Don’t Let Schooling Stand in the Way of Education with Christian Overman and Darrow Miller

10:19PM Aug 18, 2023

Speakers:

Darrow Miller

Dwight

Christian Overman

Luke Allen

Keywords:

school

education

christian

church

god

taught

public schools

book

called

people

consequences

christians

frankfurt school

history

mind

parents

kids

educators

today

give

You know if the church is not willing to be countercultural, and if Christians aren't willing to be countercultural, God help us. Ideas have consequences and we can see where we're going.

Hi, Friends, welcome back to ideas have consequences the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. On this show, we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nation's, but our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. Hi, guys, my name is Luke. And today I was nominated to be your host. For those of you who are new, my dad, Scott Allen is usually the host. But right now he is in the Panama airport on his way back from Paraguay, where he spent last week teaching on God's design for education. Our guest today was also down at that conference, or it wasn't down there. But he was a virtual speaker at the conference and joins us to discuss a very similar topic today. And as you saw, the title of today's discussion is don't let schooling stand in the way of education. And today to unpack this confusing title, I am joined by Dwight Vogt, Darrow Miller, and our special guest is Dr. Christian Overman. Christian, you were on the show last year. So some of our guests might be familiar with who you are. But to just give everyone a quick reminder, Christian, you've spent your entire professional career and in the realm of education, you've been a teacher, you've worked in administration, you've been a writer, you homeschooled some of your own kids for a while. And that's just to name a few. So Kristin, would you mind just taking a moment and telling our audience a little bit more about who you are, what you do, and why you're so passionate about this subject?

Well, I'm 73 now. And so I've had a few years under the belt. I was born into a great Bible, honoring home. And I'm very thankful for that my mother actually led me into a personal relationship with Christ, I think I was eight years old. I have to tell you a quick story. Very quick. One of my early memories was I was standing in the hallway, looking up at my mother. And I said, Mom, there's only two jobs in life that I think are worth doing. One is to be a pastor, and the other is to be a missionary. And that was indicative of my my SSD, My sacred secular divide in my head, which we might get to talk about today. But I did not become a traditional missionary or traditional Pastor, I actually went into education, I had a little bit of experience in the public schools. And quickly got out of that. And most of my time was spent in Christian schools. I taught for several years at a Christian school where they asked me to become the principal, I didn't want to become the principal, nothing against principals. But I just didn't want to play that role. Long story short, God changed my mind. And I began to get a passion for authentic Christian education. And it began a pursuit that's gone on now for about 50 years of trying to figure out what is authentic Christian education? How do we do it, and helping teachers in Christian schools by giving them practical tools for how to put their subject matter into the context of the bigger picture of a biblical worldview? And so I after I turn the school principalship over to someone else, my wife and I formed a nonprofit organization called worldview matters. And we focused on equipping Christian teachers for the next 20 years. And then about three years ago, we turned that over to another organization called renew a nation and so most of our stuff we gave to them with the hopes that they might carry it on further and longer than I could do, and, and good things are happening there. So that's my story.

Great. Yeah. And recently, you also helped Darrow write one of his most recent books, don't let schooling stand in the way of education, a biblical response to the crisis in public education Darrow? Would you mind just telling us a little bit more about that book and why you wrote it? And then yeah, let's get the discussion going from there.

Well, one of the things that was in the background of my mind was something that Francis Schaeffer said years ago, and I was at Liberty. Francis Schaeffer, I had the privilege of having him as a mentor. And he had a phrase that he used occasionally don't let schooling stand in the way of education. And I thought, what, you know, we all go to school. But what does this mean? And I've reflected on that over the years, and as I've traveled, first with food for the hungry, and then disciple of nations Alliance, I have seen how education, schools and systems around the world really are not education systems, their schools. And then as I've watched in our own country, what's been the deterioration of education in our own country, and we are now faced with a crisis in public education. And this is such a crisis. We need the church to begin to think again about a theology of education, and how does the church engage in education, because this nation was founded on an educational system that was brought here by the children of the Reformation. And they were functioning from a biblical worldview. And it wasn't just academic education, it was also the education of virtue. And we've lost that today. And there is a crisis in public education, not just in the United States, but globally. And I know no one better to deal with this subject in the Christian Overman. And I would like to say, Chris, if we could begin if you could give us your sense of what is going on in the crisis of education, globally, and particularly in the United States?

That's a big question, an important question. I see you think about the problem, I, I can't help but think of a famous line from a speech that was given by soldier Nielsen. And, of course, I think your viewers know, or listeners know who he was, but he gave a speech where he's talking about what happened in the Soviet Union. And he said that people would say this phrase that men have forgotten God. That's why all this is happening. I think if you could boil it down to one line, that's probably the best line we have forgotten God, I say we I'm speaking as an American, because that's my experience. But I guess you could say that John Dewey has thoroughly buried Noah Webster 12 feet under and I could explain that just a little bit in this country. Prior to the Civil War. Almost all of the schools were governed by churches, clergy, were in control of education. In fact, even most of the of the universities or colleges were started by some branch of the church. And not only Harvard, but many others. And the early Christians that came over here, ie the Puritans and others, saw that education was for all of life. They weren't just educating kids to become pastors, but they're educating them to be participants in the civil life. And also they taught them to see that their shop as well as their Chapel was holy ground. They didn't have this sacred secular split I was talking about earlier that somehow we've got this upper level stuff that has to do with spiritual things, you know, reading your Bible, praying, going to church, evangelism, all that. And then down here, you've got this lower level where we go to work for Boeing and or make houses or whatever it is. They didn't have that they had a a A whole stick view of all of reality as God's world. And we had a role in that world and that world was to take what God had initially created, and to produce secondary creations out of that initial creation. That's one of the gifts that the early Puritans gave, as Darrow pointed out, this was actually a direct result of the Reformation. And too few, even Christian educators, I was pretty well ignorant of this for many, many years. I didn't get it till after graduate school, the role that Comenius and other great educators. Yeah, John has Amos Comenius. He was born in what is now Czechoslovakia, he is actually has been dubbed the father of modern education, by not just Christians, but by the educational world, they saw in him, this guy, and he came about 100 years after Luther. So he was standing on the shoulders of Luther. And he saw that the purpose of education was to get people equipped to rule well in this material world. And it wasn't just heaven after you die. But he was an innovator. In fact, the U N, has has an award now called the Comenius award, believe it up by the UN, which they give, I think every two or three years to educators that have exhibited great creativity and innovation, because Comenius was an innovator, he actually developed the graded system, first grade, second grade, third grade, he also brought in drama into his schools. And he was one of the first writers of an illustrated textbook. And that textbook was about the world, things in the world and man's employment in the world, it was very earth centered, which I think is appropriate for Comenius. If you actually go to Eastern Europe today, you'll find that Comenius, even today, is highly esteemed and respected. And, and they some schools I was in Ukraine several times actually require reading some of Comenius stuff today. He's highly revered. I didn't even hear his name till after I was through graduate school, I had no idea and there are other great reform, think reform thinking, if I can say that educators that stood on the shoulders of Luther and Calvin said, Okay, we need to put this into shoe leather here in education. By the way, Comenius was also one of the first people to advocate for male and female education, boys and girls, and also poor people getting educated as well as rich people. He he was a real radical if I could put that. And so he earned the dubbing of the father of modern education very well. There were others, John Alston, I'm sorry to interrupt somebody,

let me just throw something in about Comenius. He made a very simple phrase that was radical, and has shaped education all over the world today. He said, everyone must be taught everything. And everyone is Christian just said, from the poorest child, to women, men, boys, girls, poor, rich, everyone must be taught every thing. And so you have universal education, and everything, you have to have an integrated field of knowledge where everything is related to each other. And that those that phrase, that simple phrase, by Comenius, has really had an impact in our concepts of education globally,

yes. And that's rooted in their acceptance of the premise that all things were created by the Creator, the visible and the invisible, the temporal and the eternal, the material and the spiritual. They as again, they didn't have that split thing, like I did separations and 10 years old. So Christian education today, as I see it is has to grab hold of this, that they need to see that our purpose is to help students to see that this world is unified a unified field of knowledge, as Einstein was looking for by a Creator who said let there be and there is nothing that exists. That wasn't a result of that. That can Creative command. And so the the early educators saw their role in school was to help students to discover what God had made, and to name it, to tear it apart and put it back together so that they could use that knowledge to create sick what they called secondary creations. The computer, for example, would be a great example of a secondary creation. But houses are secondary shoes are secondary creations and the Puritans saw that if you could actually get people to discover what God had made, help them to recreate it or to build upon it that would glorify God and it wasn't just a matter of so called spiritual things. So your question on the crisis, as I see it, is that generally speaking, public state education has not only forgotten God, they booted him out. It took a long time coming. But we have embraced John Dewey's vision for education which was blatantly and openly atheistic, John Dewey is one of the signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto 1933 version, which was the first one, he was one of the signers of those. And he was one of the most influential 20th century educators on the planet, not just in the United States, of being at Columbia University, and he influenced, but by the way, one of the things that he taught was that school elementary and secondary school is for social transformation. He did not see it as a place where you just had, you know, certain facts regurgitated. But he saw it as a place where social change could happen. And unfortunately, the social change that he had in mind was 180 degrees, in opposition to what Noah Webster, the previous guru, not guru, but leader, I don't want to use the word guru here. But the previous leader of American view of education was Noah Webster, and he saw Christianity as integral to education. In fact, he said that any school system that that neglected Christianity was if essentially defective, and those are the words he was essentially defective. And if you look at his dictionary of 1828, you'll see his definitions are all very Biblio centric. He uses biblical examples all the way through. And but do we buried Webster 12 feet under a he was highly successful doing that, but he didn't do it on his own. And I think it's important to go back and see how to do a get in that place where he could actually change American education to such a degree. He wasn't the first one to do it. But as I see it, and you're asking him to think how did we get in this crisis? As I see it, the church, the clergy, historically, there's no question about it. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this, and he made note of this in his 1831 study of the United States, in his book Democracy in America, he noticed that the clergy had a control. That wasn't the word you use, but responsibility, they took responsibility for education. And during those years, of course, church was very, the schools were very Biblio centric. In fact, even the state schools had a lot of Bible oriented stuff in their curriculum. Believe it or not up into the 20th century. The Bible actually wasn't booted out of the public schools as a serious text. I think it was the early 70s. I'm not sure if that or the late 60s. But at any rate, do we was standing on the shoulders of a few other people who came to the fore in the late 1800s. And, and those names are common names to your audience. Nietzsche, for example, have said God is dead, the father of postmodern thought. And then we had Marx, Karl Marx and late. I think his first volume of Das Kapital came out in 1867 or somewhere, you're that. And then of course, you had Darwin in 1859. Okay, both of those guys. They stood on the shoulders of Darwin. I mean, once Darwin came, and he gave some supposedly scientific rationale for getting rid of God On Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche all in the second half of the 1800s had a tremendous influence on western history. And unfortunately, the church, as near as I can tell, didn't quite rise to the occasion to deal with these ideologies that were that were coming their way. I think some of them tried. But I this is my opinion here that I see what happened was during the prior to the Civil War, there was this holistic view of Christianity as touching everything as Comenius talked about. And that's what school was about. After the Civil War. They divided life into the sacred and secular compartments. The church dealt with the upper realm, and then quote, the, the secularists quote, unquote, dealt with law room, and I don't believe there is a secular world, by the way, that's maybe another topic, but I, I've looked for it and doesn't exist. It's just not there. But in there, it's one word. It's one world. Yeah, there is no secular word here. You know, I can't find it. But we talk about it as though it's really there. And we hear even Christians, sincere Christians talk about well, I've got a secular job, and I'm thinking, What is your what do you what do you do that secular? Isn't Jesus Lord of bowing? You know? Yeah, okay. Anyway, the secular sacred split goddess into this division of reality where the church said, Okay, we'll take care of the metaphysical issues, we'll let the public she'll deal with all this other stuff. That was the beginning of the end, right there. I do not fully understand why the church bought into it, why the they accommodated it, but it happened. And because of that split, that happened, Dewey said, Okay, I'll take over here in this lower realm, will let the church deal with, you know, how many angels can stand on head of a pin or whatever, you're dealing metaphysical stuff, and let us handle the earth stuff. And the rest is history. And they came in, they took over. And now thanks to the Frankfurt School, and I think your audience knows about that. But maybe, maybe not. But it was a group of ideologies who are into Neo Marx is in 1923, that got started in Germany in 1935. They came because they were mostly ethnic Jews, they, they they realized that Germany wasn't really safe space, they all most of them, I guess, came over to the United States took up residence in universities, one of which, by the way, was Columbia University where John Dewey was interesting. Yeah, I can't I mean, I imagined there was a lot of talk going on in the hallway there, you know, John Dewey, and and the Frankfurt School people. But basically, what they were getting into the system was Neo Marxism, the idea that all society has two camps, the oppressors, or the oppressed, and life is all about making sure that the oppressors are brought down, and they're not oppressing the oppressed anymore, and making sure that there's no norms, period, any norms are no no norms of sexuality, gotta go, you know, norms of even science norms of mathematics, I'm coming from Seattle here, where now they're saying that mathematics is ideologically messed up by by white supremacy. This is all part of the Frankfurt School heritage here. But all of

and there's schools now that are teaching this equity math, which is not maths.

You know, it's kind of crazy. I'm looking at some of this stuff. I mean, who would ever thought that you're actually telling kids that they can decide if they want to be a boy or a girl? I mean, even 10 years ago, I would have said, You're, you're insane, that would never happen. But here we are, because of gender critical gender theory, which was built on the shoulders of the Frankfurt School in the 30s critical gender theory, which developed in the 90s. And by the way, critical race theory developed and developed till the 70s. But they're all rooted in that same Neo Marxist idea. And in 1995, it began to be put into the public system intentionally. That's when the first efforts conscious efforts began to get the ideology of critical theory and Neo Marxism into the public schools. And that's where we're at today. And they've been on a roll for quite a while and it hasn't been until the last couple of years that the parents are realizing The this is going on, I think, from what I understand, partly because of the COVID thing and parents tuning in on what their kids were being taught. And now some even non Christian parents are rising up saying, Hey, we don't want this, you know. But prior to all of that was the sacred secular split, which divorced Christianity from math, science, history, algebra and everything. Unfortunately, that was not what Comenius and the others had in mind. But that's what happened in this country. And that, I believe is why we're in a crisis, we have forgotten God, we have forgotten how God connects to math. And how he connects to history, how it connects to science and everything else in school, it is not a separate world. It's all his work.

unpack this a little bit more, because for some people listening to this. I grew up in a state school. There was no place for God there. And so I was totally taught. godless math, godless history, godless science. And that's what people learn today and unpack what you just said a little more.

Yeah, I think that many Christians say, I've never done a study. I've never taken any holes on this. But I think most Christians are probably say, yeah, why can't you just teach math separately from a biblical worldview? What Why do you need to connect it to God? Well, that's a really critical question. Because you cannot separate mathematics from the designer, the creator of mathematics, and the one who has a purpose for mathematics. If we were given this job description in the beginning to rule over planet earth, then mathematics is a critical tool to use in that governance. We use it for building houses, we use it for creating computers, we use mathematics and all of these secondary creations that the Puritans were talking about. And that's what mathematics is for. I went through Christian education myself, half, half of my schooling years were Christian education, half or not, but I honestly have to say, I don't ever remember a teacher telling me that the reason you're learning this math is so you can fill that first commission, Genesis one to govern well over planet Earth.

Isn't that because your Christian education, quote, unquote, was governed by the sacred SEC Exam Guide?

Exactly. I was being taught. And I don't, I don't mean to throw mud at him here. But I hope I don't come across mean here, but they were taught as they were teaching us, I think, as they were taught, okay, they probably never had. Let me go back one step here to bring your audience up to speed. I was at a conference, maybe a decade ago, I was speaking to a small group of maybe 25, or 30. administrators and school teachers. Some are new, some are veterans, you name it. So I'm speaking and all of a sudden, I get this thought, to ask them this question. What is the purpose of education? And I had a particular answer in my head. And so I didn't pause very long. I jumped right in there. And I said, I didn't want someone to blurt out something that would get me off track. And so I said, the purpose of education is to equip the next generation to rule well over this material world. And I kid you not, the silence in that room was palatable. It was like everybody stopped breathing. And I let it hang there. And then this teacher in the near I think she was on the front row, she spoke up and she says, Would you mind repeating that? So I did. purpose of education is to equip the next generation to rule well over this material world. And then I said this, has anyone ever told you that before? Not a single hand went up. Not one.

And this was Christian.

Christian school teachers. This is an AC probably should win ACSI conference. I am a CSI guy. I mean, I go way way back. That's the largest Christian school association in the world. I'm not faulting them but their administrators and teachers. Not a single one had ever heard that before. Now, here's the kicker. I had never heard it before either. I When I had been by that time a school principal Christian School principal for a long time, I was what was 14 years at one school and then I became a consultant. But I, when I got my master's degree in the philosophy of Christian education at Seattle Pacific, I never heard that purpose. before. I just recently I read an article about someone who was talking about the purpose of Christian schools, it was basically, if I understood the article, it was saying, well, our purpose is to disciple followers of Christ. And you know, how can you throw money at that, but what goes through my head is to what end? Okay, I buy we're supposed to be discipling, Christians and Christians, but the bigger question in my mind is, to what end? For what purpose? Why this is what Comenius and those early educators got, and we have forgotten was that the purpose is to fulfill that job description in Genesis there, it isn't Genesis one, okay? It's like verse 28, somewhere in there. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and govern over I think it's like one sentence, okay. And it's repeated, by the way, in the Psalms. What is it Psalm eight, where that's repeated, you know, he's, he's amazed that God has given this job. And by the way, that those three key verses in Psalm eight, I can't quote them by memory, unfortunately. But they're those three verses are repeated in Hebrews, I think it's chapter three, those same three verses that God had given us that role of honor in the earth, to rule over it. And one thing I appreciate,

education is for that purpose, it is for that purpose.

But schooling is getting in our way Darrow

tries to get in the way of that. That purpose of education.

Exactly. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. Well, I did not get this until I was through graduate school.

But it changed everything I

did in me, I'm trying to change it. That's insane. It did historically. It did historically, even in this country up until the Civil War. After that, we got messed up by all these philosophies and godless stuff coming over from crow across the pond. And I don't, I mean, it was here too, but we got messed up Royal. And the only way we're gonna get unmixed, in my opinion, is to get back to the holistic view of everything. And I know some of your listeners saying, Well, how does I don't get this? How does this translate and let me give you a couple of guys. In fact, I'm going to send you a video interview. I did. It's only 10 minutes long or so. I did a video interview of a Christian school teacher that had gone through our training. She sent me an email says, Hey, I did a lesson recently on snails. I think, you know, you might be interested in this snails. Okay, so I, I did a zoom call with her and and I recorded it. I said, Okay, tell me about your lesson on snails. How did you approach that topic, and she's an elementary school teacher. She says, Well, the subject of snails is in one of our literature books, and it has a prominent role and I decided to help our students to see snails in the context of the bigger picture, the whole bigger picture, the bigger picture of God, creation or nature, humanity, moral order and purpose. How did she do it? Well, she asked some questions. She divided her her class into small groups, and she assigned certain questions to different groups to get together, draw pictures and talk and write about it. And here's, here's some of the questions. How do you think God feels about snails? How do you think God feels? Does God have feelings? How does he feel about snails? How does snails reveal or show the Creator? What purpose do you think God sees in a snail? Why do you think he made these creatures? How can we find real joy in snails as human beings? How do they fit into our world? So she's asking these open questions of these second graders, by the way To help, she doesn't tell them the answers. She does ask the questions to help some to connect the dots. Okay. She also did a lesson on Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. And in this lesson, here's your questions. How do you think God feels about any Sullivan? After God created the world? He said, It's good. Well, what's still good about being blind in a fallen world? And you know what? I said? Are you kidding me? You asked that of second graders. And she says, yeah, they had incredible answers. This was an awesome lesson. She said, You got to look at this interview, I'll send it to you. And she said, while we're healing, any solvents, positive character qualities here, they're linking this work of this human being to a bigger picture of what it means to have character in a fallen world. And then she asked How could teaching a blind and deaf child be done in a God honoring way? Wow. And then, one more question, How did Annie Sullivan give Helen Keller more purpose in her life. And these kids talked about these things. They discussed him openly second graders, what their what this teacher was doing. If I could summarize it, she was helping her students to see that little piece of life, whether it's a snail, or Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, to see that in the context of a bigger picture, a bigger picture of reality that they will never get in the state schools anymore. They used to, but they don't anymore, that bigger picture has been canceled. So you have math, science, history, pe everything else that is taught separately, independently, quote, unquote, they think it's independent from the bigger picture of reality, which is a biblical worldview. I call it a unit view. Because it's bigger than the universe.

But they're teaching those things, aside from the unit view, the bigger view. And they're teaching them with in a purely naturalistic framework, materialistic

view that God doesn't exist. tearless three doesn't exist, or

is everything. Yeah, so everything changed, everything changes. So you have a state school that we send our children to, and we went to, and we only learned about half of the universe. Yeah, less than half. That's what there is less than half. And we think that's what's real. That's exactly

right. And here's here's the biggest tragedy, or, well, that's a big enough tragedy. But here's another one that we have, because the most of the believers have sent their kids to the public school, and continue to do so even. Now, although that's changing. I've seen some statistics that well, over 90% of the American students attend state schools. Now, another 5% of 10 private schools that are not Christian, and then another 5%. Those are statistics I read years ago, I may be changing now, but but I don't think by much, but let's say 85 presenters in the public school, here's what's happened over the years, the public schools have done a tremendous job effective job of raising up three generations of dualists. By dualist, I mean, people in the church, who would separate all of reality into these two spheres, the sacred sphere, which we do in church and at home, and the so called secular sphere, which doesn't really exist, but they think it does out there in the world. And there's this gap between the two. And we don't bridge that gap anymore. Because we think it's illegal. And it's not, but we think it is, but we don't think holistically anymore. I want to share. Does that make sense? Okay, yeah.

Why did you want to throw something in here?

All right. Well, I was I'm listening. I'm listening. I'm listening. And I think that I would frame it a little bit differently. I would say we haven't created a sacred secular divide. We have lost a biblical worldview. And I'm not sure we ever had a biblical worldview to lose. So it wasn't a very far loss because the materialists came in with a much stronger unit view. If you want to use that word universe, they actually had a unit view. We never had a unit view. So we didn't actually lose the biblical worldview. We never had it and they just filled that pace. And that space that you call the secular sacred, that sacred that secular space is getting broader and broader and broader. Now, it actually includes the religious space, because religion is really an artifact of evolution as well. So religion has become a sacred secular space as well. I mean, we're talking about worldview here that we like to say that we never had.

didn't have that mean, our generation and those after the Civil War. I mean,

I'm thinking, John Adams maybe was the last guy

I wanted to share with you guys that blew my mind when I read this. I'll tell you, you'll understand what blew my mind because it was written in 1987 by Benjamin Bloom, who wrote the closing of the American mind in 1987, it was published, Benjamin Bloom was not a Christian. He was the child of Jewish immigrants. I don't know if he was an Orthodox Jew or a nominal Jew or whatever, just ethnic Jew, I don't know. But my understanding is he was not a believer, a Christian. He taught at Cornell University, University of Toronto, Yale University in the herbs in Chicago, the guy's you know, he's got it up there. Here's what he said, and I'm gonna quote this, I've got it right at my screen here, this one this, he said, in the United States, practically speaking, the Bible was the only common culture. One that united, the simple, and the sophisticated, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, as the very model for the vision of the order of the whole of things. That's what he said. And then he says, with its gradual, and inevitable disappearance, the very idea of such a total book is disappearing. This is an 87, contrary to what is commonly thought, without the book, the Bible without the book, even the idea of the whole is lost. So here's this guy, he's not he's not writing a theology book. He's writing his university professor, and he's acknowledging that at one point in this country, there was a unification that went on through the common acceptance that the Bible provided a view of reality for all of us. I want to say one more thing here because I'm gonna I'm gonna quote from this book, which I really like. I think he did a good job of pulling it's called assumptions that affect our lives. By this guy, I don't know how you pronounce his name, but over it. Oh, yeah. Overman. Okay. This is quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville. Quote, he comes here in 1831. To find out what makes this country tick listen to this direct quotes there. snippets from his book, from page 281 to 291. Listen from the earliest settlement of the immigrants, politics and religion contracted and Alliance which has never been dissolved. Remember, that's 1831 I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith and their religion for who can search the human heart. But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of Republican institutions. What this opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party. It belongs to the whole ah, oh, who le nation and every rank of society. The Americans combined the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other. Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. First thing, the longer I stayed there, the more I did perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things to which I was unaccustomed. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion in the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other. But in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. America is still the place where the Christian religion has kept the greatest real power over men souls, and nothing better demonstrates how useful and natural It is demand, since the country where it now has the widest Sway is both the most enlightened and the freest. I read that I could hardly believe what I was reading. I never heard this in school. I never even heard of the Christian school that I mean, they probably told me that I was sleeping. I don't know, I didn't get it. But apparently, and basing the Tocqueville with with Allan bloom, mixing those two together, apparently, it appears to me that there was a common acceptance of the Bible as our vision of the whole of things. And I can remember when I was a kid, people talking about America being a quote, unquote, Christian nation, even non Christian people. Just my wife's parents, they were not saved until my wife was a little girl, she was three years old, they met the Lord. When she was three, they got radically and dramatically saved. But they always thought they were Christians, because they were born in America. That's why they thought they were Christians even born in America. So I mean, I grew up as a kid in a country where even in the 1950s, a lot of people thought we were a Christian country. But at any rate, prior to the Civil War, I got to believe based on these historic evidences, that a biblical frame of mind toward God creation, humanity, moral order and purpose, those are the big five that I that I see, a biblically shaped assumptions in those five areas were commonly accepted. In fact, I'm on a roll here. In fact, in 1894, I think it was the Supreme Court came out with this statement, and I'm paraphrasing the said, at 94, I believe it was or 92, somewhere in Supreme Court said our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon the words of the redeemer of mankind, it is impossible that it should be otherwise. Did you guys get that? You google that? Google that? Google what I just said, and you'll find the quote from the US Supreme Court in 1892, or 94. What have we missed? We have been duped big time. That's why we're in a crisis.

Yeah, there's two contemporaries that reflect what you've written what you've just said from a previous generation. And these are contemporaries saying the same thing. Jordan Peterson went to the Museum of the Bible. And after he visited it, he came in he said, The Bible is not merely true. He said, the concept of truth would not exist without the Bible. Well, it's, it's the Bible that provides the context for the context, the concept of truth. And Tom Holland, in his book dominion, I don't know if you've read that. No, he's a historian from England. He's, he's an atheist, and he's written a book called Dominion. And he basically argues the way we think, in America, the words we use in America, have been shaped by the Bible and biblical culture. And even so called atheists and secularists cannot escape the fact that the words they use came from the Bible. So it's the same thing that you are saying only it's two contemporaries making the same conclusions. And we've forgotten that as a church and the culture has the country has forgotten it. But the church has forgotten.

Amnesia. We have a bad case of amnesia historical amnesia do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of history, that reminds me of another non Christian who recognized the founder of this country. That was a it's an a document that some of you might have heard of, Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. When that was first drafted by Thomas Jefferson. He actually instead of using the words, we hold these truths to be self evident, he actually said sacred there. And then in a redraft after talking with Benjamin Franklin about it They changed it to self evident. But But to him, he was a Deist. And he saw that these truths are sacred. And we should all agree on them. They're self evident. And that's the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. Darrow in the book, don't let students in the way of education, you say that history has taught us that free nations are built upon an educational philosophy that pursues both Veritas and virtues, truth and virtue, both privately and publicly, at this point now, today, where we forgotten these things, as you guys were just saying, How can we reclaim this philosophy? I'm really curious, like, Is there hope here? How do we get back to that?

Go ahead, Darrow?

Oh, I was gonna say you may hear from me all the time.

I'll say a few things. And then you can you can? Correct? Yes. Okay. I have given that a little bit of thought, don't be honest. I have wondered, are we past the turning point? Are we past the point of no return? I can't quite bring myself to accept that there is no hope. But I would say that there's no hope, other than, other than in a move of God, that no man can produce, by human effort. a move of God that would turn our hearts for the church. I think it starts with the church. You know, we, this is a subject for a whole nother podcast, but the church is in a crisis position. Now, as well, and there's reasons for that, but if there could be a another, we'll call it a great awakening. I don't I'm not sure if that's the right term or not. But it really needs to be a holy spirit, lead repentance, to return to where we have come from I look at the history of Israel, and their whole history is seems to be one of falling away. God sending judgment coming back might the question, the back of my head is, Hey, I'll tell you if I think we're already being judged, and we're already in the job. I'm not saying it won't get worse, I think it could get a lot worse, we could get into something that's very serious in terms of our own future as Christians that can be put in, in prison or, you know, suffered greatly. I don't, you know, there's a lot that could come, I hope it doesn't come. And I'm not saying that it should. I don't want God necessarily to have to do that. But if he does, it could take quite a while before we we make the full circle here if we do. So. I'm being very vague here. But I do think we need a move of God in changing the mind and the mental set of our church leaders, first of all, and church pew sitters. Secondly, and living out our Christian faith in the world, and getting over this idea that we're just spinning, spinning our wheels here until we go to heaven, which I that's where I was at 10 years old. I did. I mean, this world is not my home, I'm just passing through my heaven treasures are laid up somewhere on the blue. Do Lord boulardii, right, that was a favorite youth group song. And heaven was the goal. And I'm not Pooh poohing heaven, of course, and I'm not putting evangelism we need souls saved, but it's so lopsided now that we've forgotten that God has given a or He's created us to be Earth tenders. And we're not taking that seriously, as far as I hear very few sermons on this. Unfortunately, and part of Earth tending is taking an active role in civil service and in the political realm. And we're a long ways from that. I think we might be starting to wake up. I'm not sure. I do see some signs of hope. But I do think a lot of it is dependent on on pastors who are who are seeing what needs to be seen and helping the sheep to also see it. So that's a long convoluted answer to a short question. Darrow Correct. straightened me out. I want to hear what you have to say.

Oh, I wouldn't be correcting you I'd simply be adding to you. I'm Just thinking about the question in what you were saying, we need pastors who will teach the whole counsel of God will need will need pastors who were like the pastor's that came out of the Reformation. pastors that were came out of the Puritan movement that were the children of the Reformation, who will teach the whole counsel of God, that we meet God, not just in a church building, but we meet God in the in the milk room or in the shop. It's the church that has to get back to the whole world, the Yoona verse, yeah. And if if the pastors get back there that that must be part of the equation, because then they can begin to lead the congregations in being culture shapers from a Univision perspective. Yep. The name of this podcast is ideas have consequences. And what are the consequences of post modernism or the results of the Frankfurt School? Do Marxism, when you say that there's no distinction between male and female? What are the consequences of that concept? And we're seeing that in spades today, and it's not beautiful. It's, it's cruel, it's horrible. And now this equity math, two and two does not equal four, two and two equals whatever you want it to mean, what are the consequences of teaching children in school? That kind of mathematics? What does that mean for flying in the future? For surgeons in the future? I'm in the consequences of, of this ideology, that's currently there lead to hell, in my opinion. And the church needs to recognize that and start returning to her calls. In our book, don't let schooling stand in the way of education, one of the things we talk about is the Puritan. The Puritan theology of education and technology. And this is something I learned from from Christian. And there were three books, not one, we need to return to the Scripture, yes, and take it seriously. And the church needs to return to the scriptures and take it seriously. To study it, and to realize that it speaks to all of life and not just the spiritual part of life. Yes, it has. It speaks to mathematics, it speaks to art to music, every area of life. And we need to read the book of reason. And the book of reality, the postmodern world has thrown out all three books, reason, reality, and the book of Revelation. And that is why we are suffering the consequences where we are today. And the culture, with the by the leadership of the church needs to regain seeking truth through the book of Revelation, the Bible, and reason and reality, Darrell, so those would be things that I would say,

let me just piggyback on that little bit. That what you just shared about the Puritan view of technology and whatnot. I, that was something I learned from a guy named David, Scott Hill, Scott, David Scott, Dr. Scott, he worked. As I recall, he worked for eight years on its on his PhD at the University of Notre Dame and became an expert on the Puritan circle of knowledge, the technology or all of these reform educators and whatnot. If people want to know do Google for David Hill, Scott, particularly a vision of Veritas is an article that will open their minds to that it opened my mind to so i want to get real credit soon mind to that brother who spent many years mining this stuff for our benefit. What's your next question?

Well, that's one of the questions we had in the midst of This educational crisis, what advice do you have for parents? And the church? And you've already talked a little bit about the church. But what advice do you have for parents in the midst of this educational crisis? And as you said, probably 85% of Christian parents have their kids in state run schools.

Yes. Well, this is kind of a hard word for some parents, baby, but I would advise all Christ following parents to pull their kids out of the state schools without delay. It's not just because the current push towards transgenderism and all that squat, not. But even if that wasn't happening, the kids in the public schools for the last 100 years 50 to 100 years have not been getting the truth. They've not been getting the full truth, nothing but the truth. They have been getting a distorted view of the world, a distorted view of God's world. They're getting a view that puts God in the upper level of church stuff and leaves him out of the so called secular world, which doesn't exist. And so they're becoming dualists. By the very nature of the system. And I don't think if parents think about the Christian parents think about this, I don't think they would want their kids to be dualists. But most parents are dualists themselves. They don't know it, you see that as part of the problem. But I would say pull them out. And it's easy for me to say but and there's financial consequences to this as well. But this has to do with the church as well. I believe the church should be rising up to put into place 1000s and 1000s of church based homeschool coops. You don't need to have a brick and mortar Christian school to have authentic Christian education. If you do great, but unfortunately, the tuition rates for those schools today are generally speaking. Pretty, pretty tough pill for some parents to swallow. So I would recommend an expert in this whole area of Home Based Education cooperatives and that's Heidi St. John, down in Vancouver, Washington here. If you Google Heidi St. John. I think she has a website Heidi St. john.com. I've been down to her homeschool operation and if there's one person that can vote for, you know, get there's others renomination for example, who's taken over our work has an online from grade five to grade 12 called aluminet. It's it's not recorded teacher training online. It's live teacher training online. So go to renew nation.org and see what you can find out there and there lumen ed program. There are other possibilities that are not going to kill you financially. Yes, you may have to make sacrifices. But to me, it's not worth keeping your kid in a school, public or private. There are many private schools that that I wouldn't recommend as well. Unfortunately, there's a few Christian schools I wouldn't recommend but so you got to kind of do your homework there, just because it has the word Christian on it. Remembered Harvard used to be a Christian school in Yale. But anyway, yeah, you can't just assume that they're teaching holistically in the classroom because it says a Christian school. So you know, sniff it out. And, but but provide those alternatives as best you can. And that might be my advice to parents and to the church. Help your parents, too, by helping helping to put together a church based homeschool Co Op program and get people who've been through this before to advise you on how to do it. What not to do. Oh, there's one more I could recommend Josh Mulvihill gotta get a hold of Josh Mulvihill. He's a renewal nation. Staff member Johnson Josh and Jen Mulvihill recently wrote a book on biblical thought Josh has written books on biblical worldview he's written they've written books and child training, great books, I cannot recommend Josh Haile and his wife. Highly enough if you want advice as a church or as an individual, finding the right alternative in terms of the homeschool Co Op world To go to Josh Mulvihill go to renew nation go to high E St. John, those are my top three reference points.

Let me add one that I know of. And it's because I live in Arizona, there's a charter in Arizona charter schools is a big movement here. And the great hearts schools are a classical education with the because they're publicly funded. They study the Bible as literature. But they're classically it's a classical education that is integrated. So if you're studying music, you'll be studying history, at the same time to relate where did this music come from, or you'll be studying about, you know, music history and not just playing the flute. So it's a totally integrated, they have an integrated concept. And this is publicly funded education through charter schools, and this movement, they can't keep up with the parents that want to take their kids to those schools. And there are other states now that are beginning to change their laws. And this movement of the great Hearts is moving into other states. So how do you start a charter school? That is a classical education? Charter School?

You know, not every state allows charter schools, I'm thinking about Washington state aid. I, I'm not quite totally clear in this. But I don't think at this point they are allowed here. I might be wrong on that. But I don't think they're 100%. Let me add one other thing, if there's any politicians out there listening, I hope they're My one concern about state funding of Christian schools is wherever there's funding that comes through the books of the government, there's going to be at some point strings on it. But there I've, I've never heard of anybody doing this, but it's crossed my mind. Why don't we give the property owners who paid the taxes that support the schools, about half of my property taxes go to the school, public school system, okay. That's why it works in Washington anyway. But if we could somehow, by God's grace, allow the property owners to choose which school they want to give their money to, and if most of them want to give them to the state school, fine. But if some of them want to give them to Christian schools, great, why not? That's freedom of choice, we ought to have that kind of freedom, and totally bypass the state coffer 100%, you just need to give proof that you gave X amount of dollars to XYZ Christian school, and you're clear. And that way we can keep it out of the government string pulling business. Now, my idea probably won't be accepted by too many legislatures, but I can't I want to take the advisory opportunity to throw it out there as a credible alternative.

Well, I think as more and more parents begin to realize what's happening in the schools, the crisis, and that the what's how it's affecting their own children. And they pull their kids out of state sponsored schools, there's going to be a lot more creativity going on in the neighborhood among parents, and education groups of Okay, now, how do we crack this nut? How do we create alternatives to the state sponsored schools, and who knows what's going to come out of that creativity, but education could look very different in this country and 10 Very

different. In fact, during the COVID thing, there were called in our era, I heard about this thing called pandemic pods. And what they were parents in geographic nearby neighborhood areas that are pulling together other kids into homes, and hiring specialist teachers to come in and teach. And I thought, well, that's a great model, and that's that they were a Christian, you know, but anyway, yeah.

Christian, I can't help but wonder. I know a lot of friends that work in education that are teachers and they work in public schools, and their heart is to go into the public schools, and have that mindset of a missionary. I'm gonna I'm gonna be here I'm gonna shine Chang Christ's light I'm gonna teach in any way possible, you know, these kids to think critically and pursue truth? What would you recommend to those those people?

Well, first of all, if if they are teachers who are feeling called to go into the state system and do whatever they can to influence, I'm all for that. I mean, if you feel that's what God is calling you to do, I'm not going to certainly poopoo that because, I mean, I could never do it, I just couldn't do it. I'm not called to do it. I have a good friend who used to teach for me at the Christian school, he became a he's retired, semi retired now, but he became a public school, substitute teacher. And in a school district, not too far from us public, large public school, school, and he cooked he contact me one day, and he says, Hey, I just had this experience where they put us through this training. And it was the party line. No, you know, and basically, it's a, hey, our school district is going to let kids decide which bathroom or shower room they want to use. And if they if they're self identifying as as a female, then you can't stop them from using the girls shower. My friend said they had a statement in there a written statement with a box next to it that you were supposed to check to indicate that you would support that policy district wide policy. My friend said he would not check that box. And he met with his supervisor says, I'm not I want you to know why I'm not checking this box. And he said, I feel this is really dangerous. For our girls, I would never approve of I wouldn't go along with this. That conversation, ended him up being in an another conversation with this school superintendent, his principal and the president of the school board. And these big power players in the same room with my friend who's just a substitute teacher, they just, and the upshot of it was they didn't force him to check the box. And they didn't fire him. I was surprised. But I said to my friend, how many Christians are there in your district? So there's quite a few well, did you know anybody else that didn't check that box? He says, No, I don't. I'm thinking really? Well, what's going on with the Christians in the public schools? If we've got Christians that are going along with this thing? You know, if they're there, okay. They gotta, they got to speak up. It seems to me if they're going to be Integris, they can't just be silent and let it go on. I mean, I have another Christian friend in the public school, I said, How are you doing? And then she's, well, the day that they forced me or asked me to teach, you know, Johnny has two mothers or whatever, that's when I quit. And I had a superintendent friend, public school retirees, he's told me over coffee, what's his, as far as I can tell, the Christians in the public system are laying though, they're keeping their heads down. They're trying to survive. If that's true, okay, I would say to them by God's grace, at some point, you're gonna have to stick your head above the crowd and say, go to your principal and say, Hey, your nose, this isn't this is not right. This is harmful to kids. If you get fired, you get fired, but at least you get fired for the right reason. So on on the on the on the, on the administrative and teacher side, say, stay in the public schools, but don't be silent. And then on the student side, I, I actually, I could see some possibility for family sending their high schooler to a public school if they've been through K through eight, getting grounded in truth and holistic thinking. I mean, I don't see a lot of difference between that and the college level. I mean, if they're going to go to a state school, high school, where they could get used to speaking out, not being silent, and, and, and actually engaging with the stuff that's coming their way while they're still at home. I can see room for that if it's the right person and the parents know that they can handle it, but not too many kids can I don't think but anyway, certainly eighth grade and below. I just can't see any justification for sending a child into that environment at all. And that's a hard line I've got, I can see some room for high school but not eight or below.

I would add the word naive. I would say, you shouldn't send your kids to state sponsored schools naively. And if you're a Christian teacher and want to work in state sponsored schools, it's a wonderful calling, but don't do it naively. Are you going to maintain your integrity as a Christian? Or are you going to stick your head in the sand and go along with things that you know you shouldn't go along with just to keep your job? We are at that moment in history. Where we need to speak prophetically we need to take stands that are difficult stands. And if we were not willing to do that, God help us. We are in you know if the church is not willing to be countercultural. And if Christians aren't willing to be countercultural ideas have consequences. And we can see where we're going. Let me just say if you're interested, if you've been interested in this podcast, you can pick up the book that Christian and I have contributed to and a number of outside the box Christian entered educators have contributed to don't let schooling stand in the way of education, a biblical response to the crisis in public education. And you'll hear more from this book of what Chris and I have been talking about today. So hopefully this has been a good stirring time. For those of you who've been listening.

Yeah, Christian, thank you so much for joining us today. I learned a bunch I really enjoyed this conversation and can't wait to re listen to it and share it with some friends. So yeah, I really appreciate the time. Thanks for the invitation. Slaughter Yeah, and for everyone out there listening. Thank you for joining us here on ideas have consequences for another episode ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or on our website which is disciple nations.org. Again, that is disciple nations that org if you'd like to learn more about Christian and continue to glean from his years of wisdom and experience, just head over to the episode landing page which you will see linked in the show notes on that page. You can also read more about Darrow Miller and Christian over mins book don't let schooling stand in the way of education. Next week, make sure to tune in as well here on ideas have consequences as we are going to be going even deeper into each of the major six major subjects that most students learn in the school in school like physics, social studies, history, and unpacking those from a biblical perspective. Like we like Christian said, Here, there really is no such thing as a secular education. And as Christians, we understand that Jesus is Lord of all. But next week, we really want to get into the practicality of that how is Jesus Lord of all in the area of history in the area of physics and so on. So next week, that's going to be a really interesting discussion. I hope you're able to join us here on ideas have consequences, and that episode will be out next Tuesday at 5pm Pacific Time.