The Messianic Character Of American Education

Rushdoony's study tells us an important part of American history: exactly what has public education been trying to accomplish? Before the 1830s and Horace Mann, no schools in the U.S. were state supported or state controlled. They were local, parent-teacher enterprises, supported without taxes, and taking care of all children. They were remarkably high in standard and were Christian. From Mann to the present, the state has used education to socialize the child. The school's basic purpose, according to its own philosophers, is not education in the traditional sense of the 3 R's. Instead, it is to promote "democracy" and "equality," not in their legal or civic sense, but in terms of the engineering of a socialized citizenry. Public education became the means of creating a social order of the educators design. Such men saw themselves and the school in messianic terms. This book was instrumental in launching the Christian school and homeschool movements.

For the past twenty-five years, 'ultra-fundamentalist' Christians have put increasing pressure on American public education to conform exclusively with their own philosophy and vision of education and culture. Eugene Provenzo considers and addresses the impact that the fundamentalist movement has had on such issues as censorship, textbook content, Creationism versus Evolution, the family and education, school prayer, and the state regulation of Christian schools. In exploring both sides of the debate, however, the author concludes that many fundamentalists' concerns are justified, due to a basic inconsistency between the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment and the position that many public schools have legally assumed.

"Over the last thirty years, conservative evangelicals have been moving to the north-west of the United States in an effort to survive and resist the impact of secular modernity. Their activity coincides with the promotion by prominent survivalist authors of a programme of migration to the "American Redoubt," a region encompassing Idaho, Montana, eastern parts of Washington and Oregon, and Wyoming, as a location within which to endure hostile social change or natural disaster. These migration movements have independent origins, but they overlap in their influences and aspirations, working in tandem and sometimes in mutual dependence to offer a vision of the present in which Christian values must be defended, if necessary, by force, and a vision of the future in which American society will be rebuilt according to biblical law. Drawing on Calvinist theology, the social theory of Christian Reconstruction, and libertarian politics, these believers are projecting significant soft power, with their books being promoted by leading secular publishers and being listed as New York Times bestsellers. The strategy is gaining momentum, making an impact in local political and economic life, while being repackaged for a wider audience in publications by a broader coalition of conservative commentators and in American mass culture. These believers recognise that they have lost the culture war - but another kind of conflict is beginning. This book examines the origins, evolution, and cultural reach of the migration that might tell us most about the future of American evangelicalism"--

When the Secular Becomes Sacred: Religious Secular Humanism and its Effects Upon America’s Public Learning Institutionsis an analysis of American K-16 public learning institutions from a unique perspective. Secular teachings, such as social-emotional learning, and sexual and identity philosophies, are behind movements to capture the minds and hearts of America’s students. Contemporary learning institutions resemble places of worship in several ways. This book will explain how this is the case. From educational philosophy to classroom practices, this book exposes tactical intersections between secular humanism and religion. In today’s secular culture there is strong evidence to support the notion that worship of the self, the individual, has usurped the historically sacred place reserved for a transcendent deity. The fact is that this worship of the individual is certainly more fashionable and attractive than traditional orthodoxy or evangelical theology, in a today’s society. Bolstering this self-worship are mandated programs, such as those found in states’ controversial History-Social Science Frameworks, English-Language Arts Frameworks, and new sex education programs. The intention of this book is to provide the reader a realistic look into the effects of religious humanism upon America’s schools and students. Readers will be challenged with the notion that separation of church and state is being ignored for the political advantage of some. Furthermore, the reader will be presented with the argument that self-worship has become more attractive than traditional Judeo-Christian religious teachings, leading to the individual becoming both the worshipper and the object of such self-worship.

During the mid-nineteenth century, Americans created the functional equivalent of earlier state religious establishments. Supported by mandatory taxation, purportedly inclusive, and vested with messianic promise, public schooling, like the earlier established churches, was touted as a bulwark of the Republic and as an essential agent of moral and civic virtue. As was the case with dissenters from early American established churches, some citizens and religious minorities have dissented from the public school system, what historian Sidney Mead calls the country's «established church.» They have objected to the «orthodoxy» of the public school, compulsory taxation, and attempts to abolish their schools or bring them into conformity with the state school paradigm. The Dissenting Tradition in American Education recounts episodes of Catholic and Protestant nonconformity since the inception of public education, including the creation of Catholic and Protestant schools, homeschooling, conflicts regarding regulation of nonconforming schools, and controversy about the propositions of knowledge and dispositions of belief and value sanctioned by the state school. Such dissent suggests that Americans consider disestablishing the public school and ponder means of education more suited to their confessional pluralism and commitments to freedom of conscience, parental liberty, and educational justice.

Majoritarian Justices -- The Great Debate -- The Imperial Judiciary -- Notes -- Index

After nearly a quarter century of homeschooling her children, Andrea Schwartz has experienced both the accomplishments and challenges that come with being a homeschooling mom. And, she's passionate about helping you learn her most valuable lessons. Discover the potential rewards of making the world your classroom and God's Word the foundation of everything you teach. Now you can benefit directly from Andrea's years of experience and obtain helpful insights to make your homeschooling adventure God-honoring, effective, and fun.