"Being concerned about people “rebelling” against you is a sign of pride and authoritarianism" - Eric Pazdziora

I wasn't really a rebellious child. My younger brother was considered to be the more "rebellious" one, but as an adult, I now see, we really weren't. Sure, I wore a wallet chain. My musical interest were often considered "rebellious" ranging from Coolio, to Rage Against the Machine, passing through The OC Supertones [and yes, the value of the latter was questioned as its message wasn't always something Biblical]. I even recall, not being allowed to wear biker shorts under regular shorts because they were the "symbol of a rebel" - thank you Andre Agassi.



In the end though, life wasn't so bad, I was given the freedom to make my own choices, and learn from my own mistakes. I have infinite respect for my parents for giving that to me.

Unfortunately, I have come to find out, I am not in the norm. In fact my poor wife is still dealing with remnants of an authoritarian childhood, even though we have moved 5582 miles (that's 8983 km for the more enlightened) away. I have several friends headed down the same road with their quiver of children. This Christian sub-culture is largely part of the homeschool movement. In the past twenty years I have gone through several stages in my attitude toward such an approach to parenting, now that I am nearly thirty, I think I finally have pin pointed what bothered me so much about the group, and this is in no small part due to watching my wife's journey out of what we call The Movement.

My perceptions of The Movement

1. Puzzlement (sometime in junior high) - when I first heard of homeschooling I could not understand why any parent would do this to their child, or why any kid would just go along with it because "how would they every witness to anyone?"

2. Frustration (college) - my university had many homeschoolers, and although some were fine, others were really...well weird. It wasn't their fault they had never regularly interacted with peers, but it was hard to be their friend because they didn't know how to be friends.

3. Anger (early years of marriage) - seeing what had been done to my wife for so many years was just not right. She was (and is) a fantastic person that is haunted to levels beyond her control.

4. Pity (the past year) - seeing so many friends fall into this way of life, I realize they don't fully understand what they are getting into. I had the experience of seeing a family up-close-and-personal after years of being in The Movement, my friends have no idea what road they are headed down, and are slowly brainwashing themselves. They feel it is their duty to have dozens of kids. It is their responsibility to keep their kids away from the evils of the world. They are trained, and train their kids, to defend their way of life no matter what the challenge is.

5. All of the above, plus a little more (today) - this has been building in my mind for quite a while, but after reading Eric Pazdziora's post on Quivering Daughters, I just had to bring it all together. The problem is Authoritarianism. It is often referred to as Patriarchal. However, reading the post, and thinking through my friend's individual situations, I think the problem starts in a church. A church that is so authoritarian it requires, forbids, and orders it's members. It labels people as rebellious, and is trigger happy with the heresy label. This results in individual families modeling their home live in the same way. They may even leave that church, but the damage has been done. Now that family is nearly destined to church hop because no other church is quite as perfect as theirs used to be, until they join/start a home church and whole-heartedly believe they are the only ones that know. This is where pity comes in, because they are trapped. Anger is not far behind, because reality is, they are doing this to themselves, and their children don't know any better. Which makes them awkward and frustrating to be around, and in the end, if they had really honestly studied God's message to us, I just have to ask: why?

Before I really get started, you must understand my frustration with the Christian sub-culture that has forgotten its purpose, and gotten bogged down with fighting itself, instead of proclaiming the love of Christ to the lost world around us. I see hate exuding from Christians and it stirs up a mixture of anger and sadness in me...I just do not believe this is how Jesus would carry himself right now. Also, as of right now I have not read Rob Bell’s Love Wins, I have merely read a barrage or reviews of it. The vast majority of which attack it mercilessly, and saddened me. However, I was delighted to read a friend’s blog to find what I can only assume is a fair and balanced review, which is the basis for my understanding of Rob Bell’s beliefs. I should point out, this is not a review of Rob Bell, or his book, but more of a question as to whether or not it is fair to label him as a heretic.

Now to the quickest way to get myself stoned:
Many claim that Rob Bell is a heretic, that is a very serious claim, that (I think) I fundamentally disagree with. Yes, his most recent book is obviously controversial, but is it actually heretical? Is it denying foundational doctrine? Or is it simply viewing some basic doctrine in a different way?

You and I don't agree on all points of doctrine. My wife and I don't even agree on all points of doctrine. I wouldn't call you guys heretics, and actually, I openly welcome healthy discussion of theological matters. This is important for a healthy community as well, but we need to accept that we're not all going to agree. To label someone as a heretic is - by definition - putting them outside that community and not having any more discussion with them until they change their ways.

As I understand it, Rob Bell has gone and studied the Greek and Hebrew meanings of words and come to the conclusion that Hell is temporal - not that it doesn't exist. His belief is still that Christ is the only way. The difference between Rob Bell's beliefs and traditional ones is that he believes that in time everyone will come to recognize Christ as their Messiah.

Although on thechristianwatershed.com they point out in great detail how Rob Bell came to his interpretation of the original language, AND how he is mistaken. Coming from an just about zero level of Greek, and possibly below zero level of Hebrew, it seems to me, the differences are subtle, and these could be easy mistakes to make...and were possibly not even malicious.

Regardless, of the what or why...again considering I am basing this on a review and not the book itself...Rob Bell appears to believe that if you don't come to know Christ personally in this physical life, you will go to Hell, and suffer. His belief, however, is that that is not the end of the road, where most believe it is.
For me personally, whether or not Rob Bell is right, has no bearing on how I live my life, or go about ministry. I desire to spread the love of God, and tell people about how my Jesus is the way!

This is why I have a problem with the attacks on Rob Bell. I do not think he is a heretic, I think he is a bit unorthodox in a few points of doctrine, but he appears to still believe firmly is salvation by grace.

I have never identified with all those worship songs that repeat over and over "break me, oh God!" It just never made sense. So many people that speak in "Christianese" use this language in their super-spiritual prayers, and I have never been able to understand it.

Today I read this post by Eric Pazdziora, and i could not possibly write it any better myself.

Being broken is a bad thing, why would God want that for us?

TakePart: Participant Media - Waiting For 'Superman' - Infographic from Jr.canest on Vimeo.

As a former High-school teacher, I totally agree that one of the keys to solving the current crisis long-term is education. As a grad student I know that our grad-schools are full of foreigners that get funding from our government because there are not enough qualified/interested Americans. We need to save our schools. Our Public Schools.

I know the situation is bad. I know many have chosen to look after their own kids first. I cannot blame them I understand. However, and I do not think that the solution is putting our kids in private schools, or worse home-schooling. I know it is not the rule all the time, but much of the time, families that take their kids out of public schools are particularly involved in their children's lives, they care about the education they are getting. Therefore, leaving a larger population of less-followed kids in schools. Mob mentality takes over easy, majority rules, if most of the class is not interested in learning, or has no drive to do so, then the teacher's job is that much more difficult. If teacher's are focusing primarily on just keeping the class under control, than actual quality-teaching is not happening.

Often times, we think that sending our kids to private schools will give them a better education, or be a better environment. Though in some cases this can be true, I know from direct personal experience it is not necessarily so. In fact, it is much easier to become a private school teacher than a public school teacher, because the bar is lowered. Giving the obvious result of higher odds a teacher in a private school is of a lower quality, possibly even unable to get a job in public school.

Regarding homeschooling. I won't get into a philosophical debate of the reasoning, as that is a whole different can of worms, but it is the reason in my family we do not and will not home-school. However, we could, and not do our girls a disservice. I have a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, an undergraduate degree in Engineering, and a Minor in Mathematics, and my wife has an undergraduate degree in English, and a Minor in Psychology. We feel that combined we are qualified to teach a variety of courses which would cover our girls' educational needs. This is coincidence. Most families do not find themselves in this situation. In fact, there are very few families in which a parent is actually qualified to teach Calculus, Physics, Creative Writing, or senior year English Literature. My poor wife was done this educational injustice, and - outside of her collegiate field of study - there are some gaps of knowledge that should not be.

Lastly, in our house, we believe we have a purpose on this earth. This purpose, to put it briefly, is to witness to the world around us with our love. Public schools are part of that world around us. We do our best to impart a Bible-based education at home, and let the girl's teachers do the rest. We do keep up with what Natalie is learning in school, and up to this point, her teachers have been spectacular...then again, she is only 5. We plan to be completely involved in our girls' educations, as it is something very important to us. But this education has to fall into our perceived purpose. I believe that if we Christians filled public schools with our kids, and were involved in that education, we would see significant changes in our country.

To close this off, I thought this song was appropriate!

"You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true." - Matthew 5:34

I always knew the concept of sounding religious was sickening. I felt it was against Jesus' teachings. I assumed it's what the pharisees must have sounded like to regular jews, but I hadn't seen it written as explicitly as I did this morning. In Eugene Peterson's The Message it really stands out. I know for most people it has just become a way of speaking, they don't mean to fake piety, it is just a habit - a bad habit. I know that for me whenever people say things like "God bless you", "God willing", or use that soft spoken high pitch tone of voice that only devout Christians have mastered...I tune them out - it just sounds fake! The way I see it, the world should not recognize us by the way we speak, but by the way we live. We need true sincerety, not a show based on established rules of how to sound holy, because otherwise no matter what the message "it becomes less true!"

So, on my other blog I went ahead and wrote a small rant on Rand's Objectivist heroes in her various novels.

http://lopezj4141.blogspot.com/2009/07/objectivism-and-victimhood.html

Anyway, I have been thoroughly enjoying this literature. :-) I'm now carefully saving up the books left by Rand in my collection, so I can parse out the enjoyment just as long as I can...

--
Juan


“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
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