The Student Debt Crisis and Government Money in Education

 

Days ago the US Supreme Court stopped the President from canceling $400 billion in student loan debt.  It seems that in our Republic enough semblance of independent branches of government remains that maybe one man cannot unilaterally make a half trillion dollar decision.    

At Oak Hill, I think we should be glad for the court decision.   It keeps pressure on colleges and universities to reconsider their great reliance on federal money.  As of today, these loans continue to be made to new students.  Colleges need to acknowledge that, in addition to burdening more and more students with debt, federal money is also driving their institutions to make decisions in terms of that money.  It should also make us think about how K-12 schools should be funded. 

Jesse Sumpter, a writer for New Saint Andrews College, says the Court is right to overturn Biden’s proposal because his plan would not actually fix the problem and would lead to other issues that hurt Americans.  He says the real problem is that “colleges and universities that take federal money are growing dependent on that money and are losing their freedom to operate in healthy ways.”

New Saint Andrew's President, Ben Merkle, thinks there is a genuine debt problem.  But, he also believes that colleges should wean themselves off federal money.  New Saint Andrews College is one of the few in the nation that does not accept any federally backed student loan money.   Read more of Sumpter's and Merkle's comments here.

There are many calls in Virginia and elsewhere for state sponsored vouchers to pay for schools like Oak Hill.  Undoubtedly these would financially be a bonanza for schools like ours.  But, money drives mission.  We have seen the results of federal money on colleges.  We have seen the results of state funded public schools.  Mostly we see expenditures out of hand and a lack of academic and spiritual results in students. 

The K-12 answer is more schools that are responsible to parents.  We need to push to reduce property taxes.  We need to advocate for less taxpayer money to go to public schools.  These things will leave parents with more of their own precious money to direct schools.  When resources do not come directly from parents, schools become dependent on the state and loose their ability to make decisions that really benefit the parents and students. 

 --Robert Thoburn

Print PDF

John Foster Dulles and the Virgin Birth of Christ

Did you know that Dulles Airport is named for a man who helped deny key claims of the Bible?  

My high school history class just finished reading J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism.  Even in 1921 there were men like Machen who saw what was happening in our churches.  He wrote against men like Harry Emerson Fosdick, who gave a famous sermon at that time at Old First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan (est. 1716) denying basic claims of the scripture and even questioning the virgin birth of Christ.

Students learn about our churches but also the history of the early 1900’s Progressive movement.  We don't always realize that Progressive political ideas are connected to theological liberalism. Fosdick was defended in his church heresy trial by somebody who has a lot of things in our town named after him, John Foster Dulles.  Dulles, I would say through no coincidence, later became Secretary of State and was almost nominated as U.S. Chief Justice.

Fosdick avoided church discipline by leaving his pulpit and moving to a Baptist church patronized by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.  Rockefeller not only approved of this new pastor, but he funded the publishing of tens of thousands of copies of his famous liberal sermon. 

Machen wrote at a time when many Westerners foolishly began to believe that the good in man was sufficient without the supernatural work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Science and technology had recently greatly flourished.  Many believed that man had become so civilized that war was now a thing of the past.  Machen points to 1914 and World War I as evidence that man, apart from the Gospel, is not a new creature.  

Even without seeing the much greater decline of the church and without seeing the even greater bloodshed of the 20^th century (World War II for example), Machen could see that much of the church was rejecting the only gospel that could save man and replacing it with something completely different, something that was not Christianity. 

We at Oak Hill see a need for and are committed to building a distinguished high school.  Come visit our high school.  Ask me and students about our other readings. 

--Robert Thoburn, B.A., J.D., Headmaster

Print PDF

Bradford’s Plymouth Plantation Convinces me to Read a Socialist

Robert Thoburn, March 2023

We’ve been reading modern works this year in my high school Omnibus course at Oak Hill.  Someone might wonder, why do Christians need to read Upton Sinclair, an avowed socialist. I believe reading this helps students to analyze where we are as a people and allows us to appreciate the authors who, unlike Sinclair, pushed a Christian perspective. 

The FDA was founded in 1906, in many ways a response to Sinclair’s bestseller, The Jungle.  In the first year, his book sold 100,000 copies.  Its lurid description of sausage made with rancid meat and even human fingers and rodents turned Americans’ hearts to a desire for government regulation of meat and ultimately all kinds of commerce.  Clarence Carson says acts passed at this time were the first national laws passed with the intent of regulating the quality of goods sold in interstate commerce.  He suggests the founders never intended to authorize Congress to do this.[i]

Most of us today accept the reality of Federal regulation of all kinds of things.  But where did this idea come from?  Are we aware that our assumptions were influenced by a Socialist?

Sinclair wrote at a time of great prosperity.  According to Clarence Carson:

New discoveries and inventions abounded; sanitation and health facilities were clearly improving; population was increasing, perhaps as never before in history; and people generally had the means for producing and had a greater variety of goods available than ever before.[ii]

It was in the middle of this great prosperity that Sinclair began to criticize American culture and Free Enterprise.  His book is 300 pages of pure horror.  It begins with a wedding feast, but every time something good happens, the worst is around the corner.  Describing Mikolas, an Eastern European immigrant working in the Chicago stockyards, he says:

He is a beef-boner, and that is a dangerous trade .... Your hands are slippery, and your knife is slippery, and you are toiling like mad, when somebody happens to speak to you, or you strike a bone. Then your hand slips up on the blade, and there is a fearful gash. And that would not be so bad, only for the deadly contagion. The cut may heal, but you can never tell. Twice now, within the last three years, Mikolas has been lying at home with blood poisoning–once for three months and once for nearly seven. The last time, too, he lost his job, and that meant six weeks more of standing at the doors of the packing houses, at six o'clock on bitter winter mornings, with a foot of snow on the ground and more in the air. There are learned people who can tell you out of the statistics that beef-boners make forty cents an hour, but, perhaps, these people have never looked into a beef-boner's hands.[iii]

Sinclair was one of the Muckrakers who, in spite of the prosperity which God had brought to us, always found the bad.  Compared to his fellow disparaging journalists, Sinclair had an advantage because he was a novelist.  He could freely make up stories and make things sound even worse.  His stories had great impact on the minds and hearts of the nation.

So, you might wonder how I connect this with Bradford, a hero of Christians and those who love freedom.  He came to Massachusetts in 1620 with pilgrims willing to face a barren wilderness in return for freedom to worship as they thought right.  After some success he writes:

But soon a most lamentable blow fell upon them.  In two or three month’s time half of their company died, partly owing to the severity of the winter…and want of houses and other comforts; partly to scurvy and other diseases…Of all the hundred odd persons, scarcely fifty remained, and sometimes 2 or 3 persons died in a day.[iv]

The colonist faced terrible living conditions.  Yet Bradford doesn’t complain like Sinclair.  He says:

In the time of worst distress, there were but 6 or 7 sound persons, who, to their great commendation…spared no pains night or day, but with great toil and at the risk of their own health, fetched wood, made fires, prepared food for the sick, made their beds, washed their infected clothes, dressed and undressed them… in a word did all… which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear…and all this they did willingly and cheerfully, without the least grudging, showing their love to the friends and brethren.

…The spring now approaching, it pleased God the mortality began to cease among them, and the sick recovered…they had borne their sad afflictions with as much patience and contentedness as I think any people could do.  But it was the Lord who upheld them, and had beforehand prepared them...[v]

Bradford’s cup was always half full and he was grateful.  Sinclair and many of his contemporaries always saw it as half empty and complained.  Bradford took the socialist common storehouse which investors imposed on the pilgrims and which led to dissension and starvation and established a biblical system of private property.  The Lord used this to save them from starvation. 

After enjoying their own church and civil governments for 150 years in this barren land, God caused those Americans to become wealthier than the Europeans they had left behind.   By the 1760’s the prosperous and well educated people of the 13 colonies were well prepared to resist the British Parliament which suddenly had a desire, but apparently no legal or constitutional right, to rule the colonies.

Prosperity continued.  But a new wave of confidence swept over this people of God.  Perhaps they began to think they had done all this themselves.  By the early 1900’s, science and inventions made progress seem inevitable.  A new movement called “Progressivism” believed in using the almighty power of civil government to achieve almost any great end. 

Americans no longer fought to preserve their freedoms.  They became worried about things like fraudsters and foul food.  They turned away from private property and individual responsibility and sought state mandated standards.  Upton Sinclair attacked our inherited system of capitalism and actually wanted America to become a socialist country. Americans did not establish a communist state as men like Sinclair wanted.  But, they made political decisions that were influenced, not by their Christian faith, but by the clamoring of the popular socialist writers of the day.

This is one of the important stories that we have learned this year reading great books.  Students can’t learn these stories from textbooks.  At a high school level, they need to read great godly men like Bradford.   And, in a fallen world, they need to read Americans like Upton Sinclair.  By reading both, students can better discern whether we today are following in the footsteps of Bradford or whether we are actually pursuing the ideas of a false prophet who was nothing like that great man, Bradford. 

Bradford actually is the author who convinces me to enjoy The Jungle.   The despair of Sinclair's book could never entertain me without being able to compare it to the tremendous gratefulness of the early settlers.  In fact, by contrast it highlights the virtues of Bradford and other early Americans.   Sinclair brings into clear focus for me the tendency of those who have been given so much to forget the giver and to listen to those who attack the very means that have been used to bring them blessing. 

---

[i] Clarence B. Carson, The Growth of America 1878-1928, p. 158

[ii] Carson, p. 2

[iii] Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Chapter 1

[iv] Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Book II, Chapter 1

[v] ibid.

Print PDF

Building a Stronger Foundation for Future Communicators

by Sheila Key Thoburn, Curriculum Director

 

The 2022-2023 school year is about to begin.  Part of our work as school staff and teachers is to evaluate the previous school year and see how we can improve on the education we offer families at Oak Hill.  This summer we have made some changes to our English language curriculum that we feel will give each student, no matter the stage of learning, a better foundation for being an effective communicator.

Stages of Learning

Children go through different stages of learning, each stage building on the previous one. These stages are based on the abilities children have, increasing in depth as their minds mature and as a store of knowledge is built up and built upon.  According to a classical method of teaching, these stages are recognized as poll parrot, grammar, logic and rhetoric.

The first stage of learning begins even before schooling; it is a time of vocabulary building, the poll parrot stage.  Babies and toddlers learn how to speak. They learn to associate spoken words with tangible things.  This is the stage in which children pick up pronunciation of words including accents of parents and the dialect of a culture (even from various forms of media).

The second stage is the grammar stage.  During this stage students begin formal education.  Children in the grammar stage continue to learn by example, expanding vocabulary and constructing a foundation of language skills.  Students in the grammar stage love to saturate their minds and cement information via repetition: singing, chanting, reading and repeating rhymes and dialogue heard from conversations and stories.  Repetition and imitation are superbly fun at this stage.

In the third stage, logic, children begin to work with ideas.  Students question the why of things including rules. It is important that children have a strong foundation from the grammar stage, a large vocabulary and an encyclopedia of information to pull from, as they learn to have discussions and practice communicating their thought processes and own ideas.

Finally, the rhetoric stage pulls it all together.  Students learn and refine techniques to communicate clearly, persuasively and beautifully.  The strong grammar stage foundation gives students a library of information to work with during the rhetoric stage.  Practice taking apart ideas and discovering the how and why of them during the logic stages gives students in the rhetoric stage clear thinking making it easier to become effective communicators.

Components of English Language Education

English lessons are often called grammar lessons.  To clarify, English is the study of the grammar of the language as well as composition, poetry and speech.

Beginning in the grammar stage (roughly equivalent to elementary school) students learn the basics of English grammar, learn language patterns and vocabulary through literature, poetry and composition, and practice small speeches through common things such as show and tell or oral reading.

During the logic stage (approximately middle school) students learn more rules of English grammar, how and why they apply, and the exceptions.  Students should have plenty of practice in composition, learning techniques via reading and discussions.  They also learn by example from a variety of poets and authors, learning different styles for different purposes of writing.  And, students are given more opportunities to speak in front of a group, building skills and confidence.

Composition and speech are emphasized in the rhetoric stage with few lessons on the rules of English grammar.  Students practice using correct grammar and figurative language learned in previous stages in their own writing and speech delivery.

Changes to English Language Curriculum at Oak Hill

We have made some changes to the English curriculum at Oak Hill that we believe will benefit students in the grammar stage and help them become strong students in the logic and rhetoric stages.  In elementary school, we are moving away from a grammar curriculum that is better suited for the logic stage.  Instead we are choosing a curriculum for the elementary students that is more definitely a grammar stage program.

Making this change will give the elementary students multiple benefits including 1. Allowing students to more completely know the rules of English grammar, 2. Giving them more time for composition, 3. Offering more time for poetry memorization and recitation to learn language patterns, and 4. Affording more opportunities to practice simple speeches in a small group setting.

We have chosen to switch to a curriculum by Memoria Press, English Grammar Recitations, for most of the elementary grades' grammar instruction.  With the basic presentation of grammar concepts younger students will not be overwhelmed with the reasoning of the grammar rules and application.  Shurley Grammar will continue to be used in fifth in sixth grades as students by that age are ready for the logic of grammar that Shurley incorporates.

For composition, students in elementary grades and middle school will mostly use books from the Writing & Rhetoric series by Classical Academic Press.  Students will learn by example, using classical writing exercises from the progymnasmata as well as learning techniques to share their own thoughts more clearly.  Teachers at Oak Hill will continue to use methods and exercises from the Institutes for Excellence in Writing to help students learn notetaking, outlining, as well as the art of giving a short speech from an outline.

Additionally, we have added specific poets and eras of poetry to our curriculum lists.  Teachers will work throughout the year to help students analyze and understand the poems.  Students will memorize verses and use great techniques for reciting the poetry.

In the upper school students will have an opportunity to analyze various forms of communication, not just writing in prose and poetry.  Students will look at the persuasive abilities used in speeches, movies, paintings and music.  In this they will be learning from different forms and finding techniques they can use in their own work to be future leaders in the world.

Conclusion

We are always exploring ways to improve the education we offer for Oak Hill students.  Year to year different methods and curriculum may better suit the needs of our families and teachers.  We encourage parents to be a part of our curriculum decisions and their student's education.  Current curriculum is on display at school and easily accessible to families.  We look forward to another year of being a part of your children's education and working together with you, the parents.

Print PDF

Summer Suggested Reading

by Sheila Thoburn

Towards the end of each school year many parents ask what their children should work on over the summer break. More specifically some ask for a suggested reading list. Below you will find some helpful ideas by grade level. But first, what are the benefits of summer reading, and how should it be done?

Reasons Students Should Read Over the Summer

Four specific benefits of reading are 1) improving comprehension, 2) building communication skills, 3) improving grammar and 4) building character. If someone struggles with a skill, the best way to improve the skill is to practice it. Thus if your student struggles with comprehension or communication, reading will help with both of these. At the same time, reading improves grammar. As one reads, the sentences repeatedly expose him to the syntax of the English language. Finally the characters in books and the situations encountered in stories will help build a reader's own character. Or weaken his morals.

Books are teachers. Look carefully at the books your child reads. What kind of language is used? What do the characters act like? Who is the hero of the story? Books will teach your child vocabulary and speech patterns as well as morals, so choose wisely!

 

Summer Reading How To's and Tips

In addition to selecting books based on eloquent language and values, select books that are at or below a student's current reading level. Something difficult may frustrate a child; he will see it as work rather than recreation.

Once your have your selected books, it is time to read. If your child is not yet reading, you can read to him providing the same benefits as independent reading. Next, narrate. Once the story has been read, ask your child to tell you what the story was about. Who are the characters? What did they do? Why? How did it end? Narration will help with comprehension as a child has to not only think about what happened, but he has to choose the words to explain it aloud.

After the narration has been given, delve into a discussion. Asking questions will help your child think on a deeper level and begin to instill or solidify values in his mind. If you aren't sure what questions to ask or how to have a discussion, this page has terrific step-by-step suggestions.

If your child seems to struggle with the discussion questions or comprehension in general, consider having him work through a Reading Detective book. This series is excellent practice for comprehension and reasoning skills. Answers must be evidence based. This keeps a student from simply guessing, quickly being done and not thinking through his decisions.

 

Suggested Reading by Grade Level & Trusted Reading Lists 

If your child is not yet reading, take time to read to him throughout the summer. Perhaps have two copies of a book so that he can follow along as you read, seeing AND hearing the words and sentence structure. Good choices for read alouds are picture books with beautiful illustrations (Jan Brett and Paul Zelinsky) or whimsical pictures (such as Tommy dePaola or Virginia Lee Burton). Rhyming books are also great options for emergent readers; books by Iza Trapani and Margaret Wise Brown (she uses many approximate rhymes) are fun and ear catching.

For those who are able to read and for proficient readers, below you will find some suggestions. These are books that you may not be as readily familiar with. And at the end of the lists are a couple of links to reading lists with classics that you may have forgotten.

 

RISING FIRST AND SECOND GRADE LEVEL

Step Into Reading Series

Gail Gibbons Books

Boxcar Children Series (Only books 1-19 were written by Gertrude Chandler Warner)

Mercy Watson Series by Kate DiCamillo

Books by Virginia Lee Burton

Frog and Toad Books and other books by Arnold Lobel

Little Golden Books such as Favorite Fairy Tales, Good Night Little Dragons, My Little Golden Book About God

RISING THIRD AND FOURTH GRADE LEVEL

Books by Donald Sobol including Nate the Great Series

Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

100 Cupboards Series by N. D. Wilson

The Borrowers Series by Mary Norton

History Books by Diane Stanley

Usborne Science Books

RISING FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADE LEVEL

Sinking City by Christine Cohen

Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

Ashtown Burials by N. D. Wilson

Eyewitness Books

Wonders of Creation Series by Master Books

The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper

JUNIOR HIGH LEVEL BOOKS

Books by Roger Lancelyn Green (King Arthur, Robin Hood, Tales of Ancient Egypt, etc.)

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

David MacCauley books on How Things Work such as City and Underground

The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton Porter

A Wrinkle in Time Series by Madeleine L'Engle

SENIOR HIGH LEVEL BOOKS

Bullfinches Mythology

Stories by Ray Bradbury

American Short Stories from Dover Classics

Of Other Worlds by C. S. Lewis

The Silmarillion by Tolkien

Thurber Carnival, a collection of short stories by James Thurber

OTHER TRUSTED READING LISTS

The website, As We Walk Along the Road, has a great list of literature AND activity suggestions by grade level. Most are suggestions fitted for younger students.

The Institute for Excellence in Writing is a trusted publisher which we use many materials from. Here is their recommended reading list.

Making Summer Reading Recreational

1.  Make it a family activity. Ask a grandparent or other relative to read with your child over Zoom, Google Meet or a similar platform.

2.  Watch a movie! But first read the book. Then schedule a night to watch a movie adaption. This is especially fun for older students. Films such as Hitchcock's Rebecca or the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty are based on printed works. Young children may enjoy watching a cartoon adaption of Virginia Lee Burton's classic, The Little House, and discussing the differences.

3.  Entice with comfort. Make a cozy reading nook in the house or outside. Children love building forts and teens often prefer to stay in their bedrooms. Add a few special pillows, a book light, and of course, a book to create a special reading spot. Add snacks so there are no excuses to stop reading.

4.  Ask your child what he would enjoy reading. What interests does he have? What reading captured his attention during the school year? What is one of his favorite movies? Is it based on a book?

5.  Emergent readers may be drawn into reading if you allow them to color as you read. Dover has many coloring books that are inspired by classic children's stories.

 

Finally, stop by school on Tuesdays this summer to peruse some of the suggestions given here. We plan to be open Tuesdyas. We have samples of lots of these books. You can see if a book is something your child may enjoy before you commit to buying or borrowing a copy yourself.

Do you have any favorite books you remember reading when you were younger? Share in the comments below to inspire more summer reading!

Print PDF

Time to Live...Time to Learn!

Whether you locked down for corona or never did the time for a robust life is here!  God has given your child life; don’t be afraid to let him pursue it.  Your child is not a contagion; his life was meant to be used; plus he is safer than ever!

Your son or daughter is a child of God, not someone to be deprived by endless claims that he could get someone sick.  He is not a contagion.  John 1 says But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…  Your child is called to fellowship with other boys and girls.  He is homo adorans, a creature called to worship a true and living and personal king. 

He is not a disease but a living soul that can never die.  Paul said My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  Philippians 1:23. 

He is a body and soul, fallen, but offered redemption and resurrection freely in the blood of Jesus Christ.  So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.  I Cor 15. 

In Death by Living, N.D. Wilson reminds us that life is meant to be spent.  To truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Cause of death: life.  We did not choose where to set our feet in time, but we choose where to set them next. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever.

Whether you live in Kabul or Herndon, Virginia, I’d say “Don’t be Afraid!”  And, if you live in the latter, you providentially inhabit one of the freest and safest places in the world.  We still enjoy the best health care in human history.  You live with sanitation and nutrition that are the envy of the globe.  The rule of law while threatened still prevails in all kinds of situations.  Don’t be afraid to send your child out.  As our culture faces greater and greater peril, how will he be ready for the real challenges of the future?   

Time to live.  Time to follow your calling.  Time to send your son or daughter out to train for his calling.  He’s not a dangerous virus carrier.  His life was meant to face the world.  And, the dangers we face today are quite well managed with the tools we have been given.      

--Robert Thoburn II
Headmaster at Oak Hill Christian School, Herndon, Virginia, www.oakhillk12.com

Print PDF

Rosemary Sweet Thoburn November 14, 1930 – April 13, 2021

Today we lost a great, my mother, Rosemary Sweet Thoburn.  Not forever. 

You might expect me to post a picture of just her and my dad.  But the best shots of my mom were from times when she had what she wished most, being around her many children and grandchildren.  

Born in Connecticut to a graceful family my mom was a true New Englander.  Her father, Lloyd Sweet, was an inventor and Pentecostal preacher.  Stella Pray Sweet, her mother, was an industrious worker.  At times she was knitting at other times running her dress shop in which she personally hand created every garment.  Other years she was handing out cash, managing payroll at my grandfather’s wartime factory.

It was unlikely that my mom would marry a farm boy from Ohio.  But she waited until her parents finally consented and in God’s providence my family was born.  While the match may not have been the most obvious, my mother remained loyal and faithful to her marriage and to my father all his days.  She supported him in his many and various endeavors during his long life. 

Visiting Oak Hill Christian School to train teachers some years back, my mother introduced herself as someone who had wanted to be a preacher.  She was a preacher at heart.  She rallied the troops when Thoburns lost political races.  When she testified in court as a witness against Fairfax County she readily overtook lawyers and spoke her mind telling the jury what needed to be done. 

But, she never complained.  My mother gladly acknowledged that scripture forbid her to be a preacher and she found every proper way she could to use her talents to advance the kingdom. 

She came to Virginia in 1959 with my father to start the first OPC church in the area.   She supported him later when he worked as an independent “Presbyterian” preacher.  With him she founded America’s first privately owned Christian school, Fairfax Christian School. 

Rosemary Thoburn zealously advocated that parents teach their children in the manner prescribed in Deuteronomy.  She was proud of her phonics books and her reading program.  She was also thankful for her children, actually lamenting that she did not have more than 8.  Her friends, Beka and Arlin Horton, developed a similar reading program.  She told me that their program became a well known and successfully marketed curriculum because the Hortons, being given no children, were fully dedicated to their work. 

For many years, my mother was a principal at the school she helped start, at that time the largest Christian school in Northern Virginia.  She supervised the lower school with her staff and developed ways of teaching from a Christian perspective.   She often taught Bible classes and developed curriculum to teach Old and New Testaments.  She did all kinds of things.  I remember her running outside with a big extinguisher the day we had a fire.  No one was hurt but the fire that day required the experienced fire crew and trucks that quickly arrived.  My father returned home that night and surveyed the $40,000 in damage. But, the next day he was back in Richmond and my mom gladly ran the school on her own as they embarked on their effort to build back even better. 

With my father she traveled nationwide and helped start over 200 Christian schools.  She trained teachers and administrators, read with children. 

Once my parents helped some families from the mountains in Virginia who refused to enroll in public schools.  The school district agreed to leave them alone if they’d just enroll their children briefly, allowing them to receive a bigger budget allocation, and then withdraw them.  The hill people said “no.”  Before the word “homeschool” existed my mom zealously trained them to teach their children from home.  She and my dad hired them a lawyer, Guy Farley.  At an appeals level they won their case protecting their right to teach their own children.

My mom lived to see the Christian school movement become a widespread phenomenon.  She saw efforts of parents to retake their God given responsibility move forward in other directions as well.  In her last days she was weak but gracious and kind.   She was supportive of her children’s continued battles, always asking questions about our work.  She was so grateful for the 90 years she had been given.  She expressed thanks for each additional day that she was given on this side of the resurrection. 

Like Zipporah who circumcised her own son or Rahab who hid the spies, my mother was one to take risks.  She would gladly step in and use whatever strength and wisdom she had been given to do the right thing when it wasn’t getting done.   

May each of us ask for grace to work hard, love God, and to do our part to advance the Kingdom as Rosemary Thoburn did. 

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ... and this mortal shall have put on immortality...Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ...Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

Robert Loren Thoburn II

Print PDF

Luke 12 and Face Masks

By Robert Thoburn

Today we are being told that social cooperation comes from executive orders and centralized control.  In fact, what has been rolling out before our eyes is anything but social cooperation.  

If we want to talk about masks, we may need to stop talking about masks.   We need to point people to Luke 12.  Trust the God who sees everything.  Trust the rights and responsibilities he gave to individuals.  Trust the limited role he gave the state.  Don’t look to man.  Don’t look to the state to solve our problems. 

Telling others how shocked we are that they cover their faces doesn’t seem to have made much difference.  They wear them anyway.  Advocates of masks also seem to realize the futility of arguing.  They easily tolerate the many stores which seem to have decided not to confront customers who enter with open smiling faces. 

If someone brought up masks a year ago, I think we could have had a conversation.  But, today the issue isn’t really about masks.  People have already heard the arguments.  (“The CDC said not to wear them,” “The virus spreads anyway, even worldwide!...”)

It’s not about masks.  It’s a broader cultural and spiritual battle.  The culture of masking up has been promoted by a belief in the state.  The state will save us.  I know this because I was there.  I didn’t see anyone wearing a mask in January/February 2020.  Here in Virginia they all started after Dr. Northam’s Memorial Day announcement.  Individuals do things for all kinds of reasons.  But, the great impetus making masks socially acceptable, even socially required has come as the governors have used the prestige of the state to encourage masking.

So, why do the states have such influence?  Why do we vote for these people, love these people, listen to them, and jump on board?  The reason is that we believe someone has to manage everything, even a virus.

Rousas Rushdoony wrote that our belief in predestination is inevitable.  If we don’t believe that God controls the future, we inevitably assume that man must do so.[1]  Nobody for very long believes nature should be left to itself.  Even the climate change crowd wants man to try to control the future of the climate.  I don’t think it matters to them that maybe we cannot control something like that on this massive sphere we all live on.  They will simply come back and say that we have to try even if we have little chance of success.  After all, if we don’t try, nobody will. 

Since March we have witnessed much of Americans’ trust in the state come to fruition.  States have intervened to control Corona.  The results have not been particularly good.  By official stats, the virus is out of control.  There has been constant fear and disruption of lives, education, investments, and business.  Our rights to speech, assembly and worship have been under constant assault. 

We’ve seen corrupt politicians, Republicans and Democrats.  Was the mayor of Denver really on the way to the airport to fly to Miami when he tweeted for his residents to spend Thanksgiving at home? 

Going forward, we face major economic problems.  And, when central control isn’t working well we can expect to see calls for even more draconian state control.  Thinking is, if the lockdown didn’t work it’s because we needed a bigger lockdown sooner.  If stimulus didn’t make us rich, we need more free money. 

But, all this trying more of the same thing isn’t driven by data.  Rather, it’s a faith, an assumption that the answer comes from centralized state action.    The state is our salvation.  Hopefully for better, but for better or for worse, the state must tackle any problem. 

The alternative to all this is a belief in God’s predestining power.  Luke 12 says:

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.

What does it mean to confess Christ?  If we confess Christ, we read and follow his word.  If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

America is a system built by followers of Christ, people who read Christ’s word, the bible. Because God numbers every hair and sees every sparrow, we can trust his ways.  We can give individuals the responsibility that God gives them in scripture.  We can protect their God-given rights to speak with mouths uncovered and to assemble and to sing. 

America was perhaps the greatest system of social cooperation ever.  And, it was built on private property (thou shalt not steal), charity, and voluntary cooperation. 

Our states and our federal government were built on Republican government.  Trusting in Christ, we didn’t trust man.  Isaiah 33 says For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king.  We didn’t trust any fallen man to be all this so in every state lawgiving came from one branch, usually with 2 houses.  Carrying out the laws of the legislature came from a separate executive.  Judging the facts and the justice of a case came from yet a 3^rd branch.  The constitution guaranteed this form of Republican government to every state in the union.

In Virginia, unlike the federal government, even the executive power is dispersed and not held by one man.  We have 3 statewide elected executives and 123 sheriffs who carry out the laws.  The local sheriffs and others do not work for the governor.  They don’t answer to him and cannot be fired by him but hold executive power directly on their own.    

This cumbersome system doesn’t lend itself to a strong response to a virus or to any emergency.  But, Americans were not looking for the state to save them from a virus.  The role of the state in scripture is punishing evildoers after the fact.

With such a limited state, we became the safest, healthiest and most prosperous nation in history.  A distant wilderness became the envy of the world.  It turns out that very limited civil government, individual responsibility and rights, strong families and churches all became a prescription for great social cooperation.

If we want to save our land then those who do trust in the true God must turn to him and his word.  We must assemble on the Sabbath and renew our covenant with him.  It doesn’t depend on what the unbelievers and the statists do.  Rather, God is looking for those of us who are his people to do something.  II Chronicles says:  If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

---

[1] See for example:  https://faithandheritage.com/2016/02/rushdoonys-biblical-approach-to-history/  “Whenever and wherever the doctrine of creation is denied or weakened, to that extent the sovereignty of God and His eternal decrees are denied or weakened; sovereignty and predestinating power are transferred into the hands of man.”

 

Print PDF