Render the Home-Schools unto Caesar? A Critique of Pastor Stein’s State-Worship

Bojidar told me of this a few days before he posted his article. His post inspired me to address the issue further. Here is my take:

An Indiana pastor of a conservative denomination (Presbyterian Church in America) has done what pastors so often do: capitulated what belongs to God to the Providence and Benevolence of Caesar.

The issue is education. Like some many in positions of leadership in conservative churches, Public Education is sacrosanct, and freedom in education must bow to the needs and interest of the State.

Pastor Tom Stein has taken note that some of the local Public Schools in Richmond, Indiana, may be encouraging parents of troubled students to sign forms promising they will home-school their kids. Why this bizarre maneuver? Because it allows the State School to remove drop-out candidates from their rolls and thereby post lower drop-out rates.

For Rev. Stein, this is corrupt and simply unacceptable. We must stop this egregious educational abuse! And how must we do this? Stein gives us direction. We have a problem with Public Schools creating possible fake “home school families.” Get that—a problem with Public Schools. So, Stein asks the logical question: “What do we do with home schools?”

He spies the type of solution that only such a blind-eye could: “Some oversight and regulation seems reasonable.”

How logical is that? The State has left a “loophole” (his term) in Public Education laws; therefore, we arrive at the logical solution which everyone would naturally conclude: further regulate the Private educators.

Now who wouldn’t conclude that? It’s so obvious. If you have a leak in the dike, you do the obvious thing: evict the residents downstream and bull-doze their homes so that their property may be flooded and become part of the sea as well.

Now you may be tempted to assert, against this impeccable [that’s Latin for “sinless”]—seminary trained, “Master of Divinity”—logic, that instead of punishing private and home educators for the corruption and vice of Public Education officials, we should instead shut the loophole, or fire the Public Administrator, Principal, etc. But this just shows the naïveté of those prejudiced by ideas of freedom and individual responsibility before God (and probably not publically-educated). Don’t you realize, after all, that such a measure would be an admission of guilt on the part of the State, and that would just plain look bad?

So Rev. Stein is correct: it is “in the interest of the State, to keep an eye on this.” Absolutely correct! Unless the State wishes to bear the opprobrium of the corruption within its own system, and among the ranks of its bureaucracy, it must immediately place any such blame somewhere else. Why not innocent homeschoolers? What an easy and effective way to absolve itself of its own corruption and sins.

Now Rev. Stein is no mere publicity stunt-man. He has a real argument stirring amidst his cloud of dust. He says:

Let’s say the schools do happily say goodbye to frustrating and failing kids through this home-school loophole, and never see them again. Or let’s say exasperated parents do sign the form, then allow their children to enjoy a curriculum of potato chips and ESPN. What is the result? Uneducated, unskilled, unmotivated people who will barely survive in the work force and might eventually drop out altogether. Then, since we are so generous with our social programs, we will have another group of people who take far more than they give.

Or—OR—just for argument’s sake, let’s suppose that the Public School failed in its promise to educate those “frustrating” or “failing” children, and left them to enjoy a curriculum of, say, condoms from the school nurse and sex with their teacher (just hypothetical, you know—this never really happens). Or, let’s be nice, even, and suppose that the Public School just simply failed and a child dropped out, period. What is the result?

Each of these cases (which are the actual problems in view in Rev. Stein’s scenario) would still result in “Uneducated, unskilled, unmotivated people who will barely survive in the work force and might eventually drop out altogether.”

But then, that’s the original issue, isn’t it?—the Public school’s drop-out rate. These kids were already drop-out material. The only reason they avoided actually sagging the drop-out statistics even further is because, allegedly, of the Public school unethically unloading them as fraudulent “home school” kids. No problems here! No drop-outs on our books! Please note two things:

1)      These kids were already drop-outs as public-schooled kids. Their failure is the Public School’s failure. Their failure is the State’s failure.

2)      Many of the flunkies would have ended up on social welfare programs anyway, however they were schooled. The only thing that has been improved here, then, is the Public School’s drop-out statistic.

So why make up a hypothetical scenario about possibly fraudulent home-schoolers possibly manufacturing drop-outs and possibly swelling the rolls of social welfare? Why not make the same argument in regard to the corrupt Public School to begin with—where the problem already exists and in fact originated?

Stein is stone silent.

The real answer: Because the Public School’s supposed scam (and Rev. Stein’s refusal to place the blame where it belongs) does nothing but help the State: it removes its problem children, lowers its drop-out rate, and defames the State’s most formidable competition in education—home schooling. Now Pastor Stein is calling for the State—which has does nothing but fail and lie in this endeavor so far—to put shackles on its competition. It can further increase its monopoly on mediocre education by blaming home-schoolers for its own drop-outs.

And let’s not forget the other real culprit in this scenario: the dishonest parent who willingly signs the home-school promise form deceitfully with no intention of actually following through (of course, since their kids are already failing in public school, they’ve had no real intention of following through with their education to begin with). In the interest of the State, these should not be singled-out, let alone penalized, even though it appears they may have lied, or committed fraud. Punishing these might also raise the question of why such a parent would sign such a form, and that may also end up embarrassing the State. So, nix that idea. Thankfully, in the interest of the State, Stein has remained silent on these parents’ guiltiness as well.

Notice also that Rev. Stein is very worried that we will create “another group of people who take far more than they give.” If he were truly concerned with this, he might rather write an article criticizing the vast $Trillion industry of public education itself—a beast predicated on taxation of property, in which most of those who pay least, or none at all, take far more than they give. In contrast, those who pay the most usually do not—would not—even use the pitiful system.

Stein complained that some parents are unfit or incompetent to act as educators for their own children. He used himself for an example: “My kids surpassed my home-schooling skills somewhere around first grade.” And this guy teaches a whole church!

Woe unto thee, Pastor Stein’s congregation! For thou are condemned to sit beneath a teacher who cannot advance you beyond a first grade level! Let it be known from henceforth that the members and elders of Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) of Richmond, Indiana, must not have any theological knowledge beyond a first-grade Sunday School class.

Perhaps he has them draw pictures during the sermon—if he can write one—and serves them graham crackers and cool-aid for the Lord’s Supper.

So is this the product of our seminaries today? A guy who can’t reason well, can’t teach his own children past the first grade, and can’t even misplace blame very well?

Sadly, yes. It is a sad fact that few if any modern seminarians are required to study the issues of public versus private education, freedom versus socialism/Statism, the role of the State, the role of law, monopoly, economic law or issues, or any issue of social liberty. As it results, they almost always to the person default in favor of State-dominated education, economy, welfare, war, etc. Mr. Stein is merely one among thousands.

I speak with experience. I am a seminary graduate—an M.Div., “Master of Divinity.” I even attended one of the more conservative seminaries: some of my professors at least allowed or tolerated my exploration of some of these issues in regard to theology or biblical studies. I have spoken with many other students from other seminaries, and with many diverse professors. The almost universal reaction is aversion to all things political or economic.

This is most unfortunate, and creates a terrible irony: those who refuse to study the issues of freedom or of pious pretenses usually succumb to the tyranny of the day. Anything not going on inside your private Christian life or the four walls of the church (songs, etc.) is for some reason assumed to be not of God, and therefore, “rendered unto Caesar.” Perhaps the most fatal of these areas is that of Education.

People worship God on Sunday, speak of God and family—then willingly herd their children into largely pagan asylums all day for five days a week. In these prisons of Statist corruption and vice, children are desensitized to everything about God and family. Christian parents willingly render their children to Caesar.

The economist Murray Rothbard pinpointed the issue (as he so often does) in his booklet, Education: Free and Compulsory. He writes: “The key issue in the entire discussion is simply this: shall the parent or the State be the overseer of the child?” (electronic edition, p. 6). And of course, the State always wishes to play Almighty God and Holy Father, so its answer will always be that the State should be overseer of the child (and overseer of the parents, too, for that matter).

Now we’ve known this to be the case for some time. And we’ve know that the State has co-opted churches to be its propaganda machines also for some time. We have come to accept the fact that most mainline churches have rendered their children and all else to Caesar and not to God, and that most Evangelicals have followed in practice. On the issue of education, even fundamentalists have caved. And we have grown to accept the fact that most of these same groups demand that all other people render their children to Caesar as well.

But this latest case is an overt example of a leader in a small and normally conservative denomination singing hymns to Caesar’s power to “regulate,” and using fallacious argumentation (a.k.a. “lying”) to leverage state power over one of the few areas of freedom Christians still have. Not only “render unto Caesar,” but let Caesar determine what shall be left for God as well.

And of course, the sad fact is that in this whole scenario Stein has created, legitimate home-schooling could be the only thing that could help these drop-out material kids. The bureaucrats in the School Systems and the State-worshiping pastors like Stein certainly have done nothing for them to date; and now they are seeking to strangle the only good help there is.