Carnival of Homeschooling, Teacher In Service Edition

The latest Carnival of Homeschooling was posted today at Principled Discovery. And it's packed with great links: everything from helping your kids find a sport they can love, to literature from ancient Egypt, to how to get a free pass to your local museum on Saturday, September 29, and MUCH more!

Be sure to check out the top section, entitled "Motivation." The best link I found was the one to Little Homeschool on the Prairie's post entitled, "The Wood Between the Worlds," about the meaning of "home" in our culture. Her comment on our culture:

Home in our modern society has been deconstructed into little more than a way-station, a place to sleep and eat (and not always even to eat!) and watch TV and store your stuff before you go out into the real world and live your real life.

And her solution?

One of the essential elements of homeschooling, as a movement, as a philosophy, is the reconstruction of home and family life, of home as the hub, home as the place where the most significant interactions take place, home as the place around which the activities of life revolve. I have yet to meet a homeschooler, fundamentalist, atheist, or other, who doesn't seem to have at heart a profound concern for the restoration of genuine family and community life.

Be sure to follow the link and read the whole thing. It's worth clicking on, if only to understand what home has to do with "the wood between the worlds."

And take some time to look at the Carnival this week. You won't be disappointed!

Third-World Missionaries Come Into Their Own

I'm back from our weekend camping trip. We had a great time! And what an intriguing article to come home to - the transcript of Chuck Colson's "Breakpoint" radio program today, entitled "Moving the Equator North."

If you're like me, you've been concerned and frustrated to read of the increasing immigration of religious peoples from the Third World into Europe. That can almost always be translated to read "the increasing immigration of Muslims." But not this time!

Colson's program highlights the Christian missionaries coming to Europe from nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For many years, missionaries moved unilaterally from the Western, developed nations to those continents. But the tide is turning. Colson quotes from a new book by Phillip Jenkins,

As he writes in The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, 60 percent of the estimated two billion Christians in the world live in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. By 2050, there will be an estimated three billion Christians, 75 percent of whom will live in what is the “Global South.”

But numbers only tell a part of the story. These Southern Christians have a much stronger belief in the authority of Scripture than their Western counterparts. As a Kenyan bishop said, “Our understanding of the Bible is different from them. We are two different churches.”

This belief in biblical authority produces the exuberant faith and the desire to share it that Europeans and Americans desperately need.

It also promises to change Christianity—and not just in the Global South. According to Jenkins, “as the center of gravity of the Christian world moves ever southward, the conservative traditions prevailing in the global South matter even more.”

After being "the senders" for so long, it is encouraging, in a way, to find that the people to whom we've been sending missionaries all these years have reached the point of taking responsibility, not only for their own churches, but for reaching out to those who desperately need the gospel. It is long past time for us to be supporting these national leaders in ministering, within their own nations and around the world.

"The Mass Education of Our Public School System Is a Vast Experiment"

One of the best quotes on education I've ever read was posted today on "The Buck Stops Here." It's a quote from Marvin Minsky, an amazing man, currently a professor at MIT, author, consultant to major movies including 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a leader in the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology. Stuart Buck's post is made up almost entirely of two quotes from Minsky, and these are significant enough that I'm going to reproduce the post in full here.

Well, it's not specifically about homeschooling, but it might as well be. The quote is from Marvin Minsky, one of the preeminent scholars in the artificial intelligence field:

The evidence is that many of our foremost achievers developed under conditions that are not much like those of present-day mass education.
Robert Lawler just showed me a paper by Harold McCurdy on the child pattern of genius. McCurdy reviews the early education of many eminent people from the last couple of centuries and concludes (1) that most of them had an enormous amount of attention paid to them by one or both parents and (2) that generally they were relatively isolated from other children. This is very different from what most people today consider an ideal school. It seems to me that much of what we call education is really socialization. Consider what we do to our kids. Is it really a good idea to send your 6-year-old into a room full of 6-year-olds, and then, the next year, to put your 7-year-old in with 7-year-olds, and so on? A simple recursive argument suggests this exposes them to a real danger of all growing up with the minds of 6-year-olds. And, so far as I can see, that's exactly what happens.

Our present culture may be largely shaped by this strange idea of isolating children's thought from adult thought. Perhaps the way our culture educates its children better explains why most of us come out as
dumb as they do, than it explains how some of us come out as smart as they do.

Here's a page that purports to quote from that McCurdy paper:

"In summary, the present survey of biographical information on a
sample of twenty men of genius suggests that the typical developmental
pattern includes as important aspects: (1) a high degree of attention
focused upon the child by parents and other adults, expressed in the
intensive educational measures and, usually, abundant love; (2) isolation
from other children, especially outside the family; and (3) a rich
efflorescence of fantasy as a reaction to the preceding conditions. It
might be remarked that the mass education of our public school system
is, in its way, a vast experiment on the effect of reducing all three
factors to a minimum: accordingly, it should tend to suppress the
occurrence of genius." (McCurdy, May 1960. p. 38.)

"Okay" vs. "Fundy" Homeschooling

On the blog "All Things Hold Together" today, Charity has a good post dealing with a post by another blogger critical of some homeschoolers. The criticism can be summed up in this sentence:

There is a "right" way to homeschool ... and there is the fundy way.

I am amazed that there are people - including some homeschoolers - actually agree with this! But there are more and more indications that this is the direction things are going - that some homeschoolers are deemed acceptable, while others (especially if they are conservative Christians) are not.

Charity deals with the criticism beautifully, basing her argument on the fact that when we begin discriminating between homeschoolers, someone has to determine who is acceptable and who is not.

I mean, do you really want that line drawn when you want to homeschool, but the people deciding the acceptability standard are not like you?

I cannot believe there are actual participants in our democratic process that are so exclusive in how they think rights should be appropriated.

News flash: There is this little thing called Freedom of Religion that actually prohibits the government from disallowing certain parents to homeschool because they hold religious view you oppose.

She also points out that most religious homeschoolers do the same kinds of activities and seek just as deep and solid an education as most secular homeschoolers. We go to libraries, museums, and aquariums; we use excellent literature (as opposed to condensed and abridged textbooks) and real historical documents (as opposed to boring history texts); we teach our children other points of view; we do real science experiments and talk a lot about current events. The only thing that distinguishes our homeschooling from secular homeschoolers is that we teach our children the Bible as well.

Great points, Charity! And there's much more where that came from - go take a look!

Why We Need Term Limits

The Headmistress over at The Common Room had a really excellent post yesterday on why we desperately need term limits for all our politicians. The bottom line?

I am not aware of any period in this nation's history when war did not lead our politicians to amass more power unto the institution of government. In fact, I'm not aware of any time where any crisis, real or imagined, did not involve politicians using that opportunity to clutch a little more power unto themselves. It happens routinely, whether the politician is a 'nice' person or not. It doesn't matter what political party is in charge. It doesn't matter Institutions are self-perpetuating, and they do what they can to entrench themselves.

That's one reason why I think we need term limits.

I am also not aware of any politician able to stay in D.C. for decades and not lose sight of reality. They lose perspective. They lose the ability to connect with life in the every day lives of their constituents. They just don't get it. That's just human, you know? I find myself saying sometimes to people, "Oh, that was only five dollars," forgetting the time in our lives when the practical difference between five dollars and five hundred was negligible because they were each equally unattainable. We forget the intensity of what we once experienced every day. Politicians do, too. And they are surrounded by an artificial aristocracy in D.C. and they lose perspective. Bring them home. Force them back into private life.

She's right about that. It also seems to me that lawmakers would have much stronger incentives to keep the government limited and the laws simple if they had to live in the "real world" like the rest of us. If they knew they wouldn't be able to rely on the voters to support their lifestyle, they would perhaps be less willing to regulate everything under the sun.

I also think the term limits need to be uniformly applied; ALL lawmakers should be subject to term limits. Colorado currently has a term limits law; it limits our lawmakers to no more than 8 years in office (two 4-year terms or three 2-year terms). However, because Colorado is one of few states with term limits laws, which means our lawmakers rarely have the opportunity to become well-known in the federal government. About the time people begin to recognize their names, they are out. In my opinion, that's the way it should be for all politicians.

I feel less strongly about members of the executive branch being subject to term limits than I do about the legislative. Some functions of the executive branch demand expertise; there is little expertise necessary to simply pass the laws required to govern a free people.

Be sure to follow the link. The Headmistress has much more to say, including some great new suggestions. One of my favorites is this one:

Before approving any bill, the legislators must personally read every sentence in the proposed law, and demonstrate that they have read with comprehension by passing a test on the material. This is my favorite. I think I like it even better than term limits.

So do I.

Homeschoolers Take First Place!

Posted recently on the CHEC website (not sure how I missed this, but it's worth repeating!):

Another homeschooler snags national spelling bee title
Release June 1, 2007

Last night, a California homeschooled 13-year-old, Evan O'Dorney took home $40,000 and the national Scripps Howard spelling bee championship. The winning word was "serrefine," a small forcep for clamping a blood vessel. Five of the 15 finalists in the contest were homeschooled. Homeschoolers make up about 3% of the K-12 population in America.

This marks the first year that homeschoolers took first place in both the national geography bee and the national spelling bee.

There's more on Kevin's Swanson's blog, which IS fairly recent. It's dated July 8, 2007. (Unfortunately I can't find a way to permalink this, so if you click on the link and it's not at the top, scroll down!)

For the first time in the history of the modern home education movement, homeschoolers took first place in both the national geography and spelling bees. News coverage on the home schooled status of the winners was a little scanty this year, but it turns out both 14-year-old Caitlin Snaring from 13-year-old Evan O'Dorney were home schooled. Not bad for some folks who represent a minority group that only makes up 3% of the schooled youth in America!

Again and again home schooling proves itself a highly effective form of education that reverses all modern paradigms. The conception that it takes a professional don't try this at home, is pounded relentlessly into our heads on every side. A year or two ago, a brochure advertising a local private school caught my eye. There is a misconception, pontificated the EDD who penned the brochure, that teaching a child does not require university training or a degreed and certified professionals. Brain surgery requires professional training and so does teaching.

What these professionals do not understand is that we are not doing brain surgery. We're doing heart surgery.

And heart surgery requires a parent/child relationship, a focus on character, faith, and thousands upon thousands of hours of heart-deep discipleship. What wins spellihg bees and accomplishes great things for God and country is not so much brains as it is nurtured faith and character in the life of a child.

Heart surgery, not brain surgery - what a great thought! Thanks, Kevin, for reminding me again what I'm really about.

A New Portrayal of Abortion

In Breakpoint's Worldview Magazine today, Gina Dalfonzo has an outstanding article on the way our culture's perception of abortion is changing, as illustrated by the TV show House, M.D. I've never watched the program before. But as Ms. Dalfonzo points out, science is making it increasingly clear that the baby in the womb is still a baby, and our culture's discussion of abortion is being forced to deal with that truth.

Here's a key part of the article:

By 1995, staunchly pro-abortion feminist Naomi Wolf would shock pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike when she wrote in The New Republic, “Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die. But it is never right or necessary to minimize the value of the lives involved or the sacrifice incurred in letting them go. Only if we uphold abortion rights within a matrix of individual conscience, atonement and responsibility can we both correct the logical and ethical absurdity in our position and consolidate the support of the center.”

In one breath, Wolf was arguing that the fetus is indeed a human life and that we must recognize it as such to be able to speak about abortion with the honesty the subject requires; in the next, she was still insisting that there are certain circumstances under which it is necessary, even right, to take that life.

Ms. Dalfonzo goes on to tell about an episode of House, M.D. in which the doctor is operating on a baby still in the womb, after the mother has refused to abort the child. During the operation, the baby's hand reaches out to grasp the doctor's finger. That picture, based on a real-life account, made a tremendous impact on the viewing audience (follow the link for more on that story). And as Ms. Dalfonzo points out,

Like ultrasound images, TV shows have the power to create moments that linger in people’s minds long after political speeches have faded.

Perhaps, after all, the pro-life movement will win the battle for the unborn by capturing not the government, but the culture—by turning people’s very hearts against abortion. That we should be aided in this effort by Hollywood, of all communities, is a proof of the greatness and grace of God that even Dr. House
would find hard to refute.

Countering the Homeschool Bashers

Alasandra had a nice post yesterday about those "homeschool-bashing progressives" who think they have a handle on truth and a reason to deny us the right to homeschool. She posts a great interaction with someone who wants to abolish homeschooling, and counters their arguments nicely. Take a look!

The Carnival of Homeschooling is Up!

Natalie at The Homeschool Cafe is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling: Independence Edition. She's got some great links - take a look! Here's her summary:

Among the varied entries of this blog carnival, the central message is that knowledge is the key to effectively securing homeschool freedom. Awareness of our rights and responsibilities keeps us informed of beneficial resources, warns us of dangerous trends and empowers us to act appropriately to secure and defend those rights.

Warning Labels and the Gospel

I enjoy reading articles written by Dave Burchett, blogger at Crosswalk.com, Emmy Award winning TV sports director, author and Christian speaker. But I think the article he posted to his blog this week, "Saving Us From . . . Ourselves?," really takes the cake. Most of us have enjoyed reading about the crazy warning labels manufacturers put on products these days. Hair dryers labeled, "Do not use while sleeping," for example, or warnings on fast-food coffeecups that coffee is hot, seem ridiculous to most of us. Dave's article this week highlights a few of these warnings, and goes on to talk about how our lawsuit-happy, warning-labels-on-everything culture affects us, particularly our relationship with the gospel.

Take the time to follow the link and read this great article. It will make you laugh. It will also make you think.

C.S. Lewis Wrote Poems!

OK, I knew that C.S. had written prolifically, both fiction and nonfiction. But I don't think I ever realized he had written poems - and good ones! Over at The Common Room, "The EquusChick" has posted a copy of his "The Apologist's Evening Prayer." I knew I liked the poem as I read it, but knowing the author makes some of the phrases especially significant. I hope it speaks to you as it did to me.

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

- CS Lewis

Of Knights and Princesses

A couple of days ago I ran across an excellent posting by Andy Rayner of Where in the World? blog. Andy is a lobster fisherman on Prince Edward Island. This post is entitled, Why I Love Mornings, Marriage, Post It Notes, and Recreational Companionship, and it discusses a husband's need for that recreational companionship in his life. I badly needed the reminder at this point in my life; maybe you will also find it helpful.

The key section, in my opinion, is this one:

Anyway, one of the needs for a guy is called "Recreational Companionship". This is the desire for the girl he married. The one he had before kids came along. The one he had before house work, dishes, and heaping loads of laundry came in as an exhausting swell into their marriage and smothered a guy from just having fun with his girl.

Let me put it in lady language for you ladies."The Royal Knight wants to ride up to The Princess and fling her onto his battle horse with him, and ride off into the sunset together for some adventure together, any adventure, come what may, every now and then."

You use to be interested in him and all that he did back then. You went and did things he liked, played a game, or a sport, or were present for some hobby of his. Simply put, you tried to be involved anywhere and everywhere you could in his life. You were genuinely interested in "playing" with him. Why? Because you wanted to be in every part of his life back then. Now? Well, you answer that for yourself. Guys really miss that girl as the years go by.

Isn't that great? Thanks, Andy, for the reminder! And to my lady readers, won't you join me in a challenge - to find some way to "ride off into the sunset" with your "royal knight" sometime soon?! :)

Great Giveaway

Crystal over at Biblical Womanhood is hosting a giveaway of a 10-volume set of books sold by Vision Forum. This looks like a great set and it's FREE - just click on the link and follow the instructions!

This is part of what Crystal says:

For those of you who appreciate the high quality and character-building
books which Vision Forum sells, I have
some exciting news for you: I will be giving away an entire
Ballantyne Christian Adventure Library this week on my blog, compliments of the wonderful folks at Vision Forum.

This 10-volume set (a $220 value - on sale for a limited time for $165!)
was written in the 19th century by Robert Michael Ballantyne, who was a devout
Christian of the Scottish Covenanter kind and perhaps the most influential
writer of boys' literature of his generation.

The drawing is on Saturday, so be sure to act quickly!

Christian Patriotism

Five days each week, Chuck Colson, author of Born Again, produces a 5-minute radio program called "Breakpoint." Today's program is entitled "The Cross and the Flag" (read a transcript here), and it is especially good.

Dr. Colson deals here with the struggle between a "wrap the cross around the flag" mentality (anything patriotic is Christian; anything Christian is patriotic), and "just passing through" mindset (Christians have no obligation to their community or their country).

His conclusion is worth noting:

The Christian position is beautifully balanced. On one hand, we don't deify
our country. Our ultimate citizenship is in heaven, and that's where our
ultimate allegiance is.

But the only place for expressing that allegiance is in the concrete
loyalties God calls us to here on earth—including loyalty to country. We can't
love mankind in the abstract; we can only really love people in the particular,
concrete relationships God has placed us in—our family, our church, our
community, our nation. I deal with this in a chapter in my new book, God and
Government.

So brush up on your civics, dust off your U.S. history books, and
celebrate this July Fourth by thanking God that He has not only called us into
His kingdom but that He's also allowed us to live in—and yes, love—this land of
liberty.

Really Excellent Homeschool Blogs

Hello! I don't have a lot to blog about myself today, but I've seen some really excellent blogs on homeschooling lately, and I think it's time to give them credit.

#1 - My most recently discovered treasure, Yielded Heart, has much thoughtful comment on why we're homeschooling in the first place. Here's a quick excerpt from one of my favorite of her posts:

I wonder if Jesus would rather see my closet organized, or have me not easily
offended by what my loving husband says. I wonder if He’d rather have me make
sure I have the most nutritious and wholesome meal on the table, or show more
gentleness and patience to my oldest daughter. Ponder.
Wow. I learned a lot this morning- mostly from my own folly. But I thank the Word of God, that it has the power to admonish, to encourage, to inspire, to correct, to discipline- through the Holy Spirit.

Ouch! What a great reminder!

#2 - A new "find" for me - Principled Discovery. I really appreciate those homeschooling parents who take the time to blog serious reflections on homeschooling and on life, and Dana does that exceptionally well. Even her "About Me" page is thoughtful. As she says there,

I am reflective by nature and tend to agree with Socrates when he says, "The
unexamined life is not worth living."

#3 - One of my older favorite homeschooling blogs is Little Women, who incidentally just happens to be my sister. She has a great story on her last post about a 3-year-old's perspective on the rainbow!

#4 - Another blogger who's been a favorite for at least a couple of years now is The Common Room. She has a BUNCH of kids - 7 the last I checked! - and writes prolifically about all kinds of topics. You can see the quality of her homeschooling when you look at the posts her older kids add to the blog - it is a pleasure to read all of them. The Headmistress is both reflective and wise, and I never fail to learn something new when I visit her blog.

There are lots of other great bloggers, but these are special. I hope you enjoy them!

The People Don't Approve

Congressional approval ratings tend to be negative no matter who's in charge. But this spring, public opinion of the job Congress is doing has dropped dramatically. In February, the Congressional approval rating was 37%; the latest rating is at only 24%, down 5 points since last month. And to make matters worse for the Democratic leadership, their approval rating among Democrats is not much better than their rating among Republicans. In fact, their rating among Democrats has dropped from 43% in April to 29% in June. And among Independents, only 19% say they approve of the job Congress is doing. The Congressional approval rating has not been at 24% since January 1996; it has not been below that since 1992, before the Republicans assumed control.

It seems to me it's time for the Democratic leaders in Congress to take a serious look at themselves, and ask what exactly it is the people want them to be doing. After all, the point of all this is representative government, isn't it? Their job is to represent their constituents, most of whom are not interested in gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, and want lower taxes and a less corrupt government. The emphasis of the leaders in Congress on issues the people don't care about, and their blatant refusal to engage what really matters to the people, are the biggest reasons why the people no longer approve. It's unfortunate for the Democratic Party that after less than six months in office, Congressional approval is below where it was last fall when the Republicans were kicked out of office, and very close to where it was shortly before the Democrats were kicked out last time.

Are Homeschoolers Depriving the World Of Our Witness?

Homeschooling families are often criticized by other Christian families for removing our children - and their witness - from the public school. And one of the more common reasons why Christian families choose not to homeschool is that they want their children to be "salt and light" in the schools.

Sally Thomas, on First Things today, has perhaps the best article I've ever read on the topic. She points out how difficult it is for a Christian child to survive and thrive in the public schools. She describes her own family's experience with their oldest daughter in the English school system, and tells how her daughter became increasingly withdrawn. She then goes on to explain eloquently why we believers have a first duty to our children, not to our communities.

What Sally hints at, but doesn't develop fully, is the idea that children are not equipped to really be "salt and light" in the public schools. The very definition of "child" requires a certain level of immaturity. I Corinthians 13 says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child." How does a child reason? Even the most mature eight-year-old is still only an eight-year-old, unable to reason in a mature fashion, and only partly acquainted with the world in which he or she lives.

If we take an immature child and put that child in a public school classroom, what is he or she confronted with? Twenty-five or thirty other children of the same age, holding a huge range of beliefs, coming from a significant number of different religious and cultural backgrounds, and with many different definitions of acceptable behavior. Which of these children should the child seek out? How will he be able to determine which children are likely to be influenced by him and which will influence him for evil? Can she figure what approach is most likely to reach this or that friend? How does he protect his image of himself when others make fun of his looks or his beliefs? And if that classroom full of peers presents tremendous challenge, what about the playground, full of hundreds of children, some older and stronger? And besides the other children, there is this tremendous authority figure named "Teacher," who generally perceives herself or himself as the fount of all wisdom and knowledge, at least in the classroom, and who often does not share the child's Christian belief system or even his or her basic worldview.

Given all this, which is more likely: that the Christian child will share his beliefs and bring his friends to Christ, or that he will instead be influenced by the environment in which he finds himself? Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm," and I Corinthians 15:33 says, "Do not be misled: Bad company corrupts good character." If we insist on our children's associating, for the majority of their waking hours, with "fools," and "bad company," we ought not to be surprised when they become like those with whom they associate. Even adults struggle to hold firmly to their faith when surrounded constantly by those who disagree; how can we expect our children to survive?

There will be plenty of time for our children to be salt and light, without surrounding them for many hours each week with those who will harm them spiritually. I'd prefer my children spend most of their time with "the wise." When they have reached maturity, they will have the reasoning power to deal with the arguments of those who disagree.

Sally Thomas points out, too, that just because children don't go to school doesn't mean they aren't in the world. She illustrates by discussing how her children interact often with their neighbors and witness, in their own little way, to the people they come in contact with. My own children also interact with and pray for their friends in the neighborhood, and provide a positive influence on those friends. Even as children, they can share their faith - but they can do it in a way that doesn't endanger that faith by exposing them to forces they are not yet ready to cope with.

Homeschoolers and Socialization

This morning I ran across this great comic strip on homeschoolers and socialization. Here's the website so you can see more: http://www.inflatablestudios.com/ Jason publishes a new strip often; follow the link to see all that are posted so far.

This particular strip provides a concise comment on the truth about homeschoolers and socialization: that homeschooling provides a far richer social environment than is commonly assumed.

Churchgoing Fathers and Urban Families

A new study has recently been published by Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia. It contains good news for churches and for families that attend them. The study tackled the difficult question of whether church attendance makes a difference in the quality of urban family life. Here are some of the relevant findings:

- Church attendance is strongly associated with marital childbearing. This is especially true when fathers attend church. "Fathers who attend services several times a month or more are 95 percent more likely to be married when their child is born."

- Church attendance is also associated with single mothers getting married within three years after their baby is born (as opposed to remaining single as the child is growing up).

- If the father attends church services regularly, both parents are more likely to rate their partner as supportive, and both are more likely to report that they have an excellent relationship with each other. These results do not vary by race.

As the author says,

Religious attendance appears to foster behavior among urban fathers that makes
them more attractive mates and better partners. African American parents in
urban America are as likely to benefit from churchgoing as are whites. Indeed,
the racial gap in marriage rates in urban America today would be even larger
were it not for comparatively high levels of African American religiosity.
Finally, religious attendance is associated with higher reports of relationship
satisfaction for both married and unmarried parents in urban America.

This study confirms what many churchgoing families have understood for years - that when men assume the role of spiritual leader of the family, families are more stable, and relationships between spouses are more satisfying. (Hat tip: Family Research Council's "Washington Update," June 12, 2007)

Good News on the College Admissions Front

The Washington Post this morning has a surprisingly positive article on how colleges are evaluating homeschoolers' records. The best news, to many homeschoolers, is buried in the middle of the article:

Colleges are finding ways to adapt to the growing market. Eighty-three percent had formal policies for evaluating the home-schooled in 2004, up from 52 percent in 2000, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Many rely on standardized tests.

Eighty-three percent of colleges, up from only 52 percent, in just four years! And that was three years ago; at that rate, almost all colleges will soon have formal policies in place. That means great news for homeschooled students, who have long feared that homeschooling high school would make it difficult for them to get into college.

Illiberal Homeschooling: More on Kimberly Yuracko's Paper

Dana at Principled Discovery had an excellent post yesterday on the paper I wrote about by Kimberly Yuracko. She pinpoints the real constitutional problem with the argument put forward by Ms. Yuracko:

Only a certain minimum education that the state is mandated to ensure which
includes not only basic skills, but certain liberal values. And this is
central to her argument (emphasis mine):

It [the argument about the constitutionally mandated minimum that states must require of homeschools] highlights the distinctness of parents and children and emphasizes that parental control over children's basic education flows from the state (rather than vice versa). States delegate power over children's basic education to parents, and the delegation itself is necessarily subject to constitutional constraints.

This is what I don't really understand. I'm all for a "liberal" society, at
least in theory. I live peacefully in a society with atheists, homosexuals,
Muslims, pagans and liberals. I don't agree with them. In conversation, I may
even tell them that. But I am not about to try to exert any political force
against them or what they teach their children as truth. What ideas exactly
is a "liberal" society open to, if conservatism is so taboo as to necessitate state oversight of the relationship between parent and child to ensure its extinction?

But more central to the argument, and more concerning to me is the idea that
the parent's ability to homeschool is delegated by the state. What happened to
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
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?"

We the people gave the power to the state which governs by our consent. That
is the most fundamental assertion of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, and yet somehow out of that we assert that the parent does not
have the right to educate the child, but is only delegated a portion of the
state's authority?

I am not saying that parents have the right to not educate their child, but
some minimal standard of due process should be necessary to bring the state into
my home to oversee what I am doing. And "Christian" shouldn't be enough.

This is really where the rubber meets the road when it comes to constitutional issues. Perhaps Ms. Yuracko is one of those who would like to see a new constitutional convention; there are those in America who would. But until we have a new Constitution (and let's hope it's a long time), the state has only those powers given to it by the people, and parental control over their children's education is not delegated to them by the state. In fact, state control over any child's education is delegated to it by their parents, and by the people of the United States (in spite of Ms. Yuracko's contention).

What concerns me, though, is whether the people of the United States today are willing to give up their freedoms for the sake of creating the "tolerant," "free" society they think they want. Far too many people in America are easily led wherever the national media wants them to go. They believe what they see on television or read in the paper, without stopping to consider whether those things are true or what the ultimate consequences of those beliefs will be. The state can have only the powers granted it by the people, but if the people grant it power to restrict their freedom, then it has that power until the people as a whole rise up to stop it.

If we are not careful to preserve our freedom, we may lose it, and we will certainly lose much that we hold dear.

More On Restricting Homeschooling

A few weeks ago Russell Shaw posted this blog entry on the Huffington Post. Apart from the lack of any evidence for the majority of his claims, his arguments are amazingly inept. His worst argument,

Obviusly there were and are political reasons for this. Lots of
home-schooling parents run with the creationists. Creationists are easily led,
and they vote,

has been well addressed in this post by jacidawn, so I won't go into that here.

Mr. Shaw finds himself "troubled" by a surprising number of issues related to homeschooling, particularly for someone who claims, "I am not advocating that home-schooling should be outlawed." Here are some of the things he says "trouble" him:

I'm troubled by the fact that a significant percentage of home schooling
parents choose this option because of an overriding feeling that they want
their children to pursue curricula from theology or received wisdom rather than
a scientific perspective.

OK, I think I know a few people who homeschool because of such an "overriding feeling." They are far from the majority, however. Most believe their children will get a much better education in "a scientific perspective" as a result of studying at home. Many don't use curriculum based on "theology or received wisdom," and many of those who do choose a curriculum that uses primarily real, secular books and includes only some religious materials. More and more homeschooling parents are leaving Christian textbook curriculum, which I'll admit can sometimes be out of date and can force the issue of religion, in favor of fascinating, captivating, real books that libraries buy and parents who send their kids to public schools buy for them to read at home.

I wonder how many of these types of home-schooled kids take the assumptions
of say, 6,500 year-old earths and other lack of respect for scientific inquiry into
adulthood. Will these people be on equal preparatory footing for jobs where
scientific inquisitiveness, technical insight or critical thinking skills are far more necessary than rote recitation?

Well, Mr. Shaw, I can ease your mind on this issue. Homeschooling graduates are doing just fine in the workplace, not only in easy, nontechnical jobs, but in all different kinds of technical careers: medicine, engineering, even research science. There is far more to "scientific inquisitiveness" than just an understanding of evolution, and in many ways homeschooling is far better equipped to promote that very inquisitiveness than public school is. For example, if a child wonders about gravity, a homeschooling parent doesn't say, "God made gravity; you must accept it as one of His laws," and shut down the discussion. Rather, every homeschooling parent I know (and I know a LOT of them) would say either, "Let's read a book and find out about it," or "Let's try it!" On the other hand, a public school student who wonders about gravity when the class is studying the rain forest is likely to be told, "We'll talk about that later; right now we're talking about the rain forest." (And it might next school year before they get back to gravity again!) So which approach promotes "scientific inquisitiveness," Mr. Shaw? As for technical insight, a belief in creation in no way hinders that. And critical thinking is at least as easily and thoroughly taught in a homeschooling environment as in public school, where the textbook and the teacher are the authority and questions are likely to be considered disruptive. My own daughter's test scores on critical thinking this year ranged from the 85th to the 97th percentile (meaning she scored higher than 85-97% of 6th-graders who took this test) - and she took the 6th-grade test in 5th grade!

I'm also troubled, frankly, by parents who find the world overly complex, and
want to keep their students at home in the service of simplicity and
protectiveness.

I'm puzzled by this one. I've never heard of a homeschooler who wanted "to keep their students at home in the service of simplicity and protectiveness." Sure, I know many who find the world overly complex; in fact, Mr. Shaw goes on to say, "Well, the world is overly complex." But unless you count the desire to allow our kids to be kids a little longer, that's not why we homeschool. True, I really don't think my 6-year-old needs to be exposed to the horrors of the Vietnam War - but we'll get to that before my kids leave home, and we'll discuss it in all its gory details. It seems to me, though, that I am the person best equipped to determine when my daughters are ready to learn about the world's complexity, not a teacher who might spend 1-6 hours a day with them for a year and then perhaps never see them again. And this isn't the primary reason I homeschool - the primary reason is because I believe I can give my children a better education than they could get in the public school, and I want them to have every opportunity life has to offer.

I'm equally troubled by the fact that a non-trivial number of home-schoolers
are taught in that way because their parents are overly rugged individualists
who lack the impulse or skills to mix in as collaborative members of everyday
society.

OK, this is a completely unsubstantiated argument. Among the hundreds of homeschooling parents I know, I can't think of one who fits this description. (I'm sure there are some, since homeschoolers come in every variety imaginable - I just have never met one!) "Lack the impulse or skills to mix in as collaborative members of everyday society"? Prove it! (Oh, yes, and while you're doing that, Mr. Shaw, would you mind letting us know how those parents were educated? How many of them were homeschooled?) I was homeschooled and have been both a high-level administrative assistant and a private-school teacher. Now I homeschool my own children; am actively involved with my daughter's swim team, including becoming an official through USA Swimming; assist in my children's one-day-a-week homeschool enrichment program; volunteer at my church; blog; interact on several Internet bulletin boards; help sort food for Thanksgiving baskets with a local charity; participate in our homeowner's association; and am otherwise involved in various activities. Every homeschooler I know is equally active, though obviously not always in the same capacities. Many work in food banks; others visit nursing homes and make friends with the elderly; others help in homeless shelters; others are involved in agriculture co-ops. Some homeschooling parents work full-time (even some single parents find ways to make this work); others own their own businesses; many (perhaps most) work part-time; and some don't work a formal job but do significant amounts of volunteer work. In what way are we not "collaborative members of society"? Only because we don't choose to put our children in schools that sap their enthusiasm for learning; hold them back from becoming all they can be; destroy their self-esteem; subject them to intense peer pressure; put them at risk of their lives due to bullying, alcohol and drug abuse, and angry fellow students; teach them values we believe are wrong; and ultimately turn them out ill-equipped educationally or socially for the demands our society and our world place upon them. If that's the only criteria for Mr. Shaw's claim that we "lack the impulse or skills to mix in as collaborative members of society," I plead guilty!

It is precisely because we want our children to grow up with "the impulse and skills to mix in as collaborative members of society" that we are educating them at home. Most parents who have been homeschooling for long believe strongly that home education is by far the best way to give our children the social skills they need. We believe mixing with real people while they are still young will make them much more collaborative members of society than sitting day after day in a classroom full of kids all the same age (and mostly the same race and religion). My children have friends of many ages, races, national backgrounds, social classes, religious affiliations, and economic strata. My 6th-grader thinks it's a shame that her public-schooled friends won't mix with 5th-graders - she has several 5th-grade friends. She also has friends in kindergarten and in high school - as well as many adults. She already has years of practice interacting with all different kinds of people, and I believe she is more than adequately equipped to become a collaborative member of society.

Hmm . . . I wonder if I've managed to ease Mr. Shaw's "troubled" mind about homeschooling as a result of this post? Somehow I doubt it - not because my arguments or evidence are unsound, but because his real objection to my homeschooling is not in the feeble arguments he posted. Mr. Shaw, if he is like most people I know who object to homeschooling, is really protesting the fact that the U.S. Constitution gives me the right to teach my child what I believe is right, rather than what the state or government or Mr. Shaw himself believes is right. Oh, he says parents can teach children what they believe at home, during the time they have them; but how much time is that, really, between school and television and peers? And how much authority does a parent really have when weighed against a teacher who is an "expert" in the subject? Most critics of homeschooling understand this, and want my kids in their system precisely for that reason - so they can also become obedient little "sheep," believing whatever the authority of the moment wants them to believe.

Sorry, Mr. Shaw - I don't buy it. I will not sacrifice my children's education to the whim of those who care more about tolerance than about truth, just to ease your "troubled" mind. You have provided no evidence of your claims of "significant percentages" or "non-trivial numbers." I recommend you get to know some homeschoolers - preferably a lot of them - and then see how "troubled" you remain. Home education, for many families (though certainly not for all), provides the best possible education. Restrictions and regulations are not the answer. The few million children who are home educated in America today are not going to be able to reverse the trends of our society in general, especially if their education is as poor as Mr. Shaw claims. If he wants to be "troubled," I suggest Mr. Shaw look instead at the current condition of public education in America, where the vast majority of our children receive their schooling. Now there's a reason to be troubled!

Should Homeschooling Be Regulated?

There's been a great deal of discussion about the paper written by Kimberly Yuracko of Northwestern University, in which she advocates in favor of significant government regulation of homeschooling. She particularly wants to see homeschooling regulated in order to prevent "Christian fundamentalist" parents from "shielding" their children from the liberal values being taught in the schools - all for the good of the nation, of course. For an excerpt from the introduction to her paper (all that has been released to this point), see this blog entry from the "Christian Alliance for Progress."

This paper ignores one critically important reason why more questions have not been raised about constitutional issues surrounding homeschooling - because the Supreme Court has already spoken to this issue, many years ago, and declared that the right to direct the education of children belongs exclusively to their parents. I hate to disappoint Ms. Yuracko or the author of this blog, but parents do have the right to determine how their children will be educated.

I've been involved in the homeschooling movement for about 37 years, ever since my mother taught me to read at home when I was four years old. I attended virtually every schooling option you can imagine, from public to private to homeschooling to a small classroom with a tutor. During my high school years, I completed the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's independent study program (in 3 years instead of the usual 4, giving me the opportunity to pursue my college education my senior year - something that is routinely done in schools today but was unheard of in 1982). Since then I have helped many parents begin or improve their homeschools, have educated both my own children at home, and have taught in a homeschool enrichment program through a local public school system.

Based on my rather significant experience with homeschooling and homeschoolers, I believe Ms. Yuracko is wrong to divide homeschooling parents into "two distinct movements." Of course, that kind of artificial distinction is possible - some homeschoolers are Christians, some are not - but the truth is that reasons for homeschooling are almost as many as the people who do it. It is undoubtedly true that SOME homeschoolers do it to shelter their children. Possibly a few even do it "to shield their children from liberal values of sex equality, gender role fluidity and critical rationality," though among the hundreds I've met, I have never met one who did. MOST homeschoolers, however, do NOT homeschool in order to shield their children from any of these things. In fact, many believe their children will learn "critical rationality" much more thoroughly at home than in the public school system.

Certainly many Christian homeschoolers would include, among the multiple reasons they homeschool, their desire to teach their children what they believe and why. But most homeschoolers do homeschool for MANY reasons, teaching their beliefs being only ONE of those. And most secular homeschoolers also want to teach their children what they believe, though what they teach would undoubtedly be different from what a Christian homeschooler would teach.

So why DO people homeschool? As I've said above, for MANY reasons. I personally began homeschooling my daughter because when I started looking at preschools, when she was 3 1/2, I realized she already knew everything they were teaching even at the kindergarten level. I saw no sense in subjecting my daughter to two years of stagnation when I could teach her at home, and help her continue to be excited about learning. We started then, and each year as I looked at the school system, I realized she was moving farther beyond her peers. She'll be starting sixth grade in the fall. She took the sixth-grade Iowa tests this spring, and her test scores show her in the 98th percentile among sixth-graders (she was in fifth grade). I would do my daughter a grave disservice putting her in any middle school in the country at this point.

Am I what Ms. Yuracko would call a "Christian fundamentalist"? I'm quite sure I am. Do I homeschool in order to shield my children from liberal values? Most definitely NOT! I homeschool in order to give my children the best education I possibly can. I homeschool in order to allow both my gifted daughters to soar. I homeschool because I hate textbooks, written by committees and dispensing controlled amounts of information in tiny bits and in the driest way imaginable, and love real books, full of adventure and interest as well as truth. I homeschool in order to protect them from the dangers of apathy, drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity, and murderous lunatics with automatic rifles who invade even tiny Amish communities and remote mountain villages. And yes, I homeschool in order to teach my children what I believe and value and why I do.

And most homeschoolers I know, both Christian and secular - and I know hundreds, including those from both groups - homeschool for these reasons and literally dozens of others. The Supreme Court has stated clearly that the United States Constitution gives me the right to educate my children as I see fit; Ms. Yuracko's paper does not change that, and I hope it never will.

Muslims for Isa

Some weeks ago I was reading a post on a different forum and came across some thoughts I found fascinating. The author, John Holzmann, was describing a seminar he attended at which certain Christian workers in Muslim nations were discussing the cultural differences between Islam and Christianity. John has since been kind enough to post those thoughts to his blog, John's Corner of the World.

The crux of the issue John brings up here is this: Are Christian workers in Muslim nations creating artificial barriers to the gospel of Jesus Christ by insisting on cultural standards which are really unrelated to that gospel? For example, in Muslim countries, what clothing do followers of Jesus (Isa in Arabic) wear to church? What word is used to refer to God? What day(s) of the week do we worship? John mentions many other issues in his post as well.

It seems to me that these issues have been considered before in relation to Christian workers in other nations; however, I don't believe they have been thought through in detail in specific relationship with Muslim nations. Perhaps some things are worth making an issue about, and some are not. Is it possible that we are creating artificial barriers to the gospel and thus making enemies when we could be making friends?

What I am saying here is that if we want to reach out to Muslims and lead them to Christ, we need to be very sure that the decision point is specifically about Jesus, not about what kind of clothes they wear, whether they take off their shoes when they go to church, or what day they worship. By differentiating Christianity so drastically from Islamic culture, we make deciding to follow Jesus far more difficult than it should be, and we make it far easier for radicals to persuade Muslims that Christianity is evil.

In a different post, John shared this story which I think illustrates the type of approach I am considering here.

About 1995, he said, he began to see several young men (college students) come to Christ. Most of them were sons of very wealthy or powerful members of Lebanese society. One was the son of a billionaire businessman who was also a member of parliament (MP).

C was invited to a party where the MP was in attendance. The MP and C happened to meet, and the MP then invited C to call his secretary at the parliament and ask for an appointment. C followed through, was granted a 5-minute appointment, and, on the appropriate day, made his appearance.

As C was climbing the steps to the parliament, he noticed the billionaire MP walking DOWN the stairs with a bunch of aides. The MP noticed C, couldn’t quite remember where he had seen him or why he should know him, but greeted C and then invited C to his home. "Why don’t you come with me and let’s talk?"

Well, since the MP had obviously forgotten his appointment with C, and since a visit in the man’s home would be more personal and lengthier than a five-minute appointment at his office, C accepted.

A short while later, they found themselves sitting on the veranda of the man’s house, overlooking the Mediterranean. They had just sat down to coffee when C decided to open the conversation. "So. . . . How are things . . . [short pause] in Parliament?"

"Terrible," the man replied. "Terrible. There’s no hope for this country."

"No hope!" C exclaimed. "Why, you’re a leader in the country. Do you really feel there’s no hope."

"Yes. Our situation is hopeless here in Lebanon."

"I can hardly believe that," C tried to continue.

"So what do you do," the man asked.

I don’t know if it was the Holy Spirit or myself who replied here, C urged. I don’t want to saddle the Holy Spirit with foolish things that I might say, but I replied, "I’m a hope broker."

"A hope broker?" the man looked at him in astonishment. "What’s that?"

"I deal hope!" C confidently declared.

"Oh?" said the man. "And where do you get that?"

"I’ll be happy to talk about that in a few minutes," said C, "but first I’d like to hear more about Parliament."

"No, no!" cried the man. "Really. I must know. Where do you get this hope?"

Things were going a bit too quickly for C’s own comfort, so he said, "No. Truly. I will be happy to talk about that in a few minutes, but . . ."

The two men remained at a standoff for a couple more minutes until the man asked C, "HOW do you deal in hope?"

"Well. Okay," said C. "A friend of mine and I were talking a few years ago and we said, 'How can we help bring Christians, Muslims and Druze together here in Lebanon?' And we thought, 'Maybe we should get them to pray together for Lebanon.' So that’s what we did. We formed a number of groups around the country where Muslims, Christians and Druze get together each week and pray for Lebanon."

That worked well for a while. But then we realized people were getting bored. Y’know, praying for Lebanon is okay, but what else might we do? . . . So then we thought, 'Maybe we could talk about something. Maybe some important subject like, say, Peace. Or Economics. Or something like that.'

"So the groups began to talk about important subjects."

But then we realized that wasn’t working very well, so we thought, 'Maybe we should talk about an important person or what he taught. . . '"

"That’s a GREAT idea!" interrupted the MP. "And I know EXACTLY who they should talk about!"

"Yeah?!" said C.

"Yeah! GANDHI!""Well, yes," C replied. "Gandhi would make a great person to talk about, but that wasn’t who we decided to discuss."

"No?" said the man, a bit startled. He paused a moment. "Well, then . . . How about MOTHER THERESA!"

"Yes, Mother Theresa would have made a very worthy person to discuss as well," C agreed. "And both Gandhi and Mother Theresa are heroes of mine. But we thought of someone else. Someone both Gandhi AND Mother Theresa looked up to. Can you think of someone else?"

He paused while his companion thought. "I was afraid he might come up with NAPOLEON or something," C confessed to us.

But about 30 seconds later, the MP’s face brightened: "Oh! I know! JESUS! ["Isa," in Arabic and/or as He is called in the Qur'an."

"Yes!" said C. "That is EXACTLY who we decided to talk about. . . . So, anyway, we’ve had these groups--there are probably 40 or so of them now--. . . we’ve had these groups praying for Lebanon and talking about Isa for several years now. . . . "

"Is there one in Parliament?" asked the MP.

"No. There’s not yet," said C.

"So why don’t you start one?"

"Well, first of all," said C, "I don’t know anyone in Parliament . . . besides you, of course. And besides, . . . "

"What if I were to start such a group?"

"That would be wonderful!" C exclaimed.

"How would I do that?"

"Well, you could call some of your friends . . . "

And the man did that.The next week, they held their first meeting. C had laid down a few ground rules: "I will be happy to attend, but I WON’T LEAD. YOU must lead. You can ask me any questions you want BEFORE the meeting or AFTER the meeting. But during the meeting, I will remain silent. YOU need to lead."

"Well, I don’t know much about Isa," said the man. "Where can I find out about him?"

Oh, there are all kinds of places," said C.

"Yeah? Like where?"

"Oh, almost anywhere!" C replied. "There are all kinds of books written about him. I’m sure if you went to a local bookstore, you could find a few books. . . ."

"No, no! Where is the BEST place?"

"The BEST place?"

"Yes!"

"Well, the best place, I’ve found is in the Injil [Arabic/Qur'anic word for the New Testament]. There are four books there called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And, personally, I’d recommend the book of Luke."

"So where can I get an Injil?"

"I’m sure you can buy one in the bookstore." [C WASN’T about to tell the man that he "happened" to have a stash of about a hundred sitting back in his apartment!]

So the next week the MP came to the first meeting with his newly-purchased Arabic Injil and an additional English copy that C had given him. (The MP speaks eight languages fluently.)

The group met. They had a fine time. And at the end they asked--since this was another ground rule, that a different person should lead each week’s meeting: "Who will lead next week?" Another man volunteered.

"And what shall we use as a source book to learn more about Isa?" --Another ground rule: "Any source you want."

The next week, the leader came with a book about Jesus that had been written by the Dalai Lama. And so they read that.

"It was very interesting," C told us. "The Dalai Lama had many wonderful things to say about Jesus." But at the end of the meeting, the group members looked at each other and said, "Y’know, the Dalai Lama just doesn’t match Luke in the Injil. Let’s read that again next week. . . . "

And so the group continued. They prayed for Lebanon and studied and talked about Isa.

About the 12th week, C said, he was sitting at the end of the table in the conference room in the parliament building where the group was meeting. He was facing the door to the room. The door had one of those small windows in it that permits people to look in (or you to look out). He noticed a man walk by, then back up and look in the window. The man left for a moment, then came back, peered in again, and eventually opened the door and walked in.

The meeting immediately stopped. Everyone stood up in somewhat embarrassed silence.

"What are you doing?" asked the man. --He was the political head of Hamas.

"We are praying for Lebanon and talking about Isa," said one of the men in the group.

"Really?" said the visitor. ". . . And who is your leader?"

Though he had specifically and vigorously refused to provide any leadership during the meetings, all the members of the group turned to C and pointed.

"Ah!" said the man. "Please come with me."

C followed him out of the room. "I felt like a child being led to the principal’s office," said C.

When they got to the Hamas leader’s office, the man invited him to sit down. "Please, tell me more about what you are doing. . . . "

So the two of them spoke for an hour or more. At the end of the meeting, C got up to leave. "I have always kept in mind something that Christy Wilson once said. I have kept it in MIND, but I have rarely done it. Wilson said that, whenever he left a person, he always asked if he might pray for them. And for some reason, that is what I said to the Hamas leader that day: 'May I pray for you?'"

The Hamas leader threw his hands up: "EVERYONE can use some prayers! Please! Pray for me."

"Do you have any family members? A wife? Children?"The man nodded. "Yes. A wife and five children."

"May I have their names? I would like to pray for them, too."

So C prayed. He said that normally he prays with his eyes open, but that day, maybe because he was scared, he had them fast shut. He opened them, however, just before he came to the end of his prayer.

He said tears were streaming down his companion’s face, down to the end of the man’s bushy beard.

After a few embarrassed moments as they said goodbye, C left.

*****
The next week, just before their prayer-and-discussion meeting ended, the Hamas leader showed up again. He asked C to come with him to his office, just like the week before.

At the end of their meeting, as C got up to leave and headed toward the door, the man said, "Wait! Aren’t you going to do that thing?"

"'That thing'? WHAT thing?" asked C.

"You know! That thing! That thing"--and the man stretched out his hands and rubbed his fingertips together, each hand’s thumb rubbing the fingertips--"that thing that felt so good!"

C looked at him with consternation. "'That thing that felt so good' . . ." Then with a look of sudden recognition: "You mean you want me to PRAY for you?"

"Yes! Yes!" cried the man. "That!"

"But YOU pray!" C protested.

"Yes. I pray. But it FEELS different when you pray!"

"'It FEELS different,'" C repeated rather dumbly. "Why would it FEEL different?"

"I don’t know. It just does!"

"All right," said C. "I will pray for you."

And so he did.

Where Do We Turn? and What Can We Do?

Today I read Psalms 120-122. In the midst of the emotional turmoil of these days, as I watch Israel attacked both physically and diplomatically, as I watch our media turn a blind eye to their real suffering and instead focusing on the imagined suffering of those who might be offended by President Bush's statements or Mel Gibson's unfortunate demonstration of his sinfulness, I found comfort in Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the hills -
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
The Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip -
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor
sleep.
(Verses 1-4, NIV)

When I am in emotional desperation, I must turn to the Lord, who knows all that is happening and is in control of all of it. And it's fascinating to me that He not only comforts me; He also lets me know in this passage that He is looking out for Israel too. So as I wonder and question what on earth He is doing in Israel today, I am reminded that He is still in charge, and will do what is needed to care for them and draw them to Himself.

Immediately after this Psalm comes Psalm 122, and it also spoke to me this morning:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem;
May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.
For the sake of my brothers and friends,
I will say, "Peace be within you."
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God
I will seek your prosperity.
(Verses 6-9, NIV)

Just in case we needed it, the psalmist gives us a prayer to pray for Jerusalem - a prayer for that peace which she so desperately needs.

When I was ten years old, there was a very serious earthquake in the nation where I was living, my "adopted home," Guatemala. I discovered then that the best thing American Christians can do as they read the news is to pray for the people involved in that news. We can pray for believers caught in the midst of the chaos - that they will remain firm in their faith, that they will sense God's comfort in their suffering, and that they will have opportunities to share the gospel with those around them. We can pray for unbelievers, also caught - that they will have contact with believers and see the difference in their lives, that their hearts will be opened as a result of what they are experiencing, and that they will turn to the Lord and find Him to be sufficient. We can pray for the leaders of the nations involved, that they will have wisdom and will act quickly to bring what relief they can to their people. And we can pray that God's Name will be glorified as a result of the events we are reading about.

If you, like me, are grieved over what we are seeing happen in the Middle East today, won't you join me in earnest prayer? Together, our prayers can make a difference and perhaps have a role in bringing about "the peace of Jerusalem."

How Do We Respond to Evil?

Ever since I started listening to Hugh Hewitt and reading his blog (about two years ago now), I have found myself wondering: How should a Christian respond to all the evil we see around us? The wicked do evil blatantly, flaunting it before the whole world, bragging about it, showing off how bad they really are. It doesn't matter whether they are in the mainstream media, the blogosphere, the United States Congress, the European Union, or the Islamic world - it seems everywhere I look I see the same picture of wicked people turned against God and against His people, both Israel and the church. So how do I respond? I get angry, I grieve, and too often I feel helpless to do anything about it. I was surprised in my reading this morning to find that Psalm 119 offers some answers to how godly people should respond to the wickedness around them.

Verse 53, for example: "Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who have forsaken your law." It is natural and normal for those who love righteousness to get angry at what's happening in the world! In fact, the one time God gives us permission to be angry (and the one time He gets angry Himself) is when we see wickedness. In our anger, we are not to sin - but we are to hate evil and to be angry at those who willingly flaunt God's laws.

Another response is illustrated in verse 136: "Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed." Grief is also a normal, natural, godly response to evil. We should be sad and grieve when we see the wicked prosper and the weak suffer.

Verse 158 says: "I look on the faithless with loathing, for they do not obey your word." It is OK to feel angry and disgusted with those who refuse to obey God even though they know His truth.

Besides telling us how to respond emotionally to evil, the psalmist also gives us an example of what to DO about evil. Throughout the Psalm, he cries out to God to act against the wicked and redeem the righteous and the weak who are suffering. Verse 126: "It is time for you to act, O Lord; your law is being broken." We, too, are to cry out to the Lord when we see His law being broken and His Name being despised.

Almost at the end of the Psalm, he shows what we will experience when we respond to evil this way. Verse 165: "Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble." I don't know about you, but I desperately long for that "great peace" that comes from dealing with evil the way God wants us to deal with it.

Father, as I see evil in the world around me, I get angry. I grieve to see the weak and helpless led astray and abused. I am disgusted by the conduct of many, some who even claim to be Yours, who willingly flaunt their disobedience and ignore your truth. "It is time for You to act, O Lord!" I turn to You to judge wickedness, to redeem Your people, and to bring glory to Your Name. Give me Your "great peace," I pray.

What Am I Seeking?

I've been reading the Psalms for the past couple of months, and today I finally arrived at Psalm 119. What a reality check! I didn't get farther than the second verse before it hit me right in the face: "Blessed are they who . . . seek Him with all their hearts." Ouch! And I thought Psalm 119 was about the Bible. I'm pretty good at reading my Bible daily - it's become a habit after some 25 years - but this verse makes it clear the issue is not just reading the Bible or even obeying it. The real issue - the most important one - is what I am seeking.

And as I continued reading, I found it over and over again: the laws, the statutes, the precepts, are there to draw us to seek God! Verse 7 - "I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws." Verse 10 - "I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands." Verse 15 - "I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways." Verse 32 - "I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free." Verse 41 - "May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise." And on and on it goes, stating clearly and repeatedly that God's Word exists to keep us seeking Him. And this was when the extent of God's Word was the first five books of the Old Testament! How much more, then, does my heart need to turn to the Bible, not for its own sake or so I can check that item off my list, but in order to know God better.

Father, "turn my heart toward your statutes . . . turn my eyes away from worthless things" (vv. 36-37), and help me to seek You with all my heart!

A Slight Change of Focus

Blogging has been light the past few days due to an important family birthday - Sweet Pea turned ten yesterday. Double digits - where did the time go?!

It's been almost a month since I started this blog. I've done a lot of thinking since I did - maybe more than I have in the past 10 years. It's funny how writing makes you really think about what you believe and about what's important to you. In the process of all this thinking and writing, it has occurred to me that making this primarily a political/news blog is not the best use of my time and talents. I need to leave that to the many experts on the area, and focus more on things that I know more about and do well. Of course, I'm sure I will have many posts on politics and the news; but I need to focus more on issues relating to education, home schooling and other topics I'm gifted to discuss.

I'd like to begin this new phase of my blog by dedicating this blog, along with everything I do, to the glory of God and the building up of His people.

In God We Trust

On July 28, President Bush issued a proclamation on the anniversary of our national motto, "In God We Trust." Here is what he said:

On the 50th anniversary of our national motto, "In God We Trust,"we reflect on these words that guide millions of Americans, recognize the blessings of the Creator, and offer our thanks for His great gift of liberty. From its earliest days, the United States has been a nation of faith. During the War of 1812, as the morning light revealed that the battle-torn American flag still flew above Fort McHenry, Francis
Scott Key penned, "And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust!'" His poem became our National Anthem, reminding generations of Americans to "Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation." On July 30, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the law officially establishing "In God We Trust" as our national motto. Today, our country stands strong as a beacon of religious freedom. Our citizens, whatever their faith or background, worship freely and millions answer the universal call to love their neighbor and serve a cause greater than self. As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of our national motto and remember with thanksgiving God's mercies throughout our history, we recognize a divine plan that stands above all human plans and continue to seek His will.

And Another Even More Amazing!

If you thought the previous article by Daniel Pipes was interesting, wait until you read this one by Youssef M. Ibrahim! This would represent a significant turnaround on the part of more modern Arab nations. We can only pray that he is right - that the silent Arab majority will in fact at last find a voice, and speak out against those who would impose Islamic sharia law on not only their own people, but the rest of the world as well.

The Arab majority may not stay silent

By Youssef M. Ibrahim
The New York Sun
Published July 19, 2006

Yes, world, there is a silent Arab majority that believes that 7th Century Islam is not fit for 21st Century challenges.

That women do not have to look like walking black tents. That men do not have to wear beards and robes, act like lunatics and run around blowing themselves up in order to enjoy 72 virgins in paradise. And that secular laws, not Islamic Shariah, should rule our day-to-day lives.

And yes, we, the silent Arab majority, do not believe that writers, secular or otherwise, should be killed or banned for expressing their views. Or that the rest of our creative elite--from moviemakers to playwrights, actors, painters, sculptors and fashion models--should be vetted by Neanderthal Muslim imams who have never read a book in their dim, miserable lives.Nor do we believe that little men with head wraps and disheveled beards can run amok in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, making decisions on our behalf, dragging us to war whenever they please, confiscating our rights to be adults, and flogging us for not praying five times a day or even for not believing in God.

More important, we are not silent any longer.

Rarely have I seen such an uprising, indeed an intifada, against those little turbaned, bearded men across the Muslim landscape as the one that took place last week. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, received a resounding "no" to pulling 350 million Arabs into a war with Israel on his clerical coattails.

The collective "nyet" was spoken by presidents, emirs and kings at the highest level of government in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Morocco and at the Arab League's meeting of 22 foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday. But it was even louder from pundits and ordinary people.

Perhaps the most remarkable and unexpected reaction came from Saudi Arabia, whose foreign minister, Prince Saud bin al-Faisal, said bluntly and publicly that Hezbollah's decision to cross the Lebanese border, attack Israel and kidnap its soldiers has left the Shiite group on its own to face Israel. The unspoken message here was, "We hope they blow you away."

The Arab League put it succinctly in its final communique in Cairo, declaring that "behavior undertaken by some groups [read: Hezbollah and Hamas] in apparent safeguarding of Arab interests does in fact harm those interests, allowing Israel and other parties from outside the Arab world [read: Iran] to wreck havoc with the security and safety of all Arab countries."

As for Hezbollah and its few supporters, who have pushed for an emergency Arab summit meeting, the response could not have been a bigger slap in the face.

Take a listen:

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of Al-Arabiya television, possibly the most influential Arab opinionmaker today, was categorical: "We have lost most of our causes and the largest portions of our lands following fiery speeches and empty promises of struggle coupled with hallucinating, drug-induced political fantasies."

As for joining Hezbollah in its quest, his answer was basically, "you broke it, you own it."

Tariq Alhomayed, editor in chief of the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, stuck the dagger in deeper: "Mr. Nasrallah bombastically announced he consulted no one when he decided to attack Israel, nor did he measure Lebanon's need for security, prosperity and the safety of its people. He said he needs no one's help but God's to fight the fight."

Mr. Alhomayed's punch line was, in so many words: Go with God, Sheik Nasrallah, but count the rest of us out.

Several other Arab pundits, not necessarily coordinating their commentary, noted that today Sheik Nasrallah has been reduced to Osama bin Laden status, a fugitive from Israeli justice, sending out his tapes from unknown locations to, invariably, Al-Jazeera, the prime purveyor of bin Laden's communications.

All in all, it seems that when Israel decided to go to war against the priestly mafia of Hamas and Hezbollah, it opened a whole new chapter in the Greater Middle East discourse. And Israel is finding, to its surprise, that a vast, not-so-silent majority of Arabs agrees that enough is enough.

To be sure, beneath the hostility toward Sheik Nasrallah in Sunni Muslim states lies the deep and bitter heritage of a 14 Century Sunni-Shiite divide, propelled to greater heights now by fears of an ascendant Shiite "arc of menace" rising out of Iran and peddled in the Sunni world by Syria.

The sooner this is settled the better.

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Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former senior Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and energy editor of The Wall Street Journal, is managing director of a political risk-assessment group.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Arabs Disavow Hezbollah?

This article by Daniel Pipes provides an excellent perspective on how the "traditional" Arab nations are responding to what is happening in Israel now. It would seem the fear of Iranian power is not limited to Americans and Israelis.

Arabs Disavow Hizbullah

by Daniel Pipes
Jerusalem Post
July 26, 2006

The current round of hostilities between Israel and its enemies differs from prior ones in that it's not an Arab-Israeli war, but one that pits Iran and its Islamist proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, against Israel.

This points, first, to the increasing power of radical Islam. When Israeli forces last confronted, on this scale, a terrorist group in Lebanon in 1982, they fought the Palestine Liberation Organization, a nationalist-leftist organization backed by the Soviet Union and the Arab states. Now, Hizbullah seeks to apply Islamic law and to eliminate Israel through jihad, with the Islamic Republic of Iran looming in the background, feverishly building nuclear weapons.

Non-Islamist Arabs and Muslims find themselves sidelined. Fear of Islamist advances – whether subversion in their own countries or aggression from Tehran – finds them facing roughly the same demons as does Israel. As a result, their reflexive anti-Zionist response has been held in check. However fleetingly, what The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh calls "an anti-Hizbullah coalition," one implicitly favorable to Israel, has come into existence.

It began on July 13 with a startling Saudi statement condemning "rash adventures" that created "a gravely dangerous situation." Revealingly, Riyadh complained about Arab countries being exposed to destruction "with those countries having no say." The kingdom concluded that "these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created." George W. Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, a day later described the president as "pleased" by the statement.

On July 15, the Saudis and several other Arab states at an emergency Arab League meeting condemned Hizbullah by name for its "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." On July 17, Jordan's King Abdullah warned against "adventures that do not serve Arab interests."

A number of commentators began to take up the same argument, most notably Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor-in-chief of Kuwait's Arab Times, author of one of the most remarkable sentences ever published in an Arab newspaper: "The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community." Interviewed on Dream2 television, Khaled Salah, an Egyptian journalist, condemned Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbullah: "Arab blood and the blood of Lebanese children is much more precious than raising [Hizbullah's] yellow flags and pictures of [Iran's Supreme Leader] Khamene'i."

A leading Wahhabi figure in Saudi Arabia even declared it unlawful for Sunni Muslims to support, supplicate for, or join Hizbullah. No major Arab oil-exporting state appears to have any intention of withholding its oil or gas exports out of solidarity with Hizbullah.

Many Lebanese expressed satisfaction that the arrogant and reckless Hizbullah organization was under assault. One Lebanese politician privately confided to Michael Young of Beirut's Daily Star that "Israel must not stop now … for things to get better in Lebanon, Nasrallah must be weakened further." The prime minister, Fuad Saniora, was quoted complaining about Hizbullah having become "a state within a state." A BBC report quoted a resident of the Lebanese Christian town of Bikfaya estimating that 95 percent of the town's population was furious at Hizbullah.

The Palestinian Legislative Council expressed its dismay at these muted Arab reactions, while a women's group burned flags of Arab countries on Gaza's streets. Nasrallah complained that "Some Arabs encouraged Israel to continue fighting" and blamed them for extending the war's duration.

Surveying this opinion, Youssef Ibrahim wrote in his New York Sun column of an "intifada" against the "little turbaned, bearded men" and a resounding "no" to Hizbullah's effort to start an all-out war with Israel. He concluded that "Israel is finding, to its surprise, that a vast, not-so-silent majority of Arabs agrees that enough is enough."

One hopes that Ibrahim is right, but I am cautious. First, Hizbullah still enjoys wide support. Second, these criticisms could well be abandoned as popular anger at Israel mounts or the crisis passes. Finally, as Michael Rubin notes in the Wall Street Journal, coolness toward Hizbullah does not imply acceptance of Israel: "There is no change of heart in Riyadh, Cairo or Kuwait." Specifically, Saudi princes still fund Islamist terrorism.

Arab disavowal of Hizbullah represents not a platform on which to build, only a welcome wisp of reality in an era of irrationality.

What About Andrea Yates?

On July 26, Andrea Yates was found not guilty yesterday of murdering her five children. This is such a difficult case - not at all as cut-and-dry as many (on both sides) would like us to think.

I've heard people say, "Well, I have mental illness and I wouldn't kill my children." When probed further, though, it turns out their mental illness is usually major depression, sometimes bipolar disorder, but never with psychotic features.

The problem I see with that comparison is that while major depression clearly makes life very difficult, it doesn't have the potential for explosion that a psychosis has. Unless your depression has psychotic features, you are FAR less likely to murder your children than Andrea Yates was. She DID have "a secret, scary life." She heard voices in her head telling her God wanted her to murder her children. She apparently literally believed she was saving her kids from hell by sending them to heaven. This is a very serious level of mental illness. It is amazing, and sad, to me that her doctor felt she didn't need the medication any longer. Her children might still be alive if the doctor had continued to treat her correctly.

For some time we attended a large church in our city in which a similar situation had happened - the wife had killed two children due to post-partum psychosis. While we were there, she was allowed to come home - perhaps 10 or 15 years after the crime. She was grieving and repentant over what she had done; at the time she had believed it was what God was calling her to do, but now she understands that she was mentally ill. Her husband has been through tremendous heartache and grief, and losing his wife to a mental institution for years was part of that grief. We had very mixed feelings at the time, and continue to wonder about it, but postpartum psychosis is a strange thing, and recovery IS possible.

Even the argument that "she knew it was wrong" is questionable in a case like this. The trouble lies in the definition of "wrong." In a psychotic disorder, everything becomes twisted, including right and wrong. Does she know society says it's wrong? Certainly. Does she know it's morally wrong? Probably. Does she think it's the right thing for her to do even if it is morally wrong? Perhaps. Does she feel compelled - really compelled, even against her own wishes - to do it regardless of whether it's right or wrong? That's where the big question comes in. Her mind was so confused at this point that it's difficult to know what she was thinking or feeling.

I'm not absolving Andrea Yates of guilt - I agree with those who have said the verdict should have been "guilty, but insane," but there is little doubt in my mind that she was a very sick woman and desperately needed help. Can she be held responsible for what she did, believing God was telling her to do it? I don't know - it's a VERY difficult situation and I think something that must be dealt with individually based on a close knowledge of the situation, not by making blanket statements.

Where Is the Outrage?

Yoni's blog a few days ago reproduces this article, I believe from the Jerusalem Post, on the number of rockets Hezbollah has launched into Israel and the number of casualties. Since the war started 15 days ago, Israel has been hit by 1,402 rockets - that's almost 100 per day! And large numbers of innocent civilians have been injured by these rocket attacks: 19 civilians have been killed and 1,262 wounded!

The news media eagerly trumpets the news of civilian casualties inflicted by Israel - casualties caused primarily by the fact that Hezbollah deliberately hides its weapons and its soldiers in civilian areas. But where have you heard the numbers of innocent Israelis injured or killed? Do they somehow not count? In many Israeli cities, people have been holed up in shelters ever since the war began.

Why is it that the American media and American liberals are saying nothing while Hezbollah intentionally involves both Lebanese and Israeli citizens in this conflict? It would seem they lack the courage to stand up for what is truly right; instead, American liberalism prefers to attack the victims of aggression.

Famous Homeschoolers

It always amazes me to read about the well-known people who have been homeschooled. Here is a partial list:

Presidents
George Washington
James Madison
John Quincy Adams
Woodrow Wilson
William Henry Harrison
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statesmen
Benjamin Franklin
Patrick Henry
William Penn
Winston Churchill

Explorers
Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark)
William Clark

Soldiers and Generals
Robert E. Lee
Douglas MacArthur
George C. Patton

Inventors
Leonardo da Vinci
George Washington Carver
Alexander Graham Bell
Cyrus McCormick
Thomas Edison
Andrew Carnegie
Orville and Wilbur Wright
Charlie Chaplin
Pierre Curie
Albert Einstein

Artists, Musicians, Authors
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Irving Berlin
Hans Christian Andersen
Charles Dickens
George Bernard Shaw
Noel Coward
Claude Monet
Andrew Wyeth

Women
Eleanor Roosevelt
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Agatha Christie
Helen Keller
Florence Nightingale
Pearl S. Buck

It's an inspiration to me to realize how many of our most well-known people have been homeschooled. Homeschoolers are far over-represented among the "best and brightest."