I understand why people are turned off by politics. It seems to attract more than its fair share of charlatans and those who are in it primarily for their own personal gain. Anywhere power and authority exist, there will be those who take advantage of it. Sometimes, the allure manifests itself in grandiose misstatements of facts for purely political purposes. We had a rather obvious example last week on the Democrat side when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, commenting on the loss of seven Marines in an accident in his home state of Nevada, sought to somehow connect the tragedy to the now-infamous sequester. The implication was clear: Republicans were to blame. While he was careful not to phrase it too blatantly, everyone knew what he was doing:

It was a disgusting display, which, again, speaks to the disdain many feel toward politics. For some politicians, there are no boundaries:

No wonder there’s the perception that basic morality doesn’t apply in the political realm:

Then there are the problems on the other side of the aisle. Right now, they’re of a different stripe as Republicans try to find their way in a wilderness of their own making. I commented last week on the RNC report that tossed aside steadfastness in principle for a path of expediency, pandering to society’s cultural trends. The siren song of “change” has an allure of its own, particularly after a stunning loss:

What the party should be doing instead is reevaluating the prevailing wisdom of its mainstream consultant class. The counsel the party has been receiving may be its undoing:

Somehow, these wizards of political genius have never figured out that the media is the enemy, and a clear strategy for dealing with the media arm of the Democrat party [which consists of most of the media] is nonexistent. They try to play nice with the media, believing they will receive fair treatment—but they are always disappointed.

So on the one side we have dishonesty and political gain without any principle; on the other, foolishness and wavering principles. Yes, I understand why there is widespread disillusionment with politics, but Christians have to remain steadfast in their commitment to bringing Biblical principles into all areas of society, politics included. We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of standing aside; we are called to the fray, no matter how difficult.

We are reminded in the book of Galatians, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” We must be obedient to the call.

C. S. Lewis had to make the journey from atheism to Christianity. In his book Mere Christianity, he explains how he came up against the lack of logic in his atheistic position:

[When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? . . .

Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.

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.

Yesterday, I wrote about how I, much to my amazement, found myself becoming a teacher. As headmaster of a new Christian school in the late 1970s, I had both administrative and teaching responsibilities. I found out, though, that I had a lot to learn about real education.

We started that first year with a prepackaged program called Accelerated Christian Education (ACE). It made education “easy.” Students sat in their cubicles and filled out workbooks. They would then take exams at the end. If they passed, they went on to the next workbook. The teacher’s role was limited; he/she was perceived as little more than a facilitator, answering questions if the students ran into difficulty in the workbooks. The learning atmosphere was sterile, and as I think back on it now, I see that students were treated as little more than “units” in a cubicled classroom, cut off from one another.

At this juncture, we were introduced to an organization called The Foundation for American Christian Education, which was at that time located in San Francisco. I went to its training sessions and learned some valuable lessons on how to approach education both Biblically and philosophically. While it would take too long to explain all the facets of this organization’s philosophy of education, the key precepts can be
summarized by the Four R’s:

• Research: diligently search the Scriptures for general principles that can be applied to all subjects; find sources for your subject from which you can develop your own curriculum so that you are not limited to what one particular textbook might say; make sure students are required to do their own independent research projects.
• Reason: think through the linkage of those Biblical principles to your subject; use those principles as the basis for how you want your students to approach the subject; help them reason Biblically about the subject matter rather than simply learning isolated facts; provide assignments that aid in developing the students’ ability to think Biblically.
• Relate: one must go beyond comprehension of a subject to how it is applied to life; everything we learn from a Biblical perspective has some application to the way we should live; many have knowledge, some have understanding, but few have wisdom; develop assignments that will guide students to the wisdom level.
• Record: both teachers and students should keep a record of what they have learned so they can use it as a reference later; it would be a waste to go through these first three steps and not record the results; both teachers and students should build their own notebooks—portfolios would be the more trendy term nowadays—so they can always go back and review, as well as use what they have gained for future endeavors; this is particularly important for those who will choose to teach.

The short name for this philosophy is The Principle Approach. These concepts revolutionized my teaching as I incorporated them into my classes. I sought to ensure that Biblical principles became the foundation for all that I taught. These precepts continue to guide my thinking as to what constitutes genuine, effective education. I have little regard for standardized textbooks and use none in my courses. I develop all courses from my own research. My PowerPoints are not merely lists of information, but creative spurs to reflective thinking, and I have never used multiple-choice, true-false, or matching exams. In one way or another, I want students to write out what they have learned. The essay format, in my estimation, is the best method for leading students into thinking from a Biblically principled foundation. Essay exams require that students explain, thereby providing greater evidence of what they have learned through the connections they can make with the information they have received. I also try to tailor papers along that line, some devoted to research, others to help guide thinking via principles, and others to make application to life.

I must also insert here what may be perhaps the greatest lesson I took away from The Principle Approach: the goal is to inspire students with a love of learning. If you can create a hunger and thirst for knowledge from a Biblical basis, you have achieved what God seeks in the lives of your students.

After teaching these principles for a number of years, I decided to put them in book format, in what I hoped would be a primer and guide for Christians who seek to make Biblical principles the grid through which they view all of life. It’s a self-published book [frowned upon by academics], but it’s in its fourth edition and has sold, over time, a few thousand. I continue to receive feedback from new readers who say it has put things into perspective for them. It is available via Amazon, if you are interested in knowing more about these principles.

I transitioned from that Christian school to earning a doctorate in history, which then opened up opportunities to teach at the college/university level. More on that tomorrow.

I’m grateful for the Thanksgiving break last week. It was good to get away, spend time with extended family and some “old” friends/former students, and kind of let the world do whatever it chose to do for a while without my involvement. Yes, I did check in from time to time to see if the world was still here. While on my hiatus, the following events transpired:

• More layoffs occurred or have been planned by businesses since the election. The primary reason: the looming specter of Obamacare, which is threatening to destroy those businesses that can’t pay the increased costs. I see that some of our less-well-informed citizens are blaming the businesses themselves rather than the onerous regulations and cost associated with the Obama administration’s signature legislation. Our ignorance continues apace.
• Hamas decided to declare an unofficial war against Israel. Tensions peaked, with an Israeli invasion of Gaza readied. Why did Hamas choose this time to act? Could it have had something to do with the election as well? They know they have an ally in the White House for four more years, a man sympathetic to their aims. Israel, on the other hand, is poised to suffer through another four years of perfunctory public pronouncements of support coupled with private disdain and contempt. President Obama will say whatever is necessary for public consumption while undercutting the Israeli state at every turn. Meanwhile, one poll shows that only about 40% of Democrats back Israel in their quest for self-defense. It appears the image of anti-Semitism that raised its head at the party convention is making progress. One wonders how long American Jews will remain blinded by the treatment their brethren are receiving from the political party to which most of them have chosen to give their allegiance.

• Secretary of State Clinton and Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi hammered out a truce between Israel and Hamas—one that Hamas considers a victory. Don’t be surprised if this duo wins the next Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing . . . nothing. After all, it’s been granted for doing nothing before. Right, Mr. President?
• Morsi then declared himself dictator of Egypt, setting aside the entire judicial system of that country. He is now claiming one-man rule. Ah, the fresh breeze of the Arab Spring still inspires!

Yet despite all these developments, I see no sign that the American electorate is suffering any remorse over its latest decision. As I noted in a previous post, we are a nation on the edge, positioned to jettison our Biblical heritage once and for all. We no longer think Biblically; in fact, to do so is becoming precarious for those who remain faithful to Biblical truth. Biblical morality is increasingly considered a “problem.”

The society around us is attempting to divorce itself from the truths God has implanted within each of us and seeks to create new “truths.” Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, in his treatise The Abolition of Man, described pretty well the futility of any such effort:

There never has been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or (as they now call them) “ideologies,” all consist of fragments from the Tao [Natural Law given by God] itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao [Natural Law] and to it alone such validity as they possess. . . . The rebellion of new ideologies against the Tao is a rebellion of the branches against the tree: if the rebels could succeed they would find that they had destroyed themselves. The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.

The rebels ultimately will fail, but they will hurt and destroy lives along the way, and may drag an entire society into the pit as they proceed.

As I said at the beginning of this post, it was nice to take a break, but I cannot leave the field of battle for the hearts and minds of my fellow citizens. Another Lewis quote reverberates within me:

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

My pledge is to keep on faithfully viewing and writing about our culture, our politics, and our government through the lens of the Christian faith. It shines the light of truth on everything it touches . . .  and it touches everything.

Government is not our savior. Government policies, while significant, are not the primary drivers of a civilization. The old maxim that in a representative system the government is a reflection of the people who elected it remains true. Our government can only do what the people allow it to do. Right now, we are allowing it to control more of our lives than ever. What does this say about us as a people?

I write often about the necessity of placing the right people in the government, and I spend a lot of time critiquing the policies currently in place. That is important, but even if the right people get elected, and even if they are able to muster enough votes to make better policies, unless there is a fundamental change in thinking in the American electorate as a whole, any changes made now will be temporary. We will eventually revert back to a secularist, totalitarian mentality.

The only hope for the redemption of our increasingly depraved society is to reestablish Biblical principles as the source of our thinking. Those principles apply to all areas. Nothing is exempt from God’s truth. The message is going to have to be more unflinching, though, as we face a culture that hates the truth. Some say we have to adapt the message to the culture. They urge a softening of the gospel message to make it more palatable to modern sensibilities. God will never work that way. His message is unchanging and applicable to all times and places. Yes, we have to use different methods and be creative in ways to communicate His truth, but the truth itself cannot be altered to make people feel better. Sin is still sin. Repentance is still mandatory to receive the mercy God offers. Obedience is not optional; it is a requirement for a disciple of Christ.

So that’s the first step: become bolder with the message and don’t allow it to be watered down. Our societal problems are, at their root, spiritual problems. They will never be solved with a weak—actually, false—gospel.

But even if we take our ambassadorship for Christ seriously, the battle for the mind is going to be difficult. Unlike previous generations, we are constantly inundated with anti-Biblical propaganda masquerading as education and entertainment.

Government controls education. It was never meant to be this way. Early Americans were suspicious of putting the government in charge of education, realizing that it could then enforce a uniformity of thinking. The government can now decide what everyone is supposed to learn. As our society began to drift from Biblical principles, the drift gained speed when professional educators who were alienated from Biblical truth were placed in positions of authority in the public school systems in every state. Those schools systems today are little more than conduits for the latest false philosophies—Marxism, multiculturalism, radical environmentalism and feminism, etc. They have become laboratories for social diversity with respect to sexual lifestyles. Basic Biblical morality is considered old-fashioned and quaint, relegated to backward people who can’t come to grips with the new reality.

Our young people not only are indoctrinated in the schools, but due to their addiction to entertainment, they are saturated with those same views through the music they have piped into their ears continually, the video games they play incessantly, and the movies and television programs that form their concept of the world. Christians are mocked through these mediums, morality is undermined, and they are schooled in an Obamalike philosophy of life.

My undergraduate degree was in radio, tv, and film production. I know these mediums have tremendous potential for both good and evil. I’m not a Luddite when it comes to technology and the use of it to communicate a message. I’m attracted to well-acted, artistically excellent productions. I’m discriminating; I don’t go to just any movie or watch just any television program. Too many now have the aroma of the new indoctrination, and it now slithers its way into otherwise fine shows. For instance, I had been watching the new Upstairs, Downstairs series on Masterpiece Theater. For historical drama and social commentary, it has few equals. But I finally had to draw the line when a lesbian storyline intruded itself into the plot. The problem was not the recognition of how this deviation from Biblical morality crops up historically but how it was presented—as a positive development complete with on-screen scenes of passionate kissing between the two women. This has now become the norm. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find any series without at least one homosexual character sympathetically portrayed.

The answer is not to retreat from the culture, but to infiltrate it. Whenever Christians recoil in horror and shut themselves off in a Christian cocoon of some type, sin has a larger field in which to play. We need to confront the lies that have become part of our culture and help people recognize them as destructive of all that is decent and honorable.

I applaud parents who take greater responsibility for their children’s education, whether in alternative Christian schools or via homeschooling. They are refusing to be molded by the culture but are preparing their children to be those who will challenge the unchristian trends. Parents who have chosen this path are not keeping reality from their children; they’re the ones who are showing them the stark differences and instilling the Biblical principles that are our hope. These children will not grow up timid, but bold. Already they attend college at a higher rate than their peers in the public schools and will take positions of responsibility as they mature.

I welcome those who see their Christian calling in the entertainment media. More movies with solid Biblical themes are being produced now, and their quality is improving. The only way to reclaim a culture immersed in entertainment is to take the uncompromising message to them through that media. Thought-provoking dramas drawn from real-life experiences can connect with their audiences and show the way out of the immoral morass of modernity.

We are a divided people. The Biblical worldview, on the surface, is diminishing. But I’m hoping that is merely a superficial appearance. Perhaps beneath that superficiality a river of life will finally burst through. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

May the living water flow.