Part of the series Mostly Honest… Isn’t True
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2014-04-14.
Truth is the first casualty of compromise? What part of James 4:4 do we not understand?
We often refrain from being honest because we do not wish to offend those who need to hear the truth. Opinions expressed in this blog are intended to offend those who would advance anything, other than the truth, in order to benefit themselves.
Bible Reference: 2 Peter 2:18-22
When Faye & I attended our first home education convention in 1988, there may not have been more than fifty people in attendance, but no one would have even considered following the public school curriculum, as it was the very thing we had determined to escape. We all knew that a government intent on removing every vestige of Christian faith from all of its programs, would not direct our children to God or His Word. As a veteran high school biology teacher, my Christian sensitivities were constantly assaulted by the overt attempt to make all things related to the real God of creation, superfluous superstitions, denounced by scientific facts and data. I had pulled my children from that influence, so it made absolutely no sense to bring that garbage home and to continue the secular assault on them. Not everybody agreed with my determination to reclaim the responsibility for the training of my children, but I had their respect. Then it happened! As the realization that the new Alberta School Act’s directives for home education began to be understood, resourceful school boards discovered that expanding boundaries could also yield increasing income. Boards starting enticing people to register their children with them with promises of varying amounts of cash. Money had entered in as a consideration in determining which board to register with, ushering in the age of buying and selling children under the guise of education. Home education started a long and painful descent back to the vomit from which it had escaped not that long before. Today, to the best of my knowledge, there remains only one home education provider that does not and will not encourage or provide state programming and accreditation and it is associated with one of only four accredited-funded private school that does not, in like fashion, provide government programming. What’s worse, is that many private Christian schools and home education providers advance the use of Godless, secular, state programming as reason to send children to their institution. How does that feel?
While taking a walk one day, Faye & I noticed a rather odd thing. The Schubert Cherry starts out with green leaves, like every other tree, but eventually, it’s leaves turns purple, making it a much desired ornamental tree. What made this particular tree outstanding was that both of us saw the one branch that had not turned purple, as odd. Considering that green would normally be the expected color of a tree, why would we perceive the only branch that had remained true to its original color as the weird one? Then it hit us. The only uncompromising green branch in a world of compromising purple branches would indeed be peculiar, much like the believer who resists compromising with the world. Like that one branch, we can risk ridicule by uncompromisingly standing up for what is true and eternal, or we can simply join the majority in unquestioningly compromising towards temporal gain.
Today, our provincial organization is far too preoccupied to notice that the majority of home education providers have slowly, but determinedly, turned purple by compromising with the world. Motivated primarily by the increased funding associated with increased amounts of state programming or the desire to keep or extend personal kingdoms, nearly every home education provider, including private Christian schools have adopted and normalized state programming as not only acceptable, but even as desirable, while they prey with impunity within the walls of what should be a safe haven. The principled determination of the province’s home educating pioneers to avoid the use of the increasingly secular state programming was easier before the advent of provincial funding, when all the the leaves stayed green. Today, those who have resisted the temptation to compromise and turn purple, find themselves in the minority, one that may indeed be the first to be pruned off by the secular provincial gardener who has normalized and christianized a program specifically designed to turn people away from God. This a not an academic issue, but a spiritual issue, a heart issue that is not destined to serve the Christian home education community well.