An Invitation to Your Mission

One of the issues I have thought through a lot in recent years is the place of a man in the church and the kingdom. Too often, for lots of men, the church seems ‘ho-hum’ and irrelevant. One of the reasons for this is that the role of men in the world is often denigrated. I’ve heard too many sermons that suggest serving Christ could mean dropping more of your vocational work to help in institutional church ministry. Other sermons critique wealth and suggest saving is not trusting God despite God calling men to provide for their families. I’ve seen videos of men at church valuing their role as a doctor only because it means they can fund ‘ministry’ in other parts of the world. Often sermons use examples of people in ‘full time Christian ministry’ (a phrase I find frustrating) as positive examples of Christian sacrifice. Rarely, if ever, are the laity and their ordinary lives looked upon as examples of godliness in Christ’s kingdom.

The problem with all of this is that it ignores core truths about masculinity in Scripture. While I am aware of some of the key issues with Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, there is a certain amount of truth in his diagnosis. One of his core arguments is that men are made for adventure and battles and a beauty. I might not put it in exactly those terms, but I do think Scripture teaches us that Adam was made for dominion. He was to go out into God’s earth and take dominion. He was designed to image God as he took what God had made and in an analogous way to God, fill up emptiness and give it shape.

Here’s how Eldridge puts it. Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time – and it’s killing them. But the truth is precisely the opposite. The secret longing of your heart, whether it’s to build a boat and sail it, to write a symphony and play it, to plant a field and care for it – those are the things you were made to do. That’s what you’re here for. We are designed for dominion, and in Christ we are called to work to extend Christ’s lordship to the areas of his world that we touch. But too often we feel denigrated and tarred as ‘worldly’ for wanting to do these things. What we need to hear is the call that Christ lays upon every man to get out there and subdue his sphere of influence for Christ. This is the way you as a man are Christ’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works. We need to be encouraged to wage war in this world – not with worldly weapons, but to take every thought captive as we seek to demolish the strongholds of Christ’s enemies in the arenas we have been called. That’s a lot more encouraging than to hear that most of our lives are irrelevant except for the times we are at church helping out.

The Necessity of Patriarchy

We train boys to be men. If you believe that the Church, the nation, and what is left of Western culture and civilization can be revived or rebuilt without the leadership of men, I suggest that you take an honest look at what happens when men retreat from the public square. You do not get rule by women. You get anarchy – social chaos that requires the vast machinery of state control to manage, control that enters into a host-parasite relationship with the chaos itself, much to the destruction of true liberty and the flourishing of communities…

If you do not raise men to be fathers – not just progenitors of children, but fathers in the full sense implied by a phrase like “city fathers” – they will not therefore become compliant and gentle mothers. They will either drag out their days in ennui and desperation or go very bad, very fast. Nor will they lack for women, and plenty of them too, who will be attracted to the dangerous man, the rebel, the leader of the gang. The alternative to rule by fathers, which is what patriarchy means, is male domination in the form of a police state or in the persons of men outside the law.

ANTHONY ESOLEN FROM “OUT OF THE ASHES”

Unteach Racism

Here’s a great video explaining the Unteach Racism app and its links to critical theory. Please share this video with all your friends who are interested in education in NZ. We need to get the word out because this is bad news for education in New Zealand. The Teaching Council should be ashamed of producing such a biased and divisive app.

The Directory for Private (Family) Worship #4

In recent weeks we have been working our way through the Directory for Private (Family) Worship. Today we are continuing our look at the Directory for Private (Family) Worship with a brief look at the fourth point.

IV. The head of the family is to take care that none of the family withdraw himself from any part of family-worship: and, seeing the ordinary performance of all the parts of family-worship belongeth properly to the head of the family, the minister is to stir up such as are lazy, and train up such as are weak, to a fitness to these exercises; it being always free to persons of quality to entertain one approved by the presbytery for performing family-exercise. And in other families, where the head of the family is unfit, that another, constantly residing in the family, approved by the minister and session, may be employed in that service, wherein the minister and session are to be countable to the presbytery. And if a minister, by divine Providence, be brought to any family, it is requisite that at no time he convene a part of the family for worship, secluding the rest, except in singular cases especially concerning these parties, which (in Christian prudence) need not, or ought not, to be imparted to others.

In more contemporary English we might put it this way. The head of the family is responsible for ensuring that everyone in the family participates in family worship. To that end, the pastor of his church ought to be encouraging and training heads of households for this duty. In some cases, a head of household might not feel the most qualified in his household to lead in this duty, or he might be unfit for this duty. In this case, the pastor of his church and the elders there may approve another in his place. Finally, if pastor is in a household, he should ensure that he leads family worship with everyone present except in special cases.

There is certainly some wisdom in this part of the directory. It does seem Scriptural that the head of the family ensure all of the family are involved in family worship. Additionally, it seems part of the duties of a pastor and his eldership team to encourage and train the household leaders of their congregations to perform this duty well. This would seem to be part of what it means to shepherd the flock. Thus when Paul writes to fathers, he reminds them of their duties in bringing up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Once again I am not comfortable with this point in its entirety. This may be a result of the cultural blind spots of individualism, but it seems odd to me that this rule assumes that a pastor should lead family worship when he comes into the home of a family in his church. I may be reading this direction incorrectly, but that’s what it seems to imply to me. My understanding (which may be wrong), would be that a pastor is coming into the home of a household leader. That would mean he is entering into the sphere of another man’s authority. While he has spiritual oversight of the flock in his care, and can and should correct error, he should also show respect for a man’s leadership in his own family. Slavishly following this approach potentially undermines the good work this directory is trying to achieve, by elevating the role of the ‘priestly’ class of Christians as if they have more direct access to God than lay Christians. On the other hand, one would hope that the minister is more equipped to teach and lead family worship than most of his congregation given that he inevitably will have spent more time studying the Scriptures. A household leader with a pastor present in his time of family worship will no doubt be blessed by his insight.

Reddit Parenting Advice #9 – Mother Doesn’t Know Whether Her Daughter is Arthur or Martha

As our culture turns its back further on Christ the king we begin to see the utter foolishness of rebellious unbelief. Truly it is the fool who says in his heart there is no God. The denial of the transcendent self-existent God who reveals truth to us through his world and Word ultimately leads to insanity. So today’s Reddit advice post is a sad reminder of our need to turn back to Christ in repentance and faith. Let’s get to the post.

Hi y’all! I’m really needing some guidance and advice on how to deal with this situation. I have a 4 year old girl who for the past two years has been telling me she’s a boy. I have never corrected her but I have asked why she thinks that and will respond with “because I am!” Or “I like blue”. She always wants to play a dad/ brother role when she’s playing pretend.

So here we have a supposedly mature adult who needs help with telling a four year old the facts of life. A four year old girl is telling Mum that she is a boy. Mum is not sure what to do. She doesn’t say, “Well no, you’re a girl sweetheart!”, instead she decides that asking probing questions will help, because, you know, four-year-olds are known for their rationality. Oh! She’s a boy because she likes the colour blue. Right. Here’s a question, if your four year old told you that the sky is green, would you ask them why they thought that, or would you correct them on their obvious misunderstanding of facts? Parents are given to children by God to help their children to develop into maturity. That means a parent is there to give truth to their child. The parent helps their child see the world as it truly is. And yet this mother is hiding truth and acting as if her preschool child has wisdom when she is clearly completely confused. Let’s continue with this travesty.

After two years of letting her do her thing I finally asked if she wanted a “boy hair cut” she happily agreed! I told my mom about how I’m going to take her to get her hair cut and my mom clapped back saying I was pushing her and I shouldn’t have asked and let her bring it up. We ended up cutting her hair and she looks super cute and she says she likes it but she has also said things like “now I’m not cute like my sister” or “Grandma won’t love me”

The child is completely confused, and you, dear Mother are not helping. Sort yourself out.

She also has a identical twin sister. I think she’s really just trying to be opposite of her sister “I’m a boy and she’s a girl” “I like blue and she likes pink” Even “I’m hot and she’s cold” I’ve never dressed them the same and allowed them to pick out their own clothes. One has always chosen girls clothes and the other mostly boy clothes but she does wear girl clothes, dresses up as a princess and plays with towards geared towards girls.

I’m really trying to handle this the best way possible and I think I’m messing everything up and pushing her to be a boy when I’m just trying to support her.

Yes, you are messing things up. This is a complete failure of parenting. You are meant to be the rock – the anchor point for your child in these formative years. You are meant to be the authority. Yet like so many modern parents, you are afraid of being an authority and telling your child anything. You won’t tell her what she will wear, you won’t tell her she is a girl. Children are not little adults. You must nurture them in order for them to flourish and thrive. When planting a young fruit tree, you might tie it to a stake. You will pull out weeds that might smother it. You will tend that tree and prune off some branches in order that it may one day produce more fruit. You don’t just leave it and hope for the best. Not if you want that tree to flourish. As a parent your job is similar. You don’t just leave your child to figure everything out. You provide authority, and boundaries and truth. Failure in this area will destroy your child. Once upon a time, parents knew their job was to…well parent. Now, we have adults who can’t tell Arthur from Martha. What a fiasco.

A Lion with no Claws?

The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore – on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild” and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.

Dorothy Sayers in Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine

Christ and Culture

The Bible clearly teaches that Christ is Lord. He reigns. He is the universal king, the King of kings and Lord of lords. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to him. Right now, he is acting throughout the world as he slowly but surely makes every enemy into a footstall. And yet sometimes you’d be forgiven for thinking that Christians didn’t believe this. We have ceded just about every bit of the public sphere to the enemies of Christ and acted if Christ’s lordship applies to our ‘hearts’ alone. We’ve acted as if the kingdom of Christ is an imaginary realm that we access when we die. But at least we’ve invited Jesus into our hearts though!

What happened to the conquering king? What happened to “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more”? Instead, we sing about running to his arms and how ‘nothing compares to his embrace.’ We’ve given up the majestic truth of Christ’s authority and gradual conquering of the nations and his enemies for an insipid private relational realm.

It is time evangelical Christians gained a renewed understanding of the truth of Christ’s lordship and its implications for culture. As education is my particular interest and field of expertise, I will briefly describe two implications of Christ’s lordship for education.

Firstly, Christians, and particularly Christian pastors and leaders, must wake up to the truth that education is not something neutral. It does not sit outside of Christ’s kingdom. Nothing does. And if Christ is Lord of all, there is an imperative for us to train our children up to recognise his kingly authority over every single atom in this universe. That means Christians cannot but be supportive of a truly Christian education, by which I do not mean a basically secular education with a prayer to start the day and a worship assembly once a week. No, I mean we must support an education that trains children to understand everything from a Christian perspective. Christ must be recognised as lord of all – economics, politics, science, history, mathematics and language. If this is true, we must evacuate our children from the government schools which do not recognise Christ’s lordship but teach rather the lordship of demos. Our children cannot hope to learn Christ’s lordship from pagans who deny it.

Secondly, since Christ is indeed Lord, a truly Christian education will reflect the actual structure of reality in a way that false worldviews cannot. Therefore, a truly Christian education will be superior to what is offered by those who deny Christ’s lordship. Christians should fund and run the very best educational institutions in the world. We should be the leaders in providing a first-class education. People should look at what we are doing, and though they deny Christ’s lordship, they should want their children to be trained by us. And that is what we do see in Christian schools which unashamedly provide a truly Christian worldview education.

Now imagine if this were multiplied throughout the West. Imagine if all supposedly Christian schools actually taught and recognised Christ’s lordship. Imagine if Christian film-makers and storytellers, and IT specialists and scientists and philosophers self-consciously acknowledged Christ’s lordship in their field and sought to apply it. Imagine the impact Christianity will again have when we get it back out into the public sphere.

A Field of Mushrooms or Oaks?

Historians say that the sacred music of the Christian church, such as that of Palestrina, Allegri and Tallis, is one of the greatest gifts of the gospel to Western civilization and on par with the splendor of the magnificent European cathedrals, such as Chartres and Lincoln. yet this rich treasury is an unknown world to many Evangelicals, whose worship music often draws from songs written after 2000…But much of the run-of-the-mill renewal songs, which are repeated endlessly and constructed more on rhythm than melody, confine Evangelicals within a shallow theology, threadbare worship, fleeting relevance and historical amnesia. Along with soft preaching and a general rage for innovation, such music is another reason why many Evangelical churches resemble a field of quick-growing, quick-disappearing mushrooms rather than a longstanding forest of oaks. Again and again I have been regaled with the church growth maxim, “You have to sacrifice one generation to reach the next.” But this turns on a false assumption, and it leads to the telling fact that the fatal weakness of Evangelical church growth is succession. Church growth “success” without succession will always prove failure in the end.”

Os Guiness in Impossible People p176

Unteach Racism – Module 3 – Low Expectations

In previous articles, we have investigated the brand new app that The Human Rights Commission and The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand have put together. The first module was an introductory one and contained the usual fallacy of assuming disparities in ethnic outcomes are caused by racism. In module 2 we were presented with the issue of low self-belief which we were led to believe was caused by teachers and schools. Today we look at module 3 and low expectations.

From the outset, I had more hope for this module. It’s a well-known truth that teacher expectations are extremely significant in the learning process. There has been significant study into this and a psychological phenomenon known as the Pygmalion effect has been noticed. Essentially, the idea is that learners internalise the expectations their teachers have for them. If a teacher has high expectations for a particular child, the child will rise to meet those expectations, and conversely, if a teacher has low expectations for a child, they will sink to meet those expectations. One classic study gave teachers a class that was described as containing extremely gifted students. Teachers were told who these students were. At the conclusion of the study, these students had fared the best. What the teachers didn’t know, was that these ‘gifted students’ were selected at random, and were ordinary children. So, low expectations and high expectations from teachers and our educational system do matter. More on this later, but back to the module for now.

We are initially presented with a quote. Studies have shown that Māori students recognise when teachers have low expectations for them and so put in less effort than they do for teachers who have high expectations for them. We are then reminded of the possibility of implicit bias. It is, we are told, important that we ‘heighten our awareness of these biases.’ These implicit biases may be impacting our view of our students and therefore limiting them. To determine whether we have implicit biases we are then directed to an American Implicit Association Test. The test begins by getting you to identify dark and light faces that come up on your screen, pushing a key with your left hand for light skin and a key with your right hand for dark-skinned. Next, we are presented with good words and bad words and have to sort them out likewise. After this things are mixed up with faces and words appearing. Then various combinations are made so that the person taking the test is thoroughly confused.

What does this supposedly prove? An implicit preference for Light Skinned People relative to Dark Skinned People is assumed if the test subject is faster to sort words when ‘Light Skinned People’ and ‘Good’ share a button relative to when ‘Dark Skinned People’ and ‘Good’ share a button. In the interests of full disclosure, when I sat the test this on two different occasions this week, I came out as supposedly having a slight automatic preference for Dark Skinned People over Light Skinned People. I am not aware of any such bias in my teaching practice.

To begin with, what is really being measured here? Might it just measure familiarity? We tend to find people we are around all the time better looking and tend to associate them with ‘good’ just because they are familiar. But does this mean in a classroom situation we would unconsciously have lower expectations for those who are less familiar? I am not sure this follows at all. It might be equally likely that we expect more of them. It’s not at all clear to me what the test ultimately proves.

Realistically in 21st century New Zealand, there would not be many teachers who unconsciously expect less from a darker (or lighter) face. I think we are too multicultural for that to be a reality. Our actual experience as teachers would counter this supposed implicit bias. For example, my teaching experience has been in classes where children with lighter skin are a distinct minority. Do I expect more or less from them than I do from the many different darker-skinned ethnicities I have taught? I doubt it. I have taught high achievers from many different ethnicities. I do not bring expectations into classes I teach based on skin colour, and I suspect few teachers do despite the absurd and unsupported claims of people like Whetu Cormick who suggests many New Zealand universities are “pumping out teachers and many of them are biased, they discriminate and they are racist.”

Nonetheless, I do believe low expectations are having a negative impact on Maori and Pacific education. The irony is that it is not the conservative teachers, those who oppose the ‘Treaty Partnership’ nonsense being foisted upon the education sector, those critiquing the proposed new history curriculum, those critiquing the vacuous New Zealand curriculum and calling for more stringent standards, or those calling for an end to race-based entry into tertiary courses who have lower expectations for some learners. No, we are the ones who expect high standards from all our learners. We are not the racists.

The very people who have low expectations for Maori and Pacific learners are those putting together modules like Unteach Racism – the Teacher’s Council and many of the ‘elites’ controlling our education system. Let me give four brief examples of the low expectations I see in education. To begin with, let’s take our friend Whetu Cormick, former President of the NZ Principals’ Association. In 2019, in a response to a press release from The New Zealand Initiative critical of New Zealand’s education, Whetu Cormick suggested that what we need is a curriculum that is relevant to the community. He wasn’t worried that many New Zealanders didn’t know the names of the continents. If a kid in Bluff cares more about muttonbirds than continents, that’s what he should learn about says Cormick. So condemning a child to ignorance is OK as long as he studies what his culture is interested in. That’s low expectations.

We also see the tyranny of low expectations in the public schools that extirpate any books of the Western canon from their English literature courses and encourage children to choose books that they can ‘relate to’ as if brown children are incapable of relating to people of the past in the same way Pakeha children can. Surely Shakespeare is foreign to anyone living in 21st century New Zealand, but the riches we can glean from his study of human nature transcend culture and time.

Again we see low expectations in this ridiculous notion that to celebrate culture we must always have children dressing up in cultural garb and performing. If that is taking children out of academic learning time, which it so often is, we are short-selling those children academically. Schools should not be about teaching children their culture – that’s the job of the family. Schools are there to provide what family usually cannot – an academic pathway to success.

Finally, let’s not forget, the low expectations of thinking academic learning has to in some way relate to Tikanga Maori. You know, the typical nonsense that a teacher must relate all his lessons to the children’s cultural background. How does one relate differential calculus, or inorganic Chemistry to Maori culture – or any culture for that matter? Are we not humans, and isn’t investigating the world and seeking to understand its complexity and design a part of our human nature? Isn’t that larger than our own particular culture?

The truth of the matter is this: the path to wealth and success for many children in poorer families is not through focussing on their own community values and culture. In some cases, these values are precisely what is causing or exacerbating poverty. Rather, education should enable all our children to access the riches of the wider community. Education is not about keeping our children comfortably coddled in the culture and community they grew up in. Rather we need to be offering all our children the treasures of millennia of Western Civilization (and the many cultures and that have contributed to this). Let’s not sell our children’s birthright for a racist mess of pottage. Let’s give all our children their birthright as citizens of a Western democracy.