An Infection More Life-altering Than COVID-19

By now, you have heard about the Coronavirus, or COVID-19. Who hasn't?  

   

But have you heard about the other infection that's circling the globe right now, called CSE?     

The latest US state to pass a Comprehensive Sexuality Education [CSE] bill is the State of Washington. Prior to its passage, the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction did a survey and found that 58% of the more than 10,000 respondents said CSE should not be required in grades K-12. Nevertheless, the bill passed last weekend. 

Mandatory CSE for all Washington State public schools will go into effect starting the coming school year. Previous CSE bills passed in California and Oregon. Washington was just the third domino to fall on the West Coast.   

   

You may not know what CSE is about. You may have never heard of it. But it's as important to be informed about CSE as to be informed about COVID-19.   

A worldwide effort has been underway for several years to get CSE into elementary and secondary schools in Africa, South America, North America, Europe, Australia…and many other parts of the planet…through the work of the United Nations. This is no secret. This is no conspiracy. The UN is quite open about their efforts.

We urge you to carve out 35 minutes of your precious time to watch an informative video that explains what CSE is about. It presents numerous examples of CSE curriculum, and shares compelling warnings from experts around the world. If you are not familiar with CSE, you need to be.  

   

Spending 35 minutes to view the video below may be the most important 35 minutes you have spent since you began looking into COVID-19, or listening to what others are saying about it.

CSE is different than the Coronavirus. It's an infection more life-altering than COVID-19, in that it does the most damage to children, rather than the elderly. They must live with it for a lifetime.

There is a generation at stake here, not only in the USA, but in many other nations as well.

We urge you to take a good look at this video, and pass on this post to others:

If this video does not play, click: https://youtu.be/hIv-KOQ5F4A

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

A Daniel-Sized Challenge

Here's an important lesson from an ex-Marine in Canby, Oregon.

Last March, we wrote about a school teacher in the Pacific Northwest who was asked to check a box indicating he had “reviewed and accepted” the following policy:

“All students will be allowed to use a restroom and locker room consistent with their gender identity and/or gender expression or one which makes them feel comfortable.”

This Christian teacher would not check the box. Instead, he met personally with his direct supervisor to explain why. This led to a meeting with the district superintendent and the president of the school board. In this case, a decision was made to not fire the teacher. [For details, click here.]

How many Christian educators in state schools are not “checking the box?” It’s impossible to say. Yet, one thing is certain: Christian educators in public schools are facing a Daniel-sized challenge they never dreamed possible when they signed up. They need our prayers and encouragement.

State school teachers need the kind of courage that rejects self-preserving silence, and speaks directly and respectfully to those for whom they work, letting the reasons for their non-compliance known, regardless of the outcomes.  

An instructive example of courage comes out of the Northwest. Brian Hodson, Mayor of Canby, Oregon, denied a request for “International Transgender Day of Visibility.”

He explained his decision as follows:

“As a Christian, I am called to love my neighbor as myself. I am not called to judge others. I believe we will all stand before the Lord one day and account for how we spent our time on this earth. I recognize not everyone in our community shares my beliefs, and I respect their right to believe what they feel is right. As a veteran of the Marine Corps, that is one of the many reasons I served this great country. But I also expect the same respect to be reciprocated to people of faith. Instead, what I see is a visceral attack on individuals for having a biblical worldview, and standing firm that the word of God is above any cultural norms we’ve adopted as a society.”

How many mayors across the country are doing likewise? If there were many, we would have heard about it. Christian leaders everywhere are facing Daniel-sized challenges they never dreamed possible when they signed up. Let’s be praying for them—and encouraging them.

For the full Canby story, click here. Message Mayor Hodson via Facebook here.


Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

  

The Gall Is Appalling

Is this natural? 
What is nature, anyway?

Last week, we said the Devil acts like he owns the place, but he does not. He never created anything. He only distorts and destroys what God has made. In Luke 4:5-6, when Satan offered Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” in exchange for worshipping him, was this a legitimate offer? Has the Devil ever made a legitimate offer? The gall is appalling.

Hebrews 1:3 says: Christ is “...upholding all things by the word of His power.” The seen and the unseen, the temporal and the eternal, the material and the spiritual are held together by His voice. Creation [a much better word than “nature”] originally came into being through God's voice, and its continuance is as much of a wonder as its first appearance. He's still speaking. 

Psalm 19 says: “Day after day they [the heavens] pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” 

It is not as though God spoke things into being in the past, and now things function quite well all on their own, according to so-called “natural” laws. What are “natural” laws, anyway? 

Were it not for the sustaining power of God's voice holding it all together, “nature” would be no more. In terms of how most people think of the “natural” and the “supernatural,” the “natural” has come to mean “the normal operation of a self-governing system,” while the “supernatural” means “the interference of God in that system.” How arrogant. Who got that idea going? The gall is appalling.  

Colossians 1:16-17 tells us: “For by Him [Christ] all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist [or, ‘hold together’].” 

My friend Dr. Erik Strandness, author of The Director’s Cut, made the astute observation that the universe was not created “ex nihilo” [out of nothing], but “ex cōgitātiō” [out of thought]. He maintains creation is knowable only because it came from God’s thoughts.

God is sharing His thoughts with everyone, daily, through the "talking book" of HIs works: Creation. 

Let's drop the word "nature." 

For more:

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

The Most Fundamental Of All Fundamentals

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The starting point for knowledge is the recognition that God created the entire realm of space and matter. Without Him, nothing would exist. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). This is the simple-yet-profound foundation for all learning. It is the most fundamental of all fundamentals.

Not only did God create all things, but He owns all things, even after the entrance of sin into the world. The significance of this cannot be overstated. That's because if we get the issue of ownership wrong, it makes a huge difference in the way we interact with all things in God's world.   

Dr. Albert E. Greene, Jr., touched upon this problem when he wrote: “There is a subtle derailment which often occurs in Christian thought at the point of the Fall. We tend to think that when man sinned, God simply relinquished the whole creation as a botched job and left Satan to do what he wanted with it. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The world and all that it contains is as much God’s stuff after the Fall as it was before the Fall. The Fall did not change God’s ownership status. God not only made it in the beginning, and holds it together today, but He owns it all.

This has enormous ramifications. When we mow the lawn, we’re cutting His grass. When we pound a nail, it’s His metal we’re pounding. When we examine a drop of water under a microscope, it’s His creation we're observing. He is speaking to us through what He has made in the beginning, sustains through time, and owns all along.   

Planet Earth, and all it contains, does not belong to Satan. The scriptures tell us: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). As Abraham Kuyper, founder of the Free University of Amsterdam and former Prime Minister of Holland, put it: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

The Devil never created anything...but chaos. He only seeks to distort and destroy that which God made, sustains and owns. He acts like he owns the place, but he does not.

We need to remember this. And teach our children the truth of the matter.

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

No Truth Is More Evident

How people view the history of the United States will strongly influence whether they see America as a light on a hill or a force for oppression. Noah Webster, the "Schoolmaster of the Nation," had one view of this country's character, while Howard Zinn, one-time professor of political science at Boston University (who described himself as "something of an anarchist,") created a much different view. 

Allan Bloom, who taught at Yale and the University of Chicago, wrote The Closing of the American Mind in 1987. He was not a Christian. Yet, he wrote:

“In the United States, practically speaking, the Bible was the only common culture, one that united the simple and the sophisticated, rich and poor, young and old, and—as the very model for a vision of the order of the whole of things, as well as the key to the rest of Western art, the greatest works of which were in one way or another responsive to the Bible—provided access to the seriousness of books. With its gradual and inevitable disappearance, the very idea of such a total book is disappearing. And fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise—as priests, prophets or philosophers are wise...Contrary to what is commonly thought, without the book even the idea of the whole is lost.” 

While we lost our biblical "vision of the order of the whole of things,” Howard Zinn's book, A People’s History of the United States came along and filled the gap, for many. 

Gilbert Sewall, of the American Textbook Council, has said Zinn's impact on social studies teachers "is prodigious and possibly unparalleled."  Peter Wood, of the National Association of Scholars, has said: "There really is no other history textbook that enjoys the level of enthusiasm among students as Zinn's book enjoys." [Source here.] 

If you want to know why we're a house divided, you might want to take a look at Zinn’s book, which has sold over 2 million copies. But before you buy a copy, bear in mind that over 600 historians voted Zinn's work "the second 'least credible history book in print.'" [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/547686/pdf]

While Noah Webster declared “education is useless without the Bible," and, “No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people…”, Zinn viewed U.S. history through the Social Marxist lens of Critical Theory. He was what the Frankfurt School dreamed of.    

While Zinn's book may be bad history, it's influence is deep. That's because today, truth doesn't carry as much weight as it did in Webster's day. What matters now is ideology, whether it's fueled by fact or fiction. 

For Howard Zinn, America's history is a story of exploitation. It's the story of oppressors and the oppressed, starting with Christopher Columbus and moving on to the oppression of native Americans, African-Americans, and the poor of any color. It has been called, "the Zinn Narriative." If you want to understand why more people are speaking poorly of the United States today than in the past, Zinn's best seller, "the second least credible history book in print," provides some answers.   

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

But What If The Channel Can't Be Changed?

Super Bowl is prime-time viewing. It's family viewing. Or, it used to be.

What happened during last Sunday’s half-time show wasn’t fit for viewing at all. It was a full-frontal attack on Judeo-Christian sensibilities. This "show" has been playing non-stop since Herbert Marcuse wrote Eros and Civilization in 1955.  

The frog has been in the pot for 60 years, and the water has reached full boil. We’re all in this pot.   

Last Sunday, families had the option of turning off the TV. But this doesn’t address the fact that the show went on in the first place. A commercial about survivors of abortion was banned, but there were no qualms about a strip show.

Folks who love strip shows have said for years: “You don’t have to watch! Just change the channel!”

But what if the channel can’t be changed? What if the show is in the 3^rd grade, the teacher is in control, and the “opt out” button is nowhere to be found? What if the strip show starts in Kindergarten and continues through grade 12? What if your State mandates the show?

This is what is happening now, and the situation is far worse than what was displayed last Sunday. Far worse.

To understand where our schools are headed, please watch an enlightening report from a small, family-friendly town in Southern California, here.

Do you know what is going on in your state, with respect to mandating “sex education” in the classroom? 

Washington State is the latest to mandate so-called "Comprehensive Sexuality Education" [CSE] in public schools, over the objections of many parents. If you are unfamiliar with CSE, which a worldwide drive by the United Nations, please become informed through this video: click here. 

Students can't change the channel in the classroom. If they're not your kids, they're somebody’s kids, and they'll be running the country one day. We’re all in this together. 

Some may ask, "Why not reform public education?" 

Because it is built on a crumbling foundation, and it’s impossible to replace the foundation as long as the State has control of the building.

The only recourse is to cut off the electricity. This means parents cutting the funding by pulling students out en masse. Jews, Christians, Muslims and Nones alike.

The classroom sex-ed show is just one of many reasons.

It's time for Prexit: Parents Pulling Pupils from Regressive Education.

Let's change the channel.


Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

A Profoundly Troubling Statement

9 words Jesus uttered could turn one's concept of school on its head. 

Jesus made a profoundly troubling statement when He said, "He who is not with Me, is against Me." (Matthew 12:30)

What did He mean by this statement? Did He mean what it sounds like He said? If a person is not with (or for) Christ, is he or she against Him? 

What if a person is not a Christ-follower, but never says anything bad about Christ, never uses His name in vain, never criticizes or thinks poorly of people who follow Him? Is that person against Christ, because he or she is not for Him? 

It appears so. Jesus said a lot of difficult things.

What about schools? If an institution selling knowledge and understanding is not for Christ, is it against Christ? 

Are non-Christian schools (public or private) against Christ, if they never mention His name to a student, one way or another, for 13 years? 

We need to think about this. Deeply. 

Does a school have to announce that it is "against Christ" in order to be against Christ? Must it be written in the official handbook, "Our school is against Christ," or be posted on the classroom wall, or discussed at parent-teacher meetings in order for this to be the case?

Let's pose the question another way. "Are non-Christian schools for Christ?" 

What might happen if you asked your local public school principal (who is a dedicated Christian attending your church, and clearly called to serve in that capacity): "Is your school for Christ?" 

What if the answer is: "Our school is neither for nor against Christ. We have students who are Christians, and students who are not Christians. We take no position on the matter, pro or con, at school. We're neutral."

Would Christ say this school (which is an institution selling knowledge and understanding) is for Him or against Him?

Sometimes Jesus' words are profoundly troubling. 

They're meant to be. 

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org 

Silence Speaks Louder Than Words

Would it concern Christian parents if their children were being indoctrinated in Buddhism at their local school?

In the majority of U.S. schools today, it is not permitted to teach the way Noah Webster envisioned we should teach children. In declaring, “education is useless without the Bible,” Webster condemned the wasteland of disoriented learning we see today. Did he not?

In most schools, it is no longer permitted to teach students that the Bible provides True North for adequately understanding every subject in school. Yet, it is allowable to teach (directly or indirectly) that a framework of meaning is something students determine for themselves.   

Here’s the big question: If it is a faith position to teach students that the Bible provides the overarching framework of meaning and purpose for learning and living, is it not also a faith position to teach—or to imply—that it does not?  

If it is a faith position to say, “Jesus is Lord of all, and by Him and through Him all things exist,” is it not also a faith position to say—in so many words or lack thereof—“Christ and the Bible are irrelevant to our discussion of pronouns and math?” Are not both statements faith positions? 

To teach students that Christ and the Bible are irrelevant to pronouns 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 Bible has nothing to do with our discussion” to communicate the message that the Book is irrelevant. In school, silence speaks louder than words.  

If we think the U.S. system of education is religiously neutral, think again. If state schools were indoctrinating children in Buddhism, Islam, or Native American Animism, many Christian parents would hit the ceiling. Maybe. But when it comes to indoctrinating children in John Dewey's "Common Faith" (the Non-theistic Faith in autonomous human self-sufficiency), Christian parents are curiously passive. (See Dewey's, A Common Faith.)

Apparently enough Christian parents think Secularism is neutral, and if their children can learn to read and write well enough to enter a university, they'll give secularized/secularizing education a big pass. Apparently enough Christian parents feel that if teachers don't stand up in front of a class and say, "the Bible is a fairy tale," things are OK.

Yet, when teachers don't place a single academic subject into the context of a biblical frame-of-reference over a period of 13 years, are those teachers really being "neutral?"

Contact RenewaNation at www.renewanation.org