Unteach Racism – Module 2 – Low Self Belief

In our previous post, we evaluated the first module of Unteach Racism, finding it to be worthy of an F- grade. Today we are moving on to module 2 entitled “Low Self Belief”. We come to this second module with lower expectations given the pure unadulterated manure we found in the first module.

The goals of the second module are to introduce the concept of intrapersonal racism and explore “learner voice and experience of low self-belief and internalised racism”. For those of you who don’t see everything through the lens of racism, otherwise known as normal and unwarped human beings, you may be unaware of some of the language here. You’re probably busy working hard earning an income to feed your loved ones rather than stealing taxpayer money to produce divisive drivel being commissioned by the government to investigate important issues facing us all. So, you ignorant rubes, intrapersonal racism (also called internalised racism) is racism taken on board about one’s own race.

So where are we supposed to see this intrapersonal racism? It apparently occurs when people “accept society’s negative beliefs about their own culture.” Apparently, it happens through constant exposure to a negative view of your own particular race. You know, when society constantly presents you with a negative racial stereotype.

Now, readers, I know what your wicked hearts are thinking already before you say it. You are thinking to yourself “Oh great! Someone has finally seen the danger of the elites and media constantly banging on about white people and their supposed privilege! That’s sure to lead to internalised racism,” I suggest you settle down you racist bigots. That’s not going to lead to intrapersonal racism. Honestly, what were you thinking?! You need to read more academics. It’s quite simple really. Those people are white. They can’t help but be racist, except they never experience intrapersonal racism. Just because. So shut up now and don’t ask any more questions or I’ll report you to the Teaching Council. Racism is bad, white people do it and never suffer it. Intrapersonal racism is bad, white people cause it but never suffer it.

So who experiences this terrible intrapersonal racism? Did you say Maori? Well done! Come to the head of the class you genius…unless of course, you are a white male. In which case just shut up. So according to our beneficent overlords at the Teaching Council of Aotearoa NZ, it is up to teachers to help lift the ‘limits society is causing our learners to place on themselves through internalised, intrapersonal racism.’

What limits are we talking about here? Is it the limit of assuming that Maori children need to be focussing on cultural activities like kapa haka as if this is what education is centred around? Because as any teacher who subjects themselves to the tripe put out by every trendy mainstream educational publication like the Education Gazette will tell you, just about every article on Maori education is accompanied with photos of Maori in kapa haka and cultural garb as if this is what culturally appropriate education for Maori looks like – limiting them to dancing and singing. Is that the kind of limit we are talking about? No of course not. That is helping Maori achieve excellence apparently. Let me quote from a particularly egregious example of this mindset from the Education Gazette. Here kapa haka teacher Brad is quoted as saying, “Our children are extraordinary, They’re doing genealogy, mathematics, social studies, performance arts – all on stage,” and later he denigrates the “solution of one teacher, one subject, one way of delivering.” He says, “Imagine if you could box this up – kapa haka – and place it into schools.” Yes, imagine what a lower GDP would look like for our country….but on the upside, at least we could all enjoy ourselves performing on stage. So is this thinking a limit that society is causing our learners to place on themselves? No of course not! That’s how we will improve education for Maori you racist morons. As we encourage more kapa haka our students’ understanding of complex calculus, biology and chemistry will increase exponentially leading to more Maori in engineering and science careers.

So what is it you ask? What limits is society causing learners to place on themselves? Are they the limits caused by accepting Maori truancy and our leaders blaming it on schools not making their programmes desirable? Or perhaps it is the limit of government policy that encourages fatherless homes by sanctioning all forms of ‘family‘? Maybe you are thinking about drug addiction and alcohol dependency? What about gangs? Perhaps these are things which cause learners to place limits on themselves. Well if you were considering those things, the new hate speech laws can’t come quickly enough. People like you should be locked up permanently.

It’s quite clear that the way society causes our Maori (or ethnic minority) learners to place limits on themselves is through our racist teachers. It is our racist teachers who place these limits on otherwise angelic students who come from loving family backgrounds with parents who encourage their children to study hard each night and attend school regularly with full bellies.

Evidence? All the evidence we need for this is in listening to student ‘voice’. Here’s how one ruined child describes his experience. “We feel like we are failing when we are constantly reminded that we are not doing well – Principal use to bring out all these graphs to show us how we are failing, and it would just piss us off.” I find it surprising that a principal would show graphs comparing achievement of different ethnicities. However, it seems odd to me that one would remain “pissed off” with not doing well. I remember a teacher I had who treated me very poorly and more or less insinuated I was no good at the subject. I was upset and angry. So I knuckled down and went on to kick some butt in that subject.

Here’s another example of student voice. “I don’t get a chance to go to school. I always get suspended first week of term. I’m not sure why.” This one is intriguing. Evidently, the racist teachers and principal and school boards conspire against this poor victim of racism. He innocently arrives at school on the first day of term, but no matter how well he behaves, the school has it in for him. He’ll be gone by Friday. Absolutely crystal clear case of racism. He might not have any idea of why he was suspended, but if we have our biases removed, we should all be able to surmise it’s due to racial bias.

Let’s look at one last example of student voice. “Im real good at maths but my teacher just thinks im stupid so never gave me any time cept to get me n trouble. But if you are a Pakeha its all good.” Well our friend here might be good at Maths, but it’s doubtful the same could be said of his versatility in English. Again this is a clear case of racism. The teacher spends no time with him, because the teacher is racist. It’s not that the teacher is spending time with students who are struggling with maths rather than those who are good at it. No, it’s clearly racism. We see this in the biased way the teacher deals with this student. He deliberately ‘gets the child in trouble.’ Again we have a case of an innocent young man quietly working on factorising his quadratic equations in class, and the teacher deliberately causes trouble for him. Without a doubt it’s racism.

So, dear racist readers. It is now totally clear that New Zealand teachers are responsible for placing limits on Maori and ethnic minority students. No way is this a case of teenage students not liking their teacher and thinking the world is against them. That’s definitely not a thing. These quotes prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that our whole system of education is racist to its very white bones. Teachers are causing students to place limits on themselves.

The module sums up the way our school system and teachers place limits on Maori and ethnic minorities. Teachers do this in five main ways. Firstly Maori culture is not valued. One Maori student complains that this is demonstrated in the way Maori children are always asked to perform kapa haka when visitors attend the school but their culture is ignored the rest of the time. Clearly, this is oppression. Because of course we teachers are always asking our white children to perform highland dancing when dignitaries arrive at the school, and the rest of the time we are focussing on ‘white’ culture in the classroom – you know – drinking cups of tea, saying ‘jolly good show’, listening to classical music all while encouraging the colonising of backward nations to civilise them. Secondly, our racist teaching force negatively stereotypes students and thinks the worst of them. Every teacher I know looks at their class and thinks, “Ok so I’ve got five Maori kids in this class. Gee I better keep an eye on them, they’ll probably be passing weed and stealing my stationery.” Thirdly we apparently deliberately make children feel stupid and dumb. This totally rings true, doesn’t it? Every teacher I know refuses to treat children as individuals, but thinks of them according to their group identity and then treats them like that. Fourthly we expect them to fail. That’s why every teacher gets into teaching. For the perverse enjoyment of seeing children fail. We are excited to promote ethnic inequality in the classroom. The truth is finally out! No way do we offer free after school tutorials to struggling students in order to assist them to grow and develop in their learning. And if we did, we’d only invite the Pakeha and Asian kids. Finally, teachers do their best to ensure Maori and ethnic minority students feel excluded. Teachers deliberately engineer their classes to exclude ethnic minorities. They want them to feel as uncomfortable as possible so they will just stop coming.

Makes you think that we’d be better off without teachers really. Or maybe the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand needs to be defunded so that good teachers can get on with their jobs without being insulted with this bilge.

Thoughts on Responsibility for Young Men Part II

In a previous post, we looked at how God designed men to exercise authority, to teach, to provide and to protect. In today’s post, we will investigate how the fall changed men. How has sin damaged the responsibility design? Let’s look at how Adam’s fall into sin affected these four areas in which he was called to exercise responsibility. It’s a sketch of failed masculinity.

First we see that Adam failed to lead authoritatively. The temptation of Eve shows this. All while Eve is being tempted by the serpent, Adam seems to have been standing silently with his wife. We do not realise that he is right next to her until we read the words, “She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Adam had authority over Eve and the whole created order, yet he stood passively by watching things unfold. He failed to take seriously his responsibility to exercise authoritty as the leader of mankind.

Next, there is in the text a suggestion of his failure to teach the knowledge of God. Remember, God had given Adam alone the instructions about the tree. He was told about this before Eve was made. So it was his job to pass on this knowledge to his wife Eve. It seems like he did not do this well, for when the serpent asks Eve about the tree, she adds to God’s command by saying they were not allowed to touch the tree, which was not part of God’s original command. Again, Adam passively watches and does not correct his wife’s error. He fails to take responsibility to teach truth.

Thirdly, we see his failure to protect. What should Adam have done when this strange creature started speaking with his wife and questioning God’s Word. At the very least, he should have rebuked it and commanded its silence and banished it from the garden. Perhaps he should have crushed its head for challenging the words of his king. He was after all given dominion over all the earth including the creatures therein. Yet he stood by passively.

Finally, there is also a hint of Adam’s failure to provide. This is certainly less clear, but I think is implicit. God created a world of plenty, and he put Adam in a garden to work it. This would produce good things. What was Adam doing standing next to Eve doing nothing? Why was Eve looking at the tree longingly? Was Adam providing as he should have been? Questions we cannot answer for sure, but worth pondering.

So God comes down to deal with rebellion. Notice that when God arrives on the scene, He speaks with Adam first. Adam has authority, and God begins with the one who is ultimately responsible here. It was Adam’s fall that brought humanity into sin. Unfortunately, when God questions Adam, Adam acts in a most unmasculine way. He evades responsibility. He blames Eve and ultimately God himself. And this is the natural state of fallen masculinity today. We like to blame others and situations for failure; we refuse to take our masculine responsibilities seriously.

Now let’s consider the consequences of Adam’s rebellion. God curses the area of Adam’s prime responsibility, that of provision. In the curse, God responds to Adam’s blame-shifting. God’s reason for the curse on his provision of food is because he listened to the voice of his wife and disobeyed by eating from the tree. It’s not Eve’s fault. If Adam had been doing his job, he would have lead his wife, not been led by her. A true man is not led by the voice of his wife to disobey God. The line of authority is God, then husband, then wife. And so, thorns and thistles will now hamper the masculine responsibility of providing food. Now by the sweat of his brow he will provide for himself, his wife and his children. Additionally, we see that Adam’s role of authority is now cursed. The earth will no longer easily yield to him. Nor will his wife, and the marriage relationship will regularly become a battle for power and authority.

Bring Back Beauty

Our young people are not only starved for nature. They are starved for beauty. Everywhere they turn, their eyes fall upon what is drab or garish: their schools, their music, new books for sale, the fast-food joint, a baseball stadium (where you can hardly talk to the fan sitting next to you, for the noise roaring out at you from the loudspeakers), and, of course, their churches. Saint Paul wanted to be all things to all men, to save some (1 Corinthians 9:22). We have applied his dictum to what surrounds us. We are drab with the drab, garish with the garish, inane with the inane, and we save nobody at all.

Anthony Esolen from “Out of the Ashes”

Thoughts on Responsibility for Young Men

Many of the early battles God will bring into a young man’s life have a particular theme; taking responsibility. One of the least masculine things you can see is a fully grown man blaming events and other people for the difficulties he finds himself in. Strong and godly men take responsibility. Boys and weak men blame. One of the reasons our world is in such chaos today is because men have failed to take responsibility for themselves and the people around them. God designed men to lead, but so often they prefer passivity.

Where do we see this in the Bible? The best place to look is in Genesis where we see what things were supposed to be like before the fall into sin. In Genesis 1:26-28, we see God created mankind in his image and likeness to have dominion over the created earth and its creatures. The task for mankind was to fill the earth and subdue it.

So what is a man’s role in all of this? As we look at Adam, we see that responsible masculinity is tied to a number of areas. The first area is authority. Adam was designed with authority. God gave him responsibility for all of creation. He was to have dominion or rule over creation, and that rule included rule over Eve who was created to help him in his role. Notice that Adam named the animals alone, and he also named Eve. He was designed to exercise authority in the dominion mandate.

The second area of responsibility for Adam, connected with his role of authority was teaching. God gave Adam the command about not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was Adam’s responsibility to pass on and teach Eve and ultimately his children this command. Responsible masculinity is about passing on the knowledge of God to our wives and children.

Next, Adam was responsible for working and through that work providing. Genesis 2:15 demonstrates this. Here God puts Adam in the garden to work and keep it. In working the garden, we see the masculine responsibility of providing food. God didn’t design the garden as some idyllic island vacation where Adam and Eve were to sun themselves sitting in hammocks while waiters brought them cold drinks and snacks. Yes, the garden provided plenty of food, but Adam was still designed to work in it, and ultimately through his offspring to continue to fill the earth and subdue it. The garden was in miniature what he and his children were to continue to do with the rest of the earth.

Finally, we see that Adam was designed to protect. Obviously, a man’s body indicates this. Men are larger and stronger than women. But the Genesis account specifically mentions the role of protection. Again in Genesis 2:15, we read that Adam was placed in the garden to keep it. Here is the suggestion of protecting and guarding. God knew that Satan was on the loose, and knew Adam would need to protect the garden and all who dwelt in it from him.

So in summary, Adam was designed to exercise authority, to teach, to provide and to protect. As the original man, we can infer from this that these things are masculine responsibilities. Therefore, a man is responsible to rule, teach, provide for and protect his family. And to the extent that a man succeeds in this arena, he should, as God allows, fulfil these duties in wider society.

The Directory for Private (Family) Worship #1

Recently we looked at the concern the Church of Scotland had that fathers conduct family worship. Today we continue in this vein by looking at the first article of the directory for private worship. Although the language is archaic, with a little careful reading, it should be comprehended.

I. And first, for secret worship, it is most necessary, that every one apart, and by themselves, be given to prayer and meditation, the unspeakable benefit whereof is best known to them who are most exercised therein; this being the mean whereby, in a special way, communion with God is entertained, and right preparation for all other duties obtained: and therefore it becometh not only pastors, within their several charges, to press persons of all sorts to perform this duty morning and evening, and at other occasions; but also it is incumbent to the head of every family to have a care, that both themselves, and all within their charge, be daily diligent herein.

From this we see a concern that every believer be privately marked by regular prayer and meditation. This is seen by the church leaders of the time as the right preparation for all our duties – be they as husband, wife or child. Pastors were seen as having a duty to encourage very strongly all those in their congregation to perform prayer and meditation on God’s Word at both ends of the day (and other times to). Additionally, the heads of families (in most cases this would be the father) are responsible not only for there own spiritual feeding in this manner, but all in their household. This was a challenge to me as a father. Although we read the Scriptures together and pray together morning and night, I do not regularly check to see my children are reading the Scriptures on their own. This has encouraged me to do this more regularly.

Reddit Parenting Advice #7

We continue on our Reddit parenting advice series with a slightly different type of query. In this post, we explore career vs family. How do we decide what weighting to give career vs children? As Christians, we must let God’s Word determine how we approach life. So let’s take a look at the question and then consider briefly what a Christian response might be.

Partner and I have two beautiful children, 2.5 and 8 months. We don’t “feel” done, but at the same time, we know that growing our family is not untenable, but not the smartest move, with our current careers. More specifically, I (33F) would have to modify the career path I’d envisioned in order for a bigger family, as my husband’s (35M) isn’t as flexible as mine.

I want to grow my family, but not at the expense of my education and a huge part of my identity. Or maybe I don’t know it yet, but a large part of my identity is having 3+ children! Parents who struggled with this dilemma, how did you decide where your priorities were?

First of all, when considering this question, we must consider the concept of career. In the past, our forefathers tended to think of their work as a vocation – a calling. It was a way of providing for themselves and their families, and it was a way of serving the community. When considering career, both as fathers and mothers, we need to remember that our identities should not be tied to this aspect of our lives. We don’t have careers for ourselves. We work to feed our family and to serve the world through the gifts God has given us, but climbing a corporate ladder for our identity without regard to the impact this has on our family is unwise.

Secondly, we need to consider what God tells us about masculine and feminine roles. Now even in Christian circles, this will seem old fashioned, but it seems to me that the Bible clearly teaches different roles for husbands and wives. A brief read of Genesis 1 and 2 will demonstrate that before the fall into sin, Adam, as the first husband was required to lead, provide food from the garden and protect the garden and implicitly his wife. A husband is directed outward to the world and the dominion mandate. Eve, as Adam’s wife was directed toward Adam as his helper. How does she help him in the dominion mandate? She bears children. Thus together they are able to fill the earth and subdue it. The apostle Paul teaches that wives ought to be focussed on their husbands and children and be busy in the home. Of course, a lot more could be said here, but the Bible teaches that men should provide for their families, and wives should be focussed on nurture and the domestic sphere. This does not mean that a wife is unable to work or do anything outside the home, as the Proverbs 31 woman demonstrates. It does mean that her priority is her children and husband. All this is a long way of saying that as a wife, your God-given mission is your husband and your children – so go to it! God did call us to be fruitful and multiply, so I’d say that if possible that means more than two! You’ll always find joy in fulfilling your God-given calling.

Finally, we should note that for most of us, we will never have careers of great importance. Not many of us will be CEOs of major corporations. Not many of us will be Prime Ministers. Few of us will be movie stars. Most of our work, while serving neighbour, is not particularly awe-inspiring. Few will remember us after we are gone. So as Christians, we should realise that our greatest impact for Christ’s kingdom will be through the investment we make in our families. Investing strongly by spending time on your children’s spiritual development you are helping raise a grounded and strong family. These children will then in turn have an impact on the lives of their families. Who knows how many millions will be in Christ’s kingdom as a result of your faithfulness as a wife in this area? Likely as not, raising a godly family will be the most important work you do for Christ’s kingdom.

Letter #1

I Won’t Believe Unless God Speaks to Me

Regarding your question about the friends who say they will not believe unless God speaks to them or reveals himself to them in a special way. First of all, I would ask them how do they know that he isn’t already doing so. This will probably surprise them. But this is the teaching of the Bible. Creation speaks of God every second of every hour, every day, throughout all ages. I’m sure you would have learned Psalm 19 as a child.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Here David poetically describes the truth that all of creation is a message from God about him addressed to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear. This speech of God’s is able to cross any language barriers. It goes throughout all the earth. So God is doing amazing things and speaking amazing things every second. He is revealing himself every minute of the day through his creation. So the problem is not that God is not revealing himself…the problem lies somewhere else.

Think of it like this. Let’s say you visit someone who has a house right next to the motorway. Perhaps you have been living in the country all your life. When you visit this friend’s place, you will certainly notice the sounds of the cars whooshing past. You ask your friend how they manage to live with such noise. And what will their answer be? They don’t even notice it any more. In fact likely as not, they will find things extremely odd if they went to live in the country. Something would be missing, but they won’t be able to put their finger on it. It’s like this with God’s speech to us. The sun, the planets, the stars and the moon are all speaking to us. Actually speaking to us and telling us about God. But we have heard their voices our whole lives, and the background noise of their speech no longer signifies anything to us. Were they to stop (which is impossible, for all creation even the very stones must cry out testifying to God), we would suddenly realise that something has stopped. Something would be missing. So in one sense, our problem is that we are so used to God speaking that it has just become part of the background noise.  

But the problem is even deeper than this. For in our example, the person living next to the motorway can train herself to hear the sound of the cars passing if she concentrates. Our problem is our naturally rebellious hearts do not want to hear God. It’s a problem of our hardness of heart – our spiritual blindness and deafness. For example, Romans 1 teaches us that creation itself is sufficient to know God. Here is what Paul says in Romans 1:18-20.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

In other words, according to Paul, the knowledge of God is plain. So plain that God holds each one of us without excuse. We should be able to see his power and his divinity through his creation. But the rebellious human heart suppresses the truth. We bury it deep within us and any time this knowledge attempts to come to our consciousness in our natural rebellious state we push it back down again. The human heart does not want any reminders of God and his claims on us. 

This rebellious suppression of the truth is so bad, that it will reject even the most miraculous evidence of all. Take a look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. In this parable, the rich man ends up in torment, and he asks for the poor man Lazarus to be raised to life and tell his sinful brothers to repent so they can avoid his fate. In the parable, Jesus has Abraham tell the rich man that even if someone rises from the dead, they will not repent if they refuse to hear Moses and the Prophets. I think the point Jesus is making through this parable is that repentance comes not so much through seeing something miraculous and it changing you. Rather as Paul puts it, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17). Jesus’ point is even further underlined by the response to his own resurrection from the dead. This is a resurrection that was testified to by hundreds of people, including the apostles, all of whom (except for John) died gruesome deaths testifying to the risen king. (They were in the position to know whether the resurrection was a lie, but they died claiming it was true.) Even so, many of the Pharisees and religious leaders of the day carried on suppressing the truth even though they knew he had risen. Although the knew Jesus’ claims about rising from the dead (Matthew 27:62-64), when it actually happened, they tried to cover it up by paying the guards who had seen things to lie. (Matthew 28:11-14).

So in summary, God is speaking through his creation. He has spoken in his word which is powerful to change hearts. And he has spoken fully and finally through the Word, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, we have the final and full revelation of God to us. As John puts it, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side; he has made him known.” (John 1:18). How can a God who has not a body like men reveal himself in the context of a world of suppressors of the truth? He becomes a man to make himself known. The incarnation is the great one-off miracle that reveals God to every human being.

Can miraculous events occur? Can God speak audibly? Can he come to us in visions? Of course. He’s God. Is this enough for a doubter to believe? No. God must change our hearts. Does God ordinarily work through visions and audible speech to draw people to himself? No. He usually uses ordinary means. It is his Word about Christ by his Spirit which breaks down our sinful rebellion and draws us to himself. 

Another question to ask these friends might be this one: Are you willing to bet your eternal soul that Jesus is not the king of the universe and requires you to repent and submit to him just because he doesn’t appear to you in the manner you want him to? Think about romantic relationships. Let’s say a guy wants to get to know a particular girl he is attracted to. He asks her out to watch drag racing with him. She’s not interested in drag racing and says no. Perhaps she suggests coffee instead. What would happen if the guy stubbornly says, “No, I want you to come to watch drag racing with me.” That’s just not going to happen. If he wants to get to know the girl, he must do it on her terms, not his own. God is there and he is not silent. He speaks, but we cannot demand that he reveals himself to us on our terms. He is God. He gets to dictate the terms of our relationship. If we refuse to accept this, we will never know him. 

Criticising Government

It is only by believing in God that we can criticize the Government. Once abolish God, and the Government becomes God. The truth is that irreligion is the opium of the people. Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they worship the strongest thing in the world.

G.K. Chesterton

A Father’s Duty in Family Worship

Recently I was reminded of the Directory for Private Worship which was put together by the 1647 Assembly at Edinburgh. The document gives directions for family worship. The General Assembly believed that family worship was so important to the purity of the Christian faith, that they appointed “ministers and ruling elders in each congregation to take special care that these Directions be observed and followed.” So seriously did they take family worship that where the elders found families not engaging in family worship as prescribed, the head of the family would first be privately admonished, but if he continued in his negligence, he would be debarred from the Lord’s supper.

While this may seem excessive to our modern sensibilities, we can hopefully see the propriety of the concern. Firstly, they were right to see the importance of the Christian faith being taught and practised in the home. It is not enough for our Lord to be mentioned once a week at church and then ignored the rest of the time. Deuteronomy 6 reminds parents that daily regular teaching of children is to be conducted. Secondly, the ASsembly was correct in holding fathers responsible for this duty. God has given fathers authority in the family unit, and he holds them responsible for the training of children as Ephesians 6:4 demonstrates.

This is not something for men to take lightly. While our church leaders may no longer bar us from the table, we should not hold lightly our duty in this area. God still holds us responsible and he will hold us to account. One thing our family has developed and grown in over the years is pairing meals with Scripture and prayer. We always eat together at the table for breakfast and dinner, so we almost always read Scripture together and pray as well.

In a series of posts we will look at the directions set out in the Directory for Private Worship.

The Tyranny of Moral Busybodies

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

C.S. Lewis