These days I had the chance to see the same bias and hostility against homeschooling on the FB wall

It has become an established truth that any new and good movement in the church will first meet the opposition of the scribes and the Pharisees in the church, i.e. of those who sit in the chair of Moses and enjoy some influence among other Christians because peoria arizona hotels of their positions of leadership in the churches, or in the seminaries, peoria arizona hotels or simply because they have a way with words that helps them look wise and smart and helps them gain influence. Liberal and theologically liberal activism never seems to upset the church leadership and the influential churchmen; but activism and movements that are conservative and faithful to the Bible can safely bet they will have to deal with the pastors fury and rejection first.
Homeschooling isn t an exception. Even today, 50 years after its revival and the multiple theological and factual proofs that only homeschooling produces children that are morally, psychologically, and intellectually healthy, the hierarchy in the churches still refuses to make peace with it. Very few are the churches where homeschooling families peoria arizona hotels are comfortable. Homeschooling still remains a grass roots movement with very little support from the institutional church. Most readers of American Vision probably remember that Joel McDurmon peoria arizona hotels and I wrote about Tom Stein, a pastor of a PCA church who publicly called peoria arizona hotels for more government intervention in Christian homeschooling families because government bureaucrats were cheating:
These days I had the chance to see the same bias and hostility against homeschooling on the FB wall of someone named Phil Johnson, a popular blog-writer and Executive Director at Grace To You media ministry which is owned and controlled by Grace Community Church peoria arizona hotels in Sun Valley, CA, the church whose pastor is John MacArthur. I am not a reader of Johnson s blog (I find it rather logorrheic peoria arizona hotels and devoid of clear meaning) but for some reason I have ended up being his FB friend and therefore forced to read what he publishes on his wall. And this caught my attention:
In short: The article peoria arizona hotels in the link is about a woman who has mental problems. She s read the Old Testament and watched peoria arizona hotels a few YouTube videos and decided to circumcise her son. She ended up making a mess, with her son bleeding uncontrollably and in intense pain. She called 911 and the boy was rushed to a hospital. Nothing about homeschooling, not even a single word. But for some reason Phil Johnson saw in that mentally ill woman the homeschool argument peoria arizona hotels taken too far. If you thought that only the secular media arbitrarily use news to lash at homeschooling, you are wrong. MacArthur s own executive director does it too. He didn t show any connection between that example of homesnipping and homeschooling. He could have made the connection with having children at all: It is possible to take the family argument too far. Or watching YouTube. Or reading the Old Testament. peoria arizona hotels Or living in Oregon. Or any other arbitrary, conjured up connection. But he picked homeschooling.
peoria arizona hotels Never slow to defend truth and expose stupidity for what it is, I replied to the post that the remark was stupid, that Johnson obviously had a bone to pick with homeschoolers, and that he should apologize. The admonishment to apologize fell on deaf years but Johnson replied that he also homeschooled. Not a very convincing argument, over all, given the fact that Soros, Buffett, and Gates have all made fortunes in a capitalist free market and yet all three hate capitalism with a passion. Later on in the discussion peoria arizona hotels Johnson made it known that he looks at homeschooling as just another DIY project. peoria arizona hotels Apparently his homeschooling was not based on a moral Biblical conviction as are most homeschooling parents but was something of a hobby; much in the way other people do carpentry or renovate their houses themselves. The difference in the moral significance between any DIY project and giving your children Biblical education peoria arizona hotels was not an issue he was open to consider.
Whether Phil Johnson is willing to admit it or not, comparing homeschooling and especially Christian homeschooling to a mentally deranged mother who harmed peoria arizona hotels her son in an insane act is nothing less than slander; and that slander reveals a deep bias against homeschooling. One doesn t normally go around looking for anecdotal gross examples of mental illness to connect them to homeschooling; one has to have the specific purpose of discrediting homeschooling to do it. And such open bias and hostility to homeschooling is not limited to Johnson; like I said above, we saw it in Tom Stein who found a case against homeschooling not in something homeschoolers peoria arizona hotels have done; it was the fraud committed by government peoria arizona hotels bureaucrats that gave Stein the occasion to call the state for more control on homeschoolers. In this they do not differ from any statist educational bureaucrat peoria arizona hotels or from the MSM who find excuse for lashing at homeschooling in every news about family or education they present. We have pagan enemies of Christian homeschooling; but as usual, our worst enemies are those in positions of power and influence in the religious establishment.
Of course, neither Stein, nor Johnson, nor the other enemies of homeschooling would admit publicly as much it would create peoria arizona hotels repercussions on their positions of influence and authority. So they have an argument that sounds peoria arizona hotels milder and reasonable : Homeschooling is not for everyone because many parents are unqualified and incompetent. Johnson peoria arizona hotels made this the mainstay of his argument in the discussion between us. Tom Stein in his piece against homeschooling also used the picture peoria arizona hotels of homeschooling parents who are lukewarm, negligent, and unqualified. (Why would a lukewarm, negligent, and unqualified parent take on the task of homeschooling instead of just dumping the kids at the public school is beyond me.) The argument of unqualified parents has been among the most used arguments of the opponents of homeschooling, second only to the socialization argument. The fact that the argument still survives after dozens of studies which prove beyond any doubt that the qualification of the parents has no visible bearing on the intellectual growth and the academic achievements of the children, shows unmistakably that it is a religious argument, based on blind bias against homeschooling. peoria arizona hotels Stein, Johnson, and the others don t really care about the qualifications or the competency of the parents if they did, they would be just as critical of the competency and the qualifications of the teachers in the institutional schools; they are not. With the hundreds of examples of direct failures in public and private schools, I could not find a single reference in Johnson s blog where he criticizes public or private schools; he only uses arbitrary cases to lash at the homeschoolers. I haven t yet met a single opponent of homeschooling who even deigns to notice that public and private schools peoria arizona hotels provide disproportionally larger number of children who are ignorant, illiterate, immoral, or simply indifferent to any idea of personal growth and achievements. So the qualification and competence peoria arizona hotels argument is not a rational argument; and those who use it are not honest, not even a little bit. The argument is based on idolatry , and it is directly opposed to the Biblical teaching.
But let s suppose it is an honest argument, and let s analyze it and see if it holds water. Let s imagine the concerns of those that conjure up images of incompetent and unqualified parents are honest concerns. Do they make sense? If they are right to worry about these things, shouldn t we give our children to the experts because the parents would only mess up the education of their children? A reader and supporter of Phil Johnson s declared in the discussion: peoria arizona hotels Homeschooling is the third best option to public schools and private schools. Can we agree with such a statement, only because we imagine parents that are unqualified and incompetent?
I am not going to defend homeschooling in general; others have done that before me. My position peoria arizona hotels is that education is not simply delivery of information, it is a lifestyle; and a lifestyle that places the child outside of the family even if it is a formally Christian school is a compromise that must be made in only the rarest of circumstances. We don t give the children money to just go to McDonalds and have dinner there; there is spiritual and emotional significance in having peoria arizona hotels dinner together, as a family. Sending our kids to institutional school to get education is the same as sending them to McDonalds to get a burger for dinner; the material is there but the spirit peoria arizona hotels of education is lacking. Parents that seek every excuse to kick the children out of the house and hand them over to strangers to teach them are only destroying the souls of their own children. A child needs a father and a mother, not a professional educator and a pack of other children. But let s get to the issue at hand are there really incompetent and unqualified parents?
First, we must point out that such argument peoria arizona hotels is no different from the argument of the Romanists which the Reformers had to deal with: That images and statues in the churches were necessary because most people were too uneducated to learn from the Word of God, and therefore could only learn from images. It is the same argument because (1) it establishes peoria arizona hotels a fixed state of stupidity and incompetence for certain people that can not be redeemed, only catered to; and (2) it frees the church leaders peoria arizona hotels from the responsibility peoria arizona hotels to reach to those people and educate them. The Reformers replied to such argument: The only reason the people are uneducated is because you who are responsible for their education haven t done your job well. You shouldn t find an excuse peoria arizona hotels in it for your idolatry, you should educate peoria arizona hotels them and take them to a higher level. The response to Johnson and Tom Stein should peoria arizona hotels be the same: If there are incompetent homeschooling parents it is only because you as teachers and preachers haven t done your job well. It is onl