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The Plight of Christians in the Middle East

Ideas have consequences, and so do national policies. Ten years after our invasion of Iraq, many Americans remain largely unaware of the negative consequences of the interventionist foreign policy shared by our current President and his predecessor. Not least among these consequences is the increased persecution of Christians in Arab nations.

Andrew Noran’s recent article from The American Conservative, entitled How the Iraq War Became a War on Christians, shines much needed light on this particular fruit of American intervention overseas:

[O]n March 19, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced. Shortly after combat operations concluded on May 1, the real conflict began. Amid the chaos and sectarian violence that followed, Iraq’s Christians suffered severe persecution. Neither the military nor the State Department took action to protect them. In October 2003, human rights expert Nina Shea noted that religious freedom and a pluralistic Iraq were not high priorities for the administration, concluding that its “diffidence on religious freedom suggests Washington’s relative indifference to this basic human right.” Shea added, “Washington’s refusal to insist on guarantees of religious freedom threatens to undermine its already difficult task of securing a fully democratic government in Iraq”—more prescience that would be likewise disregarded.

The article goes on to show how the democratic governments we installed in the Middle East have been, for the most part, worse than the regimes they replaced. And how our country—during Republican as well as Democratic administrations—has refused to acknowledge the plight of Arab Christians as religious persecution, even as we continue to pursue a course of action in Syria that is resulting in the same consequences there.

For the record, I don’t believe that there has been malicious intent toward Middle Eastern Christians from either President Bush or President Obama, nor from the many American citizens who also support an interventionist foreign policy. Rather, I believe that the persecution being faced by our brothers and sisters in places like Iraq and Egypt is truly an unintended consequence. But there’s a difference between unintended and unforeseen. There were those who predicted such consequences prior to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and have been consistently warning us about where such policies will lead us.

The question is, will we ever learn?

How Two Moms Took on Common Core… and Won!

The state of Indiana recently passed into law the nation’s first (but probably not last) bill pushing back against the “Common Core” educational standards adopted by 46 American states. In an encouraging tale of how ordinary citizens can still bring about real, positive change in the face of overwhelming odds, this bill is largely the result of the efforts of two concerned moms who were willing to do whatever it took to fight back against destructive influences on their children’s education. Maggie Gallagher has the story on National Review Online.

As these moms learned, Common Core—far from being beneficial, despite wide bipartisan political support—actually lowers education standards at most schools. Rather than preparing students to excel, Common Core conforms students to the lowest level (which is the only way to achieve “equality” among students):

These standards are designed not to produce well-educated citizens but to prepare students to enter community colleges and lower-level jobs. All students, not just non-college-material students, are going to be taught to this lower standard.

And as with most things relating to public education, the ulterior motive has little to do with what’s best for children, and much to do with what’s best for the all-consuming State:

One major objection to the Common Core standards is that they are not evidence-based. Their effect on academic achievement is simply unknown, because they have not been field-tested anywhere in the world. But moms have a more elemental objection: The whole operation is a federal power grab over their children’s education. Once a state adopts Common Core, its curriculum goals and assessments are effectively nationalized. And the national standards are effectively privatized, because they are written, owned, and copyrighted by two private trade organizations.

Read the rest of the article here.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of government schooling, but as long as I’m being forced to pay for it, I’d like to see control of the schools localized, with the Board of each school system accountable to its local constituents. That’s impossible with a federally-mandated set of standards and standardized testing which forces public school teachers to dumb down their methods and teach to the test. Furthermore, I care deeply about the children in the public schools (though you’ll never see mine there) and have no desire to see them handicapped by an educational system designed to foster dependence on the State (see Luke 6:40). I pray that my state will follow in the path of the state in which I was born and raised.

P.S. — Last week I had the privilege of delivering the annual report for Highland Rim Academy, the local private school which I serve as President of the Board. During that address, I reasserted our Board’s commitment to refuse to accept vouchers, should the school voucher bill proposed by Governor Bill Haslam ever make it through our state legislature. The primary reason we are so opposed to receiving vouchers—which, on the surface, might seem a good way to bring new students into the school—is that accepting tax funding would force us to also accept state standards, which are far too low to allow us to accomplish our vision for the school. This is exactly what happened at the private school mentioned in the article posted above! Public money never comes without strings attached…

[Image Credit]

Say’s Law and Education

This afternoon I was listening to a panel discussion on for-profit education, as part of some research I’m doing for offering Kindermusik classes at the School of Performing Arts. While much of it probably won’t interest most readers of this blog, one thing did stick out at me as particularly thought-provoking.

One of the panelists spoke about the ability of the private sector to educate far more efficiently and effectively than the public sector—a truth with which I couldn’t agree more strongly!—making reference to Say’s Law, which states that “supply creates its own demand.” His point was that innovative people create things which no one has yet “needed” (e.g., fax machines and cell phones), and this in turn creates demand for that good or service. In this case, educational entrepreneurs develop educational products (e.g., Kindermusik) which are proven effective over time, becoming both beneficial to society and profitable for the entrepreneur.

What I found most fascinating, though, was when he went on to describe public schools as “necessarily conservative”—in the sense that they “must not be subject to the vicissitudes and fads of the moment”—whereas education, to be successful, requires “the entrepreneurship of people with new ideas, flexibility, agility, imagination, energy, the willingness to run risks, and also a desire to make a little money.”

I’ll admit that when I think of public schooling, the word “conservative” typically does not come to mind. But as I thought about it, I realized the panelist was correct in his assessment. With an increasing push for standardization of student outcomes and the emphasis on a “common core” in government schools, the options for teachers and parents are quite limited in public education. This really is a conservative mindset, albeit a mind set on conserving values more commonly labeled “Liberal.”

Private and home schools, meanwhile, are at liberty to pursue whichever methods are best in a given context, giving parents and teachers the freedom to choose whichever educational options are best for their students. As the supply of excellent educational choices increases, it will create its own demand among those who haven’t yet realized what they are missing. This truth is what makes me so excited about my work at the music school and at Highland Rim Academy!

So what do you think? Are public schools “necessarily conservative”? Is school choice the key to better education for all? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

*BONUS MATERIAL*

In the same discussion, Kindermusik CEO Michael Dougherty also stated that his “driving mission” was to prevent music from becoming “the next Latin,” something vital to a child’s education which has been “snuffed down in the lives of children.” As a huge fan of classical education, I thought that was a pretty cool connection to make!

Dare to Be a Daniel

Yesterday, we were studying the book of Daniel with the college class at church. During the lesson, our college pastor, John Aaron Matthew, referred several times to a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon called “Dare to Be a Daniel.” The sermon was delivered on January 15, 1893, and can be found here.

The sermon takes its title from a popular song written by Philip P. Bliss (who also composed “Man of Sorrows, What a Name,” which was sung in our morning worship service yesterday), and quotes the song’s chorus:

Dare to be a Daniel! Dare to stand alone! Dare to have a purpose firm! Dare to make it known!

Incidentally, this was Spurgeon’s second sermon which made reference to this song (the first, “Daniel’s Band”, can be found here), which Bliss composed as a teaching tool for a children’s Sunday School class he was teaching. Almost 150 years later, it remains an instructional tune, which I learned as a child, and which my kids have in their music collection at home:

A few things that stand out upon reflection on the lesson, and after reading those two Spurgeon sermons:

  1. I love that Spurgeon preached so often from the Old Testament. It seems we have a tendency to treat the Old Testament as a compilation of “stories” that we teach our kids in Sunday School, and spend most of our adult lives studying the New Testament. But the truth is that the gospel is found in both testaments, and we need to be fed a steady diet of Old and New if we are to understand any of it in its proper context. It’s one reason I’m so fond of The Gospel Project (the curriculum from which our lesson in Daniel was taken), and so glad that our pastor alternates teaching Old and New Testament books in his sermons.
  2. Spurgeon compares Daniel to John the Apostle, speaking of them as counterparts. In fact, in the second of the sermons listed above, he teaches on the life of Daniel while expositing 1 John 4:9-21. If there ever was an Old Testament saint whose love for God cast out all fear, it was surely Daniel!
  3. It seems that Philip Bliss took his Sunday School lesson to heart, exhibiting the love of Christ and the bravery of Daniel in his death. Just three years after composing “Dare to Be a Daniel,” Bliss and his wife were travelling via train through Ohio, when a bridge they were crossing collapsed near Ashtabula, Ohio, sending the train plummeting into a ravine. Bliss escaped the wreckage alive, but climbed back into a burning carriage trying to save his wife. Both were among the 92 people who died in the Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster. Among the wreckage, Bliss’ trunk was recovered undamaged. Inside it were found the lyrics to a new hymn he had just composed: “I Will Sing of My Redeemer.”

And because you really can never have too much Spurgeon, there’s one more resource you should check out. I told the college students in my small group yesterday that they should all read Spurgeon’s “Lectures To My Students” at their earliest convenience. It’s incredibly helpful, and not the least bit outdated, though it was written more than a century ago. You can get it for FREE as a PDF, or for under a dollar for Kindle, so there’s no reason not to!

Image Credit: This painting is by the 17th Century Flemish painter Sir Peter Paul Reubens, and is on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.