Homeschool News & Views

Issue 86, September 14, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

 

By Dan L. White

 

Listen to this article.

 

Conservative Christians are conflicted over Sarah Palin.

 

Obviously John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate for political strategy.

 

He was weak with the conservative base of the Republican Party, which would much rather have had Alan Keyes or Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul. 

James Dobson once said he could never vote for McCain.  McCain needed to pick a conservative as his running mate.  That might have been someone like Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor. 

 

At the same time, McCain wanted to pick someone who would appeal to left wing Democrats.  The Democrats outnumber Republicans in America by quite a margin. 

 

Obama had passed on picking Hillary as his VP.  Who can blame him for that?  Would you want Hillary on your tail and Bill on your back?  But by refusing to pick Hillary, that left Obama open on his left flank.  Ironically, the wisest decision – refusing Hillary – got Obama into political trouble.

 

So McCain faced the dilemma of how to appeal to Christians and liberals at the same time. 

 

He picked Sarah Palin to do that.

 

This pick has many confused as to what they believe.

 

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, the best known Christian ministry in America, now says he will vote for McCain, because of Palin.  Dobson has also said that the biggest destroyer of the American family is the routine panic lifestyle.  Yet he is enthused about Palin, who has followed that lifestyle.

 

The liberals, on the other hand, have advocated free sex, yet now they are outraged that Palin’s daughter got pregnant.

 

The liberals have advocated that women absolutely should not stay home with their children, yet now they are saying that Palin should be a full time mother to her five kids, or four now, with one in the military.

 

Even the Christian homeschoolers are conflicted.

 

Palin does have certain strong Christian beliefs, such as not aborting a baby, which was a surprise baby when she was in her forties, and the baby was handicapped.  That is a very strong statement on her part.  She is also open and stout about her belief in God.

 

However, Palin is a public school Christian.  I have repeatedly said that they are the base of the liberals’ power because they support the public schools.  If all the Christians opted out of the public schools, the liberals would lose their biggest power base.  Palin has not supported educational freedom in Alaska.  She has supported higher funding for the NEA.

 

Homeschool Christians have advocated and practiced mothers taking care of their children.  Now they disagree about Palin.  Some maintain, as they always have, that a mother should be in the home taking care of her family, particularly a newborn baby.  Other Christian homeschoolers now support what they have opposed and what they have chosen not to practice themselves -- the mother leaving the children in the care of someone else.

 

Most women in America work outside the home.  Most of these working women are liberals.  Working women are the ones who are most excited about the Palin pick.  This gives them justification for the lifestyle they have chosen.  It is said that because Palin has been such a popular pick as the first woman on a national ticket, that will encourage many young wives to leave their homes and families and pursue a corporate career.  They might be president someday.

 

This pick shows how much the liberals now control the culture of the country.  McCain’s VP pick was ultimately determined by the liberals, not the conservatives.  He figured he had to pick someone who had some appeal with the feminists.  Mike Huckabee has very little appeal with Hillary’s helpers.

 

Surprisingly, conservatives Huckabee, Keyes and Paul and non-conservative Romney are now behind Palin in the race for the next Republican presidential nomination.  If Palin should ever become president, that brings up a sticky Biblical point.  The Bible strongly states that wives should submit to their husbands.  If Palin is president and she decides to go to war against Russia, and hopes that God is on her side, to be truly Biblical she must be submissive to her husband.  She can go to war against Russia only if her husband allows her to do that.  But then –  wouldn’t that make him president?

 

At this point, she is only a candidate for vice-president, which job mostly involves sitting in the Senate. 

 

In this election, John McCain has taken a strong stand for educational freedom.  You remember McCain?  He is the actual Reepublican nominee for president.  Obama has taken a strong position for the NEA.  But he has recently changed again and said he is for charter schools, which, of course, are still controlled by the liberals.  That flip flops his previous flip flop.  What liberals say doesn’t really matter because they say everything.

 

If I recall correctly, this is the first time that a party nominee has taken a position openly advocating ending the public school monopoly.  I quote from an editorial in the September 14th Kansas City Star:

 

“A key difference between John McCain and Barack Obama has to do with their views on the role and rights of parents in deciding how their children will be educated.

 

To his credit, Mr. Obama supports parental involvement programs and charter schools. But such programs, as innovative as they might be, are subject to the policies and approval of federal, state or local lawmakers.

 

School-choice programs like vouchers give decision-making authority to parents.

 

Mr. McCain’s campaign plan makes it clear that parents need to be deciders of their children’s educational destiny, not hopeful receivers of government’s altruism and promises: “We must place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children.”

 

I think John McCain is hard headed enough to carry through on his pledge for educational choice, if given the chance.  That has some big implications for homeschoolers and Christian education.  Everybody knows that American children are held prisoner by the NEA and ACLU.  Perhaps it is time for them to be OUT.

 

If he should be elected.

 

In Daniel 4:25, when Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar was about to be sent out to pasture, Daniel said that “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.”  People in democracies don’t really believe that, any more than Nebuchadnezzar did.  But there are historical predictors for elections in the US which are almost perfectly accurate.  These predictors involve economics and war.  If a certain situation prevails, the out party almost always wins.  That’s the way it is.

 

The candidates always position themselves as the person who will make a change.  Historically the candidates hardly matter.  Isn’t that astounding?  All the chest puffing and hair poofing, yet what determines elections is the current situation.  Or perhaps – acts of God.  What matters most are the times and events in which the people just happen to find themselves.

 

Ultimately that is determined by the overall morality of the people.