What Does the Scripture Say?

A dear family from our church has graduated their oldest homeschooled daughter from high school two years ago. This year was her first year in nursing school. Unfortunately it was also the first year that the nursing program became a full accredited program including general education classes such as English, humanities, psychology, etc. Well as a strong Christian girl she had her challenges in her first semester being immersed into a largely secular (i.e. anti-Christ) environment. Thankfully she has lived at home, under her parents (particularly her father’s) authority and care.

There are a lot of things that I would like to share with folks about this situation and the many situations like it out in America today. One aspect that has been so encouraging is watching this 19 year old young lady stand up for her faith in the midst of pressure and persecution. Praise the Lord for her godly heritage, upbringing and walk with the Lord. She is a real testimony to the faithfulness of our God in keeping her close to Him throughout this difficult (yet faith-building) time.

Watching her parents be intimately involved in just about every aspect of this new endeavor has also been a real joy. Her parents have prayed with her throughout the whole time. They’ve also walked through the curriculum with her, audited her papers, her online classes, etc. It is very clear that the Lord is giving her strength through her godly parents and the encouragement of her younger brother and sister.

As you might expect, living a strong Christian testimony in the midst of a Babylon like atmosphere is sure to bring its challenges and battles. One such battle was in her English class. She was to write an ‘argumentative’ paper on a topic of her choice. Her first choice was to write on creationism, however when presented to the professor, he declared that to be an overused topic and strongly suggested she choose another. She countered with the topic of homeschooling to which the professor agreed (but I don’t think he knew what he was in for).

Here comes the ‘fun’ (read spiritually demanding and emotionally exhausting) part. When she submitted the first draft of her ‘homeschooling’ paper, it was met with indignation, offense and pressure to ‘tone it down’. You see this paper was not only lauding the benefits of home based education but also detailing the failures of the public school system. Well it turns out this professor had also taught in the public school system and thus was not too happy hearing the reality of its pitfalls.

This draft paper had almost as much written comments from the professor as the paper itself. Some of the comments were helpful and appropriate for an English teacher. Many of the comments were not fitting for a professional college professor, but rather seemed to come from personal opinion about the topic itself and being offended at having the truth about the public schools thrust into his eyes.

One “major” concern the professor had was about a minor supporting sentence in this paper whose main topic was homeschooling. She was talking about the loss of morality in the public education system and wrote, “Christianity, on which this country was founded, has been eliminated and replaced by the religion of humanism with a New Age occult influence.” Oh, boy, did that set the professor off. He wrote a whole page of comments on how humanism is not a religion and America was not founded by Christians but by “deists and enlightened humanists”. Well there is plenty of evidence for the reality that Secular Humanism is a religion and that America was founded on Biblical principles. (See links below for David Noebel DVD and David Barton video).

That topic alone could make up a whole other paper. This particular paper was on homeschooling. The professor did make some constructive comments about how the writer was using absolutes when it would be better using language like “most, many, mainly, etc”. So when the student submitted her final paper, praise the Lord she left the humanism sentence in there! That is standing up to some severe pressure and standing on the truth regardless of consequences.

Well to wrap it up, one of the most outlandish comments that she received on her final paper was the following. The student wrote, “Another factor contributing to the deterioration of students is the lack of quality educational material. History is being rewritten to portray America’s foundation inaccurately. Many textbooks are biased against the free market system of America. Learning to solve only basic equations, students’ math skills prove inadequate.” The comment from the teacher referenced the biased textbooks and read “So far my kids’ social studies curriculum has not supported this claim.” When I first read that, I laughed out loud.

This professor also continued to pressure the student to believe that the founders were mainly deists and enlightened humanists, even though he gave her an A- on the paper. Praise the Lord that she received a high grade even though she did not compromise the truth. Please continue to pray for her and her family to make wise decisions in the coming months. Her second semester is just starting and certainly the battle for truth will not wane on that campus. Praise God that He has a remnant even in the ‘temples of secular humanism’.

Here’s a link to an excellent video from David Noebel called “Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism”. AiG used to sell this, I hope they get more in stock soon. I would highly recommend that folks BUY THIS and get informed. Once AiG gets more in stock I will literally buy a stack to give away.

Here’s a link to a very good article on the “Religious Nature of Education“. I don’t agree with every single point in there, but it’s main thrust is very good.

Here’s a free video from David Barton titled “Founding Fathers: Deists or Christians?” Should be interesting. I haven’t seen it before. The video looks pretty choppy but the audio is good (which is the important part anyways).