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Train up a child in the way he should go – Part I

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : November 22, 2013
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Category: Archives, Education, Worldview

My grandmother and I had a lot of conversations. They were usually one-sided with me asking questions but mostly listening to her stories. Of Cherokee ancestry, Sally Pearl (Downey) Hart was born in 1890 in Indian Territory and lived near present-day Ryan on the Red River. She came by wagon with her parents, brothers and sisters to the banks of the Arkansas River across the river from the tiny settlement of Tulsa in 1895. As there was no bridge over the river, the wagon had to be ferried across in order to get to where present-day Owasso is located a few miles north of Tulsa. She and my grandfather met and married in the newly minted state of Oklahoma, and they eventually operated a dairy farm near Owasso.

She told many stories of her early life and family. She was an avid reader and read many stories to me. One of the few books she actually owned was Martin and Osa Johnson’s Four Years in Paradise. I was fascinated as she read to me of their exploration of Africa in the early twentieth century. I still have that book. When I was about seven years old, I recall sitting on the couch beside her as she made a doll out of empty thread spoons, some yarn, and a few bits of cloth. She called it Ezra Taft Benson. Of course today not one in a thousand people will know who Ezra Taft Benson was, but at that time he was the newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower. As the wife of a retired dairy-farmer, she wasn’t too enamored with his agricultural policies. Apparently it made such an impression on me that I still vividly remember that time sitting on the couch beside her and listening.

She was an exceptionally loving, wise, and Godly woman, and much of what I later learned in life and believe today had their beginnings in those conversations with her when I was a small child.

Conversations are important and none more so than those between a parent or grandparent and a young child. It is in such conversations that our cultural inheritance is passed on unimpaired. In a larger sense, family is where “socialization” takes place, that is, the generational transfer of moral and cultural values. From primitive peoples huddled around communal campfires in the millennia of the past to the generations of the early twentieth century, children received most of their values and worldview from their parents, and the local church and community almost universally reflected those same values and worldview. [Johnson, pp. 28, 311.]

However, the generational transmission of America’s cultural inheritance was challenged by the rapid rise of the humanistic worldview during the Boomer generation’s formative years (born late 1945 through 1964). This new moral order not only challenged but significantly damaged the generational transmission of the moral order upon which American society had flourished for over one hundred and fifty years. What made the Boomers different was the occurrence of a series of significant shared events and formative experiences that came together in a unique time and place—the perfect storm as it might be called. This series of significant shared events and formative experiences would ultimately result in dramatic changes in family life and child rearing, education, culture, religion, politics, and government. [Johnson, p. 11.]

One of the most significant formative experiences of the young Boomer generation was the dramatic arrival of television. With the advent of television, there was a new member of the family seated at the communal campfire, and in all of history no intruder into the family circle would so quickly and thoroughly usurp the authority of parents and family in transmitting cultural values. The American child would be exposed to substantial external influences for long periods of time each day. In a series of exceptional essays published in 1981 about television as a social and cultural force, Richard Adler wrote:

The TV set has become the primary source of news and entertainment for most Americans and a major force in the acculturation of children…Television is not simply a medium of transmission, it is an active, pervasive force…a mediator between our individual lives and the larger life of the nation and the world; between fantasy and fact; between old values and new ideas; between our desire to seek escape and our need to confront reality. (emphasis added) [Adler, pp. xi-xii.]

Television was the perfect tool for the transmission of a humanistic worldview to the Boomer generation. Michael Novak called television a “…molder of the soul’s geography. It builds up incrementally a psychic structure of expectations. It does so in much the same way that school lessons slowly, over the years, tutor the unformed mind and teach it ‘how to think’.” To Novak, television is a “homogenizing medium” with an ideological tendency that is a “vague and misty liberalism” designed “however gently to undercut traditional institutions and to promote a restless, questioning attitude.” Television served its masters, the state and the great corporations, even when exalting “…the individual at the expense of family, neighborhood, religious organizations, and cultural groups…that stand between the isolated individual and the massive institutions.” [Novak, pp. 20, 26-27.] The “restless, questioning attitude” is an excellent description of what the Boomer children of the 1950s would exhibit in the 1960s. Many historians and sociologists believe that the greatest number of significant shared events and formative experiences that defined the Baby Boomers as a distinctive group was provided by television—more than the influence of parents and more than the massive numbers that form the Baby Boomer cohort. [Croker, p. 20.] [Johnson, p. 29.]

Television robbed families of time together for conversations necessary for the transmission of their cultural inheritance and replaced it with a humanistic worldview. But television was just the beginning of a new media culture in which technological advances dramatically changed how we live, work, and communicate. In the last twenty-five years we have become a screen culture, but in our rush to connectedness, we have become disconnected. [Elkind, pp. ix-x.] We are inundated with information from television, computers, cell phones, iPads, and monitors in businesses, churches, restaurants, airports, and any other location where there is a concentration of human traffic. We may have hundreds of friends on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter but are starved for real face-to-face relationships in which there is time to listen. And we cannot effectively transmit our cultural inheritance to our children with a few keystrokes and recorded sound bites.

Richard Weaver captured the essence of this loss of time for listening in Visions of Order:

The individual conservators of the past exist no more or they are no longer listened to: the grandmother preserving the history and traditions of the family by the fireside, the veteran relating the story of his battles in the shaded courthouse square, even the public orator recalling the spirit of 1776 on commemorative days. There is no time to listen to them, and time is of the essence. (emphasis added) [Weaver, p. 41.]

There is another thief that has also robbed three generations of American children of their cultural heritage—American education under the humanistic philosophy of John Dewey. This will be addressed in Part II.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishing, 2011), pp. 11, 28-29, 311.

Richard P. Adler, ed., Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), pp. xi-xii.

Michael Novak, “Television Shapes the Soul,” Understanding Television – Essays on Television as a Social and Cultural Force, Richard P. Adler, ed., (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1981), pp. xi-xii.

Richard Croker, The Boomer Century 1946-2046, (New York: Springboard Press, 2007), p. 20.

Richard M. Weaver, Visions of Order – The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1995, 2006), p. 41. Original copyright 1964 by Louisiana State University Press.

David Elkind, Ph.D., The hurried child – growing up too fast too soon, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2007), pp. ix-x.

In Defense of Labels

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : November 15, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity

Max Lucado is a wonderful and inspiring writer. Few writers can match his ability to bring fresh insights, infuse substance, and bring clarity to both the commonplace and complex things of life. One of his recent website posts was titled Simply ‘Church’.” He posed two questions, “…what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names simply to ‘church’?…if there are no denominations in heaven, why do we have denominations on earth?” His point was that we should not attend a church based on the sign outside, but we should join our hearts to the like-minded hearts of the people on the inside. [Max Lucado]

This is a noble sentiment and reflects the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Romans, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Romans 15: 5-6. KJV] In other words, the church should be in unity in thought and message. Matthew Henry stated, “The foundation of Christian love and peace is laid in like-mindedness. This like-mindedness must be according to Christ Jesus…” In other words, Christ should be our pattern because the unity of Christians glorifies God. However, Henry warns that our prayers for like-mindedness “…must be first for truth, and then for peace…it is first pure, then peaceable.”

Max Lucado’s “Simply Church” may have worked in first century Israel for there were few churches and just one Christian church. But we live in twenty-first century America with many communities that have churches on almost every corner. There are many religions, thousands of denominations, and hundreds of thousands of churches. In America most are Christian churches, each professing to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So, using the Simply Church model, how does one know which church to join oneself with? How does one know whether the people inside are like-minded? Attend one Sunday? No, first impressions are often not reliable proofs of like-mindedness. Then attend a year? No, for one can spend much of life searching for instead of fellowshipping with like-minded Christians. Thus, discovering like-minded believers without using labels can be a difficult and time-consuming task.

Labels are useful and compatible with divine order. God used labels during the Creation. He labeled trees in the Garden…the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He labeled the rivers going out of Eden. God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them, “…and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” And from Adam’s side He made him a wife who “shall be called Woman.” [Genesis 2:9-23. KJV]

In our search for like-mindedness with other Christians, we must return to Matthew Henry’s admonition that our quest must first be for truth and then for peace. In that quest for truth, labels are invaluable and become a type of shorthand for what we know to be true or not true (the written word as well as symbols, e.g., fish symbol, the cross, the dove).

Throughout the ages language has been the means of achieving order in culture. Knowledge of truth comes through the word which provides solidity in the “shifting world of appearances.” Richard Weaver called words the storehouse of our memory. In our modern age humanists have effectively used semantics to neuter words of their meaning in historical and symbolic contexts, that is, words now mean what men want them to mean. By removing the fixities of language (which undermines an understanding of truth), language loses its ability to define and compel. As the meaning of words is divorced from truth, relativism gains supremacy, and a culture tends to disintegration without an understanding of eternal truths upon which to orient its self. [Richard Weaver]

Therefore, the problem with simply “Church” is that we live in a fallen world, and there are competing voices each professing truth. Removing the labels and being simply “Church” won’t work when we must give priority to truth. Without truth, simply “Church” won’t achieve like-mindedness in a world immersed in a relativistic sea of shifting appearances. In such a world labels become our anchors to truth.

I am thankful for my denomination, and I’m thankful that it is not labeled simply “Church.” Without its label, many like-minded Christians would drive on by not knowing they have a fellow believer on the inside. Although I believe my denomination has the best understanding of God’s truth, I have no animosity towards other Christians who genuinely seek God and believe their understanding of biblical truth is more accurate than mine. I wish them well for we are all followers of Jesus Christ on this earth and like-minded on the truths of the major tenets of our faith. And we’ll all be members of simply Church when we get to heaven.

Labels also help us identify those with whom we should not be in fellowship. The Bible says that there are many churches with misleading labels who have false prophets and false teachers that have abandoned biblical truth and will not be a part of that gathering in heaven. Also, other religions have labels that may accurately depict what’s on the inside, but what’s on the inside is a false religion whose god is not the great I AM and does not lead to truth or a heavenly home.

When traveling I have occasionally driven along the streets of a city unfamiliar to me in search of a church to attend. First, I spot a cross on top of a steeple in the distance. I then look for the label on that local branch of Christianity. In a few seconds I have some understanding of the truth held by those inside and whether they are like-minded or not. I like labels here on earth, but I’m glad we won’t need them in heaven and that we’ll be simply ‘Church.’

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Max Lucado, “Simply ‘Church’,” Max Lucado, November 4, 2013. http://808bo.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/max-lucado-simply-church/ (accessed November 6, 2013).

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p.1794.

Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 148-149, 152, 158, 163.

Common Core Curriculum Standards – The devil is in the details

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : November 8, 2013
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Category: Archives, Education

The Common Core Curriculum State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) was previously examined in “Education in America – Part III – Common Core State Standards – Educational excellence or secular cultural conformity?” [See Archives – August 9, 2013] This article takes a more in-depth look at the concerns about Common Core and the nationalization of education.

Initially, the CCSSI was a state-led effort that established a single set of educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics. In that initiative, states were to voluntarily adopt Common Core standards to unify and strengthen educational standards and expectations. However, the seemingly voluntary adoption of standards by the states has evolved through the power of the federal purse strings into mandated standards under various federal programs.

The nation’s governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), led the development of the Common Core State Standards which were published in December 2008. However, the federal government under the Obama administration effectively hijacked the program in February 2009 through a $4.35 billion stimulus money “executive earmark” (meaning no-strings-attached) transfer to the Department of Education to create and fund a program that became known as the Race to the Top (RTT), a federal grant competition that allowed cash-strapped states to compete for federal stimulus money. [Race to the Top]

Strings!

But the federal purse had strings attached. To receive stimulus money, the states had to “commit” to the adoption of common education standards. The state commitments had to be made within two months of publication of the standards. State consent came from gubernatorial and bureaucratic offices without any consent of the people or their elected representatives as most of the state legislatures were not in session. The short time frame did not allow for thoughtful review and deliberation of the federal standards by citizens and their representatives. Forty-two states made the commitment (under a federally-imposed definition of commitment) without a single state legislature approving the commitment to adopt common educational standards.

And More Strings!

On May 22, 2012, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced another “strings-attached” $400 million federal grant program whose funds would go directly to qualifying local school districts. The program effectively bypasses state governments and undermines state sovereignty. The program is called Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) and includes the following elements. [District-Level Race to the Top]

To qualify, a district must serve at least 2,500 students of whom 40% or more must qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch program.

Each district must create plans for “individualized classroom instruction aimed at closing achievement gaps and preparing each student for college and career.” [One would think that the experts at the DOE would know the average child spends about six and one-half hours per day in the classroom. Using a typical elementary school classroom with twenty-five students as an example, each child would be allotted about sixteen minutes in which to receive “individualized classroom instruction.” And from the allotted sixteen minutes we must subtract the time necessary for lunches and other activities, the time needed for general group classroom instruction by the teacher, and all of the other daily interruptions. One wonders if any of these so-called DOE experts have ever taught in a real-world classroom.]

Districts must demonstrate commitment to RTT’s four core reform areas which include adopting standards acceptable to the DOE and building massive student-data tracking systems. [Standards are not voluntary if the standards must be acceptable to the DOE, and this requirement debunks the supposed voluntary nature of Common Core Standards.]

Districts must show they can track students from pre-K though college and tie the outcomes back to individual teachers. [One wonders how a local school district will obtain the outcomes of a student’s college career. Perhaps the task of accumulating that information will be assigned to the National Security Agency due to its vast stores of information on the private lives of American citizens.]

Applying districts must promise to implement evaluation systems that consider student outcomes – not just for teacher and principal performance, but also for district superintendents and school boards. [Does this mean that the DOE will have the power to fire school superintendents and locally-elected school boards? If the DOE’s power is not direct, perhaps federal funds will be withheld should the local officials not comply with DOE suggestions as to needed personnel changes.]

Applicant school districts must form partnerships with public and private organizations to . . . offer services that help meet students’ academic, social, and emotional needs . . . .” [Thus, it appears that local school districts are answerable to the DOE as to whether students are socially and emotionally well-adjusted. In effect, school teachers will now be responsible for providing time and services for their students’ social and emotional needs in addition to the individualized educational instruction as previously mentioned, all in a six-and-a-half-hour school day.]

RTT-D is a power-grab through which the federal government will skirt citizens’ elected legislative bodies and negotiate directly with school districts in implementation of federal educational policies. RTT-D will also undermine the state governmental structure by grouping school districts together on policy decisions and thereby making it more difficult for the group to disengage from federal programming.

Dr. Allan Carlson is a noted author and lecturer and former Reagan appointee who served five years on the National Commission on Children. In a recent lecture he succinctly described the problems of the Common Core Standards program: more testing, more centralization, more experts, less creativity, and more money for a failing system. [Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education]

School systems attempting to withstand the assault on their autonomy by rejecting the Common Core Standards, a national curriculum, and national testing will be financially starved into submission. Even faith-based private schools will feel the pressure to conform to Common Core standards. Because Common Core standards are leading to a national curriculum and national testing, ACT, SAT, GED, and other testing programs are being aligned to the Common Core standards. Yet, private school students take those same tests. Inevitably private schools will be pressured to teach to the Common Core standards even if that which is taught is contrary to what they believe. Otherwise, their students will not do well on the Common Core aligned tests. Also, credit transfers from a faith-based school not in alignment with the Common Core may not be accepted by other Common Core aligned schools. And accreditation agencies that require accredited schools to be aligned with the Common Core may not accredit non-complying faith-based schools. [Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education]

The DOE website disingenuously states that, “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.” [The Federal Role in Education] But, the Obama administration and a rapacious federal bureaucracy have seized control over America’s educational system which makes a mockery of the DOE assertion that education is primarily a state and local responsibility.

The federal government is developing a national curriculum under the guise of the Common Core Standards Initiative. Not only is a national curriculum being established but for the first time ever the participating local school must certify that its curriculum complies with federal standards. Federal bureaucrats will determine what children all across America will read and be taught and for how long. Local school administrators are becoming mere toadies answerable only to faceless bureaucrats in Washington. Locally elected school boards would be virtually powerless if not obsolete. And if parents have questions, objections, or concerns about their child’s education, to whom would they turn? With local education in the grasp of a nationalized educational system, the local school board, their local state representative and state government, and even their national representatives will be powerless to address a parent’s concerns. And this massive accumulation of power without accountability is occurring in the absence of any explicit Constitutional authority.

President Woodrow Wilson warned against the concentration of federal powers, and his warning is applicable one hundred years later with regard to the transfer of control of America’s educational system to the federal government.

The history of Liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties. [Quoted by William J. Federer.]

Parents, local school officials, and state legislators should be extremely concerned about the destruction of local control of America’s educational system and should strongly resist attempts to do so through the Common Core standards.

George Will summarized the progressive education establishment’s defense of the voluntary nature of Common Core. “If you like your local curriculum, you can keep it. Period.” [George Will] Hmmm. That has a familiar ring to it. I wonder where I’ve heard that before…

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, “Education in America – Part III – Common Core State Standards – Educational excellence or secular cultural conformity?” culturewarrior.net, August 9, 2013. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2013/08/09/education-in-america-part-iii-common-core-state-standards-educational-excellence-or-secular-cultural-conformity/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

“Race to the Top,” Truth in American Education, http://truthinamericaneducation.com/race-to-the-top/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

U.S. Department of Education, “District-Level Race to the Top to Focus on the Classroom, Provide Tools to Enhance Learning and Serve the Needs of Every Student,” ED.gov, May 22, 2012. ww.ed.gov/news/press-releases/district-level-race-top-focus-classroom-provide-tools-enhance-learning-and-serve (accessed October 30, 2013).

“District-Level Race to the Top–Race to the Top IV,” Truth in American Education, http://truthinamericaneducation.com/race-to-the-top/district-level-race-to-the-toprace-to-the-top-iv/ (accessed October 30, 2013).

“Common Core: The Dangers of Federal Power in Education,” Video Lecture, Family Research Council, September 25, 2013. http://www.frc.org/eventregistration/common-core-the-dangers-of-federal-power-in-education (accessed October 30, 2013).

U.S. Department of Education, “The Federal Role in Education,” ED.gov., http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html (accessed October 30, 2013).

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994, 1996), p. 698.

George Will, “Clunker progressivism: Present, too, is prologue,” Tulsa World, November 7, 2013, A-14.

Marriage – Part V – The Consequences of the Humanist Worldview of Marriage

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : November 1, 2013
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Category: Archives, Marriage

Part V examines the consequences of the decline of traditional marriage in American society as a result of the ascending humanist worldview.

Much of the material for this series has been excerpted from Ye shall be as gods which succinctly frames the opposing Christian and humanist worldviews with regard to human relationships in general and marriage specifically. [Johnson, Chapter 20, American Family – Marriage and Family.]

The family and societal carnage that occurred in America during the twentieth century and thereafter as a result of the domination of the humanist worldview is monumental and recounted in numerous studies and reports. The statistics reflecting the precipitous decline of marriage and the American family are incontrovertible and coincide almost exactly with the emergence of the Boomer generation in the mid-1960s and the rapid and accelerating ascendancy of the humanist worldview. Perhaps the signal statistic highlighting the collapse of marriage and the traditional family is the high level of births to unmarried mothers as reported in 2006: 68 percent of all black children, 45 percent of all Hispanic children, and 25 percent of all white children. [Rector, “The Collapse of Marriage and the Rise of Welfare Dependence.”]

The collapse of the traditional family is even more evident when one examines the population of women with and without spouse present. Of particular note is the dramatic twelve-fold percentage increase between 1960 and 1990 of women with children under the age of eighteen who have never married. This accounts for almost a third of all women with children under age 18 with no spouse present. For eighty years between 1880 and 1960, this figure declined from slightly over 12 percent to 2.6 percent in 1960 before the dramatic escalation to 31.6% in 1990. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, four out of every ten births in America were to unwed mothers. [Rector, “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty.”]

What is also remarkable and further highlights the impact of the humanistic view of marriage is the decline in the percentage of women with children under eighteen who have a spouse present. For eighty years between 1880 and 1960, this figure was very stable at or near 90 percent before dropping to 76 percent in 1990.

In their flight from marriage, humanists promised women emancipation and fulfillment; however, the big lie produced only bondage, drudgery, and exhaustion—poverty, long hours of daily separation from their children, and the drudgery of low-paying jobs in the workforce. The seeds planted by the those promoting the humanist worldview over the decades prior to the 1960s and thereafter have born bitter fruit—illegitimacy, cohabitation, fatherlessness, divorce, and a large number of single parent families with children who are locked in a continuing cycle of neglect and poverty. When compared to homes where children were raised by married parents, children raised in homes by single parents are more likely to encounter emotional and behavioral problems, drink, smoke, use drugs, be physically abused, exhibit poor school performance and drop out, and exhibit aggressive, violent, and criminal behavior. [Rector, “The Collapse of Marriage and the Rise of Welfare Dependence.”] And in such an environment the memory of what once was or might have been is lost, and the transmission of the central vision of American culture to another generation is in peril.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan retired from the United States Senate (Democratic Senator from New York) in 2000. Near the beginning of his career he was an assistant Secretary of Labor in Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. At the time of his retirement, the senator was asked to describe the biggest change he had seen in his forty years of government service. Articulate and intellectual, the distinguished public servant, having served both Democratic and Republican presidents, replied, “The biggest change, in my judgment, is that the family structure has come apart all over the North Atlantic world” and had occurred in “an historical instant. Something that was not imaginable forty years ago had happened.” Author of the 1965 Moynihan Report officially known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, Moynihan knew that of which he spoke. [Bennett, pp. 2, 85.] Enormously controversial at the time of its release, the report continues to be a topic of debate in the twenty-first century. The report characterized the instability of the black families in America and the importance of the family unit in providing that stability.

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro Family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time…The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit. By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child…the child learns a way of looking at life in his early years through which all later experience is viewed and which profoundly shapes his adult conduct. [Rainwater and Yancy, p. 3.]

Writing shortly after Moynihan’s perceptive summation of the condition of the family structure, William Bennett noted the deep concern of Americans with regard to the family. Bennett pointed to the general instability of the American family and the contributing factors such as the decline in the status and centrality of marriage in society, substantially greater percentage of out-of-wedlock births, and the significant increase in co-habitation. With the decline of social perception and necessity of matrimony, children are less valued, more neglected, more vulnerable to non-family influences, and have less resources devoted for their care and benefit. Bennett wrote that, “Public attitudes toward marriage, sexual ethics, and child-rearing have radically altered for the worse. In sum, the family has suffered a blow that has no historical precedent—and one that has enormous ramifications for American society.” [Bennett, pp. 1-2.]

Another decade has elapsed since Moynihan’s diagnosis of the disintegration of the family unit as the major modern affliction of the Western world and Bennett’s reporting of Americans’ purported concern for the survival of the family. It is no longer the problem of the black population. The deterioration of the family unit is pervasive and crosses all ethnic, socio-economic, and religious lines although the poor and disadvantaged bear a greater portion of the misery. Yet, there has been no public outcry to reverse the decline, no urgency or sense of crisis in dealing with the problem, no new series of government studies explaining the situation, and no investigative reporting or meaningful media attention regarding the most profound change in society that has had no historical precedent. Why is this so? The answer is that the solutions to reverse the decline and devastation of marriage and the family unit stand as polar opposites of the prevailing and pervasive humanistic worldview.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 316-3-17, 319-321.

Robert Rector, “The Collapse of Marriage and the Rise of Welfare Dependence,” Panel Discussion, Lecture #959, The Heritage Foundation (May 22, 2006). www.heritage.org/research/welfare/hl959.cfm (accessed September 17, 2010).

Robert Rector, “Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty,” The Heritage Foundation, September 16, 2010, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/09/marriage-america-s-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty (accessed September 21, 2010).

William J. Bennett, The Broken Hearth, (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 1-2. 85.

Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, (Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 3.

Marriage – Part IV – The Pathologies of the Humanist Worldview of Marriage

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : October 25, 2013
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Category: Archives, Marriage

Traditional marriage is in serious jeopardy in twenty-first century America. In Part IV we will examine the assault on the divine concept of marriage and the resulting pathologies of the humanist worldview of marriage and relationships.

Much of the material for this series has been excerpted from Ye shall be as gods which succinctly frames the opposing Christian and humanist worldviews with regard to human relationships in general and marriage specifically. [Johnson, Chapter 20, American Family – Marriage and Family.]

As a result of the ascending humanistic worldview, the concept of marriage as known and practiced in Western civilization since its inception has been done great damage. In the liberal view, the importance of marriage has been diminished in at least two ways. First, the humanistic worldview is based on exaltation of the individual person. The individual should be encouraged to realize his or her own creative talents and desires and exercise maximum individual autonomy. In such a worldview, marriage is far less important, a mere choice that may or may not be evidenced by a contractual relationship. And humanistic man’s laws are crafted to reflect the reduced status of marriage, e.g., no-fault divorce.

The ideal of romantic love inextricably linked with individual happiness devoid of the covenantal commitment is of recent origin and rests on the tenets of the humanist philosophy and worldview. When one examines the humanist view of marriage, it may surprise many that humanist writings have little to say with regard to marriage for the emphasis is not on a matrimonial bonding of a man and woman but the liberation of the individual. Two of the common principles of Humanist Manifesto II clearly elevate the individual as opposed to the two who shall become one flesh. These principles are:

Fifth: The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires. We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility… (emphasis in original)

Sixth: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil.”…individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life styles as they desire… [Kurtz, p. 18.]

The second way humanism deconstructs Western civilization’s concept of marriage is to redefine and marginalize traditional marriage. Marriage is no longer a union between a man and woman but now includes marriage between homosexuals in some states. Further deconstruction is on the horizon. Both houses of the 2012 California state legislature passed a bill that would allow a child to have three legal parents. The governor vetoed the bill so more time would be allowed “…to consider all implications of the change.” Other advocates are calling for the legal recognition of multiple partner relationships (polygamy). [Anderson, p. 16.]

To the average twenty-first century American, covenant marriage (See Part III) may appear impractical if not impossible amidst the swirl of a humanistic popular culture that idealizes romantic love inextricably linked with individual happiness. Most moderns hope to sail the seas of marital bliss in the flimsy craft built of fleeting emotion and temporal happiness. Marriages based on this false ideal will soon crash on the rocky shores of reality. Rather, covenant relationships are centered on steadfast or spiritual love which is far stronger and deeper than fleeting, emotion-driven romantic love. When the storms of life rage, the deep keel of a covenant marriage will keep the marital ship afloat. Certainly steadfast love contains emotional and romantic elements, but steadfast love is a choice, a way of thinking, a mindset and is best expressed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, “Love is patient; love is kind. Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited; does not act improperly; is not selfish; is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs; finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

This last phrase brings us to our next point. The covenant marriage is intended to be a permanent relationship. We can enter into a contract with anyone. The contract may involve sex, security, status, or a hundred other clauses and may or may not include love. However, we enter into covenant relationships only with those we love. [Chapman, pp. 17-21.] Therefore, to achieve the fullness of its promise, love must be an ingredient in the covenant marriage. In Paul’s description of love in his letter to the Corinthians the careful reader will note an absence of the words important to proponents of the humanistic worldview—autonomy, independence, growth, and creativity. Faithful adherence to the words of 1 Corinthians 13 bring forth the fruit of a covenant marriage relationship. Such fruit is harvested only after the hard work of planting, weeding, and watering which is all wrapped up in one word—nurturing. Covenant marriages will involve its share of difficulties, trouble, and pain, but the harvest is worth the effort.

For humanists and their feminist fellow travelers, extolling the virtues and provisions of a covenant marriage relationship may elicit howls of contempt. As has been noted, the focus of the humanists is on the “I” and not the “we”, a message constantly conveyed and reinforced by media, government policies, the educational establishment, and popular culture. And this prevailing humanist worldview is carried into the great majority of male-female relationships regardless of type—marriage, cohabitation, or sexual promiscuity. We need not belabor these conclusions with additional explanation of the differences that are readily evident between the Judeo-Christian and humanist worldviews regarding marriage and family.

In Part V, we will examine the consequences to society of the humanistic worldview of marriage.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 314-316.

Paul Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, Massachusetts: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18.

Ryan T. Anderson, “Twelve Theses on Redefining Marriage – What comes Next,” The City, Summer 2013, 16.

Gary Chapman, Covenant Marriage, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003), pp. 17- 21.