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The Baby Veronica Case: Symptom of America’s eroding central cultural vision
Veronica is the little four-year-old girl who is at the center of an epic custody battle between her South Carolina adoptive parents and her biological father. A member of the Cherokee Tribe, the father agreed to give custody to the birth mother four months after Veronica’s birth but claims he had not known the birth mother had placed her up for adoption. The adoptive parents raised Veronica from her birth in 2009 to December 2011 when the biological father won custody from a South Carolina Court under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 which gives a tribe the right to intervene in custody cases of children with any degree of Indian blood. However, in June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that that […]
What is your purpose in life? – Part II
In Part I we described man’s purpose in life from the perspective of the two dominant combatants in the culture wars. One is the biblical worldview of Christianity upon whose principles the nation was founded and governed for 150 years. The other has been described as the official religion of America—humanism. So how do these competing worldviews define man’s purpose? The humanistic vision of the purpose of man is based on the exaltation of the individual, is inward-looking, denies the role of God in man’s purpose, and whose centerpiece is a vague, undefined egalitarianism focused on equality of outcome. Christianity’s view of man’s purpose is rooted in relationship, is outward-looking, and is defined by those timeless truths which are revealed in the Bible. The exaltation […]
What is your purpose in life? – Part I
Some may suggest this is a silly or trivial question. For those that attempt to answer, the variety of responses will likely be as numerous as people responding. Many consider life meaningless (and by implication hopeless). Others focus their answers on themselves, e.g., their purpose is to survive whether in a primitive society (kill or be killed) or the modern (the 8 to 5 so-called rat race of working to provide the necessities of life). But these answers are inadequate and do not speak to the fundamental question that every one of us must answer. Man is a special being, if for no reason other than he is the only creature to ask why he is here. That very question presupposes his denial that he […]
Progressivism’s Fatal Flaw
Liberalism as we know it came of age in the nineteenth century and was a product of the Enlightenment, that skeptical and revolutionary humanistic cultural tradition that emanated from eighteenth century Western Europe which “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.” [Smith, p. 54.] For the humanist-liberal-progressive, man is continuously perfectible, a process whereby he will become progressively better and better. Progress is possible because man is not fallen and does not need redemption. Therefore, humanists assert there is no limit to the perfecting of the powers of man other than the duration of the globe upon which […]
Education in America – Part III – Common Core State Standards – Educational excellence or secular cultural conformity?
The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is a state-led effort that established a single set of educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics that states voluntarily adopt to standardize and strengthen educational standards and expectations. The nation’s governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), led the development of the Common Core State Standards and continue to lead the Initiative. The mission of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) reads as follows: The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The […]
Education in America – Part II – Secularization of American Education
As we have seen in Part I, education in North America at all levels was an indisputably Christian enterprise from the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620 to the early part of the 20th century. The Bible and other books reflecting a biblical worldview were the foundation of American education, that is, the original common core curriculum. In Part II, we will describe the destruction of the original biblically-based common core curriculum by the humanistic progressive education philosophies of John Dewey and others. The churches were the principal founders of the first colleges and universities in the American colonies and whose purpose was for the training of pastors. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, colleges and universities expanded their academic portfolios, and the cultural ties […]
Education in America – Part I – America’s Original Common Core Curriculum
There has been considerable discussion in the press and halls of education with regard to The Common Core Curriculum Standards Initiative, an attempt by the educational establishment to standardize and strengthen educational standards and expectations at the elementary and secondary levels. Quoting from the Initiative’s English language arts standards, “As a natural outgrowth of meeting the charge to define college and career readiness, the Standards also lay out a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century.” In developing core curriculum standards, it would be worthwhile for the curriculum designers to spend some time reviewing what it meant to be a literate person in America from the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620 to the beginning of the twentieth […]
American Exceptionalism – Part III – R.I.P. or Revival?
John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, the America of the Founders was based upon the assumption that people who accept the biblical worldview are capable of governing themselves internally where ethical and moral issues are concerned. Thus, the architects of America’s early government structure envisioned the Republic supported by a foundation of common morality, and that morality rested on the bedrock of the Christian faith. As we noted in Part II, Christianity and Christian principles that permeated and bonded with the principles of civil government formed the […]