My heart is overwhelmed with the joys of our nap-time missions readings, following my dear friend, Theresa's blog, and witnessing the small pieces coming together in terms of our adoption. "How beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news..."
Read something interesting in terms of worldviews and the shaping of them. An excerpt from the "Christian Home School" book I've been reading by Gregg Harris reaffirmed what Matt and I have witnessed in textbooks; "These studies make it abundantly clear that public school textbooks commonly exclude the history, heritage, beliefs, and values of millions of Americans. Those who believe in the traditional family are not represented. Those who believe in free enterprise are not represented. Those whose politics are conservative are almost unrepresented. Above all, those who are committed to their religious tradition-at the very least of as an important part of the historical record-are not represented.
Even those who uphold the classic or republican virtues of discipline, public duty, hard work, patriotism, and concern for others are scarcely represented. Indeed, the world of those virtues long advocated by believers, as well as deists and skeptics such as Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, is not found here. Even what one might call the "noble pagan" has ample reason to reject these inadequate and sentimentalized books which seem to be about an equal mixture of pop and propaganda.
Over and over, we have seen that liberal and secular bias is primarily accomplished by exclusion, by leaving out the opposing position. Such a bias is much harder to observe than a positive verification or direct criticism, but it is the essence of censorship. It is effective not only because ti is hard to observe-it isn't there-and therefore hard to counteract, but also because ti makes only the liberal, secular positions familiar and plausible. As a result the millions of Americans who hold conservative, traditional, and religious positions are made to appear irrelevant, strange, on the fringe, old-fashioned, reactionary." (quote by Professor Vitz in a study of textbooks in the American public classroom).
If you are still with me after that in-places-a-bit-heady quote (sorry I didn't warn you), please allow me to sum it up. Many textbooks portray one side of events in a persuasive manner to sway their readers to agree with particular sides of historical platforms or particular thought-processes about historical events. Therefore, while in a history class the topics of teaching are indeed historical, the biases are not being taught in fair playing fields. So when liberal agendas are the norm, the student concludes that traditional or conservative agendas are "out-dated" and that there is no value in entertaining such ideas.
This is an interesting argument that is running rampant in our culture and many other cultures. In many societies elders are considered to be wise and useful and full of experience. But in "new-age" thinking remaining young is an ideal - college students marking many backings of political change - - look at who the targeted voting age is? Age is considered "past your prime", I mean take the hair-dye industry as an example. If it was honorable to grow in age and maturity and wisdom I wonder if so many would try so desperately to look young?
Beyond that there comes the Christian scope of thinking in which we just need to be aware of the biases coming through teaching. I'm not arguing that all students are corrupted and warped by the public school system - seriously, I would be a victim. But I am arguing that in family conversation around the dinner table we need to know what we are up against in terms of the past 8 hours of our child's education.
Worldviews slip in from anywhere and everywhere. We, Christians, must apply ourselves to willingly accept and reject those things that make our seeking for obedience to Truth successful. This is no doom and gloom post, just has been another eye-opener when it comes to accepting Truth and rejecting lies.
God, Your Word is Truth.
-To God be the glory.
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