Where does our government stand on parental rights, particularly the right to choose how to educate one’s children? A case going through the courts provides a sobering answer. This case stems from a German family, the Romeikes, who came to the United States for political asylum. These Christian parents wanted to homeschool their children, but it was against German law. Any German citizen disobeying this law is subject to fines, jail sentences, and loss of custody of their own children. Facing such dire consequences, they came to the U.S. where the law supposedly protects parents who choose this option.

The German government has demanded they be returned to their homeland to face prosecution for their actions. Persecution is the more accurate word.

Their cause has been taken up by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). My friend Michael Farris is taking the lead in arguing the case. American law protects people who have fled here due to religious persecution, and there’s no question that is what’s happening. Germany’s ban on homeschooling targets religious people who would, according to the German perspective, set up “religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.” The German government, therefore, views the Romeikes as dangerous to its concept of what society ought to be. As Farris notes, “It is thought control. It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo.”

You would think it would be a no-brainer to allow this family to remain in America, but that’s not the position of the Obama Justice Department headed by Eric Holder. The case, Romeike v. Holder, is waiting its turn before the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which is just below the Supreme Court. Why is the U.S. government setting itself up against this family? Farris explains the government’s arguments:

First, they argued that there was no violation of anyone’s protected rights in a law that entirely bans homeschooling. . . .

There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool. . . . This is a view . . . which entirely jettisons the concept of fundamental liberties. . . .

One of the grounds for asylum is if persecution is aimed at a “particular social group.” The definition of a “particular social group” requires a showing of an “immutable” characteristic that cannot change or should not be required to be changed. We contend that German homeschoolers are a particular social group who are being persecuted by their government.

The U.S. government says that Germany’s ban on homeschooling does not meet this standard because, of course, the family can change—they can simply stop homeschooling and let their children go to the public schools. After all, the U.S. government says, the children are only in public schools 22-26 hours a week. After that the parents may teach what they want. . . .

Does anyone think that our government would say to Orthodox Jewish parents, we can force your children to eat pork products for 22-26 hours per week because the rest of the time you can feed them kosher food?

Freedom for the mind and spirit is as important as freedom for the body and spirit.

While I’m deeply concerned for this one family, I’m even more distressed over what the government’s stance could mean for American homeschoolers. Under our current administration, a case could be made for banning homeschooling in America completely. That’s the rationale emanating now from our Justice Department. As Farris warns, quite cogently,

The Attorney General of the United States thinks that a law that bans homeschooling entirely violates no fundamental liberties.

It is important that Americans stand up for the rights of German homeschooling families. In doing so, we stand up for our own.

If you would like to read Farris’s article in whole, go to www.hslda.org/docs/news/2013/201302110.asp.

Whenever government takes on a task for which it is ill-suited, failure ensues. Nowhere is this failure more evident than in the realm of education. I always begin with a Biblical analysis, and in this case I find no basis in Scripture for civil government to be in charge of education. That is primarily the responsibility of parents. Historically in America—prior to the development of the public school system—parents, churches, private academies, and local townships dominated education, and we were probably the most literate nation on earth.

Then we decided to mess up the system by getting the government deeply involved. There are a lot of examples I could give, but today I just want to mention the Head Start program that began in the 1960s as part of LBJ’s Great Society—one of the greatest misnomers in history.

The stated goal of Head Start was to provide comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parental involvement services to low-income children and their families. Sounds good, right? It has continued to expand over the years, always getting reauthorized with even more funding, because presumably all these problems can be solved by spending as much money as possible. At least that’s the theory.

Studies, though, even those conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services, are revealing a rather dismal showing for all the dollars being thrown at these children. Although they seem to be helping them at the ages of three and four, by the time they have completed first grade, there is no discernible difference in their performance or emotional stability than the children who were not in the program. Spending those billions of dollars yielded little in return. No amount of funding can compensate for the fact that 70% of inner-city children grow up without a father in the home. The destruction of the family structure has more of a negative impact on these children than anything government can do to balance that loss. Yet those who are responsible for the program have a hard time facing reality.

The cartoon captures an important fact about how liberals/progressives operate: it’s more about feeling good about doing something they believe is beneficial than it is about being really effective. They live for the government program and cannot handle the truth. In fact, they are very skilled at fixing the blame elsewhere:

Head Start is only one small example of government-sponsored education’s spiritual, moral, and intellectual poverty. Even more pernicious are the emphases on trendy causes such as diversity, multiculturalism, environmentalism, radical feminism, and the immorality of most sex education. If we want to examine the roots of our cultural rot, a major factor would have to be the deterioration of education. That’s probably sufficient reason for a series of posts in the near future.

I’ve been cataloging the biggest failures of the church in our day, beginning with a watered-down salvation message, then on to our lack of renewed minds when it comes to putting the faith into practice, allowing worldly thinking to dominate. There’s one more leg on the three-legged stool of failure—the abandonment of Biblical education.

In early America, most education was centered in the church or home, and the lion’s share of the home-schooled portion of society was Christian also. That began to change in the middle of the nineteenth century when people came up with the idea of placing responsibility for education in the hands of the state. One group that eagerly sought this was the Unitarians; they continued to call themselves Christians, but they denied the deity of Christ, didn’t consider the Bible to be divinely inspired, and explained away Biblical accounts of the supernatural. Unitarians wanted to remove education from the control of the orthodox, put the state in charge, and include only the behavioral aspect of Christianity in the teaching. Moral lessons divorced from their eternal base.

Massachusetts was the first state to move toward a top-down, centralized system. The first secretary of the board of education in that state was a Unitarian named Horace Mann, who endorsed the typical Unitarian vision that the “proper” education would yield good citizens. In fact, Mann was so enamored of this vision that he honestly believed the common school system [as it was called then] was the greatest innovation in the history of the world. He was absolutely rapturous in his prediction that if a common school system could be established it would wipe out 90% of all the crime in society. The irony today is that 90% of crimes now are perpetrated in the government schools.

Another group that wanted to put the government in charge was an incipient socialist/communist movement at that time. Disappointed that their utopian commune fell apart because Americans had an attachment to private property, this group formed a political party—the Workingman’s Party—for the express purpose of establishing government-controlled schools where they hoped they could influence the curriculum to teach communist principles. Whereas Unitarians could take control in Massachusetts at least, this group was less successful and couldn’t achieve its goal.

However, the common school idea eventually spread throughout the nation, state by state, primarily because of a third group that also wanted to create a government-controlled environment conducive to its particular beliefs. That third group was the evangelicals of the era. Dismayed by the perceived threat of Catholic immigration, they wanted to diffuse Protestantism through a system that would be forced on everyone. By taking this route, they violated Biblical principles. They used the government to achieve their purpose rather than voluntary means.

For a while, it seemed to work to their advantage because they were the dominant group in society. Over time, though, as an educational establishment drifted away from Biblical underpinnings, that top-down system was turned against Protestant views. Probably the most influential educator of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century was John Dewey, a signer of the Humanist Manifesto who developed an educational philosophy that dismissed any concept of God and eternal right and wrong. Dewey also helped move education toward experiential learning that downplayed strong academics, and he pushed what we now call socialization as the primary purpose of education. A convinced socialist and atheist, Dewey became the Father of Progressive Education; his disciples filled the education schools throughout the nation.

Slowly at first, but with increasing speed throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, Biblical teaching was either relegated to the periphery or eliminated. Some like to point to the Supreme Court decisions of the 1960s as the start of the decline in public [government] education because prayer and Bible reading were tossed out. Closer to the truth is that those decisions were the culmination of what had been happening for many years. The prayer that was considered unconstitutional wasn’t even specifically Christian. And the fact that it was a government-sponsored prayer allowed the Court to say it was a violation of the First Amendment.

All those various court cases and the controversies they have spawned are the result of turning education over to the government. If we had kept it in the private sphere, there would have been no court decisions and everyone would have been free to teach as they chose.

This system the evangelicals helped to set up continues to educate from 85-90% of all American children. It is now, by and large, antagonistic to Christian beliefs. That’s not universally true, and I appreciate all dedicated Christians who feel called to work in that system as a witness. But it’s getting harder with each passing year to have any freedom to be what God calls us to be in those circumstances. Religious liberty is being squeezed ever more tightly.

Evangelicals, since the 1970s, have started a lot of Christian schools. Many have done a fine job, but others teach little differently than the public schools, adding only chapels and prayer at the beginning of the day. Sometimes they even bow to the state system of accreditation, thereby losing their uniqueness and their distinct Christian calling.

There are many evangelical colleges and universities, but I know far too well from personal experience that a mighty battle wages in each of them for the integrity of the Biblical worldview. Who teaches in these colleges and universities? Professors who had to receive their doctorates from state universities. All too often, they imbibe the worldview of their mentors and pass that on to their students. They may be Christians, but they don’t necessarily teach from Biblical principles. One of the biggest disappointments expressed by students in Christian colleges is that they don’t always feel like they’re getting anything much different from what they would have received in a secular setting.

I don’t want to over-generalize, but I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to keep an evangelical institution from straying from its Biblical roots. History, political science, psychology, and social work programs often are just as liberal and secularized in a Christian college as anywhere else. This liberalization even touches theology departments as Marxist social justice perspectives are incorporated.

Overall, we’re doing a miserable job of communicating Biblical truth in our education. The state schools are almost bereft of it; Christian schools too readily succumb to the desire to be respected by the world, so they discard their strong Biblical message and sell out for the honor of being “recognized” according to the world’s standards.

It’s no accident that homeschooling has made a comeback in our time. Many parents are once again taking control of their children’s education. The threat, though, is that government will not like any deviation from its educational plans. Faithful Christian schools and colleges, and dedicated homeschoolers, may be in for a hard time in the next few years. Obamacare already has laid the groundwork for a frontal attack. Withstanding this attack and others will call for commitment. This will be a test of the genuineness of our Christianity.

Will we pass the test?

On January 1st each year we fall into a pattern long emblazoned on our psyche of saying “Happy New Year!” I realize it’s mostly a hope that we hold out, expecting that things certainly have to be better this time around. But on what basis do we hold to such a hope? Is there a solid reason for hoping, or is this more a shadowy, wispy type of wishful thinking?

For me, on a personal level, I have what I consider to be a well-grounded hope. Having been salvaged from a life of despair and purposelessness by the grace of God, hope is real. Yes, I will be affected adversely by circumstances in the world around me—by culture rapidly losing its Biblical underpinnings and a government in the process of destroying basic American liberties—but even if the worst occurs, I will still have the faithful God who gives the promise of eternity in a much better place.

It’s our society on the whole that concerns me. What is happening right now that would give anyone a reason to hope that things will improve? As I noted above, the culture is changing for the worse and needs to be turned around for anything to get better. There are a lot of reasons for that change; some can be seen in this political cartoon’s depiction of our current situation:

The cartoonist used the image of the Newtown murders as one manifestation of how our culture has been debased. Then the media and the politicians come along and make matters even worse by blaming the wrong people. One newspaper decided to show a map of the homes of all those in its county who have legal gun permits. The goal, according to the paper, was to increase “awareness” of the gun problem. Excuse me, but the legal ownership of weapons is not the problem. Yet now those who have followed the law, and have always done so, are being targeted [the use of that word is intentional].

The other focus of news reports at the moment is the so-called fiscal cliff. Few, though, are the news outlets that are willing to expose the real issue: it’s not a revenue problem; it’s a spending problem. The media are in protection mode—ensuring that the One is not blamed. Of course, he has made blaming others into an art:

The next fiscal controversy will be the debt ceiling, which Obama seeks to have removed altogether. He wants the power to spend whatever he desires, without any constraints. The result would not be difficult to foresee:

And what of the loyal opposition? To what extent are Republicans willing to go to stand for sound principles, regardless of the political fallout? There is a segment of the party that mirrors the old Republican lack of vision that dominated pre-Reagan: never challenge the roots of the problem but just try to be a little more moderate than the Democrats:

That approach has always led to defeat.

So, I ask again—on what basis can we hold out hope that anything will improve this year?

In my view, the main reason we are where we are as a society is that the church of Jesus Christ has not fulfilled its obligations as the salt and light of a nation. There are a number of areas in which we have failed, but let me acknowledge three that are paramount:

1. We have watered down the message of salvation in the desire to draw more people to the faith. A watered-down message leads to a weak faith, or no genuine faith at all.
2. We have deviated, to some extent, from Biblical morality and do not grasp how Biblical principles apply to a proper understanding of the limitations on civil government, the primacy of the rule of law, and how economics really works.
3. We have abandoned control of our children’s education and turned that task over to the government, thereby making the problems worse with each succeeding generation.

Those are the three areas I want to address the rest of this week.

When I began this series last week, I didn’t know it would last this many days. I had thought of providing a general overview, but as it progressed, I sought to share more details. I left out a lot of the pain. As I’ve told a number of people recently, the fact that I still believe in Christian higher education is one of the Lord’s minor miracles. There was a period in which I seriously debated within myself whether to continue as a professor; the discouragement seemed nearly overwhelming. At that time, I understood the words of Jeremiah when he complained to God about his calling:

O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived . . . because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long.

Yet I also experienced the rest of Jeremiah’s thoughts:

But if I say, “I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name, then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones: and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.”

I remained faithful to the calling, learned to wait, and not to make decisions rashly. I realize it’s somewhat of a cliché, but true nonetheless, that God teaches us more in the hard times than when everything is smooth. When we are castigated rather than praised, we are more united with Christ because that is what He had to endure also.

When a new semester begins, when I walk into a new class for the first time, when I see expectant faces before me—that’s when the Spirit of God renews my strength and He reminds me that this is not about me. This is an opportunity to touch lives and make a difference for His kingdom. All of us are in constant need of that reminder, no matter what God has called us to be. We all have the obligation and the joy of being His mouth, hands, and feet.

I will continue to teach. Sometimes I joke about how long I will be a professor, and I say if someone can wheel me into the classroom, and I’m able to speak, and I have the remote control for my computer, I will be there. Retirement is not really a Biblical concept. As long as he gives me breath, I will accomplish whatever task He lays out before me.

After all, this is not the final act in the drama of life; it goes on into eternity.

While at Patrick Henry, I had searched for a new position for a couple of years, with nothing solid in sight. Then through a third party, I learned Southeastern University (SEU) in Lakeland, Florida, had an open history position as it sought to grow the degree program. I had never heard of SEU. One Google search later, I sent my CV via e-mail. A few hours later, I got a phone call. The next week I had an on-site interview, and the week after that, I was hired. What a contrast with the earnest searching I had done for many months. Sometimes when the Lord leads, things happen quickly.

I do admit that the prospect of living in Florida was appealing. It had an exotic feel. But I could never make a move based on that alone. I had to sense it was God’s timing, and I had that sense. Coming to SEU was a return to an open-admissions university, and after teaching graduate students and high-performance undergrads for the previous twelve years, it took some adjusting. Yet the Lord kept me focused on the goal He had for me—to bring His principles into the classroom no matter where He sent me. This was a ministry, and I had to embrace it. He’s helped me make that transition. And along the way, He has sent some very fine students; the history majors, for the most part, are eager to learn.

SEU has afforded the opportunity to develop whatever courses I desired. How many universities have a course on Ronald Reagan and modern American conservatism? SEU now does. You’ll have to search extensively to find any higher educational institution that has a full semester on the writings and legacy of Whittaker Chambers. SEU has that as well. At PHC I had been relegated to American history survey courses only. Now I had the full range of history to offer in the upper-level classes for history majors: American Colonial, American Revolution, American Republic, and Civil War are part of my repertoire since coming here. In addition, I teach the essential historiography course for all history majors. This is more freedom than I’ve ever had.

One disappointment: I helped begin a public policy degree program, but financial constraints led to its demise after only three years. That hurt, but there’s always hope in the Lord; He is the God of resurrections.

I also have a completed book manuscript on Reagan and Chambers that has seen its ups and downs trying to find the right publisher. It’s currently in the hands of an agent. God has His times and places. I am learning to rest in that truth.

I’m in my seventh year at SEU, which ties my longevity record at Regent. At this point, it appears I will surpass it. Does this mean I’ve found my place for the rest of my life? Well, I’ve had that thought at every stop along the way. I’m content to leave that in the Lord’s hands as well. I will do what He has called me to do and see how He leads.

He is Lord and I am not. Why does it take us so long to learn such a simple lesson?

Some concluding thoughts for this series tomorrow.

Like the prophet Daniel, I could see the handwriting on the wall with respect to my future at Regent, so I began to seek another position.I wanted to teach in a place where I could unite wholeheartedly with the overall mission. Patrick Henry College (PHC) had begun in 2000, the same year as the Regent upheavals. The founding father of the college, Michael Farris, was a lawyer who had also founded the Home School Legal Defense Association. I knew the college had a deep commitment to teaching both history and government, so it seemed to be a perfect fit, considering I am also a strong believer in homeschooling. Although nothing seemed to be available, the Lord opened a door that had appeared to be closed.

I jumped into the activities even before the fall semester began. During the preceding summer, I took on the responsibility of directing an extensive camp program for highschoolers, most of whom were being homeschooled. I also taught history camps for the first two years of my time there.

Throughout my five years at PHC, I had some of the most prepared college students a professor could want at the undergraduate level. So, in that respect, even though I changed course from graduate-level teaching to undergraduate, the difference was slight. Many were eager learners, and I connected with them immediately.

It was also at this time, in 2001, that my book on the Clinton impeachment became a main selection in the Conservative Book Club. While at Regent, I had interviewed all thirteen of the congressmen who argued in the Senate for Clinton’s removal from office. Although all the work on the book was carried out at Regent, it was published as I started at PHC. C-SPAN came to PHC to record me talking about the book; it appeared on C-SPAN’s Book TV program a number of times. One organization had me autograph a few hundred copies to send its donors.

I also revised my doctoral dissertation on Noah Webster that had been published in hardback when I first started at Indiana Wesleyan. It came out in a paperback version in 2003 and also was offered in the same book club. Both books led to a number of radio interviews, including the Janet Parshall program. Things were looking up academically.

I enjoyed teaching these students, and I had other opportunities as well. I led donors to the college on a teaching tour of part of the Boston Freedom Trail. Our proximity to DC allowed me to teach some sessions in the Capitol to a group of Christians working either for congressmen or in other government offices. I did that for about a month for each of three years. It was kind of nice to be able to pull up at the Capitol and park my car right outside, then go in to the Speaker’s dining room for those sessions. It felt productive.

I recall other highlights: taking a group of students, nearly impromptu, down to Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, which was a four-hour drive each way (I almost lost one of those students in Williamsburg); having my office door blocked entirely by tissue boxes, a gift from a student who says she always cried when she came to my office (although I don’t remember her crying as much as she says she did); the student who showed up in my office one day with a tea set to offer me afternoon tea.

Another treasure was the many times I was asked to speak in chapel. The Lord always seemed to give me something special to say on those days. One day, as chapel was ending (I was not the speaker that day), I walked out before it was completely over, only to have a student come running after me, telling me I had to return. When I went back in, they called me up front to give me the entire Calvin and Hobbes two-volume comics collection. I used those comics so often in my presentations, they students decided I needed to have them all at my disposal. I was nearly speechless; it was a special gift.

For reasons I won’t go into here, I left PHC after my fifth year. Shortly before my departure, a student came to my office and told me I was needed in the lunchroom. When I arrived, they had a few going-away presents for me–videos produced and directed by one talented film enthusiast and a plastic, blowup space alien. There’s a background story for that one, but it would lose too much in the telling to make sense to those who hadn’t been there. Suffice to say, it was appropriate, related to an ongoing joke that stemmed from one of my comments in class. The students had written messages all over that alien. I still have it today.

Although I am no longer at PHC, I still pray for its effectiveness as the faculty there prepare students to make a difference in literature, history, journalism, and government. I respect what they do; they do it well.

My journey through the many winding paths of my teaching ministry is almost at its end. Tomorrow I’ll talk about where God has led me now.