Christian Couple Fights Texas Officials After Homeschooled Children Forcibly Removed From Home

Just a few days ago I wrote about my family's decision to homeschool our children. We believe with all conviction that educating our children ourselves is the best way we can instill the values and [Christian] worldview we would like them to have. We believe it is a basic right for parents to have to be able to determine how their own children should be educated. However, there are those in this nation (humanists, secularists, liberals) that believe otherwise. In their view, government knows best and is more capable than parents to make decisions about children's education. They'll even go so far as to criticize homeschooling parents by calling them 'mentally ill' and say that they are 'brainwashing' their children. They believe the government is the only way to 'properly educate' children.

The link below tells the story of a Texas couple who had their children forcibly removed from their home, not for abuse or neglect, but for homeschooling - that's right - homeschooling! 

Christian Couple Fights Texas Officials After Homeschooled Children Forcibly Removed From Home

My initial thought was that this kind of stuff happens in other countries, but not America - at least not yet. Don't fool yourselves, it's here too. Persecution of Christians takes many forms, and this is one of them. I expect this kind of persecution to become greater and greater in this [morally declining] nation. I think this is a perfect time to remind you that our battle is a spiritual battle of cosmic forces - good and evil, as Ephesians 6 tells us:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Paul gives us several commands here:

1. Be strong in the Lord
2. Put on the whole armor of God
3. Wrestle against spiritual forces of evil
4. Stand firm
5. Fasten the belt of Truth
6. Put on breastplate of righteousness
7. Put on readiness
8. Take up the shield of faith
9. Take the helmet of salvation
10. Take the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God)
11. Pray at all times

That's a lot for 8 verses! In this battle, we need to be constantly aware of who we are fighting. The verses tell us there are rulers (plural) and authorities (plural) and cosmic powers (plural) over the present darkness. Satan has an army, and a well-ordered, well-structured one that employs tactics and strategies to deceive as many as possible. Those that are deceived by Satan in this world carry out his plan and his intentions, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

IMPORTANT POINT:

The weak in heart, the shallow in faith, the undiscerning, the Biblically illiterate, the armorless, and the prayerless will not be able stand firm, and persevere in this battle. I urge you to heed the instructions of Paul as we are heading deeper and deeper into this war. This is a daily thing folks, a daily regimen that we must use to be ready to fight and defend ourselves. This isn't something that can be maintained with a 'once a week, I'll go to church' mentality. Some people get offended or become sheepish when anyone mentions the notion of fighting. Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but not only are we to put on our armor for defense, but we are to take up the sword as well. We are to slay the lies and deceptions that come into our path with the Word of God. How can we do that if we don't know the Word? 

In a future post, I'll be discussing this idea of being ready. Have we really 'given our life' to Christ, or are we living as if we've allowed Christ to be just a part of our lives?

Homeschooling vs. Public Schools

My wife and I have a 3-year-old boy, a 17-month-old girl, and our 3^rd child is due in a few weeks. Needless to say, the question of educating our children has been on our minds a lot lately. Both my wife and I went to public school from kindergarten through high school and both attended public universities in the Midwest (southwestern Missouri to be exact). Coming from a small town in a more conservative part of the country to the Denver area in Colorado, we quickly found out what it was like to live in a big city.

Our first town home was only a block away from a public middle school and one of the first things we noticed were the kids going to and from school each day. It was very common for us to see ‘goth-like’ dress, kids smoking, unfiltered, obscene language, the smell of marijuana, and disrespectful talk among other things. At this time we did not have any kids but we jokingly told each other that we’d never send our kids to school here.

Well, that was six years ago and those kinds of things are even more commonplace among kids who go to public schools today. Many youth today exemplify 2 Timothy 3: 1-4:

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

I regularly ride public transportation and it just amazes me how arrogant, selfish, and inconsiderate young people have become. On a weekly basis, I see teenagers get on the bus blurting out obscene language to their friends as if no one else is riding along with them – this is especially irritating when I see young children nearby. Many times they’ll cut right in front of people, even the elderly, while getting on and off the bus without thinking twice about it.

Needless to say, it is becoming a rare thing to see a polite, courteous, well-behaved, well-mannered, well-spoken child these days. The other day I was talking to a substitute teacher who was working a long-term stint in a public school. She was going on and on about how disobedient and disrespectful the teenagers are. She spoke of a teacher in her 9^th year that said of all the years she’s taught 8^th graders, that this year was the worst. The kids will not obey the teachers, they don’t really care about learning, they are indifferent to getting suspended from school, and they don’t care what the teachers think about them. Furthermore, there is nothing, no real consequences for the teachers to administer other than to kick them out of class and suspend them – even then they are limited because they can’t suspend everyone. And the kids don’t mind it anyway.

Then there are stories like this one, where kids in a public school were fed x-rated material under the guise of sex education. In this incident, a poster was hung on the wall that was entitled “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” followed by 17 different ways to do so. When a parent of a student who took a picture of the poster was outraged and brought it up to the school’s administrators, they did nothing about it. A district spokesperson said:

“The poster that you reference is actually part of our middle school health and science materials, and so it is a part of our district approved curriculum”

Followed by:

“The curriculum it is a part of, it aligns with national standards around those topics, and it’s part of our curriculum in the school district”

The father of the student later said:

“A lot of parents view the school as a babysitter,” “My message is to stand up. Let’s take charge of our kids. There are so many out of control kids in the nation.”

Amen to that! Seems that he is observing the same thing I am.

Then you have another story where a teacher humiliates a first grader by telling her in front of the whole class to stop talking about the Bible while in the middle of a one-minute presentation she was giving in response to a classroom activity given by the teacher the day prior. 

photo credit: bookgrl via photopin cc

The article states that: The principal reportedly told her [the parent] that her daughter could write about her beliefs in a journal but she was not allowed to share her beliefs aloud to any other student.

I say all of this because at this point in time, my wife and I have decided to homeschool all of our children, while we still have the freedom to do so. Echoing the sentiment of parent mentioned earlier: we WILL be taking charge of our children, and their education.  Some countries, like Germany, have outlawed parental homeschooling of children. The government there will, by force, take children from their parents should they find out that they were attempting to homeschool them. In fact, many German families have left the country to go to places like France or the U.S. just so they can homeschool their kids. One such family came to the U.S. recently and was granted asylum because the German government was attempting to put the parents in prison for homeschooling. But U.S. protection didn't last long.

The article states that: The Obama administration, which in other notable areas of immigration law has enacted a policy of “discretion” regarding deportations, took the [family] to court to have its asylum protections revoked, and succeeded in doing so. The family has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has ordered the Obama administration to respond to the [family’s] petition, but the administration has so far refused to do so.

So it appears that the current administration is showing more signs of their anti-homeschooling agenda by trying to send this family back against their will. What does this mean for the future of America’s homeschooled children? The outlook does not look good.

As a father, I am commanded in Scripture to:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

I think as a parent, one of the best ways we can contend earnestly for the faith is by teaching and instilling that faith in our children. This goes beyond church, Sunday school, and youth group.  This is a command to ‘bring them up’, or educate them (which takes time; years, in fact) in the discipline and in the instruction of the Lord (the Bible). 

Source

Currently, the only way I see this happening effectively is through homeschooling, and for parents to take responsibility for their children and not leave it up to the government or public school system. While I won’t be the primary one doing the homeschooling (my wife will), you can rest assured that I will make certain that a Bible-based curriculum is chosen and that what is taught is done so with a Biblical worldview. And I will reinforce their instruction by being involved, reading Scripture with them, teaching them to pray and to worship, and explaining the things of life in the black and white Truth revealed in God's Word.

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(Let your kids decide about Religion? – Greg Koukl from Stand to Reason)