Do Children Belong to the State? (Pastor's Podcast)

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On this episode of the podcast, Pastor Keith welcomes again Pastor Austin Tucker to discuss a recent article which stated that children should be seen as assets of the state. Do our children really belong to the state? How should Christians see the authority of the family, the church, and the state?

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00:19
Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.
00:22
My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.
00:25
I am joined today, once again, by my good friend and fellow pastor, Austin Tucker from Grace Point Church in Summerfield.
00:37
I always want to say Ocala, but you always correct me.
00:40
Okay, so you're in Summerfield, which is near Ocala.
00:43
Is that right? Yes.
00:44
We sit between Ocala and the villages.
00:47
Okay.
00:47
Okay.
00:48
All right.
00:48
Well, again, I'm so thankful for you being on the program with me.
00:52
We always have a wonderful conversation.
00:55
And today we're going to be talking about the subject of kids and specifically the children of believers and the responsibilities that believers have in educating their children, more specifically in raising their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
01:15
And what prompted this conversation and what really caused me to want to reach out and have this conversation with you, because I know that your church has a school, right? You guys, just for those who haven't heard before, tell us a little bit about the way your church is set up.
01:33
We're not a big church, but years ago, God laid on the heart of our congregation to educate children.
01:40
And so we took it on.
01:41
And I said, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.
01:43
Marion County, where I'm at, does not need a prep school.
01:46
We have plenty of prep schools where we're at, and we wanted to be a distinctly Christian school.
01:52
That dream from about 12 years ago has grown to over 90 kids.
01:57
We've ran out of room.
01:58
We've been approved for 200, but we're in the process of building a full accredited school with the most amazing teaching staff.
02:08
But we're a distinctly Christian school.
02:11
And now we're trying to head towards even an umbrella for homeschoolers.
02:18
And because I'm actually a huge proponent of homeschool, but I see Christian school as a great necessity with our current generation, because a lot of parents don't have the means to homeschool.
02:31
And so we wanted to be that distinctly Christian school with the focus of.
02:39
So there's two.
02:39
I've said this.
02:40
I know I've got to be quick.
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Two different philosophies.
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One philosophy is we are a Christian school, and we're going to be open to everybody because we are using it as a means of reaching out with the gospel.
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The other philosophy is we're a school for the kids in the church.
02:54
We shelter the kids.
02:56
We aim them, point them at the Lord.
02:59
We are going to be aimed at the church and the church kids.
03:02
We are right here.
03:04
We accept some kids from the outside, but our focus is to be a haven for the children away from the world.
03:12
And if you've been watching what's going on in the world, our school's growing in popularity.
03:17
Yeah, absolutely.
03:18
Absolutely.
03:19
And that's really, like I said, what I wanted to talk about today is educating our children.
03:24
And I do want to say from the outset, there is not one necessarily perfect or right way.
03:30
I have children who are homeschooled.
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I have one daughter who is in a Christian private school.
03:38
Your church promotes a private school, but you also, as you said, you promote homeschool as well.
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And I know there are those who would say you can't possibly have a child in public school.
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One of our elders has children in public school, and he does a good job with it.
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It's possible.
03:57
And so one of the things I want to say today is we are not necessarily going to say that there's only one right way to do it, because every family is different.
04:06
And it's up to the father who is the responsible one to manage his household, along with the mother who is the helpmate to be guided by scripture and by their convictions and how they govern their home.
04:19
And that's the focus of today is the idea of who has the right and responsibility of making those governing choices.
04:31
And as I said, there was something that sparked this conversation, an article by Janet Street Porter.
04:37
Now, before I saw this article, never had heard of this woman.
04:40
But since then, did look up a few of her articles, and it does seem as if she's opposed to homeschooling.
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Now, if I'm if I am misrepresenting her in any way, and you're a listener and you're a fan of Janet Street Porter, please correct me in the comments.
04:52
I'm not above correction on that because I don't know a whole lot about her.
04:55
But this was the this was the headline of the article that she published.
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And it says this thinking of children as state assets may be the way forward.
05:08
Thinking of children as state assets may be the way forward.
05:13
And right away, I imagine, Austin, you're probably the same as me.
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But right away, even that headline makes me makes my skin crawl.
05:23
It makes my heartbeat a little faster because thinking of children as state assets really just smells to me like something out of George Orwell or 1984, something where the state has all control.
05:40
And we are simply having babies to give the state more citizens to control.
05:47
And is that when you saw the article, is that sort of the thought that you had? When I saw the article, the first thing I thought of was 2016, when Hillary Clinton was doing her whole, it takes a village to raise a child movement.
05:58
Mm hmm.
05:59
And it is it's this ideal that your children belong to society.
06:06
There are future, not just your future.
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And that was Hillary's.
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It was not just it takes a village to raise a kid.
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It was the whole, you know, your kid belongs to society as a whole.
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That was the movement back then.
06:19
And it bugged me back then.
06:21
But this is this is not the first time we've seen this in history.
06:26
And if what really makes me think is it makes me think of a lot of these communist countries, which I know you're going to get to who have taken that approach.
06:36
Your children are my children.
06:39
Yes, absolutely.
06:40
And thank you for the segue, because that leads me right to where I was going.
06:44
As many of you listeners know, I know you know this, Austin, my wife for the last three years has been a teacher with VIP Kid.
06:53
VIP Kid is a company that that utilized American instructors to teach tutor, rather, Chinese children in English.
07:02
And it was something that is necessary.
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Many of the Chinese students take English because it's the language of commerce.
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It's a language that many of them have to know if they're going to have to do business in the world.
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And so my wife and she created so many wonderful relationships, not only with the students, but with the parents.
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And just this last month, her job ended.
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And the reason why it ended is because the Ministry of Education in China decided that they no longer wanted to utilize foreign teachers.
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They no longer wanted to utilize even foreign textbooks.
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It's all being pushed for very China centric learning.
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And the goal there is obvious, pointing everything inward.
07:51
And the thing that began to be noted among my wife's friends who also teach, they have conversations and things, was that the education system in China is becoming more and more really the parent of the children.
08:11
The children are going to school early in the morning and not even getting home until late in the evening.
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And they're doing this every day.
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They're having breakfast, lunch and dinner at school.
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So their relationships are primarily with their teachers as almost like parent relationships.
08:34
And this is something that when we look at that, we say, that's crazy.
08:40
Let me ask you a question, Austin.
08:42
I don't know the answer to this.
08:43
So did you go to public school? A little bit.
08:47
Okay.
08:48
I went mostly private, but I did go to a little bit public.
08:51
Okay.
08:51
Because I'm a public school graduate.
08:56
I graduated West Nassau in 1998.
08:58
And I went to public school my whole life.
09:00
And I know this, the only time I ate breakfast at school was if I just happened to bring enough money to get a super donut.
09:08
That was one thing that used to sell in the cafeteria was a super donut.
09:11
And it tasted really good.
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And I'd eat the square pizza for lunch every day.
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And if they had that for, you know, that was all the square pizza.
09:18
Yeah.
09:19
Yeah.
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That's the only thing I miss from public school lunch is the square pizza.
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It was somehow fantastic.
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I've never tasted anything quite as good.
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I have a feeling it's one of those things that if we went back as adults and took it, we'd be like, this is cardboard.
09:36
Cardboard and cheese.
09:38
It wouldn't be as good.
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There's not much cheese on it.
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But yeah.
09:42
So, but I remember school ended, you know, for us two 30, I think was when school would end or three o'clock.
09:50
And at the very, you know, if you had a sport or like me, I did band in high school.
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So I maybe did an hour of band practice afterward, but I was home by dinnertime.
10:01
I mean, I had dinner with my parents every night.
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And, you know, try to have my homework done.
10:07
If I had homework, it was done before dinner.
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That way I had the evening to, you know, spend with my parents, do whatever we want to do.
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If we want to go out to eat or most of the time, we didn't go out to eat very much.
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We ate mostly at home, did the dishes, sat around watching a little bit of television and, you know, whatever.
10:21
But that was the school day was no longer than my parents work day.
10:27
Yeah.
10:28
That, you know, and it was modeled that way because they're the idea that, that my day was going to be longer than their day.
10:35
That, that doesn't even make sense.
10:37
And that's what we see.
10:38
And in the countries or in China specifically, where they're trying to promote this idea that the children need to spend more time with their, with the state than they do with the family.
10:52
And, um, I mentioned this prior to the program, but I want to make sure that I say it to the audience.
10:58
The Bible provides for us three different, at least as I understand it.
11:04
And I let Austin opine here in a moment, the Bible provides for us three different spheres of authority that we have to recognize in the world.
11:14
The first sphere of authority is the family where the father and the mother have authority within the home over the children.
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And there's a certain responsibility that they bear over those children.
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And then outside of that, there is the authority of the state.
11:31
The state does, the Bible tells us the state has a sphere of authority and it's a recognized and important sphere of authority that, that, that it has and it exercises.
11:41
And, um, and it is necessary.
11:44
I am not, I want to say this from the outset, and I think you would agree, Austin, maybe you'll say it a little differently, but I'm not an anarchist.
11:51
I'm not anti-government, anti-state.
11:55
I know there are some people who are, who would say the government is unnecessary.
11:58
You know, each man is, you know, but even the hardcore libertarians would say there has to be some rules.
12:04
There has to be some, somebody has to be in charge of administering good and administering as Romans 13 says, somebody has to bear the sword.
12:17
Yeah, absolutely.
12:18
Thank you.
12:18
Thank you for.
12:19
Yeah.
12:19
So, um, so, so, so the sphere of the authority of the government is, is put in place scripturally.
12:26
And then we could go to the third sphere.
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And that is the sphere of the church.
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The church has a sphere of authority and anyone who is in a local church, who is a believer and those should be the same believers should be in the local church.
12:40
And if you're not, um, and you want to know why that's important, send me an email.
12:46
I would love to have that conversation with you, because if you're, if you're a believer and you're not in a local church, you're not in the will of God.
12:51
And my, I think I can argue that from scripture, uh, unless you, maybe you've moved and you're, you're in a situation where you have not yet found a church.
12:59
There's something to be said for that.
13:00
But if you're, if you're willfully out of the local church, because you don't feel that that's necessary for you as a believer, just remember this, the Bible does not allow for lone wolf Christianity.
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There's no such thing.
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The Bible tells us that we're supposed to be part of the local church.
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So if you're not part of a local church, you should be.
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And there's a sphere of authority that goes there.
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The Bible says in Hebrews that the, the, the leaders in the church have a certain type of authority that, that we're supposed to submit to as, as members of the church.
13:27
And so there's three spheres of authority that the Bible lays out for us.
13:32
Uh, would you agree with that? Am I missing something with that? I fully agree with it.
13:37
I would agree with it.
13:38
The question is, is what are the boundaries of those spheres? That's, that's the question at hand.
13:44
Um, when you think of, uh, like scripturally, uh, when Israel was asking for a King, uh, one of the warnings from God is they're going to send your children to war for them.
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They're going to tax you.
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Uh, and, and that was the warning.
14:00
If you get a King, they have the authority to send your children to war.
14:04
Now they're not sending children, children to war.
14:06
They're sending adult men to war, but it's the same concept.
14:10
There is an authority given by God to the government to exercise a sword, but there's also, and, and I think you'd agree with me on this.
14:20
There is a, when the government goes outside of the sphere that God has ordained, there is a godly, oh, I'm trying to say this in a non-anarchist way.
14:33
There's a godly responsibility to peacefully rebel.
14:37
Yes.
14:37
And that was, um, was it two weeks ago, I guess, when we had the conversation about Todd Freel, because Todd Freel, you know, the pinwheel conversation, uh, you, you were going to be a part of that, but unfortunately you weren't able to, to be in that conversation, but that was part of what we talked about was the responsibility where where's the line, right? The government has a certain amount of authority.
14:58
And, and I said, you know, I wouldn't wear pinwheels because I would, I would see that as a, um, uh, a violation of my bearing the image of God.
15:07
You're, you're, you're, you're calling people to essentially humiliation and, and, and so, but that, but that's, again, that's a different conversation, but, but there is you're, you are right in the same way that if I had a woman who came to me and said, uh, I I'm living in a home and I'm supposed to submit to my husband, but he's punching me in the face every night.
15:32
What am I supposed to do? Well, we got to deal with the cops.
15:34
Yeah, exactly.
15:35
We've, even though there's, there's a call to submission, it's not absolute.
15:40
No.
15:41
Yeah.
15:41
Yeah.
15:42
And, and that goes, even the sphere of obedience for the wife to the husband is in the sphere of the fact that she's made in the image of God.
15:50
She's a co-laborer with me, a co heir of the faith, and I'm supposed to entreat her as the a good thing to protect her and care for her.
16:02
And if I'm neglecting her emotionally and I'm not caring for her and I'm abusing her, um, there is a, there's a line in which the state gets involved, but before the state should even get involved, hopefully there's a godly church saying, Hey, young man, we see something in you and we need to deal with it before it goes too far.
16:23
You know, you want it, you want it to stay in the right sphere, but there's a line.
16:27
If he hits her, it goes to the laws are written, that is abuse.
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And we're calling the cops.
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And so it, so there's always a problem of trying to figure out what sphere we're in.
16:40
And I think sometimes churches get in trouble because we try to keep things in church sphere that are in the government sphere.
16:46
Um, and I think that could be just as dangerous.
16:50
And we've seen that, and I'm sure you're familiar with, with some of the things that have happened at where, where churches have tried to deal with things that do require state intervention.
16:59
And, and, and you as a counselor, I'm sure that you, you have had to deal with this, maybe not on a personal level, but you, as a, as a pastor, you provide counseling to people.
17:08
I'm sure people who come to you, if somebody came to you and said, Hey, every night I'm putting a gun in my mouth and I'm considering pulling the trigger, you would, you would have to deal with that because if you didn't do anything and that person did go through with it, then as a school, uh, with those kids, I'm a mandatory reporter for those types of things.
17:29
If a kid's doing suicidal things, I've got to tell somebody in authority, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
17:38
And so, and, and, and rightfully so, right? I mean, this is what we, this is what we hope would be done rightly.
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These are the things.
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And, and so when someone says getting back to the, to the, to the article, no, no, no, we're doing, we're, we're going down the right path.
17:54
Cause we're, we're veering back into the thought, because when she says, okay, thinking of children as state assets, well, let, let's take a step back.
18:04
Are my children citizens of the, of the, of the country that we live in? They, in a sense they are, but, but my children, I want to use the example you, you mentioned earlier, cause you mentioned about the church and the state and the church intervening first in certain situations, such as, you know, wife and husband having issues, maybe the church would intervene if, if she, if they're in a godly church.
18:34
I'm going to ask you this question.
18:36
I didn't ask you before the show.
18:37
So hopefully it's, it's okay to ask.
18:41
Does your church take children into membership, full membership? Um, no.
18:50
And yes, it's kind of a, so children in our constitution, and that's a touchy situation, children in our constitution who are children of members, um, uh, enjoy full benefit.
19:03
That's how our constitution says of church membership and that when they become 18, you know, they, they can come as if they've been baptized into the church and believed in faith, they can become a voting member with full benefit.
19:19
So a child has full benefits, full benefits of membership in the, in, in the thought that we have the family, that's a part of the covenant community.
19:29
Okay.
19:30
You know, that's, that's, there's a tear there between us, Presbyterian brothers, us Baptist brothers on that one.
19:37
But, but you, you are Baptist and I'm Baptist.
19:40
And so we would say, we would say that children, just because they're born into a Christian family are not necessarily Christian.
19:46
You're, you're speaking of children that have been baptized.
19:49
Yeah.
19:49
Well, no children, uh, children in general enjoy membership underneath their parents.
19:55
Okay.
19:56
Not, not themselves.
19:57
So they enjoy the full benefits of membership under their family.
20:01
So if their mom and dad are baptized members, yes, they don't get to vote there.
20:06
They're not teaching their children.
20:08
So it's not really, that's a touchy subject.
20:11
Yeah.
20:11
Go ahead.
20:12
No, no, well, you answered the question I was going to ask is do they, can they vote in a congregational meeting answers? No.
20:18
Okay.
20:18
See, and that's in our congregation, a child of a believer, even if they are baptized, is not able to vote, um, until they are.
20:30
And we, we use 18 as the, as the number that, even though I know it's not a magic number, it's the, it's the number where they can vote in the elections, you know, state elections.
20:39
It's the number in our society as we see adulthood.
20:42
Yeah, exactly.
20:43
And so we, in our constitution, it says a person cannot be a, um, uh, a member of the congregate, a full member of the congregation until they're 18 years old.
20:52
But like you said, we just had, you know, this year I baptized, uh, three girls.
20:57
I baptized, um, two 13 year olds and a 12 year old, I think I may be wrong on those ages, but they were all around, you know, preteen teenage years.
21:05
And certainly they now, they can now, uh, help on the worship team.
21:10
They can now help, you know, things that we, things that non-members can't do.
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We don't let non-members lead worship.
21:14
So they could come and sing on the worship team.
21:16
They can certainly, uh, participate in other areas that members would, but they wouldn't be able to vote.
21:22
And, and my whole reason for bringing this out is because we believe, and I think you would agree, um, that those children still remain.
21:33
The responsibility of their parents until they are adults.
21:37
And I would say even past 18, but, but we're saying at the minimum 18, because that, that is, they're still under the authority and the recognized, like for instance, let's say one of those girls, heaven forbid, uh, fell into sin.
21:53
We would go to their parents first.
21:55
And we would say, what's going on in, in, in, in, in your home that this is happening.
22:01
And we would begin with the father and the mother, uh, because they have a, they have a sphere of authority and we have a sphere of authority, but their sphere in the home would be how we would address that.
22:12
Is that similar? I would agree.
22:14
And they would be the primary authority.
22:15
So yeah, that's primary authority.
22:19
I that's perfect.
22:20
I'm glad you said that.
22:21
Cause that's a good point.
22:24
We're not saying neither you nor I are not saying that the state doesn't have any authority at all because the state does have some responsibility does have some authority.
22:33
And like I said, if, if, if, if it came to be known that there was a man down the street from me who was beating his children, I would want the state to step in and remove those children.
22:43
You know, I, um, I'm a former foster parent.
22:46
Uh, we have children who were in the foster care system and, um, you know, who are our children now, but there was a time when they had to be removed from a home.
22:56
And, uh, you know, that happens, unfortunately that happens a lot.
23:01
There are a lot of times where children are removed and in those, in those situations, the church wouldn't be involved because most of those people are not believers.
23:10
Most of those people are not, you know, are not saved.
23:13
And, um, so certainly we're not saying the church doesn't have any voice, but the most dangerous thing that I see, and I, and I, I, I'm gonna let you opine for a moment, but one of the most dangerous things I see is the elimination of the authority of the parent.
23:32
They're okay.
23:33
So my thought goes to, well, you know, there's fierce authorities.
23:40
The parent is definitely the primary authority in a child's life.
23:44
That is a God given.
23:46
They are, they are given to the parents.
23:49
If you read the commandments throughout the old Testament is the parents that are commanded to talk about the Lord.
23:55
When they walk by the way, when they lay down, when they rise this up again, they're talk about the Lord, the charge to educate children through the entirety of the scripture is laid on the parents.
24:04
And this was understood through early American culture, early American culture.
24:07
Parents thought it was their responsibility to teach your kids to read, which is the reason why in Doug Wilson's book on education, uh, literacy was much higher, uh, back in the, the 1800s than it is now in America for the very fact that parents thought it's my responsibility to teach kids to read so long before they ever went to the one room schoolhouse, they were reading because it was parent parental responsibility.
24:33
Now parents have shifted.
24:35
We have given our responsibility to the state.
24:38
Uh, it's your job to teach them to read.
24:40
That's right.
24:41
And, and that shift has shifted every, which, I mean, it shifted every part of the American life.
24:49
And it's been a slippery slope.
24:51
Um, I, I, from the pulpit have often made the charge.
24:56
Uh, when God, when Jesus shows up there in Matthew 20 holds up a coin says whose face is on the coin and they say Caesars, he says, rendered a Caesar to things that are Caesar unto God, the things that are God.
25:08
Your children are made a Mago day.
25:12
Yeah.
25:12
God's image is on them, not Caesar's image.
25:15
You are to offer them up as a heritage unto the Lord, to his glory and to his praise.
25:21
And, and I believe with all my heart.
25:23
And, and again, I don't want to sound like an anarchist.
25:26
The state has authority, but they're not just wanting the right to educate our children.
25:32
They're wanting the right to, to, to give them and indoctrinate them with their wisdom, their ideologies, their, their worldviews, which are antithetical to God.
25:45
Absolutely.
25:46
Yeah.
25:47
Absolutely.
25:47
You mentioned China.
25:49
I look something up and I think you'll find this really interesting.
25:52
So when, uh, the cultural revolution, uh, where's my browser.
25:56
There it is.
25:57
So when the cultural revolution, uh, was going on in China, they had the five black and the five red categories.
26:04
Have you ever heard this? No.
26:07
Okay.
26:07
So the five black categories, and this doesn't mean to be racist.
26:11
This is what it was.
26:12
And the cultural revolution between 1966, uh, on through was the, the five black categories.
26:19
You were black.
26:20
If you were a landlord, a rich farmer, a counter-revolutionary, a bad influence, a bad influencer, or a rightist.
26:29
Okay.
26:29
You were red.
26:31
If you were poor, low middle-class peasant worker, a revolutionary soldier, revolutionary martyr, or a good standing member in this, uh, CPC, which is now the CCP.
26:43
So the, the whole argument was, is, are, are you a black Chinese? Are you a red Chinese? And, uh, so I was reading a thing and it was about, uh, a lady who had came to the United States, who talked about in her childhood during this cultural revolution, the teacher would stand her up in front of the class and say, you know, you need to confess.
27:07
And this poor girl would have to write confessions and apologize for her, her father being a landlord and that they were ashamed of being black Chinese.
27:17
And they purposely shifted the ideology of China to grab the minds of the children to steal a nation.
27:25
And they did it successfully.
27:28
Uh, now I don't know, have you been following the news about the man who just got fired in California? Uh, he was, is this the one that had the, the black power Antifa? You had the Antifa flag.
27:41
He had a picture of Mao on his wall.
27:44
Chairman, he stamped the students, uh, whenever they did good on, on a paper, he stamped it with a, a little picture of Mao that said, great job.
27:56
Um, but he, they interviewed him and it was on Veritas and he's like, I have 180 days to turn these kids in the revolutionaries.
28:04
Um, and that's what we're handing our children over to.
28:10
Yeah.
28:11
And if, if, if you think he's the only left wing communist teacher, uh, I guarantee we have them in Marion County and you probably have them up there in Jacksonville as well.
28:25
Sure.
28:26
Absolutely.
28:27
Absolutely.
28:27
And that's the, that's the thing that is, you mentioned this earlier, you mentioned about, we used to teach our children to read and now we expect the school to do it.
28:43
We are more and more pushing that school start earlier.
28:49
And I don't mean like earlier in the morning.
28:51
I mean, like, you know, when I started school, it was five or six years old.
28:54
I forget it was for kindergarten.
28:56
Then it was, but there wasn't, you know, before the kindergarten is first grade that then it was kindergarten.
29:00
Now it's pre-K and pre-K is expected.
29:03
If you don't send your child to pre-K, then they're going to be behind.
29:07
And that's the push failing your child.
29:08
You are.
29:09
And then now it's, uh, my wife sent me an article, uh, that, um, it's the, the title of the article is New York times from cradle to grave Democrats move to expand social safety net.
29:24
That's the, the, the term that they're using.
29:26
And it says the, um, the, sorry, I'm having trouble reading it here, but basically that the, that there's a push earlier and earlier and earlier for students to be in school.
29:38
I mean, to the point where it's almost, you know, you had the baby.
29:41
Okay.
29:41
Go back, go right back to work and we'll take the child and we'll put them in childcare.
29:45
And then as soon as they're old enough to go into school, we'll start this indoctrination process.
29:49
And that's what it is.
29:50
It's a, it's a process to get them to see the state as the authority, the biggest authority, the authority, that's even more important, as you said, than the primary authority, which is the parents.
30:02
And then we end up with things, and I know this might be sort of a jump, but we end up with things where, okay, now the children are able to have abortions.
30:11
Who do they talk to about abortions? Not their parents.
30:14
Yeah.
30:15
They don't have to ask permission.
30:16
They don't have to ask permission.
30:17
They need to talk to their school therapist or, or whatever, you know, whether it be about drugs or sex or, or anything like this, it's not something that you're, the parents need to be having conversations about.
30:30
It is something that the school needs to address.
30:35
Yeah.
30:36
Well, and the thing is, is, uh, in the UK and, and I forget the exact, I know, I believe it's Ireland, but a couple of the different countries, uh, they actually don't even potty train their children.
30:50
They expect the state to potty train their children when they go to school.
30:53
I learned this from a missionary and, and it's like, how, how did you get there? Well, it's the state's responsibility to teach the child and what we have done as a nation and as a people, as we've thrown our children to the government and said, here, they're theirs, they're yours.
31:11
And now the government is going, Hey, yeah, these are ours.
31:15
Yeah.
31:15
Um, and, and, uh, the, the thing is, is.
31:20
I agree.
31:21
The state has authority.
31:22
The state says my child has to be educated.
31:25
Okay.
31:26
That's fine.
31:28
Um, but I also know when you read through like the book of Proverbs, uh, guard your heart with all diligence.
31:35
Um, there's this, uh, as a man think is so easy.
31:38
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
31:41
Um, I want to teach my children to fear the Lord.
31:44
I want to teach my children.
31:45
I want to guard their hearts.
31:47
I don't want my child to be wise in those things that are evil.
31:50
But at the same time I go to like, I think it's Acts chapter 10, where it talks about the fact that, uh, Moses was educated in all manners of the world and it made him a better leader.
32:00
So I want them to be educated, but I don't want them to be wise and evil stuff.
32:05
And let's just be honest.
32:07
The, the school policy is pushing more and more towards making our kids wise and evil stuff to teach them that there is no God.
32:14
So therefore there's no fear of the Lord.
32:16
So then we end up making them puff up with knowledge and not wisdom.
32:20
Um, and we're not guarding the hearts and minds of our children.
32:23
And so I, I, maybe this sounds mean, I don't, I think you can do public school and do it well.
32:30
I know some Christian families who have kids in public school who've came out and they are fine.
32:34
Most of them are super small towns.
32:36
So, uh, like, uh, my family up in Franklin, Ohio, it's a small little podunk town.
32:42
Uh, they know all the teachers, the teachers all go to church.
32:45
Uh, it's a different situation than say being in Jacksonville or even Ocala.
32:50
Uh, it's a bigger city.
32:52
Um, I don't, there's no way we can know all the teachers there.
32:56
There's no way I can know the curriculum.
32:58
There's no way.
32:59
Uh, and how can I answer to God? That's another question.
33:04
How can I, in my sphere of influence that God has given me answer to God for the minds and hearts of my sons and daughters.
33:11
If I'm allowing the state to educate them now, how do, how do we answer now? Um, ultimately, so, you know, our children, our children beneficial to the state in some ways, I think we should raise our kids to be good Americans.
33:30
Yes.
33:32
Um, are they wards of the state? No, my kids are not wards of the state.
33:38
Uh, it is they're, they're made in the image of God.
33:41
It is my blood running through their veins.
33:43
I have been the one charged by God to rear them in the nurture and admonish of the Lord.
33:49
I'm the one who's supposed to be the mighty man.
33:52
Who's like, uh, uh, shooting them like an arrow with a bow to hit their mark.
33:56
I'm the one who's supposed to, uh, to, to train them and to speak of the Lord.
34:01
When we lie down, we rise up.
34:03
I'm the one to teach them to read so they can get into God's word.
34:06
I'm the one to teach them the difference between wisdom and knowledge and how the fear of the Lord is the beginning of it all.
34:11
That is my responsibility.
34:12
And I will, they will have to go over my dead body to take that responsibility from me.
34:18
Yep.
34:19
Yep.
34:19
And that's it.
34:21
That's the, that's really the heart of what we're talking about today, because that's what they're trying to do.
34:26
That really is the, the, the, the, the heart of the, of articles like this and others, which try to promote the idea that your children don't belong to you.
34:36
That even though their, your blood is coursing through their veins, that doesn't matter.
34:39
That's they're just stardust Austin.
34:42
Don't you know, they're just, you know, you know, your, your God doesn't exist.
34:46
That's the, that really is the heart.
34:48
And that's sort of what you have already alluded to that the, the entire promotion of the state right now.
34:54
And I'll give you, I want to give you an illustration, an anecdotal illustration.
34:59
Uh, there is a teaching platform called, uh, out school.
35:05
Have you ever heard of it? No.
35:07
Out school is a, it is an online learning, uh, online learning center where teachers of all kinds of various backgrounds can go on and teach classes in all kinds of different things.
35:24
And, uh, recently I decided to sign up to possibly teach a class in public speaking that give you an idea.
35:31
So, so what you have to do is you have to go through a background check and, um, parents would find you, let's say, let's say you wanted to teach a class in, um, beard grooming because you have a wonderfully beautiful beard.
35:47
Uh, maybe beautiful is the wrong word.
35:48
Very manly.
35:49
Let me back that up.
35:50
I like dapper.
35:52
Yeah.
35:53
Yeah.
35:53
And that hat, you know, you are very dapper.
35:55
So let's say, uh, Austin wants to teach a class in, in beard grooming.
36:01
You, you go on and you go through the interview.
36:04
We're not, it's not really an interview process.
36:06
You have to film yourself teaching a little bit of whatever it is you're going to teach.
36:10
And then you have to, uh, submit yourself to a background check and, and the parents will find you and they will choose whether or not to essentially hire you and put their children in your class.
36:23
And you say, okay, every Tuesday and Thursday, I'm going to teach my beard grooming class.
36:27
And it's going to go for six weeks and they would pay a certain amount of money.
36:30
And that money would be funneled down to you after, of course, out school gets their portion.
36:35
Cause certainly they're making money on it.
36:37
That's how these things work, right? It's a platform, a teaching platform.
36:40
And I think it, I don't think it's a bad thing.
36:43
Like I said, I signed up for it because I was going to teach a public speaking class.
36:46
Um, but there are people there who teach everything from history to English to art.
36:52
And, um, the reason why I bring it up is, uh, I think that it could be wonderfully beneficial for, for homeschoolers who, who did want their children to have access to other things.
37:02
But the thing that got my attention was that when you were signing up for this, when, if you did go and teach on it, if you do sign up there very clearly from the outset, we are a secular organization and we do not allow any religious teaching.
37:18
Oh, wow.
37:20
And it's, I mean, that was like within the first set of rules was like there.
37:25
And so what I did was I began to look through the classes that they do offer and there were Bible classes, but it was like Bible is mythology and Bible is history, but it was nothing as, you know, there were no Bible classes that would be something like you or I would teach the scripture as the authoritative word of God.
37:42
And, um, it just, it got me thinking, as you said, just a minute ago that we were starting from the wrong place.
37:51
And this is where the state begins in the wrong place.
37:55
The state looks at God as somehow optional and unnecessary when it comes to education.
38:06
And that is not an option for my children.
38:09
That's not an option for your children.
38:11
No, and it's, it's antithetical to knowledge itself.
38:15
That's right.
38:16
And I don't think the non-Christian can comprehend that the very concept of systematics is our concept, you know, it's a old friend's calling.
38:32
I just canceled it.
38:33
No worries.
38:34
One of the other things I saw in out school that was so, because once I signed up, I had the opportunity to look at other teachers and what they were doing.
38:42
And one person was teaching introduction to sexual education.
38:46
And I thought, I thought, wow, that who, I mean, you want to get on a zoom call with a bunch of teenagers and talk about that? I mean, that's just crazy.
38:58
Also, these classes are live.
39:00
Oh, yeah.
39:01
It's basically just like what we're doing here.
39:03
This is you get on and you have however many students, but here's the thing.
39:07
Somebody, the description of the class was this was introduction to sexual education for students, 17 and 18.
39:15
So it wasn't for little kids.
39:17
I mean, it was for older teenagers and somebody, and you could comment and another commenter said, how many teenagers do you think haven't had sex by 17? And so the assumption of the whoever it was commenting was that class doesn't mean anything.
39:43
And right away, I'm thinking sphere of authority.
39:46
Parents should be the one having this conversation about what sex is and what sex is for and how to have a godly sexual relationship in the bounds of marriage, all of those things, which I'm certain is not a part of that class.
39:57
But the other person is even making fun of that by saying, how could you think that children at 17 aren't having sex? And it just floored me because it just reminded me of the ecosystem that I was sort of waiting into.
40:11
Yeah.
40:12
And that's the presuppositions of the secular education is based on secular morality.
40:21
That's right.
40:23
I mean, that's the thing.
40:25
You should be sexually active.
40:27
You're a young adult.
40:29
That's healthy.
40:31
Or what blew my mind is a couple of years ago when I was studying, working on my doctor, some of the stuff I read about it's healthy.
40:41
I cannot tell you how many articles I read about the health benefits of young men and pornography, and you're reading it from all these people.
40:50
And of course, there's conflict, even among the secular world on that issue.
40:54
But as a Christian, I'm sitting there going, no, this destroys a healthy future marital life.
41:01
This destroys a lot more.
41:03
This is just destroying a young man's mind.
41:06
This is making this young man not be able to interact with his sisters and the Lord the way he should.
41:12
This is going to affect him as a father one day.
41:16
This is destructive.
41:17
But the thing is, we're sending our kids to a school whose teachers are more than likely being trained by these secular psychologists that are pushing this new narrative of sexual liberality.
41:36
And if there's one reason why my children are not wards of the state and are not property of the state, it's their mind.
41:46
It belongs to the Lord.
41:48
That's right.
41:48
It belongs to the Lord.
41:50
And I think with the whole argument, it comes down to my children are made in the image of God.
41:57
Amen.
41:58
Amen.
42:00
Yep.
42:00
And that's really what I hope that you take away from this today, listener, as we begin to draw to a close.
42:07
And that is if you're a believer, and hopefully if you're listening to this program, you are a believer.
42:12
But if you're not, I want to talk to you about that, too.
42:15
So please, if you have questions about the Christian faith, questions about what it means to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, questions about repentance and sin and faith, send me a podcast or send me an email at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
42:27
I'd love to have that conversation with you.
42:29
But if you are a believer and you're a parent specifically, one of the things that no matter what you may have thought based upon maybe how you grew up, like I said, I went to public school, all 13 years of school.
42:45
The primary responsibility for your children rests upon you.
42:49
The primary responsibility for your children's education, whatever avenue you choose to go, it's still your responsibility.
42:57
And Brother Austin mentioned this earlier, but I'm going to read the scripture that he has alluded to a couple of times and let us draw to a close on this.
43:05
And it's Deuteronomy chapter six.
43:07
And this is the passage of passages.
43:08
This is the go to passage because it reminds us the call to Israel is still the call to us today.
43:14
And it was here.
43:15
Oh, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.
43:17
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.
43:22
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them.
43:38
As a sign on your hand, they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
43:43
You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and you, excuse me, and on your gates.
43:49
I want to tell a quick story.
43:51
This reading the scripture as I was reading the scripture, I was reminded of a story.
43:55
A few months ago, we were looking at possibly getting solar panels for our house.
44:01
It was just looking into the possibility of that.
44:03
And the big issue for me, I wanted to find something that would help keep me powered during storms, because we have a lot of hurricane season storms right here.
44:11
I know you guys deal with this down in Ocala as well.
44:13
Not Ocala, Somerville, where you are.
44:16
We all deal with it.
44:16
We're Florida people.
44:18
We know what hurricane season is all about.
44:20
So the electrical, I'm sorry, the word escaped me.
44:29
The solar panels, solar panel people.
44:31
Thank you, Austin.
44:33
The solar panel people came to my house and as soon as they walked up, I met them in the yard and I was wearing a t-shirt that says, repent and believe this is the shirt that I'm wearing.
44:45
And they come into my house and my children are literally sitting in a circle around my wife.
44:52
And she's reading their daily Bible reading to them.
44:55
We didn't plan this.
44:56
This was not, we didn't say, oh, here comes the solar people.
45:01
Let's all get in position.
45:03
It wasn't.
45:04
They just happened to come.
45:05
I was in the backyard and I heard them drive up.
45:08
I walk around, I'm wearing my repent and believe shirt.
45:10
They walk in, there's my wife sitting on the ground.
45:15
And it was sort of like, it was almost like little house on the prairie.
45:17
Like all the kids are sitting around listening to Ma read from the Bible.
45:22
And then we sit down and I didn't even notice it right away, but behind me was our whiteboard that we use for homeschooling and was written up.
45:32
There was our catechism question for the day, which I don't remember what it was.
45:36
But so here, these people come in, they had to have been thinking, I've just walked into the craziest family because this is, it's certainly different than what I'm sure that they're used to.
45:47
And you're the fascist cult.
45:49
Yeah.
45:51
But again, what are we doing? And I'm certainly not putting myself on a pedestal or saying, you know, I'm a standard that anybody else should be looking to.
45:57
But the reality is the goal of our family should be that the word is just part of what we do.
46:05
It's part of our life.
46:07
It is how we live.
46:08
And when people come into our house, that should be readily apparent that this is how we live our life.
46:15
We live our life to the glory of God.
46:17
And if we are understanding our role as parents, then that our children will know that one of the most, the biggest blessings that I get to enjoy every night is my three-year-old will come and say, when are we going to read the Bible? Because she knows we do that every night, we read the Bible, we sing a song and we pray.
46:45
And again, Christian, if you're out there, if you're wondering how it is that you take your children back, start with that.
46:53
Start with the simplest things of if you're not already in a church, get in a local church.
46:58
If you are not having family time where you're sitting down with your children and showing them that the word means something to you, if your children know more about SpongeBob than they do about the word, that may be an issue because we're focusing on the wrong thing.
47:15
So brother, I'm going to give you, if you want to add anything, any thoughts, because I know I've added a lot there.
47:21
You know, family devotion is one of those things that I have not always been what I should be.
47:30
And me either.
47:32
And I will say this, my wife is such a wonderful encouragement to me because I often am so tied up with things related to church and things.
47:42
I just get home and I'm tired and she's the one who urges me.
47:45
So I'm right there with you, brother.
47:46
Absolutely.
47:47
Yeah, well, here's where it hit me.
47:53
It is so expected in our house that there have been days that I have been lazy and I lay down and my boys come in.
48:03
Dad, we didn't do our devotion.
48:07
And that's the thing is that should be expected.
48:12
Your children should just see it as something that's normal.
48:15
And that's something we all have to work on.
48:18
Amen.
48:18
And life comes at you fast.
48:20
We get worn out.
48:21
I threw my back out last week.
48:23
So I was really bad last week.
48:25
Oh, I was laid up for three days, pretty bad.
48:28
And the boys coming in every night and it's like, we're going to get back.
48:31
I just can't even sit up right now.
48:34
Go read your Bibles yourself.
48:35
You guys are old enough.
48:38
But I love the fact that my boys expected it.
48:42
And that's the goal.
48:44
I mean, you're not going to be perfect, but if you're doing it and are hitting more than you're missing and your kids are expecting it, you're doing well.
48:52
Amen.
48:53
Amen.
48:55
Absolutely.
48:56
And again, the first and primary sphere of authority in your children's life should be you and your goal and our goal should be as Christian parents to point our children to the Lord, to teach them when they rise up, when they lay down, when they're going out, when they're coming in to look to the Lord Jesus Christ and the state.
49:18
Yeah, it's got a purpose, but its purpose is not to be the parent.
49:22
And certainly its purpose is not the primary educational avenue for our children.
49:27
We are to teach our children.
49:28
We, as the scripture says, to teach our children, diligently to love the Lord.
49:35
All right.
49:36
Well, brother Austin, thank you so much for being on the program today and dedicating your time to this evening.
49:41
And thank you listener for being with us today.
49:44
I hope that this has been an encouragement to you.
49:46
And if you need resources, again, if you have questions about salvation, if you need resources for anything that would help you in regard to family devotions or anything like that, that you could help, that could help spring you along to doing those things in your home, please send me a message at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
50:03
Thank you for listening to conversations with a Calvinist.
50:05
My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.
50:08
May God bless you.
50:11
Thank you for listening to conversations with a Calvinist.
50:15
If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe.
50:18
And if you have a question you would like us to discuss on our future program, please email us at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.
50:27
As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
50:33
All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.
50:38
He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
50:44
May God be with you.