A couple of thoughts today!
Home Again
The CDT (Covenant Discipleship Training) team is back from Gary, Indiana. I’m humbled at how much I have in comparison to those faithful in Gary—and really all over the world. God revealed to me how spoiled I am.
Vic and Faith Davis
Vic leads a group of only about 30-40 people. Yet--they have a school serving students pre-K to 6th grade, a Tech center with oh, about 40 computers, and a half-way house for men transitioning from drug rehab or prison. They are also involved with CityBuilders, and are rebuilding Gary literally one block at a time. Some would look at Gary and think there is no way that Gary will ever shine. There is no way that it will ever recover (Gary propsered for years as a steel town) and have Kingdom order. But there are some faithful servants in Gary who God has charged with bring the Kindgom, not because of what they see in the natural, but because of spiritual revelation.
That’s my heart for the Missouri political system—Kingdom order. I pray, Father, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven...
Voting with a Kingdom vision
I often grow weary of those who believe that voting for a candidate that isn’t a Republican or a Democrat is a waste of a vote. If you do not vote for a Christian with a vision of restoration, that is a waste of a vote.
The Minutemen organization, a group taking action to protect our borders by monitoring the southern borders, encourages voters to not vote for a party but for candidates that are tough on illegal aliens. In a past election, Minutemen supported a candidate that was neither Democrat nor Republican, and he got 25% of the vote.
If Christians would just vote consistently with their theology, we could get godly men in office. But some Christians just don’t have the faith, vision, or the patience. :( And on that thought, its probably better Christians didn’t vote their theology...but that’s a whole post in itself.
A mistake
The voter ID bill did have enough votes to make it to the House for further debate.
Sex Education
Why are school teachers showing kids how to put on condoms? A State Rep. from St. Charles County was dismayed when her son participated in such a lesson. Rep. Davis then sponsored a bill not to end Sex Ed in schools...but to limit it. Hmmm. Well you can read about it in the KC Star, STL Post, and Missourian (Columbia).
What do you think a Christian response to Sex Education in public schools should be?? What does the Bible say?
4 comments:
Why do Christian parents continue to permit pagans to train their children? Apparently, the results
aren't clear enough yet, nor is God's Word on the separate and distinct boundaries of church, family and state. Among other scriptures, 1 Sam. 8 informs us of
the consequences of looking to the
"king" for our welfare, including the "education" of God's children.
No wonder that promiscuous sex,
child sacrifice, life-threatening
diseases and later-failed marriages
are as rampant among believers as
they are in the surrounding culture. Removing Christian children from government schools is the first step, with proper preparation, diligence and faith among believers to take on their God-oradined responsibilities to shepherd and train our children.
Formidable challenge? Yes, but with God all things are possible.
What is His desire? Is He able?
I put some of my thoughts on this in my last comment, but here are a few of my thoughts on Church and state:
I think that removing children from the mainstream schools is a bad idea, as I feel it is important to cultivate defendable faith; for me every other RE lesson in a "Christian state" school was a challenge, and I learnt so much about living right when no-one else seems to be. It’s hard sometimes, but I think a strong Christian community can easily overcome that kind of institutionalised peer-pressure (and by strong I don't mean numerous necessarily, tiny groups of devoted people are much better than hordes of acquaintances!).
But to be fair, I can hardly speak about this as it will likely be years till I have to deal with it for myself.
What I can speak about however is having gone through a reasonably modern set of sex education classes at the age of 13: They are hardly temptation workshops! They tend in Britain to be slightly uncomfortable affairs where teachers explain the basic mechanics of contraception and STD avoidance and leave it at that. Should we ban drugs awareness programs because they teach that cannabis is less dangerous than heroin? In terms of biblical stuff, I haven't got much yet, but I do notice that Mary was supposed to be around 13 when she gave birth to Jesus, although of course sex education doesn't have very much to do with a virgin birth! Here's something though, are "our" kids allowed to be salt and light too?
Where in scripture does God instruct that the State is His ordained institution to train His children?
Rom. 13:1-4 teaches that the specific and limited role of the civil magistrate -- the State -- is to administer justice, to punish evildoers, to protect the innocent.
Nothing about education.
To expect the State to render
positive sanctions -- the blessings
of a righteous education -- in an
efficient, God-pleasing manner is
ill-placed faith, if not worse.
Moreover to entrust our "little evangelists" with ministry among adult pagans and other humanist death merchants may be the height of parental irresponsibility.
I confess and repent of my own sin on this vital Kingdom topic.
To centurion
Wow, it seems we are coming from very different angles on this; how far would you go in terms of the state not providing education? Would you for example object to your child going to a state sponsored university?
It's a very interesting idea, the using of that passage to limit the role of the state, but I am not sure about it:
I can see that it could be used as a kind of definition for a ruler, but the passage the ruler has two roles, as someone who commends and does us good when we do what is right, and as someone who punishes those who do wrong. The funny thing here is that "do us good" could easily include education, as its 'good stuff for the law abiding, bad stuff for the criminals' which is pretty wide ranging. You could try to restrict do good to what is mentioned in the sentence above it- commendation, but the verse has a repeating structure so if you focus ‘do good’ to ‘commendation’, you should focus ‘wrath’ to "he does not wear the sword for nothing"! Which suggests that if it is true that he only does good as commendation, then all punishment must therefore be done with a sword. What I find most interesting about this verse however is that it appears to idealise the ruler, in the way it encourages submission to him, which must have been interesting when Nero came along. The solution to this I think is probably found in the previous verse: Overcome evil with good. If anything this verse seems to suggest taking a more forgiving stance towards those in authority, especially considering that the rulers of the time were literally pagan!
That’s all I have for now, but it does seem to me that state education is not inherently wrong, but it would be dependant on the state, the school and the child.
These are my current thoughts anyway.
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