Putting Christ Back in the Government Schools

I certainly agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of putting Christ or prayer or the Bible back in the government school and the practical recommendation that all Christians remove their children. I would, however, take a slightly different approach in framing the question.

The issue, as I see it, is the legitimacy of the institution itself. If the institution is legitimate, then we must reform it by calling it back to obey the law of God and fulfill its God-ordained function. We can and should participate in such organizations as salt and light in order to restore the institutional acknowledgment and worship of God.

However, if the institution is illegitimate, then we should pray for God to destroy it and labor to dismantle it from without, not within. For example, no Christian would campaign to restore the acknowledgment of Christ to their local brothel. They certainly don’t patronize it in order to be salt and light, nor do they send their children to work there for purposes of evangelization. [Admittedly not an exact analogy, but hopefully close enough to be useful.]

The real question then is: Are government schools a legitimate or an illegitimate institution? Are they a corrupt institution needing to be redeemed by the gospel or a synagogue of Satan to be dismantled? This is the antithesis with our brothers and sisters.

I'm of the opinion that since we don’t find Caesar’s image on any of our children, they don’t belong to Caesar and therefore should not be rendered to Caesar for him to have his way with them. We do, however, find God's image in our children and we find Scripture commanding us to give them to God, to teach them to fear and serve God. (Caesar's kids being the possible exception.)

For this reason coupled with the Biblical teaching concerning the function of civil government (punishment of evil doers, cf Romans 13:1-4)), state schools are not a Biblically legitimate institution.

On the other hand, some Christians view government schools as a legitimate authority. The fact that it’s free babysitting (lol) doesn’t hurt. Corrupt? Yes, but legitimate nonetheless. Showing these people how government schools lead our children in breaking God’s commandments in that they give them another god by teaching that people have made themselves, they blaspheme his name by robbing him of his glory as the Provider and Sustainer, they manipulate children to not honor their parents, they assault their chastity, they encourage them to murder their offspring, they lead them into a life of stealing by blurring the distinctions of private property, and they lead them into a life of lying by denying the existence of Truth, only gives these people more reason to work harder to restore Christ to a corrupt institution.

I believe the reason for not supporting the Restoration of Christ to the government schools lies not in how bad they are, but in how illegitimate they are, no matter how good they otherwise might be. Our mission is not simply to rewind government schools to an earlier day when the Bible was tolerated in them in the hopes that the same movie will end differently, but to discard the entire DVD.

You Trust FOX News?

Here's further proof FOX news is completely unreliable. But don't miss the last line in this clip...Jane Akre's (one of the fired reporters) whistleblower suit was overturned on appeal because there was no law that requires news programs to state the truth! We all knew that, but now the courts have agreed, putting it in writing.

Now in the interests of full disclosure, I run a BGH free goat dairy - well, I fund it, Robert runs it. But it accepts no federal or state subsidies, employs no RFID chips, does not profit from illegal alien labor (James 5:4), gives all animals free range pasture, gets no property tax concessions or small business loans, is not too big too fail nor was it responsible for any increases in Federal Reserve "assets", has no corporate veil of immunity, yet makes the best kefir in Texas.

One Town Hall Meeting

In words of the speaker:

I, David William Hedrick, a member of the silent majority, decided that I was not going to be silent anymore. So, I let U.S. Congressman Brian Baird have it. I was one questioner out of 38, that was called at random from an audience that started at 3,000 earlier in the evening. Not expecting to be called on, I quickly scratched what I wanted to say on a borrowed piece of paper and with a pen that I borrowed from someone else in the audience minutes before I spoke. So much for the planned talking points of the right wing conspiracy.

Cured in the United States

Obama's health care plan will be:

• written by a committee whose head is on sick leave,
• passed by a Congress that hasn't read it,
• signed by a president who smokes,
• funded by a treasury chief who did not pay his taxes,
• overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and
• financed by a country that is so broke they're using debt as money.

And we'll all be treated by government employees working for reduced wages.

The Great Debate - Does God Exist

I first heard this debate between Dr. Gordon Stein and Dr. Greg Bahnsen sometime in the spring of 1985 - probably during spring break of my junior year in college. It was on a tape that was obviously made from the audience. But I had met Greg Bahnsen about 10 years earlier and knew him to be a captivating speaker. So I pushed on. Within 5 min of placing it in the the "walkman" I was hooked. Within 20 minutes I was cheering and doing involuntary arm pumps. That escalated to a standing ovation with Bahnsen's deadpan monotone answer in the following exchange:

Dr. Bahnsen: Do you believe there are laws of logic then?
Dr. Stein: Absolutely.
Dr. Bahnsen: Are they universal?
Dr. Stein: They are agreed upon by human beings. They are not laws that exist out in nature.
Dr. Bahnsen: Are they simply conventions then?
Dr. Stein: They are conventions, but they are conventions that are self–verifying.
Dr. Bahnsen: Are they sociological laws or laws of thought?
Dr. Stein: They are laws of thought which are interpreted by men and promulgated by men.
Dr. Bahnsen: Are they material in nature?
Dr. Stein: How can a law be material?
Dr. Bahnsen: That is the question I am going to ask you.
Dr. Stein: I would say no.


Dr. Stein cross examines Dr. Bahnsen.


Dr. Stein: Dr. Bahnsen would you call God material or immaterial?
Dr. Bahnsen: Immaterial.
Dr. Stein: What is something that is immaterial?
Dr. Bahnsen: Something not extended in space.
Dr. Stein: Can you give me an example of anything other than God that is immaterial?
Dr. Bahnsen: The laws of logic. [Thunderous Uproar]


But you'll have to listen to the tape to appreciate the full crowd dynamics of this exchange.

I was so impressed with this debate that I began to transcribe it by hand. With no computer and a poor quality audio file, it was a tedious task. Eventually it reached 30 single spaced handwritten pages. I hung on to those papers until 1992 when I purchased my first computer and typed them into digital form - another lengthy process for someone who never learned typing or keyboarding. Now 24 years later, on the 13th anniversary of Dr. Stein's death, I am delighted to post this mighty triumph of Jehovah over unbelief. God defeated the Syrians in the plain because they thought Jehovah was just a God of the hills. It's as if God confounded Dr. Stein who thought he was just the God of irrational faith. In a debate that will certainly be studied for centuries, God showed himself to be the God of Faith and Reason, the God of seen and unseen evidence.

Transcript of the Great Debate

The Great Debate - Part 1

The Great Debate - Part 2

It's Conservative! But Is It Biblical?

I ran across this little video made in 1948 (along with a number of similar ones) on Utube. It presents the classic conservative message very well - that freedom to worship where we want, to labor as we see fit, to speak as we please, and so on, made America a great and wealthy nation.



It's very well done, interesting, and even a little entertaining, but is it right? It's right wing, but is it true when measured by the Truth?

Contrast their message with Deuteronomy 8:6-18:

So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ...

"Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, ... . Beware lest you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.' [or today...freedom or free enterprise has produced this wealth]

"You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day."

Moses makes it clear that freedom to worship God, freedom to labor for our own benefit, and freedom to speak the truth are not the cause of our prosperity, they are the result of God's blessing.

If 60 years ago the Christian Right was already saying that their hand had gotten them this wealth, is it any surprise that today we find ourselves visited by the curses spelled out in Deuternonomy 27 & 28?