Religious Right

Connecting Homeschooling and Religious Abuse

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s blog Becoming Worldly. It was originally published on April 1, 2013.

I was asked a very good question by a homeschooler recently and figured I’d answer it here as well, expanding on it a little bit. The essence of that question (as I understood it) was “Why are you including homeschooling in your discussion of religious abuse? Aren’t those two separate things that you’re mistakenly combining?”

I guess the pattern and argument for why I include them together is very clear to me but I can see how most people would likely view them as two separate things. After all, abuse in a religious context can certainly occur without homeschooling ever being in the picture (Ex. See Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal), and homeschooling can be done without ever even having religion involved, not to mention religious abuse. Homeschooling and child maltreatment based on extreme (and in my opinion pretty warped) interpretations of Christianity (what I’m calling “religious abuse” for the sake of simplicity here) certainly do not have to be connected, and obviously curtailing the former would not stamp out the latter. So why would I be talking like this, like they’re connected? Is it because I am mistaken, somehow conflating factors, or because in some ways they really and truly are?

First off, let me say that I too wish that the issue of religious abuse could be decoupled from homeschooling (which I think is a legitimate and respectable educational option), but I don’t think it can be done as it currently stands. They have become intertwined.

I think that there are some important links and patterns that once recognized, change everything, but if I don’t highlight the pattern of what I see, I imagine it’s easy to conclude that I am just mistaken or generalizing based on my own personal experience. As it is, it’s also easy for me to assume that others will automatically see this system and to get frustrated when people don’t. Then I remember that everyone’s lived experience is a bit different and that I have also read and researched a heck of a lot on this topic in addition to having the lived experience of growing up in it. Additionally, I had six years of training (bachelors in political science and master’s degree in public policy) that taught me how to use certain tools, methods, frameworks, and analysis techniques. So here’s my “policy nerd” reasoning:

If you look at the individual or family level, homeschooling looks like a mishmash of various styles based on personal choice, varying from family to family. The pattern is not very apparent (and I would reach the same conclusion that these are two separate topics) but if you look at it at a system level the situation becomes stark (and to me very disturbing).

Homeschooling started out as a way to “liberate” children from authoritarian and rote desk-based learning, but leadership of the movement has been hijacked and become the main socio-political apparatus of a fringe group that has some very extreme practices and aims and has grown very politically powerful due to this takeover of homeschooling leadership. I mean just look at what kind of stuff the HSLDA advocates for with its dues money and the radical bent of its leaders. For brevity’s sake I will only list five things:

(1) They have said that “everyone” should have the right to homeschool, not making formal distinctions for convicted abusers or others who would not pass a background check or ever be seen fit to teach other people’s children.

(2) They have advocated for what is essentially a dismantling of the child welfare system and an expansion of parental rights in a way that essentially amounts to “ownership” of children, as opposed to simply having and carrying out a duty to raise and protect your offspring.

(3) They have called for a parental rights amendment to the United States constitution essentially saying that parents should not have checks or balances from outside entities. They ignore and paper over the unfortunate yet widely known fact that not all parents are fit or have their children’s best interests in mind and that absolutely awful things can and do happen when there is no mechanism to discern or intervene when things have gone wrong within a family.

(4) The HSLDA has funneled homeschoolers’ dues money and aptitude for activism and volunteerism into fielding political candidates such as Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Todd Akin and supporting others with similar radical socio-political agendas. (This has not just been about homeschooling deregulation either. These politicians’ records and agendas regarding family planning, women’s rights, gay people’s rights, religious freedom, and rape have been clear.)

(5) HSLDA fearmongering and political activism has helped them keep their coffers full and our nation awkwardly keeping company with only Somalia and South Sudan when it comes to not ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The whole recent debacle with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was similar.

So at first this stuff just seems weird, right? I mean why might homeschooling have anything to do with gay people or rights for the disabled or the idea that ordinary children should being treated like actual people deserving of similar protections to any other American citizen? Well, the short answer is it certainly doesn’t need to (well, except that homeschooling might be a desirable option for a disabled kid, or that homeschooling in certain circumstances is used to protect children). The thing is, if you are a fearful conspiracy theorist who also believes that you are the new set of God’s chosen people and you must “take back” our nation so that everyone can adhere to the most fundamentalist interpretations of biblical law, apparently these things have a lot more in common with homeschooling than first meets the eye. Homeschooling is one of the main tools to be used in this agenda. Additionally, if you believe in this stuff, you also think that all the “unbelievers” are out to take your homeschooling away and there is a good chance they are being led by Satan himself in an effort to do so, and as such they must be fought hard, smashed into the ground. If you look at the world this way, the crazy stuff suddenly makes perfect sense. The odd political advocacy goals of the homeschooling leadership suddenly make sense too.

I think Anderson Cooper’s incredulity at Michael Farris and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issue properly expresses what a normal person’s perspective might be when encountering this form of extremism, but the fact is we need to understand it and we also need to do something about it.

Things that normal homeschooling parents might want (opportunities for seamless and easy transitions into and out of public schools, the ability to participate and use public education resources on an “a la carte” basis, assistance with academic subjects that are not their forte, structures that make sure homeschooling kids at least know as much as their public school counterparts and are being given due credit for it, and an option for their kids to join local school sports teams) are not being advocated for by these people. The fringe doesn’t want these things. They want total control over children’s minds, bodies, and souls for their “holy” fight.

Under their leadership, homeschooling is not an educational choice. Instead it is pushed as being a lifestyle but it is really about using people as a culture wars tool. You soon learn that it is ultimately not about having a happy family life but rather about fulfilling “duties” with hope of rewards for it in heaven. I am not even going to get into how certain pastors and homeschool leaders are getting rich and powerful leading this movement. I will say that homeschooling of this sort is ultimately not about the children except that they are seen as tools in this crusade and so that is why it is seen as good to have or adopt as many of them as possible. They are weapons of sorts. This is so bad for children. I cannot overstate how bad this is for children (even when they seem to obey with a smile all the time).

This is why so many grown kids from this movement have totally rebelled against it and anything that even remotely looks like it and why others stay in, don’t question, and operate essentially as automatons working towards the objective. It hurts people in different ways and it’s why the former fundamentalist homeschool kids I know joke about whether someone “is still drinking the kool-aid” or not. It is why so many of us have “health problems” stemming from the years of being threatened, coerced, and told we were not measuring up to being what our parents were told they needed to craft us into if they were “Godly.” Yeah. Like that wouldn’t leave almost anyone with some issues.

I know plenty of homeschooling families definitely don’t buy into this extreme worldview and in fact are just as horrified by it all as I am. They just want to educate their children as best as they are able and enjoy family life. They don’t have some rabid agenda that requires building an “army.” They are more normal than that. The problem is that the crazy is louder than them, so the crazy gets heard and they get ignored or just lumped in and expected to put up with the crazy, as infuriating as that is.

So the bottom line is that an extreme fringe wing of the Christian religious right has taken over the homeschool movement leadership and continues to mold homeschooling as they see fit. They have turned something that was meant to liberate children into something that is often horribly oppressive. This is why the two issues cannot be decoupled – homeschooling is successfully being used as a powerful tool by these people, no matter how many kids their power grab disguised as “advice” hurts.

Anyway, I’m hoping this helps explain why both the religious abuse and homeschooling components are connected, and why I find that discussing them in tandem, with caveats, is the best approach to use when discussing this complicated issue.

I am not criticizing homeschooling as an educational option when I do this. In fact, I think this extreme fundamentalist homeschooling agenda is ultimately as toxic to “real” homeschooling (in all its various forms) as it has been to kids who grew up within this sort of damaging environment. If homeschoolers want to be associated with quality then they absolutely need to make sure they don’t sit back while people with extreme agendas claim to speak for them.

I think right now there is not much public awareness of these connections or how these extreme ideological agendas influence homeschooling (or our nation) as a whole, but in addition to needing to draw a distinction in motivations for homeschooling (and there are a wide range), there is also a huge need for responsible homeschoolers to “take back” the homeschooling movement leadership from the people who see it as a power and “culture wars” indoctrination tool rather than a way to give their kids the best skills and opportunities. I am not maligning homeschooling. I do not have a problem with homeschooling. I do have a problem with the current leadership of the homeschooling movement.

It is the real gorilla in the room.

Why You Need To Know About David Barton

HA Editorial Team15 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Sarah Jones’ blog Anthony B. Susan.  It was originally published on August 16, 2012.

News that Christian publisher Thomas Nelson had decided to pull David Barton’s latest book, The Jefferson Lies, catapulted another major figure of the religious right into the public consciousness. Like Dan Cathy, Barton has been known to evangelical Christians for years. Think of him as the Ken Ham of US history: an apologist for an alternative reality that enshrines American exceptionalism as the manifestation of God’s work on earth. In Barton’s version of history, Thomas Jefferson professed orthodox Christianity, never raped his slaves, and mandated Christian worship services in the US Capitol. It is a version of history so far removed from fact that it has come under attack from other conservative Christian historians.

Yet Barton’s influence in the evangelical world clearly dwarfs whatever power these genuine historians wield. He is a prolific writer and the history he tells is exactly the sort of mythology necessary to sustain the existence of America’s religious. For this reason, Time has named him one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals, and he enjoys his own personal webpage at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he is listed as one of the leading figures of the contemporary radical right.

Barton’s credentials as a historian have been repeatedly shredded. It’s common knowledge that he holds only a bachelor’s degree in Christian Education from conservative Oral Roberts University, and therefore possesses no training whatsoever as a professional historian. But this lack of credentials appeals to a right wing movement that associates intellectualism with secularism and leftist bias. That is exactly why universities like Oral Roberts (and my own alma mater) exist. They’re ostensibly a sanctuary from secularist brainwashing. It’s also why the homeschool movement is dominated by evangelical families that rely on books published by institutions like Bob Jones University and Pensacola Christian College.

The version of history taught in these books mimics Barton’s work: America is a Christian nation, and liberalism has perverted it. The fact that this a minority view, considered discredited by mainstream historians, only bolsters evangelical support for it. Barton is a prophet, crying out in America’s liberal wilderness.

You can consider Barton and his organization, Wallbuilders, directly analogous to Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis. Neither actually possesses any credentials in their fields and both enjoy positions of respect because they act as the public faces of the religious right’s alternative to academia. They legitimize the evangelical movement and promote it in the political sphere. Barton has been active with the Texas GOP, and acted as an “expert consultant”  to the Texas School Board. That same school board voted to approve changes to the state social studies curriculum that included the claim that the Founding Fathers were Christians.

Despite the controversy over the Jefferson Lies, the religious right will not abandon David Barton. It needs him to legitimize itself. It does not matter how times his books are debunked, any more than it has ever mattered that Ken Ham’s version of biology can be torn apart by anyone with a high school diploma. These controversies merely reinforce the right’s perception that it is a martyred movement, ordained to struggle because of its adherence to “traditional values.” These are the roots of Chik-fil-A “Appreciation Day” and statements like this. It’s why, as a veteran of homeschooling and private Christian education, I had to reteach myself history. It’s how I made it to graduate school without ever sitting through a basic lesson in evolutionary theory.

If that disturbs you, I urge you to educate yourself about Barton and his version of America, because education is the best defense against the movement he represents.

The Beginning of a Conversation: Sarah Jones’ Thoughts

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

The following piece was originally published by Sarah Jones on her blog ANTHONYBSUSAN with the title, “Homeschooling: Creative Alternative or Brainwashing Tool?” It is reprinted with her permission. Sarah has a master’s degree in postcolonial culture and global policy, and another degree in international studies. She was an Evangelical Christian at one point in her life, then a feminist member of the Emerging Church, and now describes herself as “agnostic, leaning atheist. Still a feminist though.”

The Daily Beast’s coverage of Homeschoolers Anonymous has reignited the perennial debate over the homeschooling movement and parents’ rights. As a former homeschooler, this is an intensely personal debate for me: I disliked the homeschool experience and I remain deeply critical of the Christian curriculum my parents employed. My own experience is not identical to the stories detailed in the Daily Beast article. I did not grow up in a Quiverfull home and my parents eventually became wary of the movement’s fringes. As a result, they did agree to send me and my brother to private and then public school. They’re not homeschool activists in any meaningful sense. Nevertheless, this article resonates with me, and I agree with the premise put forward by the members of Homeschoolers Anonymous: that homeschooling left me totally unprepared for the real world, and facilitated religious abuse.

"I hope that this Daily Beast article marks the beginning of a critical national conversation."
“I hope that this Daily Beast article marks the beginning of a critical national conversation.”

Before I continue I want to make it clear that I understand that homeschooling isn’t intrinsically a social evil. Done well, it can certainly prepare children to excel in higher education. Moreover, I don’t intend to argue that the alternatives are without flaw. The state of public and private schools in the US is a valid concern. I’m not going to summarize that debate here, but I’m referencing it in order to show that I do understand why parents (like my own) may make the decision to homeschool. I’m concerned by a specific branch of the homeschool movement, and its emphasis on religious indoctrination.

Certain common themes emerge from the Daily Beast story. Readers are introduced to adults who spent their formative years engaged in a battle against secularism. There is much praise for homeschooling’s ability to encourage children’s natural gifts, but as these stories demonstrate, many Evangelical and fundamentalist families encourage these gifts in order to advance a specific ideological agenda. Those of us raised in the religious right will recognize the rhetoric. We’re meant to be culture warriors, engaged in battle to return America to its Christian roots. Homeschooling is meant to create a pure environment. Christian parents are free to teach (read: train) their children in an atmosphere free of secular corruption.

For obvious reasons, this attitude toward education lends itself easily to abuse, particularly when you consider that most of these families adhere to traditional gender roles that revere the father as the head of the household. When your father is your chief disciplinarian, spiritual adviser, breadwinner and the principal of your school, a patriarchal structure is so firmly entrenched that the possibility of addressing domestic abuse is incredibly unlikely. Additionally, it reflects the belief that children are the property of their parents, that children have no rights, independent of their parents. The potential consequences this attitude poses for the children subjected to it are evident from the Daily Beast piece and from the other stories provided by Homeschoolers Anonymous.

There are additional points of concern; namely, the overlap between this fringe and Christian reconstruction. R.J. Rushdooney, truly the father of contemporary Christian reconstructionism, advocated homeschooling as an alternative to secular education. Later figures like Michael Farris continue to champion homeschooling as a religious obligation for Christian parents. Precociousness is considered evidence that homeschooling works. In the comments of the Daily Beast piece, you’ll find at least two adolescent homeschoolers engaged in a passionate defense of the movement. They repeatedly cite their personal success, and the successes of their homeschooled peers, as evidence of homeschooling’s superiority.

As a homeschool alumna, I don’t credit my own academic success to my parents’ decision to homeschool. If anything I believe I’ve succeeded in spite of it. I’ve never received accurate scientific instruction and I had to re-teach myself history and government. My decision to pursue political theory at the graduate level is partially inspired by this drive to strip my thought process of the misinformation and bias I learned as a child. Similarly, I reject the belief that my current progressive views are derived from mere rebellion, as many current homeschoolers like to assert. Those of us who object to the movement do so for valid reasons, and I hope that this Daily Beast article marks the beginning of a critical national conversation about children’s rights and the need to better regulate home instruction.

The Underlying Agenda I Didn’t Know About

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published as “The Homeschool Movement: Its Reconstructionist Roots and Rushdoony’s Influence” on December 8, 2012.

*****

“We are authorized by God to challenge all that is not godly! God is angry with the wicked every day, and the sins of the wicked deserve the infliction of God’s wrath in this life as well as the life hereafter!” ~ R.J. Rushdoony

I know the title of this post seems dry and boring. If spiritual abuse is a concern of yours, I encourage you to take the time to read this post carefully. Check out the links and do some research on your own. The information I have found has compelled me to keep blogging, to keep telling my story, and to keep sharing the stories of others. I am just a little worked up on this topic.

There is much more to homeschooling than just educating children. There is much more to patriarchy and courtship than fathers being heads of home and parents involved in the process of finding mates for their adult children. You must know that there is an agenda going on.

This agenda ties these practices together. I thought I was homeschooling my children because I could do a better job than the local public school system. I thought I was homeschooling my children so I could include Bible in their education and also protect them from negative worldly influences. That was pretty much my agenda. But that was not the agenda of the people I looked up to – the leaders in the homeschooling community. We looked to the leaders because they knew what they were doing and could help guide us on our foreign path. But there was an underlying agenda that I didn’t know about, that they did not disclose. It was there all along, but it’s not so obvious. I want to expose that now.

My blog started with the intent to share about my family’s experience at a spiritually abusive church. There has been much heartache in that experience and then 3-1/2 years later, it continued as my former pastor filed a defamation lawsuit against me and 4 others (and lost) this past summer. I have seen the impact on my family and have done a lot of soul searching: What led us to that church? Who influenced my life as a Christian? Who influenced my life as a mother? Who influenced my life as I ventured into homeschooling my children? As I researched my primary influencers, I found a common thread of destructive ideologies within the homeschooling movement.

My first article on the homeschooling movement opened up a whole can of worms on a culture that I have been a part of for the last 20 years or so.  Some of these teachings (courtship, modesty/purity, full-quiver) have infiltrated churches and families who do not teach their children at home.  It is a powerful movement and I caught on to the movement without realizing I was part of it.  I embraced certain aspects of it, brought those aspects that I agreed with to my churches.   As we moved around the country (my husband was in the Navy), I shared these aspects with my friends and friends shared the aspects they learned with me, etc.That is how this movement spreads. It can be one particular teaching or many, but they all intertwine, feeding the agenda.

It is important to have knowledge of this movement because even if you have no desire to homeschool your children or maybe you are single or empty-nesters, this movement spreads to churches in some way or other and as we have seen with courtship, patriarchy, and other teachings, some of the teachings leave a devastating path with emotional and spiritual turmoil.

The other night I read an article about Michael Farris that got me worked up. Mike Farris is known as one of the key pillars of the homeschool movement. I wanted to share my thoughts on a situation regarding Michael Farris, but realized without sharing more background information, you wouldn’t get the full picture.  So, please allow me to do that now.

Before Michael Farris was a pillar in the homeschool community, there was another very prominent figure, Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001). I believe Rushdoony set the trajectory for the homeschooling movement.  Although Rushdoony died in 2001, he established the basis of the movement long before. These roots are in Christian Reconstructionism.

I found this article which described Christian Reconstructionism very well.  As you read the variety of quoted materials included in the post, I encourage you to keep in mind how the ideas of patriarchy, courtship, full-quiver tie in with this belief system:

What is Reconstructionism?

Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel, or “Biblical Law,” is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth. Reconstructionism argues that the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life–such as government, education, law, and the arts, not merely “social” or “moral” issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion.

Reconstructionists have formulated a “Biblical world view” and “Biblical principles” by which to examine contemporary matters. Reconstructionist theologian David Chilton succinctly describes this view: “The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God’s law.”

More broadly, Reconstructionists believe that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church government, and civil government. Under God’s covenant, the nuclear family is the basic unit. The husband is the head of the family, and wife and children are “in submission” to him. In turn, the husband “submits” to Jesus and to God’s laws as detailed in the Old Testament. The church has its own ecclesiastical structure and governance. Civil government exists to implement God’s laws. All three institutions are under Biblical Law, the implementation of which is called “theonomy.”

Let’s learn a little about Rushdoony. This is from Wikipedia:

Rousas John Rushdoony (April 25, 1916 – February 8, 2001) was a Calvinist philosopher, historian, andtheologian and is widely credited as the father of Christian Reconstructionism and an inspiration for the modern Christian homeschool movement. His followers and critics have argued that his thought exerts considerable influence on the Christian right.

I was glad to find this video on Rushdoony and his Reconstructionist beliefs. It is an interview with Bill Moyers of PBS and is very good. It’s still difficult for me to wrap the idea around my head that part of this belief system is to bring the Old Testament laws into modern times: e.g., death penalty for those who commit adultery, death penalty for homosexuals, etc.

This quotation — from a very interesting article — describes how Rushdoony took his Reconstructionist views and made a case for educating children at home and thus became known as the “father of the homeschool movement” by many:

Key to this strategy was the homeschooling movement.  Education, Rushdoony realized early on, was the best way to distribute his message. To that end, he wrote multiple books on the history of American education, charting its transformation from one-room schoolhouses and parochial schools to urban institutions. These books became guideposts for Christians who believed that public schools were indoctrinating their kids in the false faith of secular humanism. McVicar, the Ohio State scholar, says, “Rushdoony understood that if he changed the way Christians educated their children, he could change the way they thought.”

The homeschool movement is comprised of specific teachings/beliefs. These teachings come from various groups or individuals who share the common thread of homeschooling. These groups work independently and may have different focuses, are in different locations, but again, the foundational agenda can be found in Reconstructionist roots. Interestingly, I had the above paragraph typed up a couple days ago and a few minutes ago I read an article by Frederick Clarkson originally published in June 1994 about this Reconstructionist “movement” and how it has spread over the years:

A Movement of Ideas

As a movement primarily of ideas, Reconstructionism has no single denominational or institutional home. Nor is it totally defined by a single charismatic leader, nor even a single text. Rather, it is defined by a small group of scholars who are identified with Reformed or Orthodox Presbyterianism. The movement networks primarily through magazines, conferences, publishing houses, think tanks, and bookstores. As a matter of strategy, it is a self-consciously decentralized and publicity-shy movement.

This is exactly what I have seen happening in the homeschool movement and why it is so hard to pin down because it is not localized in one church, one denomination, or organization. Both the Reconstructionist and homeschool movements are so invasive and have spread the same way. You or people you know may be part of either the Reconstructionist movement or the homeschool movement and have adopted ideologies without even realizing it. I realized through my research that I furthered the homeschool movement by sharing books, CDs, talking to my friends about my new-found ideas. I had been a part of it all along endorsing it and spreading it quite convincingly among my friends and church acquaintances.

Here’s a little more on Rushdoony.  In 1965 he founded the non-profit organization called Chalcedon Foundation to promote the Reconstructionism.  Read Chalcedon’s vision statement here. Here’s a brief summary from Wikipedia:

The Chalcedon Foundation is an American Christian Reconstructionist organization founded by Rousas John Rushdoony in 1965. Named for the Council of Chalcedon, it has also included theologians such as Gary North, who later founded his own organization, the Institute for Christian Economics.

The Chalcedon Foundation provides educational material in the form of books, newsletter reports and various electronic media, toward advancing the theological teachings of Rushdoony’s Christian Reconstructionism movement. It is notable for its role in the influence of Christianity on politics in the U.S. and has been described as “a think tank of the Religious Right.” Rushdoony’s son, Mark now heads the foundation. The Chalcedon Foundation has been listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centerfor, among other reasons, supporting the death penalty for homosexuals.

We can see in the above summary that this Reconstructionist organization has infiltrated the education systems and politics in America with their Reconstructionist agenda.

Here are more articles I found interesting in researching this topic:

Invitation to a Stoning

Chalcedon Foundation Leads Christian Reconstructionists in Campaign to Convert Conservative Fundamentalist Churches

His Truth is Marching On

When we think of spiritual abuse, we think of it in the confines of a church. The homeschool movement is different because it has no confines. It is scattered all over the country, people can become as involved as they want in various groups, but what I’ve noticed is that there are behavioral characteristics used by those in the homeschool movement which are similar to behavior used by spiritually abusive church leaders. There are different dynamics, but the end results can be the same.  This is why I keep sharing personal stories about these topics.