Your Spiritual Before & After Picture

We often see pictures of "before" and "after" for weight loss programs.  Yet we Christians are privy to the most powerful and comprehensive transformation known: spiritual rebirth.  I encourage you, sift through your photos.  Find pictures of yourself before and after you encountered Christ.  Upload them to social media, and show your fellows that being a Christian isn't about being a self-righteous snob.  

It's about Jesus Christ changing a real life from something pointless to something special.  People talk so much about how the followers of Christ fail to live up to the standard of Christ.  Let's show people that the transformation is real.  I don't suddenly become perfect, but I do begin down a long, lifelong journey of growth and change as a follower of Christ.  

My first thought is of self-conscious recoil.  But how I looked before is so sad!  People will judge me!  My reputation may be adversely affected.  Aren't Christians suppose to put out a front of being really religious and good?  Well, not really.  If you act all perfect all the time, then people outside the church think maybe they aren't good enough or it's just not for them.  But if you show them that you used to be just as lost and troubled, then they know it's for them too.  

Let me suggest that when I recoil, it's out of pride.  I enjoy a good reputation.  I'm an employee and intern candidate of the Salvation Army.  I'm a college graduate.  I'm known around the area as a decent friendly person.  What if they all knew that only three years ago I had jet black long hair, and I spent my days and nights drinking cough medicine, beer, smoking dope, and causing trouble?  Wouldn't they think less of me?  Some might, don't get me wrong.  But our testimony is vital.

I have not been saved by Justin's ingenuity or Justin's ability to cobble together a systemic transformation.  I've been saved because I was the most despicable worthless man boy doped punk on the face of the Earth, and God saw fit to deliver me from that.  It's all due to his Spirit and his leading.  I did the foot work of course, I didn't just sit there.  I embraced the recovery process, church, bible studies, step groups, and all of that.  I prayed vigorously.  I still do.  But it was the power of God working a mighty orchestra of hope and change in my life.  That's what did it. 

Our mere physical appearance still is only a poor shadow of the change Christ has done.  But most definitely in my case, it is extremely noticeable by appearance alone.  And it probably should be.  But imagine if they could see the spiritual side of it!  The bumps, the bruises, the blood stains, and the scars.  I was talking with a young man at Celebrate Recovery the other day, and we were talking about the transition from being a member of the church to really engaging in intentional ministry.  It's quite a whirlwind of difference.  It's like stepping from sunny suburbia into a brutal, muddy, storming trench of spiritual warfare.  It's like stepping from an airy path to trudging through shin high sludge.  The enemy is fine with spiritual infants who never do more than sit in a pue.  They are fine right where they are.  But the enemy has to stop the maturing warrior Christians who are taking a stand for the truth. And the more intentional and provocative you are in sharing your faith regularly, and really engaging in ministry to the lost, the more intense come the spiritual assaults.  If only we could see the spiritual muscles, the spiritual scars, and the spiritual lightsaber duels, sword fights, struggles, defeats, and triumphs.  In spite of all of it though, we fight on.

Yet even despite the invisible nature of our spiritual war, our physical appearance is a parallel, a mirror of who we are in Christ.  Think about it, can't you see it in the eyes of a godly man?  Can't you feel it in her presence?  Can't you sense it in their being?  It can be seen.  The question is: Are willing to share who we used to be, along side who we are now?  Because then it becomes much more clear, that it wasn't me, it was Christ.  He delivered me from foolishness.

Therefore the question is much more basic than we might think.  It comes down to this: Are you willing to be a fool for Christ?  Are you willing to look stupid for the sake of his mission?  Are you willing to be embarrassed and awkward for his sake?  

Think of what Paul said,"Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.¹¹ I have made a fool of myself." 2 Cor 12:7b-11a NIV

Listen to the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest authors in history.  God spoke through him in the books of the New Testament.  He didn't say "hide your shameful past."  He said "boast of your infinite weakness!"  He even said, "I take delight in them."  And he finally says,"I have made a fool of myself."  Have you made a fool of yourself for Christ yet?  Well, you better get on that.  God bless you. 

 

What does it mean to be a Man: Man-boy Syndrome & a life of Greatness

Creative commons image via Google Images

Creative commons image via Google Images

What is manhood?  What does it mean to be a man?  Is it power?  Is it strength?  Is it having the biggest truck?  Or the biggest house?  Or the best kept lawn?  

Is it the family and white picket fence?  Is it finding true love in a wife?  Is it raising children, and caring for grandchildren, and growing old together?  Is it leaving a legacy of family?

Is it sexual prowess?  Is it the "bro lifestyle" at the bars?  Is it going from woman to woman, conquest to conquest?  Is it found in experimenting with smoke and pipe?  Or perhaps in a hedonistic search for pleasure?

Is it gathering wealth and possessions?  Could it be attaining to total power?  Is it creating brilliant works of art?  Or might it be immortalizing oneself in writing books and poetry? 

Is it in finding oneself?  Or perhaps might it be discovering the truth that works for you?  Or as some have said, to find your own meaning in the world?

Manhood is a very misunderstood topic today.  One could say that western man has in many ways lost touch with what it means to be a man.  But there are always the hold outs, the exceptions to the rule.  They are around, holding their heads high, living lives of meaning and dignity.  They are out there.  I aspire to be one of them.  I aspire to be a man of strength, courage, and conscience.  

What kind of man are you?  And if you're a woman, what kind of man would you want to lead your home?  What kind of man would you want as your partner in the business of life?  

Manhood can be very confusing.  If one watches television and culture, one might have some very confusing ideas about what being a man is.  If you watch commercials and sitcoms, you might think that men are supposed to be dumb, somewhat out of control, and in need of guidance from his wife who seems to commonly take the superior role in the relationship.  That isn't manhood though.  That's a fantasy world and it isn't real. 

Some say there is a war on men.  I don't know, maybe there is.  Maybe media means to disarm men, to push a lot of guilt their way for their oppressiveness in the past.  But I suppose I don't adhere to that.  I won't be suppressed for the crimes of others.  I just won't.  Society, culture, people groups, and families in general need strong men, strong leadership in men, and overall just good men are needed.  

Young men are not especially any of these categories.  A lot of them are being told they're suppose to be more feminine.  They are being told nothing is ever their fault.  They are being told they are victims.  They are being told they need to explore homosexual relationships.  They are told they are suppose to try to screw everything that moves.  What?  It's true.  If you haven't noticed this then you've been living in a box.  Young men are for the most part, predators.  It's creepy.  Young men are being told they are the product of time + matter + chance.  They are being told that they are just pond scum, and do whatever feels right.  As they say "follow your heart."  My heart got me into a lot of trouble, so today I follow the leading of my God.  But men are hungry for something else.  They are hungry for honor, dignity, truth, and a great cause to stand for. 

But today?  My goodness.  Young guys today make me want to puke actually.  Many of them do, truly.  Especially the guys who dress up like gangsters.  Or even worse, the bar hopping bro guys.  They are just insufferable.  These are the guys who have read "The Dao of the Badass" five hundred times, and make a practice of manipulating and seducing bar girls.  They usually end up paying a lot of child support and drinking heavily.  There's no meaning or happiness in that pursuit, believe me, it's empty.  And child support is expensive.  Welfare queens.  It's ridiculous. 

Do you know what they call that?  In Psychology it's considering something called "King Baby Syndrome."  King baby syndrome is characterized by selfishness, rejection of criticism, complaining, refusal to accept circumstances, refusal to mature, and believing that rules of life don't apply to them.  The king baby is always looking for the next chance to laugh about something, or have fun no matter what.  When people get in the way, they call them a drag and move on to the next.  The king baby says things like "I shouldn't have to work, because then I'm just enslaved to my corporate masters."  They refuse to face the difficulties of life, and refuse to accept difficult situations.  Instead they tend to run from such issues, and often have chemical dependency issues and/or alcoholism problems.  So let me ask you: Are you a king baby?  If so, maybe it's time to grow up?  You can be king of the pen at your mommy's house, or you could allow yourself to mature into a man?  Your choice.

Let me ask you, have you noticed a certain trend?  I've noticed this quite regularly.  It seems to be the new rule, not the exception.  Guys in their twenties, jobless pot heads playing videogames all the time, sitting in the passenger side while their girlfriend drives them around.  Have you noticed this?  I've noticed it.  I think they call that man boy syndrome.  Girls don't like that.  They just have nowhere else to turn.  Public schools and fatherless homes turn out these dope smoking man-boys by the millions.  

Now that we understand the problem in somewhat blunt terms (your welcome) we can look at a hope for the future.  Let's look at recovering and redeeming manhood.  Five areas.

1. Men need to understand who they and why they are. What is my roll as a man?  In other words, what does it look like to be a man?  

The young man rolls off the assembly line, gets plugged into the matrix, and eventually asks himself: What am I suppose to do?  Usually there should be a strong man in the household to sit down and explain it to this young man.  Unfortunately that's not always the case.  

Let's settle it right now.  Your primary purpose in life is not to be entertained, it's to be a man of honor and dignity, upholding a righteous cause.  You sir are not a product of the slime, and you don't get to choose buffet style what life does and doesn't mean.  You are a man, created in the image of almighty God himself, endowed with a conscience that you should use.  You are afforded days and nights on this Earth, bright stars above, and dirt below to do your best to be a mighty man of God.  

If you want to believe whatever you want to believe, then life has no meaning.  And you can go back to being a loser man boy destined for welfare.  Maybe you can apply for disability so you can sit in your mom's bedroom for the rest of your life and play WoW and COD.  But if you want to be a real man of greatness, you must understand that what you do matters, how you live matters, there is a God, he made you, he's in charge, and your life will echo throughout eternity.  There are fundamental truths of life that do not change.  And your purpose is to stand for what's right, care for your family, raise your children, bring in the bread and meat, and sacrifice for your wife and your family when need be.  

If you can stop running from your God and turn and embrace him, he can make you a man of greatness.  He can make you the man you were always suppose to be.  But you've gotta rise above the man boy syndrome. It can be done.  God is real, and he's got the power.  Let's move on.

2.  Men want boundaries and discipline.  Men want a code.  What is my code?  How should I live?

What code do I live by?  What are the rules and disciplines surrounding my life?  As much as it seems so great to just indulge in everything, we've seen how destructive that is.  It's spawned a lot of men addicted to pornography, men addicted to drugs, men addicted to sex, and men addicted to the party life.  Every young man quietly craves for guidelines.  Dad, show me where the boundaries are!

The boundaries are outlined in this book, and if you can handle not running to your mommy and crying about it, I'll tell you the title: It's called the Bible.  The Bible is your basic instruction manual.  Stop whining.  Stop dishing out your panzy liberal "objections" to the Bible.  Your objections stink.  The Bible is real.  Your code is in there.  Your chivalrous code of honor and truth is right in there.  It's all there.  

Do good, champion the causes of the oppressed.  Stand for truth.  Stand up against those who threaten freedom and liberty.  Honor your wife.  Care for your family.  Don't lie, don't steal, and don't cheat.  It's all in there.  And it makes sense.  It really makes sense.  And if you can't handle that, there's the door.  Go apply for disability because you are terminally man-boy.  But if you can handle it, then you've found a manual, a guide, a power, a greatness, and a tool to handle every situation life can throw at you.  You've started the journey of becoming a real man.  

3. Men need an allegiance.  What is my cause to champion?

Causes have been stripped from men.  I'm not sure how or why, but it has happened.  I need a mission in life.  And we can see that can't we?  Look at the movies we men love.  We love Star Wars, Luke Skywalker, the great battle against the evil empire.  We love war movies, because of the great and glorious battles.  We love super heroes, because we want to be the heroes of our story.  Think of the videogames we play.  We play Diablo, Starcraft, Call of Duty, Half-Life, World of Warcraft, come to think of it every single computer or videogame I ever played was about a hero fighting in a desperate cause against the forces of evil.  Think of Master Chief and his battles against the covenant.  Or Metal Gear Solid.  Or Fallout 3.  Or Morrowind.  Oblivion.  Rise of Nations. The list could go on and on.  We all have that urge within us, to fight on the side of the righteous, in the hopeless cause, in defense of the weak and trodden on.

What is your cause?  My cause you might say is that of the paladin.  I'm a righteous warrior of light.  I'm the white knight of God, washed and renewed in the victory of Jesus Christ.  My God is real, powerful, and mighty.  He is real.  He is all knowing.  He is the architect of all life.  And he means for me to fight in his army on light on Earth, the body of Christ.  

I have an incredible cause to champion, in a dark world, I am honored with the gift of carrying the light.  I wake up every morning and put on my spiritual armor, and make war on the darkness.  I share the truth boldly.  This is the ultimate cause.  And every man needs a cause to champion.  Otherwise he's just a selfish, snotty little brat who wants everything his way.  We can all think of that guy, can't we?  Don't be that guy!  

Submit yourself before the real God of the universe, join his army of light and truth, and begin the exhausting, arduous journey to fulfill your destiny.  The journey is long and hard, taking us through the darkest valleys, and highest mountains, but if we are brave and tap into the power God gives us in his Spirit, we will make it to the promised land.  Let's continue.

4. Men need an outlet for exploration and adventure.  What is my adventure?

In connection to a righteous cause, is a need for exploration and adventure.  Men suffer greatly in the cubicle.  I know I do.  I'd almost rather be dead then have to come back to a cubicle every day.  It's insufferable.  Men need adventure.  We need outdoors.  We excursions.  We need men's outings.  What is your adventure?  Maybe it's something as simple as camping, hiking, or rock climbing.  Maybe it's going on mission trips.  Maybe it's joining a gun club or a state militia.  I don't know, get creative.  It could be joining a service organization like Lion's Club.  It could be protesting, it could be skydiving, it could be fishing, it could be many things.  But we need our adventures.  It's kind of like Fight Club, we need our adrenaline.  

Men are born trail blazers and heroes.  Men are born for action and excitement.  That isn't a bad thing.  Sometimes it's just channeled wrong.  But if we search, there are outlets for adventure, usually along the same lines as our cause/calling.  

5. Men need a sense of glory and a striving toward greatness.  What is my glory and what is my greatness?

This desire for honor, glory, and greatness is at the core of the male heart.  It is God given and good.  It's the part of me that wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with patriots to retake America.  It's the part of me that craves a great awakening.  It's the part of me that despairs at the state of men today.  It's the part of me that is caught fire with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is the instinct within me that is the most righteous and true.  It's that part of me that hungers and thirst for righteousness, truth, and the victory of good over evil.  This is the very core of a man.  

No matter how much sex, drugs, selfishness, materialism, and gluttony is dumped into the masculine heart it cannot extinguish this God given splinter of eternity that cries out for justice, truth, and the righteous perfection of God himself.  We can't escape it.  There is always the part of us that calls out in the deep for truth, for glory, for greatness, and for something greater than ourselves.  We need that greater cause that we can lay down our lives in the service of.  

That cause is the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is the truth of life itself.  The male character finds it's perfection of greatness and glory in the tireless service to the noble cause of the Christian faith.  We are called to radical action to see the world saved from the very greatest threat of all: death itself.  We are called to a noble cause indeed.  We are called to gather the lost into the army of God, to stand on the battle lines in the army of God fighting the forces of hell.  We are called to make spiritual war on the forces of darkness.  We are called to stand for the truth in a world full of lies.  

Are you willing to become a man of greatness?  Are you willing to step up, and become a real man, the man you're suppose to be?  This is it.  This is our cause.  This is our victory over consumerism and meaninglessness.  

The Christian faith is the truth about all of life.  God is a real God.  We are called to defend the truth, and stand against the darkness.  But the walls are vacant.  The men are too busy trapped in addictions and obsession with self satisfaction.  Men are too busy stalking women, collecting trinkets, and aspiring to management positions.  Come out of the bars, come out of your mother's basement, and become the man you were born to be!  Become a man of greatness.  

God turned me from the most pathetic, addicted man-boy, into a man serving in his army, standing for truth, fighting pitch, desperate spiritual battles; God made me the warrior of truth I had always hoped to be, yet couldn't quite grasp.  God made a real man out of me.  And I want you to be a real man too.  Turn from man-boy syndrome, and begin your journey to masculinity.  Begin your journey at the cross, receive Jesus Christ and his Spirit, don your spiritual armor, and get ready for a war.  Men of honor are needed on the battlelines.  It's time to take your place on the frontlines.  The greatest cause in the history of man awaits you, sign on now, before the time is too late.  

Creative commons image via Google.com

Related Posts:

1. Be a Man
2. Am I called to Ministry? How can I know?
3. Mighty Men, Men of Valor, Men of Honor, Men of Renown
4. What is the Gospel?
5. Does man need God in Western Civilization: Young People are Hungry for the Truth
6. Real Christianity: Clothing, Buildings, Money, & Extravagance
7. The Stairway to Heaven
8. The Modern Man
9. Imagine a Perfect Universe: Genesis, Revelation
10. Life Formula for the Growing Christian

Thoughts on Public Schooling: Should Christians homeschool their children?

“The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Many an average American boy or girl will be raised up in the school rooms of public education.  I would like to share some thoughts from great minds on education itself, public education, and wisdom.  I'd also like to share my personal experiences in the public education system.  Then I'll transition into possible solutions to these issues, cross referenced with personal need and the good of society at large.

I was brought up in a fairly average American home.  My mother was a nurse, and my dad was a teacher for a local technical college.  I was raised just beyond the suburbs, but close enough to the suburbs to bike around with my friends on sunny summer days.  Never the less, autumn would always come and eventually we would hear the familiar squealing of the breaks of the public school bus coming to pick us up for a fresh round of indoctrination sessions.  

It should be noted that the school district which I attended K-12 is considered one of the best in the United States.  No joke.  I recall knowing kids who had wealthy parents that rented a house for their kids in the area, just so they could go to the D.C.E. school district.  I recall the drunken house parties at the rental house too.  At the same time the Wausau, Wisconsin area is a reasonably conservative Christian area.  That was generally reflected in the teachers.  I wouldn't say I received an overly liberal blast of public education.  But there are many who do.  

Elementary school was in general quite a wonderful experience.  There were some issues, but overall it was quite excellent.  I was lucky though.  The Riverside elementary school was a wonderful place to be at K-6th.  Apparently other elementary schools in the area were much different.  

The real nightmare I think comes for most kids in the 7th grade through 12th grade experience.  I recall how the religious students were persecuted.  There was a dual sort of persecution for those types.  First they were targeted by teachers and the governing body of the institution.  I don't think they did that out of cruelty.  They do it because they are afraid of being sued by the Freedom from Religion Foundation or the ACLU.  These organizations lose almost all of their court battles, but by always being there to sue, sue, sue, it forces public teachers and officials into a state of fear.

They don't want a controversy, they don't want a legal battle, they don't their school on the news.  So the easiest way to keep the status quo is to quietly persecute the Christian students who want to practice their beliefs within the walls of the school.  Christian students shouldn't submit to such persecutions, but should instead contact organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Institute for free legal support.  

Possibly worse is the culture of bullying and social climbing within the school population.  I wasn't even religious really during those years, but I always made sure I never mentioned Jesus or Christian faith.  The students who did were brutally mocked, often physically bullied, and forced to the "loser table" at lunch.  I'm sure cultures at school can vary from public school district to public school district, but in my experience it was quite brutal.  There were the popular kids with the nice clothes, and then there were the rest.

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate  plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty." -Albert Einstein

Dr. Einstein was right when he considered how public schools dispel education.  As many of you know, I'm a writer.  I even dare to say a good, and creative writer of fair skill.  I hated English in high school.  I hated it in junior high.  I hated it in elementary school.  In fact I hated history too, which I love now.  I hated civics, which I enjoy studying now too.  I hated all the subjects.  Why?  Because the majority of the time, I was being taught by an old, gruff tenured teacher, burnt out, who insighted me toward hatred of the topic.  Or in English class I was being forced to read the most boring, uninspiring gluck I could imagine, like "Of Mice and Men" and "Romeo and Juliet."  Now these are certainly good works, but of absolutely no interest to a teenager.  

I realized in later reflection that public school had systematically triggered intense malaise and hatred in me toward every single topic imaginable.  Thank God I fought through those feelings and began to induce myself toward private study which, at my own pace, and studying areas of my own interest, I found new love for subjects that had been crucified before my eyes by aged tenured professors teaching out of boring text books.  I'm sorry, but that was my experience.  I can't put it any more lightly than that.  One of the best public schools in the country did that for me.  It destroyed a sacred interest within me, going in I had, and by the end I had lost.  Einstein was right, the school destroys the most sacred and holy curiosity of inquiry. 

What about morality?  Public schools are not allowed to teach any morals, otherwise they'll be sued by FFRF or ACLU.  What comes about in that vacuum?  Moral anarchy.  I saw it in the public schools.  It is ugly.  The vacuum of moral values breeded a culture of depravity, sex, drugs, alcohol, bullying, and cruelty.  I can't imagine what it's like today.  But when you leave a child at the whim of the public education system, MTV, and Hollywood you've provided a perfect storm of moral disaster.  Moral disaster leading to social disaster.  Society can't function on a valueless orthodoxy.  It will destroy itself, trying to pass more and more laws to try and somehow cover all the new areas of crime, drug abuse, and sin.  Eventually the government devastates itself with endless regulations and laws to try to stem the tide of moral decay, toppling over having roped itself in so many laws, regulations, and authoritarian dictates that it can no longer sustain a free society.  

This is the point when people say, "It's the job of the parents to instill values in the children!  Public schools aren't suppose to do that!"  I tend to agree actually.  But for heavens sake, when are the parents suppose to do that?  Public school is five days a week.  Most parents work long hours making much less than they should.  They're exhausted, overworked, and trying to keep up with bills.  Meanwhile the kids are at school all the time, and when they're home they need to be working on homework.  Or they're participating in sports activities, clubs, or spending time with friends.  It's just not feasible for parents to keep up with all of that.  There is no time to spend, and instilling those values takes time, skill, and long hours.

My parents sent me to Catholic C.C.D.  I'm still not sure what that stands for.  But I do still recall the crawling dread in my spine at the thought of C.C.D. on Wednesday night.  If I was being taught by dead burnt out teachers on subjects they hated during public school hours, at Catholic C.C.D. at ol' St. Therese church I was being taught Catholic doctrine by dead burnt out nuns on Wednesday nights.  It made for a formidable duo of dead teachings described by dead people.  

But there was one year in C.C.D.  I can't recall what grade it was.  Every year we had a new dead nun to teach us emptiness.  But then there was one year of brightness.  This lady was young and alive.  She really believed what she was teaching us.  She was filled with this spirit.  And we kids loved her.  I remember being so eager to come to C.C.D. on Wednesday for that year.  Every word from her felt like it was channeled through God himself.  That year I really began to experience God.  Wow.  It was amazing.  She was amazing.  She was excited.  She really cared, and she really believed.  I remember at the end of that year going up to my mom and saying, "Mommy I'm afraid because I like this lady so much, but next year what if the teacher is another mean old nun?"  And my mother encouraged me.  But sure enough, as I walked in for the next school year, there was another fat, old, dead, heartless nun and whatever fire I had gained the previous year was quickly swept away.  

The more the years went on the more it was just a big joke to all of us in C.C.D.  I remember this one guy in the class, ol' Justin Stankowski.  He was brilliant.  He hid a CD player (this was before ipods kids) in his jacket pocket, and somehow ran the wire for the speaker up his jacket arm and placed the small ear bud in his hand, and he would rest his head against hand and cup the ear bud against his ear and listen to music during C.C.D.   

Even if we had had teachers like the passionate young believer I had one year in C.C.D. it was only one night a week for an hour.  Meanwhile public school was 8 hours a day, five days a week.  One hour of C.C.D. and one hour of church on Sunday can't compete with that.  There just isn't enough time to instill the correct values.  Meanwhile in the absence of moral values in the public school, in that vacuum comes a different set of values, the worldly set.  That set is taught by television, usually it consists of total selfishness, entertain myself at all costs, sex whenever with whoever, alcohol and drugs good, church bad, and science is the only means to truth. 

"How I hated schools, and what a life of anxiety I lived there. I counted the hours to the end of every term, when I should return home." -Winston Churchill

In addition, public schools seem to miss a lot of the most important topics of life.  Children are never taught how to balance a check book.  They are never taught how to manage their finances.  They are never taught how to use credit cards wisely.  They are never taught about interest rates, savings, checking, or how to start a business.  They aren't taught how to go about buying a house, or how to save money for retirement.  Many would retort, public schools are preparing children for college.  But many children won't be attending college, when are they suppose to learn the practical aspects of life!?  And must public school be only and ever only about preparation for college?  Shouldn't public education take into account the majority of students who won't go on to any further education?  

One could now explore the growing overreach of public schools into how children are raised and dealt with.  One could see how creative students are treated as mentally ill because they behave differently than analytically minded students. One could also look at how public schools are being forced to open female bathrooms to males who claim to be "transgendered female" and the boy's bathroom to girls who claim to be "transgendered male."  One could look at the sexual abuse cases by teachers against children.  One could also look at the new cultural values of LGBTQ and how such things are making their way into public education, teaching values in direct contradiction to Christian values.  We could look at how secular philosophy and evolutionary biology are pushed so thoroughly that they drive belief in God out of children all together.  But we don't have enough time or space to go into those issues.

So what is the solution?  Should Christians send their children to public schools?  Are there certain circumstances when children may go to public school even though they are Christians?  

My conclusion is simple.  Based on my personal experience with public school, understanding the curriculum, the culture that arises in the ranks of the young, and the persecution of young people who bring bibles to school or try to pray freely, I cannot in good conscience suggest that any Christian parent ever send their son or daughter to a public school under any circumstances.  The dangers are too great.  The lack of values is too powerful, and getting increasingly more prevalent.  It will only get worse.  Christian parents, if they chose to send their kids to public schools, are choosing to send their children into a dangerous environment.  They do so at their own peril, and they risk the salvation of their own children by doing so.

"I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the schoolboys who educate my son." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Instead Christian parents should either home school their children, or send their children to private Christian schools.  Before sending children to a private school the parent ought to thoroughly research the institution to ensure it will communicate the Christian message in a vibrant, relevant format.  

"It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its natural functions by artificial means. Thus we suppress the child's curiosity and then when he lacks a natural interest in learning he is offered special coaching for his scholastic difficulties." -Alice Duer Miller

Unfortunately for most Christians neither of these options will be possible.  Both can be quite expensive, and home schooling takes a great deal of time and attention.  

All Christians should look to support vouchers for private schools.  This is a political movement, quite active in Wisconsin and other areas, that promotes legislation to give parents the option of sending their kids to private schools.  Instead of being forced to send their kids to liberal public schools, they would have the option to receive a voucher to send their children to a private school of their choosing.  This initiative is intensely resisted by the ACLU and FFRF who claim that vouchers will "hurt public schools."  But it's all about control.  They know they can manufacture a secular future by forcing Christians to put their kids in the public indoctrination center.  Take a stand for vouchers.  Explore private Christian schools and options in that area.  

In the final conclusion, public schools aren't necessarily terrible places.  I'm sure some public schools are quality institutions.  But they don't communicate Christian values.  They are unable to communicate any values.  This leaves a vacuum of moral decay within the framework of the school system leading to gangs, bullying, teasing, and persecution against those who refuse to conform.  It tends to build to a perfect storm.  Christians should think twice before sending their children to a public school.  Instead Christian parents ought to explore homeschooling or private Christian schools.  Unfortunately these are not always viable options, so Christian parents may be forced to send their children to public schools.  In that case, parents in that situation will need to be extremely intentional about communicating Christian values.  In that circumstance, which will probably be quite common I would recommend the parents set aside time every night to share a message based on the Bible and the Christian worldview.  Perhaps that will be enough.  

I hope I haven't been too severe in this article.  But you've got to understand, I went to one of the best public school districts in the country.  D.C.E. district is renowned as one of the best.  And my experience was a total nightmare.  Sports and football players received special treatment from teachers and staff.  Social clicks made every day a brutal exercise in bullying, teasing, and even physical attacks.  There were some good teachers.  But many were quite cynical and jaded.  I was eventually expelled from D.C.E. because students made allegations against me that I had threatened to blow up the school.  Another interesting fact about my life!  It was at that time when during the school day I would endure mockery and ridicule, and feeling quite lonely I would dog through it all at the edge of emotional collapse.  Often on the bus I would become the target of a 45 minute mocking session, where the whole bus would join up in hurling insults at me.  Then when I walked in the door at home I would arrive to my parents screaming at each other in the hallway.  Then I would go into my room, turn up KoRn, and just lay on the floor and cry.  I started acting out, causing more trouble at school, rumors went around about this Justin Steckbauer kid who was going to shoot up the school.  This was right after Columbine too.  Of course I didn't even own any guns.  The same students who had bullied me, and made a fool out of me every chance they could get, heard these rumors.  They spoke to their parents, influential sports players and all, and I was quietly expelled.  I later graduated anyway, and went on to college, but the point here is my experience was an awful one.  And it's mirrored in millions of other children's lives across the country.  

In discussing our public school experience a friend and I recalled it very simply: It was like a dual attack.  First was the awful homework, classes, boring endless hours of learning to despise every core topic.  And secondly, perhaps even worse the cruel totalitarian nightmare of social clicks, bullying, hatred, teasing, and physical attacks in the hallways between classes.  No one need endure such things.  It's not a game.  It's not an initiation.  It's not right.  It shouldn't exist.  It shouldn't continue.  Parents, protect your children from that kind of environment.  Christians, stand up for vouchers, stand up for homeschooling and private Christian schools.  Public schools are not all bad, but for Christians, the values, teachings, and social environment are entirely incompatible with the Christian worldview.  

"Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape." -William Hazlitt

Related Posts:

1. All those who Wander are not Lost: A Study in Nothingness
2. Kim Davis is only the Beginning: Prepare your Ministry for Persecution
3. Screen Life: An Ancient Wall & a Call to Arms
4. Eternity & Christ: The Promise of Life
5. A Cause Worth Dying For: Materialism, Millennials, and the Mission
6. What is the Truth about Abortion? Fact, Fiction, Christianity and Humanism
7. Faith in the 21st Century: The Seven Key aspects of Faith
8. Life after Death: Law, Eternity, and the Changed Mind
9. Wisdom from Above: Living in Light of the Victory of Christ
10. The Mindset of Christ: Teach Me How to Live, Lord

Screen Life: An Ancient Wall & a Call to Arms

The lights shine brightly. I can hardly see in fact. The window is in front of me, pouring light. But I can't see. My mind is infatuated, obsessed. A kind of dementia overcomes me. I can't help but look. I try to look away, but it recaptures my attention. I know there is a real world out there. But I don't care. It's like a dream world. It just brings me in, and I can't let go. It's the glare of all glares. It's the glare of the television screen. It's the glare of the smart phone screen. It's the glare of the Ipad. It's the glare of the laptop.

Something like 50% of the day of the average young adult today is spent in front of one of these devices. I can relate. Though I read a lot, I spend a great deal more time on the laptop at home. While working at the shelter I would simply transfer from the screen at home to the screen at work. No big deal. And in between, the smart phone screen. 

It seems like too many screens.  Sometimes I feel like I'm hardly living, just watching movies or shows.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a cyber world.  What did people do before the internet?  They watched TV.  What did people do before TV?  I suppose they read books and newspapers.  

Human interaction can be tedious.  Maybe it's an anachronism.  But I don't think it is.   But it certainly seems like an agenda is smuggled through the middle of all this noise.  It does seem that way.  Maybe Herman and Chomsky (1988) were right when they wrote, "the mass media of the USA are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion."

Can we slow down?  Can we put it down if we want to?  Can we slow down and think?  Can we stop clicking?  Is there any room for the gospel?  And what do all the screens do to the minds of young people?

Anathematized to life.   Apathy, the prevailing motif.  "I don't care today, I don't care tomorrow, and next week is looking doubtful." To be fair it isn't easy.  Most people have to work 40+ hours a week doing mind numbing tasks endlessly, facing mounting bills, increasing food prices, and decreasing wages and benefits.  It's a nightmare.  Let's just be real.  The 9 to 5 grind is quite often very awful.  I'm fortunate to have a job I enjoy.  People work for years spinning their wheels because the amount of income can never match the monthly bills and random break downs and surprise costs of life.  People today are working more hours to afford less.  

We end up with too little time after all those job hours.  Everything on the screen conspires to take what little extra money we have.  There isn't any time.  There isn't any money.  Credit card debts are climbing, and given enough pictures of decadent chocolate or juicy burgers, I'm bound to be hungry too much.  An assault on the senses by way the eyes and ears, into the mind, designed by teams of experts to trigger notions that bring in cash flow.  Consumer society, as they say.  Or as the big credit card companies think of us: "eaters."  Useless eaters, as a whistleblower revealed not so long ago.  

In western civilization it's all about money.  It's all about the money.  Even when they say it's not about the money, that's when it's really about the money.  I tend to approach any gimic very skeptically.  Eventually the other shoe is going to drop.  Eventually the catch will be revealed.  Eventually they want me to cough up the money. 

I think young people are just disgusted.  They are downright sick of it.  Or they are caught up in it, trying to squeeze some kind of satisfaction.  And there is none to be had.  

Walking up the steps of the apartment building where I dwell, I could smell the unmistakable scent of marijuana.  I had to shake my head.  And I had to smile.  I know how it feels to look for a good time in a substance.  It's such a cunning and deceptive little trap for the mind.  In the end, whether a terrible evil or a passive substance, it was true for me; there was nothing there.  

I picture the tattooed, pierced college playboy with the popped collar laying on a couch after an all nighter, next to a girl he doesn't like, feeling an intense sense of disappoint with everything he has tried to pull from life.  

Consider the situation: We have a man who is blessed with more material commodities and luxuries than 99% in the history of mankind.  The result?  His belly is full, but his soul is empty.  And perhaps that's why so many young people in our society take their own lives.

At the same time, halfway across the world, an African child is dying of starvation.  Halfway around the world an Indian teenager is gathering water from a polluted river that runs through his village with a carved up plastic jug which washed ashore from the trash island in the pacific ocean accumulating the excesses of western civilization.  

 Are people concerned?  Some are, yes.  But there seems to be a great mass that only moves when the screen tells them to.  They get excitable about gay marriage and gay rights.  They get excitable about Bruce Jenner becoming a woman.  Or police violence.  Or global warming.  But when it comes to sex trafficking, world poverty, disease, or war.  Well, there isn't a lot of concern in the great mass one might call the mob of western culture. 

It's a screen life out there.  I woke up in the screen life.  I suppose I've never known much else.  From my very youngest every piece of furniture was pointed toward the TV screen.  From my youngest years I was obsessed with video games.  Throughout my whole life I'm sure I've watched thousands of hours of movies.  Thousands of hours of computer and video games.  Endless hours spent on the internet and Facebook.   

I think I understand why, though maybe I don't.  Keeping people in front of the screen allows for the more powerful "classes" if you want to call it that, to gather their money, and power and such things.  That's speculative of course, but I just notice a lot of corruption in business and banking.  In the film adaptation of Animal Farm by George Orwell, the hogs begin taking undue power and the other farm animals begin mobilizing to protest and mount a counter-insurgence.  Then one of the hogs pushed a television in front of the other animals, and they were all mesmerized.  They stopped organizing, stopped fighting for their rights in exchange for creature comforts.

That's kind of how I see modernists.  They were taken in by the seductions of western convenience.  The screen was pushed in front of them while institutions like the Federal Reserve quietly took control.  Waking up as a Christian in America today, it kind of feels like the past forty years have been the demise of Christianity in the west.  At least that's how it looks on paper in the history books.  Of course these are unauthorized histories.  One must read between the lines in these sort of matters.   

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were atheists.  So was H.G. Wells.  In their views of the future they say hopelessness.  Orwell saw a totalitarian nightmare that would eventually convert the very heart of a man to total devotion.  1984 ended in hopelessness.  Huxley saw a world of nightmarish consumerism in Brave New World where entertainment and convenience became god.  He didn't see any hope.  Wells saw a terrifying evolutionary future in his classic The Time Machine.  He saw the same world of classes polarized to the extreme, with one evolutionary end of man brainless and living a privileged life, and another evolutionary end of man living in darkness snatching unsuspecting members of the privileged class when they strayed too close to their dwellings.  He saw no hope or future.  

But they were wrong.  They couldn't fathom a God who worked quietly in history.  But I can.  And I do.  His presence and guidance is unmistakable.  Watch his hands at work.  One can see it through the very pages of history.  Events turn from good to bad to worse, then out of seeming catastrophe the various threads of a better future pull together.  

Quite often God allows it all to reach the breaking point.  Time and again across human history it's all been at the breaking point.  Think of Noah in the ark as the waters rose.  Think of how the nation of Israel was blessed by God again and again, yet time and again they would fall away.  They would forget their God.  But inevitably a point comes when the old book of the law is discovered in the rubble.  And one Godly man or woman changes things by a taunt dedication to purity, truth, and their God.  Think of Daniel in the lion's den.  Think of David before Goliath. 

In modern times we've seen the world at the brink more than once haven't we?  Think of the cold war, when the world hung at the edge of nuclear holocaust.  Think of world war II as Hitler swept across Europe.  Think of the genocide of the Jewish people.  Consider the plight of Israel and the Jewish people after the return to their homeland post world war II.  How often they've come to the brink of destruction, but held out against endless hostile neighbors. 

In the United States Christians and non-Christians a like have been blessed by God.  There has been relative safety, prosperity, comfort, and convenience.  Americans are blessed of God unlike any other nation on Earth.  It's astounding.  Most of the world does not look like the USA.  But was it always that way?  Of course not!  The USA fought a brutal war for independence from Great Britain.  If you want to talk about a knife edge, look at the revolutionary war.  Many times it looked as if the colonists would fail.  It's been a battle for America ever since it's founding.  Think of the struggles to formulate a Constitution that allows for freedom and liberty.  And when liberty was threatened by the horrific evil of slavery, it took a long devastating war between brothers to settle the issue once and for all.  We can't take for granted what has happened in the United States.  Philosophers, historians, and theologians can argue all they want, the prosperity of the USA was built on the protestant ethic.  And without it it's crumbling into depravity.  

Many a wall and barrier has been uprooted and removed in regard to morality and truth.  In fact almost every road sign for such things has been removed for the sake of equality and tolerance.  In past times Christians fought very hard to make sure the USA remained a Christian nation.  People form organizations and institutions to protect what they'd gained in former times.  

It's like they build walls and barriers to protect the blessings God has given.  Yet time and again the old barriers crumble in disrepair.  They are forgotten.

Old fortifications are found, but no one is manning them.  It's like after Jesus found me, changed me, and I was reborn into Christianity I found a series of old castles guarding along an ancient stronghold of evil.  I walked along the walls inspecting the battlements.  But no one was manning them.  There was no soldiers there.  Wind howled through the old rock structures.  Cob-webs gathered in the halls and courts.  Fall descended and the smell of red leaves had become unmistakable on the air.  Somewhere along the line the defenses had been forgotten and simply abandoned.  Yet as soon as I stood on the walls and gazed out toward the horizon, I knew those defenses were absolutely critical.  But it appeared that most were at potlucks, social gatherings, or Christian rock concerts.  No one was on the frontlines.  

Then I noticed someone walking up to stand on one of the high towers.  Then another, trotting up on horseback to take up his post.  Young people were appearing.  Groups of four and five were approaching, marching up the brick staircases.  I noticed more and more young people moving out to the battlements.  They were picking up shields, lances, swords, and crossbows.  They were lining up one by one along the walls and towers.  A white rider named the Holy Spirit had sent them, and had sent me.  Because something big was coming.  

The screen life, well, that was fun.  Or was it?  I can hardly remember.  On another note: I've often wondered, if one gets so drunk as to black out the entire experience of a fun night of debauchery, did the emerging amnesiac really in fact have a good time?  In any case, Jesus Christ has not only freed me from selfishness, addictions, meaninglessness, and lovelessness, but he has also endeavored to free me from the screen life.  

Is the screen inherently evil?  I don't believe so.  Is money inherently evil?  Not at all.  The Bible says "the love for money is at the root of all kinds of evil."  The screen is like money, when used properly it is a good thing, when misused it becomes a vehicle for evil.   

The only way out of this madness is Jesus Christ.  It's the Christian faith.  I couldn't crawl out on my own, all those allurements were too engrossing.  The pain of the past was too acute.  I couldn't handle it.  I was falling apart.  The screen life had me real good.  I suppose in some ways it still does.  Jesus Christ is the way of escape.  Like Neo trapped in the matrix, we need an exit.  We need to find Morpheus, and receive the truth.  We need to join the resistance in a hovership, against the system that once dominated us.  Join us on the battlelines.  Many Christians forgot the struggle of their forefathers against the forces of darkness.  But young people are rising up to stand on the ancient fortifications, outnumbered, outgunned, overwhelmed, but sometimes like Leonidas at Thermopylae one must take a stand to inspire others.

Our God is a God of great inspirations.  He is a God of uncanny glory, and powerful motivating inspiration.  Be set on fire by his Spirit.  Someone has to stand now, today.  Join us, take up your shield, take up your sword, take up the armor of God, and stand against the enemy.   

Christ bids us to come and die.  Come and be changed forever.  When I was broken, troubled, lost, and sitting in front of the screen hoping for an end, I was obsessed with a year.  It was 2012.  I was sure I was going to die in 2012, at age 27, and join club 27.  I was completely sure of it.  And it turned out instead God the Father drew me to Jesus Christ in mind and in spirit.  That's when I called out to him in October 2012.  I was reborn into the body of Christ, washed in the Holy Spirit made new and clean.  Today it came into my mind... I was so sure for so many years.  I mean I would write about it, talk about it, and tell people.  I even told a college professor I greatly admired at the University of Wisconsin.  I was consumed with it.  Today I realized... I wasn't wrong.  I was right.  I did die in 2012.  


For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
-Colossians 3:3 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  -Galatians 2:20 ESV 

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4. Helping Children Heal from Divorce
5. Noble: The Life of Christina Noble & her ministry
6. What is prayer?
7. Liberty University Graduation, Young People
8. How does God communicate with us?
9. Christianity in the Public Square: The Apologetics and Philosophy Renaissance
10. The Paradox of Victory through Surrender: Rise Above

 

Eternity & Christ: The Promise of Life

Brothers and sisters of the promise found in Jesus Christ, I greet you warmly.  May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ be found among you always.  These are trying times.  Times are changing.  But God does not change.  His truth remains foundational, nothing changes it.  

God is good.  He is perfect.  He loves us, those of us who have received his son.  God is righteous, he presides over all things perfectly.  God is the apex of perfection.  He can't be shaken, he is never confused or surprised.  He is in fact timeless.  He has no beginning.  He exists outside time, and nothing made him.  He is the self existent one.  God has worked in human affairs for thousands of years.  He continues to do so today.  When we take a stand, he stands beside us.  Let us never be afraid to stand for the truth.  And let us never forget to speak the truth in love.

We are asked to accept the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross.  We know that through Christ alone we are perfected before God.  God sees Christ when he looks upon us, which is why we may come before him boldly and speak our minds.  But we must also remember to forsake all the ways of the world.  Have we been transformed?  Or are we still living like the world in many ways?  It's important to live in holiness.  We live in response to Jesus Christ who has restored our connection to God.  We live in response to his gift, and his victory.  We live in expectation of joining him in glory and perfection when our sin natures are removed in the next life. 

Many are willing to trade away their eternal lives for the modern worlds fleeting pleasures.  Don't be one of them.  They follow only what makes them feel good.  They blunder into deeper and deeper addictions and foolish schemes that strip them of everything they are, and then they blame God for their misfortunes.  The problem of evil is more simple than we think.  Don't be like them.  And don't be like the supposed "Christians" who simply "accept Christ" and continue living in sexual sin, greed, selfishness, and idolatry (service to themselves and their own interests).  Don't be like those false followers, but instead search your heart.  Ask God to search your heart, and to reveal to your ways in which you must change.  It is wise to grow in holiness before God. 

Let us remember to pray regularly.  Let us speak to God the Father in the morning, asking his presence with us throughout the day.  Let us not forget also to thank him at the end of the day, on our knees before bed.  Often we might pause sometime around lunch, and pray to him the blessed "Our Father" being careful to think about what we're saying, and expressing the words in worship.  

Don't worry too much about the news and media frenzies of this life.  They are meant to confuse you, upset you, and dishearten you.  Turn off the television, and switch off the news.  Exit from the Facebook trending screen, and instead seek the presence of God.

Always remember that the world will not like you if you stand for what is written the book of God.  Believe the Bible.  Trust the Bible.  There will be pressure.  You may even seem backward or hypocritical for following the word of God, but continue to do so.  You will be rewarded in the life to come if you stand firm.  Stand bravely and courageously against persecution.  Pray for those around you, especially your enemies and those who hurt you.  

Never forget to pause, and find the love within to present to those around us.  Jesus Christ's ultimate order was simple: Love.  Love your God.  Love all people.  There is a balance there.  Love and truth.  We want to encourage people with love, yet we must also stand for what is true.  I pray God will provide you with the perfect balance of loving mercy and truth to give to the world.

Wait patiently and remember: This life is very short.  You are laboring and gathering wealth for eternity.  Eternity is forever, life on Earth is 90 years.  Live in light of eternity.  Always know that God loves you, since you have embraced his son Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself on the cross, and resurrected from death, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.