The Problem is...
Part of the series Friendship With The World
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2014-05-05.
God's will, God's way should be the desire of professing believers, but sometimes money, power or ignorance, leads us to make questionable decisions.
We often refrain from being honest because we do not wish to offend those who need to hear the truth. Opinions expressed in this blog are intended to offend those who would advance anything, other than the truth, in order to benefit themselves.
Bible Reference: Psalm 127:1
Over the last two weeks, I gave two examples of how a little compromise here and a little bad decision there accumulates over time, resulting in our arriving to where we would not have desired or predicted in the first place. Both examples involve how funding directed education. It should not come as a surprise, that he who pays the piper, calls the tune! None of us would pay to have something we disagree with advanced on our dime. Similarly, the state that pays the schools to deliver educational programming is fully within it's right to demand the delivery of that programming, on its terms. The issue, therefore, is not whether the state can or cannot make demands of those it pays, as much as what will the citizens do with the options provided? Yes, there are options available. Do we acknowledge the claims, made by the state, that the authority for the training of children belongs to them, or will we acknowledge that God has perpetually given that authority to parents, fathers in particular? If we choose to follow God's directives it follows that the state's Godless, secular humanistic, anti-Christian programming, that is largely antithetical to biblical authority, has no place in the education of Christians' children. And, if the state programming has no place, then the secular philosophies, assumptions, methodology, pedagogy, applications, standards and evaluations should also have no place in their education. Either we advance what is acceptable by God's standard or we don't. Either we employ things that are for God or they are working against Him. This is what we should know, but most of us don't.
Public state programming works completely opposite to biblical directives in most, if not, all things. There are many who would advance the program as neutral, harmless or fixable, but can it serve both God and man? A rudimentary understanding of scripture should direct us otherwise so why do private Christian schools and home education providers advance it? Three possibilities: money, power and ignorance or any combination thereof.
We need not talk about the money as we have dealt with that many times in the past. Leaders focussed on money are simply mercenaries that don't care about how the outcome of their decisions will affect others.
Leaders willing to sacrifice the welfare of their people to maintain their position in leadership are corrupted by a need to be in control. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. If a leader is only interested in maintaining leadership at any cost, anything can or will be advanced as acceptable, even so far as to normalize or "Christianize" secular philosophies.
What about ignorance? It is shameful that people in leadership positions should be ignorant, but it happens. Three groups of people come to mind when discussing ignorance. Traditional home educators, in varying degrees of understanding, are generally not ignorant of the dangers of public programming and avoid it. Others are truly ignorant and see nothing wrong with the use of public programming. Then, there are those who choose to be ignorant, knowing that the state programming is not acceptable by biblical standards, yet choose to advance it anyway. Purposefully leading those who are unaware of the dangers of state programming to follow them in their folly demonstrates a lack of understanding, a short term vision or even, perhaps, a diabolical agenda.