently
accomplished using a production-line, conveyor-belt
concept as it would be in leaving every parent to do the
job himself. But that is an issue for a future article!)
Classrooms are ideal environments for fostering groupthink
and peer-dependency wherein most aspects of
education are socialised. That is, one must learn maths
in a peer group, rather than on his own or from a tutor;
one can only learn social interaction in a group of peers
and not from interacting with parents and siblings; history
becomes a function of what the peer group decides
happened back then, ably guided by the politically-
correct agenda expressed in the state’s textbooks,
rather than what your parents and your church tell you
about it.
This socialised form of learning (as opposed to the
family-oriented form we enjoy as home educators) is
specifically designed to break the natural stranglehold
which the Lord God designed parents and households
to have over their children’s developing attitudes, values,
knowledge and understanding. Consequently
among state educationalists there is constant pressure
to lower the age of compulsory school attendance: at
present the age of six is what they feel they can get
away with. Convention has since ensured that most
five-year-olds attend anyway. And we do have MPs
clamouring for compulsory pre-school. Call me a sceptic,
but the vision of state educational bureaucrats being
more concerned about my child’s personal development
than they are about the pressure from teachers’
unions, special interest lobby groups and other social
engineers is not a vision that readily comes into my
mind when I contemplate our state school system!
There is something – no, actually there are a lot of
things – about a schooling situation which should give
us all cause for concern. There is a tendency, one I will
identify as coming from our sinful natures, to use the
school as a convenient dumping ground, a place to put
children when they just seem to be too much hassle.
But in our more rational moments, we must surely
wonder why we’d off-load our precious children onto
people far less interested in their welfare, far less compassionate
toward them, far less able to properly focus
on them, far less committed to their success than we
are. The typical teacher (in virtually every case) is totally
oblivious and even uncaring toward our children’s
family backgrounds, cultures, beliefs, standards, values,
customs, etc. Why would we ever dream of doing
such things to our children?
In the case of around 90% of parents it would appear
that they have been trained to trust the schools and
have never given any other alternative a moment’s
thought…..not to mention that the law compels parents
to send them away from home, that is, removes from
them meaningful choices; that is, intervenes into every
resident NZ family without exception and dictates to
parents what they will do with the bulk of their children’s
lives on a day-to-day basis; that is, pulls the rug
of parental responsibility toward their children clean
out from under them, upsetting and damaging families
to one degree or another, again without exception. The
biggest bully in the classroom may well be the one
standing at the blackboard. But there are bigger ones in
the MoE and Paliament standing solidly behind and
totally in favour of the compulsory attendance laws.
Let me quote from the MoE’s Home Schooling Desk
File of 1996:
“Some parents will see it as their right to homeschool
their children.1 It is important to understand, however,
that there is no unfettered right to homeschooling,
though all parents have the right to apply for a certificate
of exemption to enable them to educate their children
at home. Put another way, parents have a right to
educate their children at home, but the exercise of that
right is subject to the Secretary being satisfied that the
children ‘will be taught at least as regularly and well as
in a registered school’”.
It must be recognised that there are people in both the
MoE and ERO who would shut down home education
in a flash if they had the chance. More than one official
I have dealt with in the Ministry has told me that about
50% of the staff do not like home education and feel it
needs to be far more regulated and controlled. I sat
across the table from one MP who thumped the table as
she told me, “You home schoolers should be subject to
every single regulation in the Act because you are de
facto schools!” I not only declined to agree with her, I
said if any such nightmare should ever eventuate, the
government would have a massive amount of civil disobedience
on its hands.
So who’s in charge here? Whose are the children and
who will ultimately control their education? It seems
pretty clear what the state thinks about these issues.
Woe to me and my family on the day the state should
ever try to definitively settle the issue in their favour: I
will fight it with vehemence. May the Lord grant me
the courage to fight it until my last breath.

The Education Review Office

Now, there is another government department known
as the ERO: Education Review Office. They are separate
from the Ministry of Education so as to be more
“objective” when they review the performance of
schools and report back to the Ministry. Their reports
then go on-line and are available to anyone, anywhere!
(See www.ero.govt.nz under “Reports”). Schools fear
and almost loathe the ERO! There has certainly been
some animosity between these two in the past, though
not so much today it seems.
They also have a unit that deals with home educators.
It is presently run by a gentleman who is incredibly
positive toward home education. In fact, he tells people
that he would like to see his grandchildren home educated!
ERO visits are not regular: only about 12% of
Home Educators get visited in any one year. They are
almost all very positive experiences. Some home educators
say it is nice to have others affirm what they’re
doing and that it is especially comforting to have a
state official confirm, in a written report, their programme,
credibility and performance.
While we always want to be polite, respectful and lawabiding,
I get very worried about having too chummy a
friendship with ERO and MoE people. The bottom line
is, when ERO folks visit our homes, they represent the
state. So here is the state sitting in judgement on my
chosen lifestyle. They are evaluating the way I relate to
my own children. The whole concept is highly repugnant
to me. I do not need, nor do I want, confirmation
or affirmation or approval from a secular state upon
my Christian lifestyle.
Our Prime Minister, Helen Clark, my local MP Steve
Maharey, our “transsexual” MP Georgina Beyer, our
homosexual MP Tim Barnett who just got prostitution
in this country legalised so it is as valid as the corner
grocery: these high-profile MPs openly say Christianity
has no credibility or any place in public life. Consequently
they are moving to ban spanking by parents in
the home, saying out loud ridiculous things such as,
“Why is it only fundamentalist Christians feel they
have to beat their children into submission?” When
children are killed in this country by senseless beatings,
there is a renewed cry by these folks for a ban on
spanking. Yet who beats the children to death? Live-in
boyfriends! And the media refers to these scum-bags
as the dead child’s “step-father”! Neither the media nor
the politicians of this country are the least bit qualified
to judge a Christian or a Christian lifestyle, nor do they
have any Biblical mandate for authority in this area.
Especially when they do not lift a finger to defend the
17,000 most innocent of us all who are mercilessly
slaughtered every year in this country, year after year,
at the rate of one abortion every half an hour.
In the early days of Home Education here (before the
ERO), the Psychological Services officer came quite
regularly with new staff to do “practice” reviews on
our family as training for his staff. At the time we
thought it was great. He was a nice guy. So were most
of the other staff we met. We enjoyed the friendly relations
we had with officialdom. No more. The present
ERO gentleman, as I’ve said, is very positive, and we
actually like him a lot too. He’s come to our home for
a cuppa, but when he wanted to do a review2, I said
we’d never let it happen in our home on principle.
What is the principle? It is one that developed over the
years after meeting some of these state agents who do
not like home education. The fact is, they have the
power, they sit in places of influence, to make life
tough for us. When the current ERO gentleman retires,
just think what could happen to us if he is replaced by
some dragon?
Sadly I have found that these bureaucrats will overstep
their legal powers quite regularly in order to make their
job easier. It is not a vindictive thing: they just want
their days to be as straight-forward and as uncomplicated
as possible. We all desire the same thing. And
that can mean they’ll do something as minor as fail to
produce their ID when doing a review in the home, as
the law requires, or as major as telling home educators
that they must have a Social Studies and a Technology
component to their programme, which the law does not
require.
When these powerful state agents sit in our homes,
these people who can write reports that could bring
down on us the wrath of the Education authorities or
even worse, the unreasoning interventions of Child
Protection Agencies (CYFS in NZ), we do not know if
they will suddenly take umbrage at a plaque they see
hanging on the wall, a smell they encounter, what they
perceive to be a smirk on your face or an attitude in
your tone of voice, or a comment by one of the children
that “Daddy spanks really hard!” American home
educators have declared their horror and unbelief upon
learning of the standard practise here of letting ERO
people into our homes for a Review. They have further
told me that state agents in the USA are always assumed
to be on “fishing” expeditions, looking for evidence
of one thing or another as an excuse to send
along a colleague from another state agency. I no
longer see any reason why I should expose my family
to such dangers, as remote as they might be, when I
know for a fact that there are people, lots of people,
within these agencies who are totally opposed to Christianity
and to home education.
Matthew 10:16 says, “Behold, I send you out as sheep
in the midst of wolves; so be as wise as serpents and
innocent as doves.” It’s a harsh place out there and we
need to have our wits about us. One of my applications
of this is not to expose my family to unnecessary danger,
such as an ERO visit in our home. Or asking the
MoE for more money, which is just inviting them to
demand access to our personal accounts to find out
how we spend it. Or wanting the MoE to hire home
educators to assess exemptions or the ERO to hire
home educators to do reviews, thus creating harpies,
satyrs or Echidna-like hybrids who would be torn between
two masters.
Research the issues for yourselves, men, and be confident
of your stand.
Notes:
1. I don’t. I see it as my responsibility before God.
Woe to the state bureaucrat who tries to prevent me
from fulfilling my responsibility.
2. This fellow did review us just recently, in our
church’s lounge: we had a great time together and
we got a glowing report…and we were not caught in
that cleft stick of trying to be gracious hosts to a
visitor in our home while at the same time trying to
keep a state agent at arm’s length and the entire
proceedings on a professional, objective level.


From Keystone Magazine

May 2004 , Vol. X No. 3
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

Deciding if You Are a Humanist

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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

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Compulsory Schooling is Not a Christian Concept

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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

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Limit the TV

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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