Homeschool News & Views

Issue 94, November 16, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

The Christian homeschool movement is a move of God. I am certainly convinced of that.

We look at its history, which we have lived through ourselves, and we see some remarkable, improbable things. At first homeschooling was sometimes illegal. Homeschool families fought to get the state laws changed. We have a friend who worked hard to get the Pennsylvania law on homeschooling changed. As we know from recent elections, Pennsylvania is not a conservative state, so that was quite an accomplishment.

If homeschooling was not illegal, then it was discouraged by just about everybody who wasn’t involved in it. I recall that when we first moved to our area of the Ozarks, I called the local school superintendent. I’m not sure now why I called him. I guess I was just trying to be very workable and up front. He was an affable country guy and acknowledged that we could homeschool, but he said that he thought he could educate my children better than we could.

With some homeschool parents, that comment by a professional, friendly educator might have been very discouraging and scary. My own reaction was, “Are you kidding me?”, although I did not say so.

Extended families opposed Christian homeschooling, even those folks who claimed to be Christian. We personally were told that we were going to raise a bunch of wierdos.

Churches were opposed to Christian homeschooling. We recall vividly when we were discussing homeschooling with a group of ministers, who posited themselves as standing up against the evil world. We will never forget how our first love enthusiasm was met with dignified disdain.

In spite of all that, we homeschooled. Around the country, other hardheads did, too. Amazingly, against all odds, the Christian homeschool movement grew. The hardheads ignored the NEA, the extended families, the well meaning friends, and the preachers and pastors.

That was surely a time of testing for the Christian homeschool movement. No one was for us but God.

Now Christian homeschoolers face another time of testing. America is in terrible trouble. Because the pastors and churches did not stand strongly against her evils, just as they did not stand for Christian homeschooling and against the public schools, America has lost her soul.

But the hardheads can be encouraged. As long as we try to serve God, He will still be with us. Satan’s attacks are turned on him, like a judo expert turns the weight of his opponent against him. That happened in the book of Job. In the first verse of that book, Job was called blameless and upright, and one who feared God, and turned away from evil. In other words, Job was the one that Satan, the Adversary or Enemy, wanted most to attack. And attack he did. Satan took Job’s family, his property, and his health. Job only had his life left, and even that was most unpleasant.

The result of Satan’s attack was that this man who was blameless, upright, feared God and turned away from evil – grew even closer to God.

“Curses! Foiled again!” Satan must have said.

A similar thing happened with the California Supreme Court home school decision earlier this year.

As is well known, the liberal judges went out of their way to make war on homeschooling, which everybody knows is a largely conservative Christian movement. The original case was not about homeschooling at all. The juvenile authorities who brought the case to court were not opposed to homeschooling. They only wanted one family not to be able to homeschool, so their children could be under the watchful eyes of the public school teachers. Of course, that brings up the point about all the sexual predators who are public school teachers, but we won’t get into that here.

So the judges went out of their way to criminalize homeschooling. They saw an opportunity, ever so slight, to get at something that they must have despised, so they attacked.

When they did that, the black robed magistrates probably congratulated themselves thoroughly, and felt that was a day’s work well done. They had put a scotch on this decentralized, non-institutionalized, unprofessional movement by a bunch of religious hardheads. With one decision, on a wholly unrelated matter, they had brilliantly blasted hillbilly homeschooling, which impudently outshines all other education methods, in all geographic and social areas, and among all races.

The Christian homeschoolers were struck deep in their souls. Times looked bleak. Families talked about moving out of California, if they could not obey God and homeschool. They scraped their boils with potsherds and declared that they would be loyal to God.

Then the judges were judged. They had ignited a fierce wildfire. The liberals who love to be loved, and the judges who despised homeschooling, found themselves among the most disrespected people in America. They quickly retreated under a hail of criticism, pulled their fluffy robes around them and declared they would consider the matter further.

After exhaustive presentations of all angles from the NEA to the HSLDA, the judges declared that homeschooling was a constitutional right of every parent.

The net result of all that was this –

Those California Supreme Court justices set out to get rid of homeschooling. Instead of their attack doing that, they established it as a constitutional right of every parent in America. Their decision technically only applies to California, but in reality, that decision will be followed all across the land. Who would dare go through what those judges went through?

Isn’t that amazing? Just as Satan set out to turn Job away from God and only brought him closer to his Father, so the left wing judges sought to attack homeschooling and only entrenched it more than ever, not only in California, but in the whole country.

“Curses! Foiled again!”

The Christian homeschool movement is a move of God. It is composed of a relatively small number of parents with soft hearts and hard heads. This movement is now spreading from America into the rest of the world. As long as the parents are willing to do whatever it takes to obey God, God will be with us. Whether that is going against social opinion, family, churches, or even having to move out of California or Germany –

As long as the parents are willing to do whatever it takes to obey God, God will be with us.

This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers. God bless the Christian hardheads.