The Handmaid's Tale

This painting, called "A Fair Puritan," is by E. Percy Moran, a US artist who created it in 1897. We've come a long way since that time, with respect to the image of Christians in our nation. Recently I wrote that Christianity is being demonized in the US. In the guest post below (used by permission), Philip Irvin shares one chilling example of a grotesque caricature of conservative Christians in pop culture that should concern us all.

(This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA)

Suppose a TV series presented a dystopian world where a religious group imposed something more severe than Shariah law. In this religious world, women were not only brutally subjugated and ritually raped but were also legally prohibited from working outside the home, owning property, handling money, or even reading. What would be the response to this series?

If the religious group were identified as Muslims, all those involved would be strung up by their thumbs and denounced as Islamophobiacs.

However:

If instead, the series vented its venom at conservative Christians, you would find that “the series [The Handmaid's Tale] garnered extremely positive reviews and won the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, along with seven other Emmy Awards from 13 nominations."  

Please consider what would have happened if this level of venom were vented on any other group. What if the oppressing group were gays, blacks, or even not-in-the-news Hindus? But because this demonizes Christians it wins critical acclaim.

“The Birth of a Nation,” a movie about the Civil War and its aftermath, portrayed black men as unintelligent and sexually aggressive toward white women while portraying the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force. This movie is credited with being one of the events that inspired the “second era” Ku Klux Klan that was formed in the same year, since the original Klan had died out decades earlier.

Do not be deceived into thinking that The Handmaid’s Tale is just harmless entertainment. Such a publicly acclaimed, grossly hostile representation of Bible-believing Christians is reminiscent of the displays of growing hostility toward Jews in pre-war Germany. This should cause conservative Christians concern.

Postscript by CO:

Recently, conservative Christian organizations have been dropped from credit card processing companies because they are deemed “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. See the Ruth Institute and American Vision. 

For further SPLC branding, see D. James Kennedy Ministries. Other organizations painted by the "hate group" brush include: Traditional Values Coalition, Family Research Institute, and American Family Association.

This should give every evangelical church and conservative Christian service organization "cause for concern," as Philip Irvin put it. Is it only a matter of time before the "hate group star of David" is painted on your church or favorite Christian service organization? 

By the way, would your church or favorite Christian service organization qualify for the SPLC “hate group” list? 

If not, why not?

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The Underestimated Power of Silence

 

Christianity was divorced from state schools in the U.S. during the 1960s. "Religion must be separated from education!” was the message from The Bench.

But don’t smart judges know it’s impossible to separate religion from education?

If it is a religious position to teach—or imply—that the Truths of Scripture are relevant to math, science, history and language, is it not also a religious position to teach—or imply— that these Truths are not relevant? 

If it is a religious position to say, “Jesus is Lord of all, and by Him and through Him all things exist,” is it not also a religious position to say—in so many words, or lack thereof— “Christ is not relevant to our discussion of biology, business or Macbeth?” Are not both statements religious positions?

To teach students that the Bible is irrelevant to biology, literature and math can be done very effectively without telling them this directly. A teacher does not have to stand in front of a class and say, “the biblical worldview has nothing to do with our subject” to communicate the message that the Book is irrelevant.

All they need to do is never mention how any subject relates to the Book that is above all other books, and give students the impression that the secularist worldview and postmodern paradigms of our day are true by never saying otherwise.

This is the underestimated power of silence.

For schoolchildren, this silence is far more effective than speech. Multiply it by 13 years, and in just 3 generations you'll see a much different nation come forth than Noah Webster envisioned, and Alexis de Tocqueville observed. Welcome to 2017.

If we think state education is religiously neutral, we must think again. Today, millions of children are being indoctrinated into John Dewey's self-described "Common Faith" (a non-theistic religion), under the guise of “neutrality."

How's this working out?

When teachers don't place a single academic subject into the context of a biblical frame-of-reference, are those teachers really being "neutral?"

Is it any wonder that our youth are leaving the Faith? The Book is irrelevant to anything of real importance! If it were relevant, why are its overarching Truths never mentioned in relation to a single academic subject for 13 years, and these Truths are not on any test?

They used to be self-evident. But no longer.

The underestimated power of silence.

Posted by Dr. Christian Overman 

Seeing Snails In Context

 

Last week I wrote about the problem of secularized education. What exactly does secularized education look like?

It looks like a biology class that never discusses God's purpose for living things, or how plants and animals fit into God's plan for humans to govern over creation, or how living things fit into our calling to love people, and what responsibilities (under God) we have with respect to plants and animals, or what plants and animals reveal about the character of the Creator, etc., etc. 

It is the bigger picture of reality that brings meaning to a subject, beyond the subject matter itself. Secularized education separates academic subject matter from the bigger picture of reality.

What does DE-secularized education look like?

It looks like the example below, from Lighthouse Christian School, in Gig Harbor, Washington, under the excellent leadership of my friends Stephen Roddy and Cindy Mathisen. 

For the past 3 years, Lighthouse Christian School has been working with Worldview Matters in a rigorous teacher-training program called, the WRAP [Worklife Restoration and Advancement Project]. One of the instructional tools the teachers are trained to use is the "Conversation Starter."

This tool helps teachers organize their thoughts on how they might help students understand whatever they are studying in the context of a larger frame-of-reference: the frame-of-reference provided by the biblical view of God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose.

In the example below, students are seeing snails in context. You might say they are "contextualizing snails." 

This is not something you'll find in secularized schools. DE-secularized education unites academic subjects with the bigger picture of reality. It brings meaning to the subject, beyond the subject matter itself. I call it “wholistic” education.

This is real education for the real world. It is putting academic subject matter into the context of the bigger picture of everything, or, the biblical worldview. In the process, it strengthens relationships with the Creator, as well as with fellow human beings.

Below are students from Mrs. Kim Tarr's 2nd grade class, "contextualizing" snails:

Mrs. Tarr had the students work in 5 small groups. Each group had 1 question to discuss. This group focused on the question: "What purpose does God see in a snail?"

This group focused on the question: "What is BEST about snails?" (No doubt these boys loved that question!)

Mrs. Tarr posted the students' finished work on the wall, and the class had a large-group discussion. 

How would you answer this question?

This is the actual graphic organizer, called the "Conversation Starter," that Mrs. Tarr used to organize her thoughts ahead of the students' conversation about snails. Click the image to enlarge it, and read Kim's comments about each of these questions. You will see thought-provoking questions related to the 5 worldview components of God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose. 

If you are a school principal wanting to discuss the WRAP program via telephone or an Internet video connection with me (Christian Overman), send me a note to set up a time, here.

We work with educators in any part of the world through our distance learning program. We have trained educators in Africa, Latin America, Asia, as well as the U.S.A., through the Internet successfully. 

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Secularized...Privitized...Demonized

Hurricanes are not the only storms hitting the USA. 
(Photo used by permission of NOAA.)

Is it any wonder the biblical foundations for law, government, family and gender that once provided commonly accepted harbor lights for U.S. society have been replaced? The incessant move toward the secularization of education and the privatization of Christianity over the past century has been enormously successful, expedited greatly through elementary and secondary schools.

By divorcing biblical Truths about God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose from the study of language, math, literature, science, history, civil government and the arts, elementary and secondary schools created a sacred-secular divide in the minds of youth that has spanned several generations. Christianity was first secularized in our schools, and this made it easy for Christianity to be privatized in society. And now it is being excluded from the public square, constricted by both public opinion and judicial pronouncements.

Strong winds are trying to confine biblical Christianity to one’s personal life and Sunday services. Our constitutional free exercise of religion is being re-defined as "freedom of worship" (in a building called “church.”) Furthermore, that which was first secularized and then privatized, is now being demonized. Bibliocentric Christians are branded “intolerant,” “bigots” and “haters.”

Secularized...privatized...demonized. 

What doesn’t make sense is why so many pastors have remained silent about secularizing education. Sending a child to a school that divorces Truth from academics, and never mentions God's purpose for learning, is nuts. Education that does not help students to see all knowledge in the context of the True Frame-of-Reference is like a church that teaches all about the Bible but makes no connections with how to live.  

Bible-believing Christians would not tolerate such a church. Yet 85 to 90 percent of evangelical parents send their children to schools where they are indoctrinated into secularized-privatism. Sending kids there to be “lights in the world” sounds good, until they come home thinking like their textbooks, making no connections whatsoever between any subject matter and the bigger picture of God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose. They make no connections between God and history, and they think Christianity is just for church. Not for directing a business, designing software or doing civil service.

The same pastors who would never tolerate a so-called “neutral-and-values-free” Sunday School have been silent about a so-called “neutral-and-values-free” Monday through Friday system that is anything but.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost. There's another storm in progress, more destructive than Harvey and Irma combined. 

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A Lesson That Could Change History

The Herman Miller Celle Chair won the GOOD DESIGN award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Design and Architecture

One month ago today, on August 8, 2017, a great model of a man who knew how to live out his faith in the workplace, Max De Pree, went to be with the Lord, at the age of 93.

De Pree was the son of D. J. De Pree, founder of the Herman Miller company. Max served as its CEO from 1980-87. The company is one of the largest manufacturers of office furniture in the world.

De Pree wrote best-selling books on good business practices, and was not shy about letting his readers know where his business values came from. They were unashamedly rooted in the biblical worldview.

Last week, we looked at how a person's beliefs about God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose (their "worldview") shape values, which in turn shape behavior. Few business leaders have explained how this principle works in the business world better than Max De Pree.

Take some lessons from Max De Pree himself via the short (3.5 minute) video below, and discover how De Pree developed his biblical worldview. It happened in a certain place, and in a certain way. This lesson may be De Pree's most important lesson of all. A lesson that could change history:

If the video does not play, click here.

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A Divine Cure for Saddle Sores

Where do values come from?

After blogging for 7 years and then taking a 1-year rest from it, I'm back in the saddle again. Feels good!

I experienced a divine cure for saddle sores. It's something God prescribed a long time ago: stay off the horse for a while. 

Rest is a vital part of the work cycle, and it can actually result in getting more accomplished in the long run!

That's what happened to me. During my break from blogging, I turned my attention toward the development of other materials for parents, creating a small-group curriculum that can be used in churches, Christian schools and neighborhoods, called Working Wonders.

Today, I'm sharing a sample video clip from this course that addresses the question, Where do human values come from? 

This short clip addresses this important matter:

If the video does not play, click here.

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God's Pleasure At Work

During my sabbatical from blogging, I have not taken a vacation from writing!

John Beckett, Chairman of The Beckett Companies and author of Loving Monday, calls God's Pleasure At Work, "the finest and practically helpful publication ever produced on this subject."

During the past school year, this e-text was field-tested at a Christian school in Kansas, with high school students. Below are comments from students in that class:

"I really love how this book shows us that we should not look at life a sacred and secular, but rather everything that we do can either be for the glory of God or contrary to His will."

"…I have benefitted so much from this class…Dr. Overman delivers his points clearly, with accuracy to Scripture. I would highly recommend the Theology of Work material and class to everyone at [name of school]." 

"...I learned so much personally that I cannot wait to use in the future and share with others. I believe all Christians should read this book and soak in all the goodness just like our class did over the course of this year." 

The book is not just for high school students! It is for adults of any age and stage of life. 

Perhaps the best way to introduce the new e-book edition of God's Pleasure At Work & The Difference One Life Can Make is through a review posted in The Green Room, here.

To purchase your copy, click here.