“I’m not anti-school at all — I think teachers are awesome and I think most schools are great,” said the Rhode Island mom. “But morally, I think they go way too fast. I wanted my 10-year-old to be a 10-year-old, not get caught up in how other kids dress and act, so I decided to home-school them.”
Though such students represent an estimated 3 percent of the population, evidence suggests that home-schooling is a growing trend in America. While most say faith is their primary motivation, others choose this path for a variety of reasons that include dissatisfaction with the local school system, caring for special-needs kids, safety concerns, flexibility to travel and the chance to spend more time with their children....
Neil wrote: I cannot see how it answers my concern that, notwithstanding their otherwise sound beliefs, the societies I mentioned may have been inconsistent & naive in granting civil magistrates the authority to ordain what young people should be taught.
Neil, I'm sorry but I don't understand. The 'societies' you mentioned? If 'they' were not what I did responded to as having differences so that there is not a single answer to your question as to their (plural) reasoning. I could possibly speak to only one on the list I'm supposing you are referring to. That would be from my own historic vantage point knowing theirs only historically and Scripturally but not actually.
I have always loved history, but in my later years I have become very selective as to my historians. I am also careful as to how I answer someone when I do not understand what they are asking or why.
Hope wrote: If you are asking me if I believe that God has a right to set the moral standard for his creation/creatures, then, I know none with more right. If you are asking if I believe that Jesus Christ is the Prophet, Priest, and King of his spiritual kingdom on earth, then see: John 1:18; 1 Peter 1:10-12; John 15:15; John 20:31 Heb. 9:14; Heb.2:17; Heb.7:24-25
Hope
The problem with Theonomists is that, not content with accepting Christ as King of a spiritual kingdom, they want to set up a Theocracy upon earth, believing quite incorrectly that that is the only way that God's law will be obeyed and honoured. Hence their political aspirations and their constant harping about the glorious "second reformation" in Scotland!
How this differs from the Roman Catholic view of church and state I have no idea, other than replacing the Pope for Synods!
Hope, while I appreciate your interest in historical perspective, I cannot see how it answers my concern that, notwithstanding their otherwise sound beliefs, the societies I mentioned may have been inconsistent & naive in granting civil magistrates the authority to ordain what young people should be taught.
I've been reading J.A. Wylie's "History of Protestantism," & its triumphalist tone is almost touching now, esp. since the philosophical ground for Western apostasy had taken root by about the time of its writing (Kierkegaard, Marx, Darwin, & Wellhausen, for example).
Jim, I did not have time to read the entire link on the little school but noticed the Hbg. Farm Show Building at the beginning. We have been attending there for the past two decades. The convention in phenomenal and all should attend at least once, homeschool or non homeschooled.
Jim, I have a good read(I have recently purchased)for you, that is probably still available over the net:
"God and Politics - Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government. Theonomy, Principled Pluralism, Christian America and National Confessionalism."
This book has evolved from a conference to "challenge the evangelical Christian community, and especially Reformed Christians, to think about what implications Christ's lordship held for civil government." "The purpose of the consultation was to clarify areas of agreement and divergence among Reformed Christians in order to achieve consensus where possible, to promote further discussion of differences."
"Dr. Van Til taught us that "There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy" (Christian-Theistic Ethics, p.134). Every ethical decision assumes some final authority or standard, and that will either be self-law (autonomy) or God's law (theonomy). While unbelievers consider themselves the ultimate authority in determining moral right or wrong, believers acknowledge that God alone has that position and prerogative.
The position which has come to be labeled "theonomy" today thus holds that the word of the Lord is the sole, supreme, and unchallengeable standard for the actions and attitudes of all men in all areas of life. Our obligation to keep God's commands cannot be judged by any extrascriptural standard, such as whether its specific requirements (when properly interpreted) are congenial to past traditions or modern feelings and practices.
The law defines what sin is (1John 3:4). As such the law cannot be our personal vehicle for gaining favor with God. It rather aims at Christ as our only righteousness, tutoring us that justification must be by faith in Him (Rom 10:4; Gal 3:24).
So theonomy teaches that since the fall it has always been unlawful to use the law of God in hopes of establishing one's own personal merit and justification....." (Greg Bahnsen)
If you are asking me if I believe that God has a right to set the moral standard for his creation/creatures, then, I know none with more right. If you are asking if I believe that Jesus Christ is the Prophet, Priest, and King of his spiritual kingdom on earth, then see: John 1:18; 1 Peter 1:10-12; John 15:15; John 20:31 Heb. 9:14; Heb.2:17; Heb.7:24-25
Neil wrote: organized Christianity has long supported compulsory state education (e.g. Martin Luther, the New England Puritans, the Scottish Kirk, et al.),
Neil,there is a difference between Luther's Germany, England's divided Puritans and Scotland's visionary biblical accuracy. The United States is another story altogether. Your statement is too broad.
The theory that man is basically good is not what made the Scottish Church swear the National and Solemn League and Covenant nor some few of England's Puritans. It was an accurate biblical view of prophetic Scripture and a comprehensive understanding of the Old and New Testament Scripture.
These men believed that the Spirit of God was uniting the Church in one doctrine, worship, discipline and government, and securing in positions of civil authority men who feared God and trembled at his word. Things would have had a very different outcome if the nations who vowed to Almighty God vowed and paid, or if their posterity applied it to their national situation. Some did and do see Rev.11
History marches on. What was accomplished was the Westminster Confession of Faith and the other documents in the Free Presbyterian Publisher's Edition of the Confession. That understood is the next step.
Hope, the stigma is unsurprising, for organized Christianity has long supported compulsory state education (e.g. Martin Luther, the New England Puritans, the Scottish Kirk, et al.), on the theory that it would produce God-fearing, Biblically literate citizens en masse, or, as in the Victorian era, reform the flood of Catholic immigrants entering our country.
That sort of applied mechanistic Pelagianism seemed OK while Christianity appeared to predominate in the culture, but has become a noose around our necks when it was displaced by radical statist secularism.
I question whether it every really accomplished what was sought, since there's no Biblical warrant for it.
In 1984 the stigma for home schooling existed not only among the community at large but in the visible church. I remember having difficulty getting Christian Curriculum companies to sell me material, they told me to send my child to a Christian School.
There was both good and concerning information in the article. It is good if sincere parents are not obstructed from their God-given responsibility to make parental judgments for their charge, but if that means becoming 'mainstream' or politically but not biblically correct, beware.
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jim lincoln from nebraska: "no, hopeless, you don't have to speak in tongues,..."
