Part of the series Root of The Problem
Written by Léo Gaumont, published on 2016-01-18.
In who’s image are we conforming to?
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. Please understand that while it is our responsibility to tell the truth, we must never lose sight of the fact that our enemy is not made of flesh and blood and that we ultimately have the choice to conform and compromise or to stand on principle. (Ephesians 4: 11-16)
Bible Reference: Gal. 5:1
I am fond of saying that whereas God delights in diversity, man insists on conformity. Just look at God’s creation! For that matter, consider the unfathomable number of people who have been created since the dawn of time and the fact that no two fingerprints have ever been the same! If you think about it, diversity is essential for freedom. Alternatively, bondage pretty well requires conformity. It does not make sense that we should have diversity in bondage! Alas only someone as strange as I would give this much thought!
The point is really to show that if freedom is what we are seeking, we must be free to be different. Schools, government, churches, essentially any institution will insist on conformity. Even institutes of higher learning have been grabbing a lot of media attention lately for penalizing individuals and groups who do not “conform” to the status quo secular, humanist, socialist, scientific agenda.
With all this pressure to conform to man’s idea of what and who we should be, it is not difficult to understand how we have slowly been led to think as we should. In fact the speed of this universal indoctrination has been greatly accelerated of late. You noticed my use of the word universal, I hope. It is truly amazing that all the radical changes being forced upon us in our society are also occurring in pretty much the entire world, especially in those parts of it that have historically, most benefitted from Christianity and its applications to life. Why this trend? If you follow it closely, it seems to be a global move away from God, away from Jesus in particular, to establish man as his own god. Actually, man cannot ever be God or god. He can only agree to follow and serve either the good God or the god of evil.
I have been around long enough to witness this pattern of departure from Christianity accelerate, as well as the overall effect this has had on the home education community. When Christians first became concerned about the secularization of public education in the early 1970s, they thought they could escape it by simply Christianizing the school. Christian schools were created with a Christian desire, but in keeping with a school mindset. They were destined to fail from the start as they represented a form of “confused conformity”. In the 1980s, when it was discovered that these schools were actually just schools with a prayer or two, the home education movement was born. People desiring to do so were the radical nonconformists of the day. These pioneers of home education made a clear distinction between obeying God or following man, making them very obvious and causing a great deal of concern on behalf of not only the government, but just as much by the church as it was also conforming to the “school” way of thinking.
Last week I mentioned that one of the things that doesn’t seem to change was the near guarantee of persecution for doing good. It should therefore come as no surprise that these early risk-taking, deeply convicted, committed, non-conforming pioneers of home education were persecuted by nearly everybody, including family, friends, neighbours, church, governing “authorities”, unions, in fact, society at large. Why were they being persecuted? More importantly, why is home education no longer being persecuted? Do you believe those initially opposed to home education have come around to our way of thinking? Or is it more likely that the majority of those involved in Christian and home education have come to conform to the modern day secular socialist world view? Simply observing the latest trends in Christian education will clearly communicate that much of this unbiblical world view has been adopted, incorporated and corrupted our supposed Christian world view. What is scary about this situation is that most everybody seems oblivious, even blind to this growing conformity to this world which has slowly replaced the image of God.
In the beginning, freedom-seeking home educating parents, understanding the reason for God’s creating diversity, willingly risked persecution for not conforming to the world’s standards and desires. However, this mindset has slowly, but determinedly devolved into a bondage of conformity as we pay less and less attention to matters of God and His eternal purposes and focus more and more on what matters to man.