Author: jbwatson

Jason B. Watson is a follower of Christ who enjoys "thinking out loud" when he has time to do so.

“…the answer is increasingly no.”

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

Al Mohler begins his article “Is Public School An Option?” with this questions and statement: “Should Christian parents send their children to the public schools? This question has emerged as one of the most controversial debates of our times.” As I suggested in the previous post, I would have said “sure” if asked this question anytime prior to the early part of this century, and that was even after I had spent three years teaching in a Christian school. I felt that I had turned out just fine having attended public schools my whole life and, frankly, what I had heard and seen of some homeschooling and Christian school education made me cringe. I was convinced that public school education was usually more rigorous and better prepared students to be lifelong learners. Bottom line, I thought public school education was more legitimate.

Mohler writes, “Until fairly recently, exceptions to this rule [the expectation that parents would send their children to public schools] have been seen as profoundly un-democratic and practically un-American. Homeschoolers were seen as marginal eccentrics, Catholics were seen as hopelessly sectarian, and those who sent their children to private schools were seen as elitist snobs.” Perhaps not exactly, but that fit my way of thinking pretty well.

Of course, as Mohler also points out, public education in America was under the oversight and influence of parents and the local community for hundreds of years; “public schools were public in the sense that they were community schools maintained for and by the citizens of a community.” That way of thinking has certainly changed, and beginning with John Dewey the influence of the parents and local community members on the curriculum and policies of the local schools has significantly diminished.

As Mohler states, “decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court secularized schools in a way that separated the schools from their communities and families.” Of course I am not old enough to remember when there was prayer and Bible reading in school, so that removal happened before I came along. And in that small Midwestern town where I went to high school there was still release time once a week when students could leave the public school during the school day and go for an hour to the church of their choice for “religious instruction.” Students who did not wish to go could stay at school for a study hall. My public high school choir performed their year-end concert in a church and the performances included doctrinally-sound Christian hymns like “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” So maybe my experience had not been the norm… And maybe the decreasing influence of the local community had not become the reality in the Midwest yet by the time I graduated high school.

What eventually changed my mind about public schools as a viable option and the legitimacy of homeschooling and Christian schools was the realization that schools were not ideologically neutral, which I had deluded myself into thinking they could be. Mohler writes, “The ideological revolution has been even more damaging than the political change. Those who set educational policy are now overwhelmingly committed to a radically naturalistic and evolutionistic worldview that sees the schools as engines of social revolution. The classrooms are being transformed rapidly into laboratories for ideological experimentation and indoctrination.” If I may be so bold I would disagree with Mohler on that last part, because I am now convinced that classrooms have not been transformed into “laboratories for…indoctrination” but rather always have been. “Indoctrination” means “the act of indoctrinating, or teaching or inculcating a doctrine, principle, or ideology, especially one with a specific point of view.” Public schools have always done that because it is impossible to teach without doing it. Christian schools do it, too; in fact, that is the whole reason most parents who send their children to Christian schools do so!

Am I suggesting that it is not possible to take a non-ideological position on any subject or that a teacher cannot impartially present information to students? No; that can be done–though it often takes real intentionality to do. What I am suggesting is that every teacher has a belief system, a worldview, that influences their way of thinking about every subject, and that worldview comes through in their teaching.

What has happened is that the right and wrong that public schools used to teach have become various versions of right and debate over wrong because everything is relative. What has happened to the public schools is the removal of certainty and absolutes and facts and the substitution of questioning and relativism and opinion. This is what has led to the ridiculous stories we hear and read about graphic sex ed classes, infringement of student rights to gather or pray or express a minority viewpoint and the support by public education leaders for teaching an acceptance and even and embrace of sinful behavior.

What caused me to change my mind about public schools, and to pretty well determine that my own children will never attend a public school, was the realization that what the schools teach–even the decent ones–is almost always taught from a perspective and toward and end that is completely at odds with what I believe and what I want my children to believe; specifically, what the Bible says. Local control of public schools is increasingly rare. There is more local (and school-level) control than many of the loudest conservative voices claim there is, but it is not enough. The tidal wave of mental manipulation and cconvictionless character has crashed into the public school system and as the water settles the ruins are increasingly visible.

Paula Bolyard, blogging for PJ Lifestyle, has responded to Mohler’s article, too. She correctly writes, “This is one of the most difficult questions a Christian family must wrestle with as school curriculum and speech and behavior codes increasingly stand in opposition to Christian teachings.” I am not by any means attempting to make light of this issue or suggest that it is an easy decision. There are people I know well and respect (indeed, people I am related to) who have chosen to send their children to public schools, and I am not sitting in judgment of them. I personally think that many of their reasons are flawed, but that does not mean they do not hold them sincerely. I will address some of these arguments in a future post.

I think what it comes down to is this assertion by Bolyard: “The stakes are very high. Consider the effects of thirty or more hours a week in a government school where you have no control over what your children are taught — where your local teachers have little or no control over the content of their lessons. Where the federal bureaucrats — many of whom have antipathy toward your Christian values — dictate what your children learn, all day long. How much time are you willing to invest in debriefing your children?” That’s just it. Students will spend some fifteen thousand hours of their lives–their most formative years–in school. Does it make any sense for me to knowingly and willingly place my children for that length of time into an environment that I cannot control and that I increasingly am in opposition to? I don’t think so. If I do, I will have to deal with these candid questions Bolyard asks: “How will you convince them that you are the authority on any given subject — that what you’re teaching them is right — and not their teachers? Is it fair to put a young child in the position of choosing between what their teacher is telling them and what their parents and Sunday school teachers say?”

Nearing the end of his article Mohler asks and answers the question that is the basis for the entire article. “Is public school an option? For Christians who take the Christian worldview seriously and who understand the issues at stake, the answer is increasingly no.” I absolutely agree. In fact, I may well have left the word “increasingly.”

Changing My Mind

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Now back to our previously scheduled programming…I will resume my multi-entry look at education in America.

In the October-December 2013 issue of Answers Magazine Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. wrote an article entitled, “Is Public School an Option?” The title of the article struck me for two main reasons: (1) As a Christian school administrator I was curious to read what Mohler would say, and (2) I am well aware that my own position on this question has changed completely in the past decade and a half. Mohler writes, “I spent every minute of my school life from the first grade to high school graduation in a public school.” I can say the same thing, but throw in kindergarten for me, too.

I had some cousins who attend Christian schools, but they did not live in my community. Other than them, I do not recall knowing anyone who went to a Christian school. I grew up being in church every time the doors were open. No one in the two churches our family attended between my ages five and thirteen attended Christian schools that I know of. I surely do not remember anyone who was homeschooled, either. When I was thirteen my family moved from just outside of Washington, D.C. to a town of 20,000 in the upper Midwest. (At the time I thought that had to be the smallest town in the country. Ironic, given that I now live thirteen miles outside of a town of about fifteen hundred people…not all that much bigger than my high school in that town of twenty thousand!) I was satisfied with my education in public schools. I had good teachers, there were minimal blatantly unbiblical influences that I recall, and only once do I remember my parents having me “opt out” of viewing a movie that was being shown in class. I went on to attend a private college, but not a Christian one.

Interestingly, after college I was teaching in a Christian school and even then I was adamant that there was nothing wrong with most public schools. Given that I was back in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I was well aware that there were some poor public schools (and some dangerous ones) but I was not a die-heard devotee of the Christian school movement. I was even further away from the homeschooling movement. I was skeptical of the ability of most parents to effectively teach their children, skeptical of the quality of the education those children who were homeschooled were receiving, and skeptical of the futures those homeschooled children would have. I can remember telling my wife early in our marriage that if we ever had children we would not homeschool them and I was not even sure I would send them to Christian school. This was a bit brazen for me to say given that my wife had only ever attended Christian schools until she was in high school when her parents began homeschooling her and her five younger siblings. My in-laws were, in fact, still homeschooling until the end of the last school year.

In the years since then my mindset has changed dramatically. I have been married for fourteen years and now have two children, neither of whom has ever attended a public school. We have homeschooled and both are now in a Christian school where I am also the administrator. How did my mind change so completely? What does Al Mohler have to say in his article, and do I agree or disagree with him? Come back next time to find out….

Follow Up to “I Rest My Case”

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Two entries ago I said I was beginning a series of posts about education, and it is still my intention to get back to that ASAP. With all of the shenanigans going on with the shutdown of the federal government, though, I had to speak up on that. And even though I said at the end of that post that I was resting my case, I need to add just a few more thoughts.

Numerous examples have emerged over the weekend of additional ridiculous moves by the Obama administration to make the shutdown as public and as painful as necessary. One example is the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada and Arizona. The Henderson Press reported on the closing, including the fact that in addition to the closing of the “visitor center, campgrounds, marinas, trails and launch ramps” the folks who own property within the park are also being evicted and are barred from entering their personal property only to retrieve belongings. “Those with personal property within the park, such as boats, trailers or cabins, will be allowed access into the park to either remove their vessels or trailers or to remove belongings from their property,” the Henderson Press reported. Las Vegas station KTNV also reported on the Lake Mead closing, specifically spotlighting Ralph and Joyce Spencer. The Spencers, age 80 and 77 respectively, have owned their home since the 1970’s but the home sits on federal land. Thus, “even though the Spencers own their cabin outright, they’re not allowed in until the government reopens.” Now, according to the report, “The Lake Mead properties are considered vacation homes; one of the lease requirements to own a plot is people must have an alternative residence.” Be that as it may, the shutdown of the federal government cannot be used to justify evicting people from their own property.

The Independent Journal Review, the Washington Post and other news sites also reported that the Department of Justice web site that provides information on the AMBER Alerts was shut down, too. Now the alerts themselves were still operation, but the information DOJ web site was shut down. As of this morning that site is fully operational again, leading me to believe that the outcry over shutting down a web site specifically designed to provide information about kidnapped children was effective. Nice to know the elected officials listen once in a while! However, a service designed to assist protect the lives of abducted children should never have been allowed to be used for political purposes.

Interestingly–as pointed our by several other news sites–First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” web site was never shut down. Now the most recent post on the site’s blog was posted on September 30, so perhaps the site is not being updated, but that fact that it has remained up and operational while so many other government web sites have been shut down speaks volumes on its own. At the site is a government site; its address is http://www.letsmove.gov. As the IJ Review story stated, “Apparently, in the mixed up world of Team Obama’s priorities, continuing to tell America’s kids what to eat and how to exercise is ‘essential’ – while helping to locate missing children who may be in grave danger is not. Go figure.”

You may also have seen the wide-spread story over the weekend that the government is shutting down eleven hundred miles of ocean. Yep, you read that right…the government is shutting down the ocean…specifically, Florida Bay. Charter boat captains who make their living taking folks out into the bay to fish or enjoy the water cannot do so until the government reopens, and there are rangers on duty to enforce the ban. As with so many other examples already mentioned, enforcing the shutdown is going to cost more than allowing normal activities to continue would ever have cost!

Now, in the midst of all of this an anonymous employee of the National Park Service has reportedly stated this: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” Now, I do not know the name of the ranger who purportedly said this, nor can I verify its accuracy. All I know is that it has been widely reported. And if this statement is true–if the NPS has issued such instructions to its personnel, it is violating the law. If President Obama has given that order, or sanctioned it, he should be impeached. And I will not make a long, drawn out explanation as to why. Instead, I will present it very simply, in four easy steps:

One, the Preamble to the United States Constitution reads, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (The unusual capitalization and spelling of “defense” comes directly from the original text, which you are welcome to read for yourself on the National Archives web site which is, oddly enough, still operating).

Two, the presidential oath of office, according to Article II of the Constitution, is, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” (The ending “so help me God” is not in the Constitution, but was added by George Washington and has been added ever since).

Three, Section 4 of Article II of the Constitution reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Four, there is simply no way to convincingly argue that shutting down open air monuments, evicting people from their privately-owned homes and other examples outlined above and in the previous post are promoting the general welfare or ensuring domestic tranquility. Since they are not, President Obama is not faithfully executing the duties of his office nor is he preserving, protecting or defending the Constitution. Therefore, per the Constitution, he should be impeached, for there can be no higher crime a president of United States could commit than to knowingly and willingly violate the Constitution.

I Rest My Case

~ jbwatson ~ 2 Comments

Alright, I’ve waited long enough. I cannot help it; I just have to say something. The way in which the Obama administration has handled the government shut down would be laughable but for the fact that it is actually incredibly offensive and, in fact, illegal. That’s right, illegal. Find that hard to believe? Read on…

This past Tuesday, October 1, the Obama administration ordered the closing of national parks as part of the shutdown. While unfortunate, that is understandable since park rangers and other park employees are not “essential” government workers. However, the National Park Service also erected barricades around the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. This memorial is an open-air monument on the National Mall. It is usually open 24 hours a day, seven days a week whether there are any Park Service personnel present or not. The around-the-clock accessibility of the memorial is clearly stated on the National WWII Memorial web site.

The sign posted on the barricades read, “Because of the Federal Government SHUTDOWN, All National Parks Are CLOSED.” The WWII Memorial, though, is not a national park. It is a memorial that is “operated” by the National Park Service, but that word “operated” means something entirely different for an open-air memorial with no services offered than it does for a national park requiring admissions collectors, custodians, park rangers, etc. There is absolutely nothing about the WWII Memorial that requires regular “operation.”

What’s more, the construction of the WWII Memorial was funded almost entirely by private donations, not by government money, as outlined in Public Law 103-32. Part of the $182 million cost of the monument included a National Park Service maintenance fee as required by the Commemorative Works Act. Interestingly, part of that act (40 USC § 8901) reads that the purposes of the act include, “to ensure the continued public use and enjoyment of open space in the District of Columbia and its environs, and to encourage the location of commemorative works within the urban fabric of the District of Columbia.” A bit difficult for the public to use and enjoy the memorial when the NPS erects barricades and will not let anyone in. So what is that maintenance fee and what is it for? According to the Commemorative Works Act, no permit for construction of a memorial will be granted “unless the sponsor authorized to construct the commemorative work has donated an amount equal to 10 percent of the total estimated cost of construction to offset the costs of perpetual maintenance and preservation of the commemorative work.” So there were funds–millions of dollars, in fact–that were privately raised and are on deposit with the U.S. Treasury specifically for the purpose of “maintaining” the WWII Memorial. And what does that mean exactly? “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, money on deposit in the Treasury on the date of enactment of the Commemorative Works Clarification and Revision Act of 2003 provided by a sponsor for maintenance pursuant to this subsection shall be credited to a separate account in the Treasury.” It would be extremely difficult for anyone to convincingly argue that maintenance of the memorial does not include keeping it open to the public, and the money to do that is sitting in the Treasury in a “separate account,” earmarked for that purpose.

A lapse in government funding and a temporary government shut down are not pleasant, but they are not unprecedented, either. There have been more than a dozen such lapses during my life time, ranging from a day to three weeks. According to the Office of Management and Budget and the Justice Department such shutdowns cannot interfere with essential government functions such as national defense and the protection of life and property. Neither can they interfere with the payment of government obligations like Social Security and veterans benefits.

However, President Obama has made it his mission to identify the most public displays of the consequences of the government shutdown in an effort to shift public opinion in his favor. That is why the Lincoln Memorial was also closed to visitors. National Park News has a photo depicting workers erecting barriers and temporary fencing to keep visitors off of the Lincoln Memorial despite that it, too, is usually open whether or not NPS personnel are present. In fact, a newspaper report about the 1995 government shutdown by Associated Press writer Cassandra Burrell includes this statement: “Tourists were free to wander the halls of the Capitol, touch the walls of the Vietnam Memorial and climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to read the Gettysburg Address–those and other similar sites don’t require supervision by federal employees.” Apparently the president thinks now, eighteen years later, such supervision is required. The problem is, all efforts at explaining why it is are nothing less that pathetic. To wit…the need for CPR-trained personnel to be present.

I am not making that up, by the way. CNN’s Jake Tapper reported on his blog, The Lead with Jake Tapper, this explanation for the WWII Memorial closing by National Mall and Memorial parks spokeswoman Carol Johnson: “I know that this is an open-air memorial, but we have people on staff who are CPR trained, (and) we want to make sure that we have maintenance crew to take care of any problems. What we’re trying to do is protect this resource for future generations.” Please… There are plenty of people around Washington, DC who are CPR-trained. It’s not as if the emergency services and hospitals are closed. As for the maintenance crews, see above.

So intent are President Obama and his appointees to provide the most public demonstrations possible of the shutdown’s effects that the NPS attempted to shut down George Washington’s Mount Vernon on Tuesday, too. The problem is, Mount Vernon is privately owned. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association owns and operates the historic site and has for some one hundred and fifty years. To be fair to the president, the parking lots at Mount Vernon are jointly owned by the NPS and Mount Vernon. Perhaps CPR-trained personnel need to be present in order for people to park their cars. The NPS removed most of their barricades once they were informed that they had no authority to blockade Mount Vernon.

Further evidence of the idiocy of the president’s strategic closing of federal property includes the shutting down of numerous hiking and biking trails around D.C. that typically have no personnel present and require no immediate maintenance. NPS officers were stationed along the 184-mile Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to make sure that no one used the bike paths. Please note that it is requiring more man power to shut the trails down than it ever would have to leave them open! The National Park Service, Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies have also taken the time (and spent the money) to create new pages on their web sites that visitors to the sites will see, informing them that due to the government shutdown the web sites are shut down as well. I kid you not; try to visit the NPS web site and you will get this message: “Because of the federal government shutdown, all national parks are closed and National Park Service webpages are not operating. For more information, go to http://www.doi.gov.” Funny how there were enough funds to keep the Department of the Interior web site up and running. Earlier today I tried to log on to an online survey from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences that the government has asked me, as a private school administrator, to complete. No can do, though: “Due to a lapse of appropriations and the partial shutdown of the Federal Government, the systems that host surveys.nces.ed.gov have been shut down. Services will be restored as soon as a continuing resolution to provide funding has been enacted.”

Believe it or not, I could go on, but I think I’ll stop. I think I have presented sufficient evidence, and I rest my case. I ask you, the readers of my blog, and millions of my fellow Americans, to find the president guilty of once again violating his oath of office, derelict in his duties, and actually breaking the law.

True Education

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

My plan is to spend the next several entries addressing education. For starters I would like to reflect on an article R.C. Sproul, Jr. wrote for the May 2013 issue of Tabletalk entitled “The School of Christ.”

Sproul correctly points out that “it is not hard to complain about the government’s schools,” and that just about everyone seems to have something to complain about–atheists complain about prayers, Christians complain about sex education and everyone complains about graduation rates and standardized test scores. From there, though, Sproul makes an assertion that many will undoubtedly find startling: he says that American schools “are not actually designed to train up scholars…their goal is neither intellectual nor moral giants. Rather, they function to prepare men and women to work.” He continues, “The entire system looks at children as if they were widgets, entering the education factory as toddlers and coming out the other side when they are grown.”

Sproul takes issue with this approach and, whether or not you agree that schools operate this way, I suspect you would, too. “This is not how God designed the rearing of children,” Sproul writes. “To be sure, our children must learn things, but they are not so much widgets in a factory as they are plants around our tables (Psalm 128). They are not products to be manufactured but lives to be nurtured.”

One obvious problem with the widget approach is that widgets are produced best and most efficiently when there is a system that treats every widget exactly the same, replicating the same process hundreds or thousands of times a day, day after day, month after month. Once in a while an improvement or adjustment comes along, and the improvement or adjustment is input into the system, calibrations are altered, and every widget thereafter has the exact same improvement or adjustment. The workers have no personal relationship with or attachment to the individual widgets; their sole concern is that the machinery works properly, the procedures are followed precisely, and the product output is maintained if not increased. Children cannot be treated this way. Well, they can be, actually, but treating children this way will have the exact opposite effect as treating widgets this way. Rather than increasing productivity, efficiency and consistency this approach will hinder learning, frustrate children and result in little if any learning.

Another problem with this approach though, and the one that Sproul dwells on, is that the Bible addresses the responsibility of raising and teaching children by using “natural and organic terms, rather than mechanical or industrial terms.” In other words, education, properly done, cannot be confined to the hours between the first and last bell of the school day like manufacturing can be restricted to the time between the first and last bell of the work day. Referencing Moses and Old Testament instruction for teaching children Sproul writes that parents are to provide their children with “an immersive educational experience–we are to talk about the things of God with our children always and everywhere. The things of God are to be the very warp and woof of our daily conversation.”

The greatest (read biggest) part of that responsibility for parents to recognize and accept that the education of their children is their responsibility. The education of children is not the job of the state, is not the job of the pastor, youth pastor or Sunday school teacher, and is not even the job of the tutor or teacher. Minus the state, each of those individuals can have a role and an influence on the education of children, but the responsibility is ultimately and preeminently on parents. As an educator I am obviously not opposed to schools or advocating that every parent homeschool their children (though homeschooling is a terrific option for many families). What I am advocating is the point that Sproul is making–that parents must see the school and the church the same way they see the doctor and the coach. The school and the church are important pieces of the education of children and they each play specific and necessary roles. So too does the doctor and the coach. These individuals have expertise (or, in the case of the coach, a willingness even if the expertise is lacking) that can benefit children when they are sick or are engaging in athletic activity. But those roles are finite and restricted. Parents, on the other hand, have a never-ending role.

Regarding the command in the Shema to talk to their children about the things of God all the time, Sproul writes, “in order to do this, of course, we who are parents first must be thinking about the things of God all the time. Most of us are the products of schools that taught us to divide our lives, to separate what we think about Jesus and what we think about our work, to separate what we think about our work and what we think about our play. We give time to Jesus on Sundays, perhaps on Wednesday nights, and, if we are particularly pious, every day during our quiet times. These all may be terribly good things, but not if they are hermetically sealed. We dare not believe that Jesus matters only during these times while he is beside the point the rest of our days.”

This is true education. Dictionary.com defines education as “the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.” As significant a chunk of the early lives of children as the 15,000 hours they will spend in school may be, it is not sufficient by itself to accomplish that task, regardless of how terrific the school may be. Many of the next few entries will address the formal education that takes place in institutions of learning, but I felt it important to state that education is, first and foremost, the responsibility of parents. It is an incredible responsibility but it is also a tremendous privilege. Think about it…God Himself knits together little lives and then hands them to human beings and entrusts them with the power of molding and shaping that life, of educating that human being. Between you and me, if I were God I think I would deliver the little ones pre-programmed. But I am not God (for which we can all be grateful!), and He has chosen to give the task of educating children to the parents. Do not take that role lightly, do not abandon it to others. Seize it!

Poor CHOICES

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

This morning the Christian News Network reported on a Presbyterian church in Memphis, TN that has selected a local abortion provider as one of the recipients of the funds raised during their upcoming 5K race.

Shady Grove Presbyterian Church has decided that CHOICES, a Memphis “center for reproductive health” will be one of three non-profits to receive money from Shady Grove’s “Race for Grace.” What is CHOICES? Here is what it says under the “About” tab on its web site: “Choices provides comprehensive reproductive health care to women, men and teens. We offer adolescent reproductive health visits, adoption referrals, colposcopies, fertility assistance (including artificial inseminations), HIV testing and referrals, reproductive health services for people living with HIV/AIDS, birth control, Gardasil vaccinations, lesbian and gay sexual health visits, transgender healthcare, first trimester surgical and medication abortions, training of medical students and advanced nurse practitioners, miscarriage management, and comprehensive pregnancy options counseling.”

Pregnancy centers are very much needed, and many churches provide financial and volunteer support for such organizations in their communities. What makes this case unusual is that CHOICES states clearly and unapologetically that it provides abortions (not to mention other health services that many Christians would find objectionable).

On its website CHOICES includes “Race for Grace” under its “Get Involved” tab. Clicking on that link brings up this information: “CHOICES is honored to have been selected as one of three non-profits to benefit from the 2013 Race for Grace sponsored annually by Shady Grove Presbyterian Church in Memphis. Proceeds from any 5K registrations earmarked for CHOICES will benefit planning efforts to add prenatal care and midwife deliveries to our growing list of patient services. Specifically, Race for Grace funds will support the development of a Pre-Natal Services business plan. If you support CHOICES’ philosophy of comprehensive, integrated reproductive health care services, we hope you will register and participate in this year’s Race for Grace.”

Perhaps Shady Grove and its leadership have determined that prenatal care and midwifery are noble efforts and worthy of the church’s support. Perhaps so. However, there are surely other ways and other organizations the church could support such services without providing money to an organization that also provides abortions and supports other efforts that are unquestionably contrary to biblical teaching. After all, just above the “Race for Grace” on CHOICES’ “Get Involved” tab is another event called “CONDOMONIUM.” The logo for this event is a “C” shaped out of a condom. The CHOICES home page includes this announcement: “CHOICES is seeking designers to create fashions and accessories out of condoms for CONDOMONIUM.” The web site further states that this event is the “annual public awareness event and signature fundraiser for our small (but mighty) non-profit organization providing reproductive health care, education, and advocacy around reproductive rights & justice.” One of the stated purposes of the event is to share with the Memphis community that, “Our community will not be bullied into silence and shame around universal issues of sexuality and reproductive health.”

Is this really what Shady Grove Presbyterian Church wants to support? The logo for “Race for Grace” includes this statement: “Benefiting bright spots in Memphis.” So regardless of the fact that the funds given to CHOICES through “Race for Grace” are earmarked for prenatal and midwife services, the church is publicly announcing that it believes CHOICES to be one of Memphis’s “bright spots.” I find this incredibly troubling.

So, by the way, does John Brindley with the Abolitionist Society of Memphis. According to the Christian News Network report Brindley said that “Christians from the city have met with the ‘pastor’ on three separate occasions, but that he nonetheless decided to go forward with allowing funds to be sent to the CHOICES abortion facility.” As a result, Brindley and his organization are planning to take graphic reminders of the realities of abortion to the church this Sunday in the form of photos of aborted babies. Brindley further stated, “Just in case someone is thinking that it’s not a big deal since the money is earmarked for pre-natal care, consider that they are entering into a covenant relationship with an organization that believes it is alright to rip apart the unborn and throw them away like trash. What would you think of a church in Nazi, Germany that earmarked money to a local concentration camp restroom renovation project? They just want to be Jesus to the Jewish prisoners who should have clean bathroom facilities, right? It’s just that the people who are receiving the money are exterminating the Jews on the other side of the building.” A harsh comparison? I don’t think so. It’s in-your-face, no doubt; but the holocaust of abortion may require that kind of language at times to bring people to grips with the reality of what is going on, with the reality of how serious abortion really is. After all, since Roe v Wade was decided far more babies have been killed through legal abortions in the United States than were killed by Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Unfortunately, this situation in Memphis serves as but one example of many, many instances of churches supporting organizations, positions and outreaches that are clearly in violation of Scripture. This should be a reminder to us all that just because a building or a group of people carry the name “church” does not mean that God is honored there or that the truth of the Bible is believed, taught or practiced. What little the Shady Grove web site has to say about the church’s “Philosophy/Spirit” leads me to question whether I would hear biblical truth if I were to attend the church this Sunday morning (or any other Sunday). I am sure I would hear some biblical truth, but I suspect it would be greatly diluted by the feel-good messages and “refreshing blend of the ephemeral and simple” that would be more prominent. (That phrase, by the way, comes from the church’s web site).

Let us pray for Shady Grove Presbyterian Church and other churches that are failing to stay faithful to God’s Word and His mandate for the church. Let us pray for discernment as we walk through this world and seek out churches and fellow believers that we would lovingly confront error where we find it and we would find co-laborers in the Lord to be our companions on this journey. Let us also pray for CHOICES and organizations like it. Most importantly, let us pray for women who are facing life-altering choices of their own, particularly regarding their unborn children, that they would find wise counsel and be encouraged to make the right choice, the choice for life.

“An environment welcoming all teens”

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

I would love to say that I have not blogged in nearly two weeks because there has simply been nothing so troubling as to warrant me taking to the keyboard to share my thoughts in the matter. As if! As the expression goes, “life happens,” and life for me the past couple of weeks has been extremely busy. But I am not going to talk about what’s going on in my life. I am not even (for now) going to talk about the government shut down. What I am going to talk about is the American Academy of Pediatrics.

This organization represents more than 60,000 pediatricians across the country. According to its own web site the AAP is “dedicated to the health and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.” In late July the AAP posted on its web site a technical report entitled “Office-Based Care for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth,” written by Dr. David Levine of the Committee on Adolescence, and also published in the July issue of Pediatrics. The article provides recommendations for pediatricians on how to answer questions from youth with questions about their own sexuality or that of their parents, relatives and friends.

Specifically, the article states, “Pediatricians should have offices that are teen-friendly and welcoming to sexual minority youth. This includes having supportive, engaging office staff members who ensure that there are no barriers to care.” Notice what this says if you read between the lines: not having an environment that is welcoming to “sexual minority youth” and not having staff members who are supportive of such behavior is a barrier to care. Furthermore, the article states, “For transgender youth, pediatricians should provide the opportunity to acknowledge and affirm their feelings of gender dysphoria and desires to transition to the opposite gender.” In other words, pediatricians and their staffs need to ” express agreement with or commitment to” and “support” the desire for a young person to transition to the other gender. That is the definition of affirm. And remember, failing to take this supportive approach is a barrier to care!

The article further states that LGBTQ youth are most damaged by the heterosexism that is the “societal expectation.” One has to wonder where Dr. Levine and his colleagues live, though, because he also writes, “Pervasive in our culture, homophobia is institutionalized in stereotypes promoted in the media and in casual conversation.” Oh really? I think what is promoted in our media aggressively and, unfortunately, successfully, is the notion that homosexuality and other “alternative lifestyles” are quite acceptable and normal.

Levine writes, “Pediatricians have a role in helping teenagers sort through their feelings and behaviors. Young people need information about healthy, positive expressions of sexuality, and pediatricians should assist adolescents as they develop their identities and to avoid the consequences of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), regardless of sexual orientation. Research suggests that LGBTQ youth really value these opportunities for discussions with their pediatricians or primary health care providers.” I would agree with the doctor if this statement could be taken at face value. However, we must remember what he writes elsewhere in the article. Remember, according to Levine and the AAP, pediatricians and their staff members cannot help adolescents through the difficult teen years and the sexual questions that may emerge unless they affirm and embrace every version of sexual relationship–Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning. They cannot help teens avoid sexually transmitted diseases unless they are willing to affirm that kind of behavior in any pairing. Forget encouraging abstinence or suggesting that sex should wait until marriage; after all, that might damage someone’s psyche and result in lifelong mental anguish.

Later on in the article Levine writes, “Pediatricians have the responsibility to provide culturally effective care to help reduce health disparities.” Seriously? I would think medically effective care would be the standard. It seems to me that the pediatrician’s foremost responsibility would be the health of the patient. Apparently not, or least not that exclusively. Now, the care provided must be “culturally effective.” Translation: do not even think about taking any attitude other than affirming the “alternative lifestyles.”

Levine writes, “Being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning, is not a ‘problem’ or ‘risk behavior’ in itself.” That’s interesting. Let’s set aside the fact that homosexual behavior is a sin, which certainly qualifies it as a “problem.” Levine’s statement is interesting because prior to making this statement he spent a considerable chunk of his article addressing the mental health disparities, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual and reproductive health disparities and general health disparities of LGBTQ young people. It would seem, then, to the uninformed (like me) that this is a risk behavior “in itself.” But as I said, I am evidently uniformed. The problem comes not from the behavior, but from the fact that parents, physicians and the culture as a whole fails to embrace and affirm LGBTQ youth, thus driving them to homelessness, despair, poor self esteem and, eventually, highly risky behaviors.

Levine says, “One of the challenges to health care is removing barriers to care and creating an environment welcoming all teens.” By that he means, of course, that LGBTQ teens must feel welcomed. One of the ways to do that is to use gender-neutral terms when questioning or discussing sexual topics with patients. Why? Well, because… After all, “A nurse asking a teenage girl who is in a relationship with another woman about her boyfriend may be interpreted as nonaccepting of her relationship.” Furthermore, the office needs to be decorated in such a way as to welcome LGBTQ youth. “The office environment can be made welcoming for all teens by placing in the waiting room items such as brochures on a variety of adolescent topics, including sexual orientation, posters showing both same- and opposite-gender couples, and notices about support groups, if available in the region. … Even a small ‘rainbow’ button (often a symbol of acceptance of sexual minority individuals) or decal on an office bulletin board or door symbolizes openness and acceptance of diverse sexual orientation and will be appreciated by sexual minority teens and their parents.” Of course what Levine overlooks, or ignores, is that this kind of behavior and this kind of decor will absolutely not make the office welcoming to “all teens.” Many teens and parents would be offended by the things Levine describes. But remember, that is our insidious heterosexism.

Levine concludes his article with these statements: “Pediatricians have an obligation to ensure that sexual minority youth have access to a full range of appropriate health care services. As with all adolescents and young adults, sexual minority youth need honest answers and compassion in dealing with issues and questions around sexual orientation, identity, and sexual behaviors.” Of course pediatricians must provide all necessary medical care for their patients, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation; no sane person would argue otherwise. Levine, however, completely misses the fact that his entire article goes about making sure that pediatricians their staff members do not provide honest answers about “sexual orientation, identity, and sexual behaviors.” We cannot both tell people what to think, what to say and how to act and encourage them to be honest. We cannot tell people that what is sin is simply an alternative and then ask them to be honest. But then neither can we tell doctors to do everything they can to welcome and affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and simultaneously tell them make sure all patients feel welcome and comfortable.

Every human being is entitled to be treated with dignity and should be cared for when their health is endangered, regardless of who or what they think they are or claim to be. Beyond that, though, Dr. Levine and the AAP are no better than the elixir salesmen of the Old West; they’re saying a bunch of stuff that sounds good but has no legitimacy and no substance, and they’re promising something that just ain’t gonna happen.

Rewriting the Amendments

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

John J. Newman and John M. Schmalbach’s United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination is an Amazon.com bestseller. In fact, it is Amazon’s number one bestseller in the History category for Teens and Young Adults. It is also one of the most Wished For books in that same category (users of Amazon.com can create personal “wish lists” of items they would like to have). As a U.S. history teacher and enthusiast, this should be music to my ears, right? Sadly, it is not to be. Just the opposite, in fact. The fact that this book is so widely read scared me. Why? Quite frankly, because the book is not accurate.

The Amazon listing says this of the book: “U.S. History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination presents the history of the United States from pre-Columbian times to the Obama administration. It follows the curriculum put out by the College Board for this course of study. Thirty chapters, each covering a different time period.”

That would be good news, and a book like this–a one-volume overview of U.S. history specifically designed to help students prepare for the Advanced Placement exam and/or to assist the student of U.S. history in understanding the events and people that shaped this nation–would logically be in demand, particularly when modestly priced (as this one is). However, a book like this can also be expected to accurately present the facts of U.S. history, and this one does not.

I have not had the opportunity to review the entire book, so I cannot speak for it en toto. Having reviewed just the books presentation of the Bill of Rights, though, I can say that the book is revisionist history at its best.

It strikes me as odd, quite frankly, that the book feels the need to summarize the Bill of Rights at all. Most history books that I am familiar with simply present the Constitution and its amendments as written. After all, why read a summary when it is easy enough to read the original? Nevertheless, Newman and Schmalbach decide to present a summary. Interestingly, they introduce that summary with a paragraph that includes this statement: “Together they [the Bill of Rights] provided the guarantees that Anti-Federalists wanted against possible abuses of power by the central (or federal) government.” While that is accurate enough in and of itself, the amendment summaries that follow are so twisted that they actually do the exact opposite of what that sentence states; the amendments described in the summary would give far more power to the federal government than even the Federalists wanted, let alone what the Anti-Federalists feared.

For example, the summary of the First Amendment reads, “Congress may make no laws that infringe a citizen’s right to freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Congress may not favor one religion over another (separation of church and state).” The first amendment actually does not say that Congress cannot favor one religion over another, and there is an abundance of historical evidence that in its early years Congress clearly did favor Christianity over other religions. And the First Amendment certainly does not say anything about the separation of church and state. This a phrase that does not exist in any founding documents; it first appears in a private letter written from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association, and even Jefferson did not intend it in the way that judicial activist judges have used it in recent decades. What the First Amendment actually says is, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Accurate summary: Congress cannot create a state church and cannot pass any laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. (What this amendment clearly does not say, by the way, is that the church must not influence the state, but that is a topic for another day….)

Move on to the Second Amendment. The textbook’s summary reads, “The people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia.” What does the Second Amendment actually say? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Accurate summary? Since the people must have a right to defend themselves in a free state–and to preserve a free state–the government cannot pass any laws prohibiting law abiding citizens from owning firearms. It certainly does not say that only in a state militia can citizens bear arms.

As I said above, this rewriting (or intentional misinterpreting) of the first two amendments clearly gives the federal government far more power than the actual Bill of Rights gives it since this revision would allow the separation of church and state and would allow the restriction of gun ownership to anyone not in a state militia. These are powers that the federal government does not have. There are definitely members of the government, and people in the political realm, who would love to see the federal government have this power, and there are certainly those who will try to convince gullible students and citizens that these are powers the government does indeed have. Let us be ever vigilant in defending our freedoms and opposing wrong teaching in our schools!

Pagan Church

~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

On June 21, 2013 the UK’s The Telegraph reported that the Church of England was creating a pagan church in order to recruit members. The sub-heading read, “The Church of England is trying to recruit pagans and spiritual believers as part of a drive to retain congregation numbers.” This news was released as thousands of individuals gathered for the summer solstice at Stonehenge.

No doubt the church should seek to reach pagans with the Gospel. However, I have to question the wisdom in trying to create a pagan church to do so. According to the article, the church is training ministers to create a church where Christianity is “very much in the centre.” How, pray tell, can one create a pagan church with Christianity at the center of it? Pagan means, by definition, either a follower of a polytheistic religion or “one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods; an irreligious or hedonistic person.” So the plan is to create a church for people who are irreligious or pursue whatever makes them happy, and to have Christ and the Gospel at the center. Ummm, how?

Well, Steve Hollinghurst told The Telegraph, “I would be looking to formulate an exploration of the Christian faith that would be at home in their culture.” “At home” is a synonym for “comfortable.” When you visit someone’s home they may encourage you to “make yourself at home,” meaning get comfortable, help yourself if you need something, don’t feel like a guest. So Rev. Hollinghurst wants to create a church that will explore Christianity in a way that someone who is irreligious or hedonistic will feel comfortable with.

The article goes on to quote Andrea Campenale of the Church Mission Society as saying, “Nowadays people, they want to feel something; they want to have some sense of experience.” So the intent is to create a worship service that feels good? I think I have heard of that somewhere before…oh yes! The seeker-friendly movement….

The web site Themonastery.org is the site of the Universal Life Church Monastery, which “strongly believes in the rights of all people from all faiths to practice their religious beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are” (and also, by the way, offers free online ordination!). This site comments on the Church of England’s move by saying that the Church of England wants to create “a church which incorporates pagan styles of worship and ritual” even up to including “worship[ing] the Goddess inside a Christian cathedral.” The site goes on to comment that this move seems at first to indicate a growing acceptance of paganism among Anglicans but then goes to warn against the possibility of it being a “thinly-veiled attempt at proselytizing an increasingly secular British populace.”

Pagans do need to be reached with the Gospel; all unbelievers do. What the Church of England seems to be ignoring–and what many seeker-friendly churches before it have ignored–is that it is not possible both appeal to the world and stay true to the message of Bible. The cross is an offense to the world (Galatians 5:11). Of Paul’s preaching, Josef Urban writes, “He didn’t make his message smooth and soft in order to suit the fancies of the religious majority. His Gospel was a sharp word that exalted Christ, lifted the cross up high, proclaimed total commitment to Christ the King, and utterly stripped man of all self-reliance, shattering self-righteousness, tearing down false religion, and leaving men stripped bare before God in utter dependence on His free grace alone to save them.” That is exactly right. Whether we like it or not, it would be impossible to appeal to someone who feels self-righteous while shattering self-righteousness. Whether we like it or not, it is impossible to accommodate the practices, styles and beliefs of false religions while preaching and teaching the only true religion. It is not possible to leave people aware of their “utter dependence on [God’s] free grace to save them” while telling them they can achieve whatever it is they are seeking by worshiping “the Goddess.”

On The Christian Post Hollinghurst is quoted as discussing with various unbelievers “how Christianity can improve its flagging image.” In all honesty, I see two options here. One, Christianity may have a flagging image because it has compromised too much with the world rather than staying true to itself, and the world sees, and despises, that. Two, Christianity may have a flagging image because where it is still faithfully proclaimed it irritates the world to no end and the world would much rather have Christians adopt the “tolerance” of the world’s way of thinking. Either way, the world is the last place Christians need to look for suggestions on “improving their image.”

Christians are called to demonstrate Christ’s love toward all they encounter–and that means pagans, too, of course. Christians are called to follow Christ’s example and to reach out to sinners where they are with love and compassion. But Christians are never called to compromise the truth of God’s Word, and certainly are not called to adopt the strategies or styles or preferences of the unbelieving world or, even worse, the world believing in something else. Nowhere throughout history has any effort at blending Christianity with any false religion resulted in anything but the wrath of God. So, Church of England…watch out!

Word Games

~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Several weeks ago I wrote about the stupidity of so many of the labels that we tend to get hung up on these days, specifically when it comes to referring to people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Apparently the same stupidity exists among some people concerned about the very way in which the human race is addressed. Washington State has recently implemented legislation that uses gender-neutral vocabulary within the state’s laws. This would be silly but otherwise not worthy of notice if it simply meant adding “or her” and “she” to every “his” or “he.” Washington, though, was not content to simply make these little additions. Instead, the legislation brings to a conclusion a–get this–six year process of rewriting the state’s laws to ensure that they are all gender neutral to the point that contain virtually no reference to man or men at all, even when those words are gender neutral.

For example, the newly re-worded Washington legal codes will no longer make any reference to a signalman, journeyman plumbers, penmanship, fishermen or freshman. Instead, the laws now reference signal operators, journey-level plumbers, handwriting, fishers and first-year students.

Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle was the bill’s sponsor. Of her 475-page bill she told Reuters, “There’s no good reason for keeping our legal terms anachronistic and with words that do not respect our current contemporary times.” Give me a break… I think it would be far more accurate to say that there is no good reason to devote six years and multiple pieces of legislation to play such stupid word games. Washington’s legislators must have absolutely nothing important to do if they can devote so much time and money to this idiocy. Perhaps they could do themselves and their constituents a favor and disband the state legislature if that is all they have to do.

Kyle Thiessen, the state’s code reviser, was quoted in Huffington Post as saying that some words will not be replaced because there is simply no logical alternative. What else, for example, would you call a man hole? A person hole? A man or woman hole? A human hole? And apparently the state’s Washington Military Department objected to changing words such as seaman and airmen, so those will not be altered. (Watch out, WMD–the cries of anachronism and sexism surely cannot be far behind!).

Liz Watson (no relative of mine), a senior adviser to the National Women’s Law Center, said, “Words matter. This is important in changing hearts and minds.” She continued, “Words help shape our perceptions about what opportunities are available to women and men.” With all due respect, ma’am I think that’s a bunch of baloney. I do not know anyone who ever thought that women could not be law enforcement officers because we call them policemen or could not go fishing because people say fisherman rather than fisher. “Words alone are not going to achieve all of the things that need to happen. But this is one easy part for us to do,” Watson concluded. Sadly, more often than not, when we do what is easy we tend to stop there. Perhaps Senator Kohl-Welles and her colleagues in the Washington legislature think they are making strides toward equality for women with this landmark accomplishment. I beg to differ. Changing words like this will serve only to irritate people; I see no fundamental change in the opportunities available to women coming about because of this word game.

The feedback on HuffingtonPost.com was so overwhelmingly opposed to this ridiculousness that Senator Kohl-Welles responded on the site. She claims that she works on serious and important legislative matters, and I assume she does. However, she also claimed that this legislation neither wasted time nor money, and I would have to disagree with her on that. Even if, as she suggests, the changes in the wording of the state laws was handled easily with computer programs, such changes were ultimately made by someone who works for the state who could surely have been doing something more meaningful and more productive with his or her time.

There were some humorous responses to this whole business on Huffington Post. A Dave Warnick commented, “What are they going to do if you don’t use their words. Sentence you to five years with a dictionary?” Dan Lloyd queried, “What am I supposed to say when I am done praying? ‘A-people’ rather than ‘Amen’?” Probably the best comment I saw was posted by Mike Buscarino. He wrote, “This idiot governor should be improduced! Sorry, but the other produce (apples, oranges, lemons) may have gotten jealous and offended if i had used the word ‘impeached’ The last thing we need is a bunch of young and unripened fruit jumping off trees across the nation in protest.”