Bread Company Exercises Religious Liberties

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For 75 years Sunbeam bread, a product of the Quality Bakers Of America, has changed it’s bags just after Thanksgiving to add a picture of a little girl praying. The caption beside the girl says “Not By Bread Alone.” This caption is a quote from Jesus Christ in Matthew 4:4.  

These bread makers are bravely stating their religious view that people need more than the physical, they need the spiritual to truely live.  Jesus Christ has often been refered to as the “bread of life.” These humble bakers take His name upon them as they provide physical bread in His name.  

WOW respects and supports this kind of expression of religious liberty.  This type of faith is what the United States of America was founded upon and should be respected.  

Since it is becoming increasingly more rare for businesses to vocally support God and religion this brave action is worthy of praise.  Take a few minutes to send Quality Bakers of America a kind email thanking them for their courage and principles.  And, when you are at the store, look for Sunbeam bread and fill your home with more than just bread; with faith in God. 

Email:  [email protected] 

Christmas Angels

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Tis the season to be grateful!  Universally, gratitude is an expression of love.  It is the sign of a person who acknowledges that there is a greater power than herself.  Acknowledging God brings peace and joy and offers an explaination for the goodness that surrounds us all.  This time of year people give to others.  This is a wonderful Christmas story about a mother who gave all she had and some angels who gave more than words could express.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.  Merry Christmas!  God bless us every one.  

Angels, Once in a While
By Barb Irwin

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone.

The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand-new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old ’51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store, and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called “The Big Wheel.” An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job.

And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money–fully half of what I averaged every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand-new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.

I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn’t enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry, too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys’ pants, and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the &&&Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o’clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn’t wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)

It was still dark and I couldn’t see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car–or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the car, I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full–full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.

I quickly opened the driver’s side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

Video: In Honor of Human Rights Day – 10 December

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December 10, 1948 the leaders of different nations, religions, cultures and political points of view came together to form the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  These rights state that every person of the world, dispite their differences, are entitled to fundamental rights that are their’s simply because of being human.

These rights protect people from tyranny and offer principles meant to defy the abuse of power over others.  The rights declare responsibilities and help preserve dignity for the human race. 

One of the human rights that should be most celebrated is the right to believe and worship in public as well as in private.  It also gives us the right to stand up publically for our beliefs and change our beliefs if we want to.  The Worldwide Organization For Women celebrates the right to believe and publically stand up for beliefs.  If this important right is ever infringed upon the oppressor must stop.

In recent years there have been distrubing abuses of this most basic of human rights.  We call upon citizens and government officals of the world to continue to respect religious freedoms and human rights around the world.  This basic respect for humans is neccessary for world peace and brotherly love the world over.

Please take a few minutes and watch this video honoring article 18 or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that shows how this important human right effects us all.  

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Where Have the Adults Gone? A True, But Unfortunate Story

Where Have the Adults Gone? An Unfortunate, but True Story

A friend recently told me of her niece’s experience as a fourth grade public school teacher. The name has been changed. Paul is her student. One day mother showed up to the classroom with Paul, and explained that Paul would now be called Paula, and would be referred to with feminine pronouns. The alarmed teacher went straight to the administration, and the wise decision was made not to meet the mother’s request. The mother had the ACLU brought in and Paul is now referred to as Paula with feminine pronouns at the school, and he now uses the girl’s restroom.

Being an advocate for children, a former public California school teacher and someone who has worked with hundreds of children, this story struck hard at my conscience and heart. I asked where are the responsible adults in this child’s life? For Paul and all the future Pauls’ benefit, this story needs to be told and logically sorted through.

Foremost, Paul’s story illustrates the miserable failing of the adults to protect and correct.  Paul’s mother demanded that a lie about her son’s sex be perpetuated by the school, against scientific fact and with legal force, rather than to accept the basic order of nature and to teach and have that order reinforced to her son. The truth is God and nature determine the anatomy of a person, and anatomy is what defines gender. Even if an individual doesn’t believe God, it remains basic scientific fact that if all is in proper working order, a female will have the all the physical parts necessary to bear and nourish children, and a male will produce the seed for life to begin. Truth is often revealed in purpose. It is biologically impossible to change sex. Denying Paul instruction of this first reality is a gross failing of the parent.

This brings into the situation, the failing of many adults in the field of medicine, whose false assumptions have served to undermine the parental role and mental health of children.  Recent laws passed in Massachusetts, California and New Jersey bar psychiatrists from helping minors acquire a perception of gender that aligns with their anatomical reality, even with parental permission. A Vanderbuilt University/Portman Clinic study showed that 70-80% of children with transgender feeling, spontaneously lose those feelings. Will those feelings spontaneously disappear in the child if they are continually reinforced by the adults and institutions in their life?

It also appears classroom instruction could be subject to the censoring of basic observable and proven scientific fact. Is this teacher now banned from instruction on this concept?  This is not about sex- ed, but the concept of reproduction as a matter of reality found throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. This would be an utter failing of our education system if this is the case.

Leaving Paul aside for a moment, let’s look at potential effects on all the other children in Paul’s classroom. They are now victims of legal coercion against their own conscience, along with the teacher. They will feel the adults at this institution forcing a lie upon them. They will witness their teacher become the enforcer of the lie (as coerced by the State against her conscience), while both children and teacher know Paul is a boy. This leaves many important questions to be asked.  Not if, but how will the conscience and personal identity be affected? Will the children still feel the lie in six months or will they eventually accept this alter reality as the norm? Does this teach children to cower to and enable delusion in others? Does this mean they will more readily accept lies from adults in the future? Will this influence some to accept lies about themselves? Children are so impressionable and naturally look to adults for truth, protection and direction. What is this teaching them about adults? What is this teaching the children about law? Is this how trust and confidence is built between adult and child? Teacher and student? Individual and State?  For all the children, this is an utter failing of many adults running our legal system and the direction that anti-discrimination laws lead to for minors, which in the end are not humane at all.

Paul Mchugh, former Psychiatrist in Chief at John Hopkins hospital could be the adult hero for these children. In a Wall Street article, Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution, he summarizes the true nature of this clinical condition-it is a clinical condition in the same category as anorexia and bulimia. His is a scientific voice we can raise as responsible adults advocating for children.  The link to his article is:

          https://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120

Religious Liberty Means Say No to Anti-Discrimination Laws

The homosexual lobby pressure for anti-discrimination laws is going to intensify, especially at the local level. We must fortify against this and educate people as to the truth behind them- how the courts are giving preference to individual sexual choice over an individual’s religious liberty.

There are a currently two outrageous legal actions pressing on citizens who are being forced to divide themselves against their own conscience for the sake of the State. One involves a chapel privately run by an ordained clergy, who declined to marry a homosexual couple. The other is about a minister who was gathering petition signatures to eliminate anti-discrimination laws in Houston.  Go to the links:

https://www.religionnews.com/2014/10/19/ministers-own-chapel-sue-idaho-city-declining-marry-gay-couple/

 

https://www.afa.net/the-stand/homosexuality/pastor-threatened-with-jail/

The message is loud and clear, KEEP YOUR FAITH IN PRIVATE! An artificial divide is being forced upon citizens, as their faith is getting legally coerced out of the public sphere. This artificial barrier has already been placed between Church and State. Now it is to be placed between individual faith and NO public faith. 

Faith, especially in this nation, is supposed to be guaranteed for citizens to bring to the public sphere-the public sphere includes business, meaning individuals who perform services for the public.

Obama’s carefully chosen words in reference to striking down portions of  DOMA only refer to protection of religious institutions, not individuals, or private enterprises, “How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions,” Obama said. “Nothing about this decision — which applies only to civil marriages — changes that.”  

Marriage, I think, is the last social area where civil and religious mesh together to a large degree. It was a lie to say the one would not affect the other. This was actually a severance between the two. 

Where will this end? Will a photographer have to photograph people nude? Would a cake maker have to make a sexual part cake? What about a satan cake? Would a facility have to rent space for an orgy? What about printing playboy bunny t-shirts? What about an “I hate (Lord’s name in vain) poster, t shirt or cake, all because they are in the public sphere? 

Special sexual rights are not guaranteed by the Constitution out of wisdom, while religious liberties are.  We don’t need anti-discrimination laws, we need more wisdom.

Official Statement About US Supreme Court Decision 10-6-14

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This morning, October 6, 2014, the Supreme Court denied appeals from Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin for a State’s right to protect marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This decision saddens The Worldwide Organization For Women.

As an organization that specializes in helping women and families, WOW views this decision as degrading to the  dual roles of women in society as mothers, and men as fathers.  Women and men should not be thought of as interchangeable equivalents, but should be honored as powerful co-creators  with God of children.  Both men and women have self-evident and powerful roles to create moral societies, through raising and nurturing virtuous families.  This ruling  suggests that the purpose of marriage is to legalize various sexual preferences of certain groups in our society.  We do not agree with this premis. To legally re-define marriage is short-sighted and demoralizing to women, men, and society. 

WOW urges families in the states of Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin and around the world to value woman as the powerful influence  in society that she has historically been.  More than ever women need to honor their roles as women, mothers, and grandmothers.  Teach your children why mothers and fathers are important.  Give your children the peace they desperately need, which comes from the full identity of their mother and father’s lineage and love.   

Strong Words About A Child’s Right To Parents

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Dr. Jennifer Roback, president of the Ruth Institute, gave this stirring five minute addresss to the RI House Judiciary when they were ruling on the same sex marriage issue.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifUSSt–gLg&ytsession=u3a_-kBeymNM4QZIrG…

She makes a point of saying that we can’t see ahead of time to what the problems of legalizing same sex marriage will be for our children, but there will be bad effects.  Who will fix the families then?  Great thought provoking material here. 

Helping Children Succeed In School

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In 2010 I was asked to go to China to help parents and children become more united.  While there, one question kept coming up, no matter whether I was speaking on the radio, or speaking to parent or school groups.  “How do I help my children succeed in school?”

Studying education has been a passion of mine for years, but I didn’t feel like spouting off my knowledge of the proper learning environment and usage of belief based materials to enhance character development was really what these families were asking.  They wanted to know how to get their children to listen to them.  They wanted to know how to get their children to care as much about their academic success as their parents cared about it.  To answer this question, I had to ask myself some other questions. “What is the parent teaching the child, and how is the parent relating or connecting to the child?” 

 

Every Parent is a Homeschooling Parent Really

It is no secret to most people that I homeschool my children.  The BBC showed the world my homeschooled family in 2009 and ever since then people have wanted to know about homeschooling as well as our principles and beliefs.

All parents are homeschoolers.  Yes, you read that right.  I believe that all parents are homeschool parents no matter where they choose to have their children learn math or science.  The only issue is many parents don’t know they are homeschool parents. 

The narrow definition of a homeschool parent is someone who is replacing the instruction given at school with instruction given at home. 

The broad definition of a homeschooling parent, which I am focusing on today, is a parent who knows it is their responsibility to inspire, direct, lead, and teach their children what it means to live a fulfilled life and to accomplish the purpose of their existence.  In short, the parent knows it is their job to prepare their child to become the person God intends them to become.

Good homeschooling parents teach their children despite the fact that the child might have other professional teachers. The parent sees themselves as the lens the child needs to see the world through and discusses everything possible at home.  These homeschool parents take their child along the journey of life and don’t consider it a burden.  Gardening, cooking, working, projects and stories are all part of the journey of these deliberate families. 

The  good homeschool parents surround their children with truth, goodness, and virtue, which will be their protection in the socially wayward world they live in. Every moment in the life of a good homeschooling parent is discussed and valued as an educational experience.  Life is exciting for these children.  They love learning and develop a sense of purpose and passion to make a difference early on. All children (and people) want purpose.  The question today, is often who gets to instill this purpose.  Clearly, by virtue of how children arrive to this world, parents are the intended leader for a child in his pursuit for life’s meaning and their personal missions.

Many families now days are choosing to officially follow the more narrow definition of homeschooling and conduct academic instruction at home. In fact, in the United States approximately  1,475,282  kids were homeschooling two years ago. But, every single parent is still a homeschooler.

 

Bad Homeschooling Parents

The bad homeschooling parents do not really know that they are a teacher.  These are the parents who teach their children that the meaning of life is pleasure or distraction by electronics.  These parents often disconnect from their children and allow society to be the primary influence in the lives of the children. 

Children still learn from bad homeschooling parents.  They learn laziness, selfishness, disconnection, distraction, entitlement, greediness, comparisons and often times even dishonesty. These lessons are powerful lessons for an impressionable youth.  They see these things as the way life is, the way adult life should be.  If only the bad homeschool parent knew they were teaching such influential lessons to their young ones.

 

Good Homeschooling Parents

Good [homeschooling] parents know that their time with their children is important.  They realize that they have a sacred stewardship to teach, influence and nurture the children God gave them. So, they take their jobs seriously.  Fortunately, now days there are more and more parents who are falling into this category.  Good homeschooling parents turn the TV and media off.  They play, work and learn as families.  They discuss together and schedule regular time to have family time.

Remember those two questions I asked myself in China? “What is the parent teaching the child, and how is the parent relating or connecting to the child?” 

The Chinese parents were working hard and sacrificing everything to make a good life for their children, but many of them didn’t know they were homeschool parents.  Not only were many of them not teaching the children important lessons of life, family and relationships, they were often not even able to be with their children.  Many Chinese see their children only a few times a year.  Some parents, only one time a year.  Lucky families get to have parent time on the weekends. And a select few, are choosing to raise their children the old fashioned way and see their children every day and live full time as a family unit. 

So, the most important lesson I felt I could teach the Chinese families was to have weekly family activities together.  Some of the parents were shocked that the family should need to get together every week.  But, I assured them that if they put the family time as a priority the children would do better in school.

 

The Facts About Academic Success

People learn through connection and conversion to truth. This means that a person needs to connect to a person a book or a digital device etc. to start the learning process.  What person do you think the deepest connection should exist with?  The parents of course.  If the connection to truth isn’t the parents, then the child will become distant from parents and possibly even be confused as they draw closer to friends, teachers or media that they are connecting to.

Often times when people hear about the meetings our family has each week they think we are talking too much and making life too organized.  I am not a really organized person by nature, but I have a commitment to our Sunday, couple’s meeting, family meeting and the individual mentor meetings with the children.  I have seen the proof, the impact, of good family communication and connection and will not stop now. 

When children get the opportunity to talk deliberately about academics, relationships, goals and their individual progression it is life changing.  These conversations lead to conversion and commitment to succeed.  They get inspired to accomplish more and achieve more.  I see it every week.

Life changing conversations like these happen in family and mentor meetings as well as when the family is working and playing together.  If having meetings sounds hard, start with weekly family activities.  Put them as a priority.  Connect with your family and they will learn from you and excel in school. 

 

The Current Change

This month is the beginning of the official school year for most of the country.  It is a time when children and parents renew their schedules with excitement and get back to the business of academic learning again.

This is not to suggest that learning hasn’t been happening all Summer long though.  Indeed, learning never stops. We learn lessons every day no matter what we are doing. There are teachers all around us.

Friends, teachers, media, people in the community, books, family members and parents are all teachers.  Of this list of influences on our learning and living, the parents are the only teachers who have a life-long mentor relationship. In fact, parents are the most influential teachers for children.  

Whether they want to be or not, parents are homeschoolers.  We need to support and empower each other in this grand, God-given calling.  As we see ourselves in this light, we will act differently and connect with our children more deeply.  Go ahead, enjoy teaching your children. Any good homeschooling parent will tell you teaching their children and connecting deeply with them is the most rewarding thing they have ever done.

Feel free to use my format for our weekly meetings here.  (additional Instructions are in the book Parenting A House United. ) 

Read Educational Success a book that teaches parents how to help their child take ownership of their education at the different levels of academic development.

 

 

Faith Through the Sieve of Education, transcript from WOW’s annual meeting

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     Today I am addressing faith and public education, and I hope to show how the latter often serves to undermine the faith of our children. Right out the hatch, this is an emotional and controversial topic and with good reason. Institutions that hold the obligation to pass knowledge and truth to the next generation exist to reach us at our core. So I am going to start at the seat of our core, conscience.

     Conscience at the time of our Nation’s founding was defined as Internal…judgment of right and wrong; or the faculty, power or principle within us, which decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our own actions and affections, and instantly approves or condemns them…Webster 1828

This is important because the idea of the right of conscience lay in the heart of our nation’s founding and in determining a just form of constitutional government.

     James Madison wrote an essay called “Property” which was circulated through a national paper of the times. In it, he defines property and explains the proper role of a just government with respect to an individual’s property. Foremost on this property list is an individual’s “conscience” to which he ascribes it “the most sacred of all property.” He illustrates that “other property possessions depend in part on “positive law,” but states that “the exercise of that (meaning conscience) is different in that it’s “a natural and unalienable right.” He emphasizes that government “can give no title to neither invade a man’s conscience “nor” withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.” He charges that any government that directly or indirectly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions (free speech), their religion (morality), their persons (rights), and their faculties (conscience); is not a pattern for the United States and is not a just government. He concludes that the protection of these (free speech, morality, rights, and conscience), is alone the end of just Government.  

     It is important to note also that “moral” was culturally and legally understood as the exercise of conscience in guiding the external conduct of the individual and “applies to actions that are good or evil, virtuous or vicious, and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is to be determined.” Webster 1828. Thus, the two were connected.

     Because conscience is property and man has been endowed with it by His Creator (Declaration language), it can be assumed as something we must steward, and stewardship implies an obligation by the individual. As property, it is also understood that in individuals lies the power to neglect or oppress, pervert, and even destroy. And although all come into this world in possession of this faculty, it remains largely informed by our environment, via parents, religion, school, culture, or other.

     As women of Faith, we understand the moral imperative of guiding our little one’s hearts and minds to the assenting of truth and our major role as mother is to carefully train, nurture, and guard over our children’s faculty of conscience as a child’s morality is developing. We remain on the same page as our founding forbears.

      I think we could all agree on the cultural moral invasion that incessantly lures upon our youth, and I think we understand the negative peer influences that can exist at school, but do we realize the extent of how the child’s education itself in public school serves as the child’s major source of conscience misinforming, neglect, oppression, and even destruction, and that schools are not the neutral institutions they claim to be?

     Our public school system is the sieve most American youth have to legally pass through during their formative years.  Legal assumptions, language, standards, and doctrine defined or upheld in our Supreme Court directly and indirectly effect the operation of schools from administration to curriculum. This makes sense because public schools are legal institutions governed by law. It follows that to understand modern public education, an understanding of the legal reality in which it now operates is essential.

     The Supreme court in the last hundred years or so has exchanged legal assumptions, originally based on a vertical recognition and upholding of God’s moral authority, for modern legal theory based technically on this horizontal plane which relies on man’s authority and limited to what is observable, and a whole reliance on what is supposedly scientifically not even proven, but probable. A whole course or more could be given on this subject, but I’ve tried to briefly summarize a few key points.

     In Teach the Children, Neil Flinders explains some of the major legal effects. First, was the Courts’ “abandoned idea of a constitutional recognition of a Deity that bestowed upon man inalienable rights as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.”  From this rejection, two significant legal doctrines have arisen. First that “rights are to be perceived as based in government, not God, and hence subject to the Court’s interpretive protection,” and the court also changed what was accepted as permissible evidence essentially to only that which can be observable by man or scientifically explained. This rendered old, definitions used in founding documents and previous law useless or obsolete, so in trying to establish standards for a nontheistic legal basis for court consensus and continuity, it had to modify its contextual framework, which of course would also result in modifications of word definitions.  Words like equality are now defined not in terms of all men are of equal value individually in the eyes of God, but “in terms of tangible possessions or government granted privileges.  “Natural law” is no longer defined as allegiance to a higher, theistically based set of principles or laws—natural law is now considered compliance with social consent, existing law, or custom.” And going back to the word “conscience,” it is no longer legal, nor its former role recognized as a connection of obligation between man (and this would have included the court) and Higher Law, but “considered simply the individual’s reflection or social consensus. 

     In short, people of faith now stand in many ways legally disadvantaged because literally our Supernatural theistic views do not appear to legally exist.

     So what begins in the courtroom ends in the classroom. It isn’t a new claim that public schools are legally godless institutions (and many may argue they should be), but because schools, like the courts, didn’t used to be Godless, there remain theistic vestiges in them. These vestiges kind of lull much of the public, which by the way are a theistic majority, into a false security where undeserved trust is often placed into public education.  In addition, we often know personally many of the people who are directly involved with our youth. And thankfully, these are the ones who have direct contact with our children, are people we can trust, and one reason why local control is so important. But there are active forces unseen by the public in education like curriculum producers, test companies,  behavioral specialists, groups, committees, organizations, individuals, etc.,  that produce and dictate much of the educational material that impact instruction. In an opaque process they have systematically worked to remove any remaining theistic vestiges while creating  new educational assumptions. They are not like the religious populace majority, but are in opposition to it, and if you untangle the institutional web, and individual connections, you’ll find far leftist, secular humanist, and sexually progressive groups in control. Educational institutions like our courts have been and still are undergoing this systematic theistic unweaving.

     This is accomplished not by accident or slow cultural drift, but by careful and deliberate strategy launched in combination by the above-mentioned group-types as they have obtained legal sanction almost every step of the way. (See the work of Felix Wittmer, Judith A Reisman,  and B.K. Eakman. A Wikipedia analysis of the Scopes trial discloses its deliberateness.) Dishonest use of language purposely changed between generations is one classic technique. Also take note of the words “social consensus,” because this is also a root of their success and active in public schools. Words in education like “constructivist,” “collaborative,” and “cooperative learning” sound civil enough, but they are methods used purposefully in education to train our youth to submit to social consensus. It pushes what’s agreed upon as if it were truth. The Latin root of consensus actually means, “feel together.” You see it is the process, not the outcome, that is the important factor. The main rule is that everyone has to participate, and consensus a reached. The group may not have constructed a truth, but at least everyone feels good about it. It can be a form of group manipulation. In college, I had to read a 300 +/- page book on these methods. At the time, I could not wrap my brain around the ridiculous detail of process, of what I thought the purpose was just in helping the children to work together. I was naïve. Evidence that this teaching has been largely successful is that those who stand rigid in truth are often labeled divisive. To the public, this feels bad. The appeal is to feeling, not logic or reason. Groups in opposition to truth need to work constantly in building a strong (or at least the appearance of) social consensus, and always push and pull law so as to gain social and legal authority in the matter, thus legitimizing falsehood.

     What is included and excluded in education is also telling. I find it astounding that while comprehensive, an educational term meaning K-12 “sex education” is vigorously accepted and pushed as essential in modern education, while truths of our nation’s founding and principles of liberty are largely neglected. What is the logical premise for comprehensive sex ed? Think about this for a moment, the idea that somehow man had yet to figure this one out. All societies at large have successfully kept at bay negative social, economic, and health consequences by reserving procreation to the natural family. Furthermore, there has never been a time in history when man has stopped procreating nor has there ever been some epidemic public ignorance where knowledge of the act has been lost. Compare that to the idea of a comprehensive (K-12) curriculum of liberty and ask why this has this been largely abandoned.  It used to be carefully tended to. Consider, the securing of liberty was not something easily figured out and obtained by man, but is historically rare and an anomaly in man’s recorded existence. By using legal methods of observation and quantifiable evidence, it is easily determined the negative social, economic, and health results of the former. The real intent of education is exposed by including one and excluding the other; it is neither logical, nor reasonable, nor is it neutral, therefore it must really be moral.

     There is an active effort in parts of our society working to demoralize our children and pervert conscience while over sexualizing them. Worse, it appears modern education desires greatly to follow suit. Whenever you hear “comprehensive sex education” beware, and get your child as far away as possible. I’ll briefly acquaint you with SIECUS, Sexual Information and Education of the United States. The tangled web of groups, individuals, and organizations behind SIECUS would nauseate most parents. This tax-funded group has formed national educational standards for sexual education curriculum. Self- touch, exploration, and homosexuality are introduced in primary grades, and masturbation and safe sex methods for adolescence where they can sexually fulfill one another without intercourse are all part of the curriculum. All parents should read SEICUS’s position statements and the curriculum itself. Once children and youth get repeated exposure to this type of moral shaping, it is not easily undone.

     The material is disturbing enough, you can view it for yourself online, but they have been targeting UT, and pressuring us toward implementing their comprehensive program for a long time; and I think we have recently caved on this one; I need an update.  They abhor Utah’s “abstinence only/responsible choices” state-created material. Each state is individually tracked by SIECUS, whether or not their curriculum is used. They periodically issue reports on each individual state. Each state report in addition to statistics includes a list of organizations that oppose their curriculum, (WOW should be on there), those for it, and media outlets with contact information. So, Utah does exceptionally well, somewhere within the top 5 of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and actual knowledge about such topics. One statistic that stood out on their 2011 document for UT was the number of AIDs infections age 19—24. Utah had 0 per 100,000. Compare that to the national average of 30 per 100,000.  States which have fully implemented their curriculum do not fare so well. Where is the logic? They should be looking to Utah for a model, yet they pressure Utah to conform to theirs. But that’s the point; they are masters at confusing the logic.

     Another false claim by schools is that they remain neutral in the God arena, but is it even possible to position neutrally on something that doesn’t legally exist or is straightway banned?  Once an institution abandons a theistic morality, there are gaping holes, or moral vacuums, now attracting all types of counter conscience and morality. Philosophies like moral relativism are concocted, tried, and fitted, then validated by claims of social consensus, along with frameworks built to make up the gaping holes. Arbitrarily, you may end up with laws or curriculum that aligns with theistic morality, but it is just as possible that you don’t; this is double-minded government and citizenry in action. Such a foundation will never build a strong, secure, just, or protective government or citizenry, but a weakened one. The reality is  our national foundation once steadfast,  and purpose-filled, where protections of rights were secure, now rests on sand and subject to constant flux by individuals or groups, ideas or force, subject to random and arbitrary protection, making our inalienable rights insecure.

     Parents and grandparents must educate themselves so as to cut through all this sophistication.  Then  these skills need to be passed onto our children. WOW can help parents in this area by suggesting and possibly endorsing, principled resources that can assist with this and help equip citizens to unify and rally for their protections.

      In education, a first start is in learning the history of the United States’ founding, which is moral and theistic, using primary source documents which are full of truths. I was not taught this in my public school education, but was led to it later. Realizing the waste of it not being taught made me feel so cheated, underserved, and angry, but it also served as a turning point, opening my mind to the possibility of educational malpractice. This area of study will not undermine or confuse a child’s conscience or morality, but enlighten it. Being in alignment with WOW’s principles, one direction WOW could take,  as well as parents, grandparents, and citizens, is in working to inform and influence local or state school boards and the legislature in adopting a comprehensive curriculum that teaches our national heritage based in founding documents, definitions, and primary sources .

     When grounded in truth, our reason cannot be easily confused, nor our conscience be hardened or misinformed. As people of faith, we have been handed the means to do this. The Bible gives the formula. You have to keep in mind three things, and this also needs to be taught to every child of faith: Origin, Purpose, and Boundaries. WOW’s 14 principles actually summarize proper Origin, Purpose, and Boundaries.  Anything else is a counterfeit idea and leads a population to double-mindedness if it is not recognized and exposed. Once you start applying an analysis of origin, purpose, and boundaries in any academic subject, you will discover what is or isn’t theistically neutral. Education has filled the theistic moral void, or vacuum with its own construction of origins, purpose, and boundaries, this is where neutrality ends.

     For lack of time, I’ll throw out an obvious example, Darwin’s theory of evolution-open season on me. How many have had their faith undermined permanently by this one? Or has this theory promoted a double-minded citizenry? How many of us have been asked about this one from a child? Were you prepared to place the child on solid ground with your answer? Could a simple teaching of origin, purpose, and boundaries expose the counterfeit? What about teaching the horrific outcomes this counterfeit idea helped to perpetuate in justifying atrocities committed in the holocaust and a perpetuation of denial of rights based on race? The science community at large is not neutral, and the predominant thinking is as represented in the Richard Dawkins Foundation Mission statement, which they say is, for Reason and Science to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism.

      As a side note, two world wars, the revealed horrors of the holocaust, and various war crimes apparently scared the industrialized world into action, and the UN charter was initiated and ratified. Expressions of goodwill and peaceful relations between member states, the recognition of the dignity and worth of the human person, and the belief in fundamental human rights filled its preamble, which ironically clings to principles that are the fruit of a theistic belief, yet they stopped short of putting God in the charter, and Darwin’s ever-popular social philosophy of survival of the fittest was quietly swept into the dust bin of history. 

     Leaving the origin and purpose of language aside, I will conjecture that the boundary for language is truth. Thus the deliberate flux and confusion of definitions as stated previously is a form of perverting the language, but there is more subtlety in the employment  of a language  arts curriculum toward misinforming and hardening the conscience through the framing of questions. This is an extreme example, but it illustrates the method. One suggested English literature module for 9th grade went as follows: Students are to read “Mother of Monsters” by Guy de Maupassant. The story introduces a peasant girl who gets pregnant and boards up her stomach to hide the pregnancy. The result is a deformed child. She is offered money for the child to display in a type of freak show. She is offered more money by showmen and continues to have more deformed children in this manner, allowing her to live a “bourgeois” lifestyle. In the same story a “Parisian” woman does the same thing with corset to protect her figure, producing several deformed children.

     Aside from this being extremely age-inappropriate reading, the students are instructed to write an essay explaining how the characters display their individuality. There are a lot of things to write about with a story such as this, but individuality? An assignment like this does not try to reason out any truth, but instead is demoralizing and confusing. Marketed curriculum (meaning not teacher produced) is filled with this sort of non-reasonable framing of questions, and so is the mandated testing.

     Parents and Grandparents, you are the experts on your children. Don’t be intimidated by the legally-sanctioned experts. I’ve gone through University with a year of graduate work in education, and the truth is, much of what I was taught was just classroom management, child psychology, social development, lesson planning, and how to align it with state the framework mingled with some methodology, which some new wind of doctrine is always influencing. What I’m saying is there was no great mystery unveiled. The best way still for a child to develop reading skills is to read, read, and read some more and so on. When public schools intimate they are the experts, it probably means you’re making headway, because truth is powerful and does influence a conscience. Facts are pertinent and necessary when opposition stands before us, but we also need to stand firm in our faith, and say outright this is undermining my role and obligation to protect my child’s conscience and is interfering with their moral development. (Add that it’s your constitutional right and l have a few lawyers to back you up.)

     Unfortunately, on February, 2007 a motion was proposed at a WOW board meeting to abandon its FBO face, and it was voted by a majority in favor. In this one vote WOW changed from theistic to non- theistic.  This vote was not due to loss of fortune, possessions, torment or peril, but to political correctness.  Is this the example we want to set for our children or grandchildren?

     Our principles of faith were not given to us for private life, but for public life, and we cannot plagiarize by not acknowledging where our faith-based principles come from; we must acknowledge the Author.  That is what this nation was founded on, the continuation of liberty must rely upon, and these are the principles WOW and the new board will advocate for, educate to, and celebrate. 

 A presentation written by Yvonne Averett and given at the October 26, 2013 WOW annual meeting. Yvonne Averett is a former California public school educator.