Whoever controls the children owns the future. Hitler knew it, the humanists know it and the modern left extremists know it.

My homeschooling friend, Liz E., sent me a link to a very interesting article and video at WorldNetDaily. It was in reference to a website called www.ExodusMandate.com and to a call that is being put out to Christians to pull their children out of government run schools. The video especially was very interesting. Voddie Baucham, a minister and author of the book, "Family Driven Faith" mentioned that children spend 14000 seat hours in school from K-12. Fourteen thousand hours! He said, "Whoever controls those 14,000 hours controls our childrens' worldview." That is pretty powerful. Baucham also quoted Charles Potter, a signer of "The Humanist Manifesto: "What can theistic Sunday School, meeting for an hour each week, do to stem the tide of a five day program of humanistic teaching?" Not much. That is what the humanistic, atheistic popular culture pushers are counting on.

And MAKE NO MISTAKE folks. The public schools are absolutely in the business of humanistic teaching. There are still those who want to keep their heads in the sand and think that their school is okay or that their children will follow their example no matter how many hours they are exposed to a pervasive culture of humanistic views and condemnation and ridicule of Christian views and teachings. An adult would have a hard time maintaining their beliefs if surrounded day in and day out, all day long by authority figures who communicate with everything they say and do that their beliefs were naive and somehow ridiculous, oh and hateful, Christian beliefs are hateful too doncha know. It would be extremely difficult for an adult to do and yet we expect it of little children from the age of 5! No, wait... we put them into headstart and 4 year old Kindergarten nowadays so make that from the age of 3. We are, hopefully and prayerfully, training them up in the way they should go but they are NOT TRAINED YET. They are so teachable in those early years. It is a beautiful thing how teachable a little child is... until you consider what they are being taught.

This video, "The Call to Dunkirke" was a very straight-forward, pull-no-punches challenge to Christian parents. Let's face it, the public schools are very tolerant places... to everyone except Christians. The mention of Jesus is taboo, kids can't say a prayer over their lunch, they sure to heck can't read their Bible in study hall. Nowadays, they can't even make signs that say, Merry Christmas or sing Silent Night in the "Holiday" program. The songs relating to Santa and lots of gifts are fine, I'm sure.

I about choked and then cried out aloud "Amen!" when Minister Baucham said, "...the first place we need to march is right out the front door of those Christ dishonoring, academically inferior, soul-killing government indoctrination centers!" Wow. The days of homeschooler apologetics is over folks. It's time to put it plainly and truthfully. Public schools are not doing the job they spend millions and millions of dollars to purportedly do. The only thing they are really efficient at is indoctrinating the children in the mores and morals (or lack thereof) of popular culture. I am very proud to say that my 2 youngest girls never stepped foot into a government run classroom and as long as America is still the land of the free, they never will.

Reflecting on all of this has made me aware of how thankful I am for the relaxed days of learning and teaching and growing with my girls. Those 14,000 hours are spent in an atmosphere of love and faith and learning. I've thought before about how people are losing more and more of their children's time to the government nannies. I watched a video about the "two million minutes" kids spend in high school and got to thinking that if my kids were in public school, I would be in their company for maybe 3 or 4 hours a day M-F. And honestly, those are some of the busiest hours of the day in most households. The hour or so getting everyone around to go to school and work in the morning and the hours from 5 or 6 pm to bedtime getting supper made and eaten and baths and everything ready for the next day. How much of that time is spent conveying our deeply held beliefs about God and country?

In comparison, the breakfast hour is very relaxed around here and yes, we absolutely do talk about things like freedom and faith every single day. The dinner hour to bedtime is pretty busy around here too, but that's okay because there were preceded by several hours of reading and writing and discussing things at our leisure. Mr Potter was correct folks. Like it or not, a few hours a week of our good example is not going to compete with 40 or more hours a week of being completely submerged in a humanist atmosphere. It just is not. There are some blessed families who will pull their kids through the fire with diligence and faith but I'm not up for playing russian roulette with my childrens' futures. How about you?