Part of the series Hangups
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2015-12-14.
Do we question what we believe?
We are generally all ignorant of what is actually happening around us. This ignorance can either be perpetuated and capitalized upon or fixed to empower the masses. It is time to enlighten home educators who have generally been kept in the dark respecting what is occurring within their community. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)
Bible Reference: Col. 2:20
It is now time to review and summarize the hangups we all seem to be burdened with. To be abundantly clear, all that we are is a combination of what we have experienced and how we have allowed it to affect us. If we are actively putting the pieces of our lives together, we will carefully consider what goes into our beings, but if we are just “floating” around like on a breeze and passively allowing ourselves to be programmed, we will end up being what somebody else wants us to be. World view is formed by what we consent to and if we are not vigilant, by what we do not consent to, as well. It is a matter of being in control of our lives or of allowing some other agency to be.
Should man’s system, a system that openly opposes Jesus and His teachings, in fact, more likely all things pertaining to God and truth, be the standard by which we conduct our lives? Even a thorough cleansing of this system can at best become a cleaner version of error, which remains error! A “Christianized” version of a secular world view, or the secularization of a “Christian” world view, created through the consistent normalization of errors is no better than an unabashed anti-Christian world view. The environment that we live in puts us first and God second and as a consequence, our modern western conception of God’s redemption can be more a matter of our own creative genius than a wholesome understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for us. This clouds our understanding of everything else.
As our western culture becomes more biblically illiterate, more secular and more focussed on self, we become more dependent on “ourselves” for answers. We hear statements like, “Is this legal?” or, “What does the government say?” or, “What are we supposed to do?”, but are we asking ourselves what it really means to lead, or are we even seeking to lead, a Christ-centred life? When I hear “I am a Christian, you know”, I have to admit that I become wary. Why should one feel a need to say so? Should it not be obvious by the life being led? Honestly, with what is being offered as “Christian” today, it is not hard to understand why the world has developed such a bad attitude about faith in Christ! We need to remind ourselves that our job as faithful followers of Christ is to individually assure that we are good ambassadors for Christ so we can collectively reflect His true character.
How does our life affect those around us? Are we living in such a way that others want what we have, or are we no different from those who have a limited, temporal understanding of reality? Worse still, are we turning people off with our misunderstandings and religious nonsense? These last few months provided me with an opportunity to get a really good look at what is being advanced as Christian education today. It was very disheartening to see just how secular, “Christian” education has become. This did not come about overnight, but through incremental compromising as schools succumbed to the temptation to give government control over the training and teaching of the children God created. We seem to have lost our focus. Even though it is parents who give birth to children by a power given them by God, and even though we pay lip service to “training them up in the way that they should go” it is no longer God’s way that is being followed, but man’s; and the very children who we should be striving to train and teach have become the currency that drives the system. This is based in fear, not faith and can legitimately be questioned as to how this can be “Christian”.
We need to ask ourselves a few questions to determine where our thinking respecting education is. Do we truly question what we have come to traditionally and culturally accept as the truth about school? Do we realize just how indoctrinated, directed and fearful we are of something that is, in essence, disconnected from the truth about education? Do we know that we have had our world view programmed with secular nonsense about children, how they learn and what awaits them in the their futures? Basing our understanding on what we have experienced, we believe we are expressing the truth about these things, and we may not even know that we are unwittingly advancing the problem as part of the solution.