1. Should Christians be Innocent or
Knowledgeable of the World?
2. Are Homeschoolers Prejudice of
Non-Homeschoolers?
Note: These somewhat startling views needed to be shared. So I
decided to present them to you, the readers of Christian Girl.
This is an important issue in a world perverted, in many ways,
with sin-soaked ideas.
In the February 28, 1998 issue of WORLD magazine,
there was an interesting article titled “Preserving
Innocence”, in which the author, Jay Grelen stated that
“To preserve [the] innocence [of children] is to prolong
their childhood.” The statement resulted from the telling
of a story that had happened to him about a year ago. I
will give it to you in Mr. Grelen’s own words:
“We were traveling on I-10, my seven-year-old and I,
discussing how we choose friends. I was explaining why I
chose not to associate outside of the office with a former
colleague in Kentucky. ‘He was nice,’ I said, ‘but he did
things that would make Jesus unhappy.’
“Not satisfied with my vague answers, my prodigy pressed
me, ‘What did he do?'
“’He said...’and here I stumbled. I was about to say, ‘He
said curse words,’ but she had no idea what a curse word
is.”...”I corrected course to say: ‘He said bad words.’
Again, too vague, so she asked another question and
supplied her own answer with the most horrible words she
could conjure. ‘What words?’ she asked. “Like stupid and
idiot?”
The worst words my daughter with a huge vocabulary
could conjure were stupid and idiot.”
Mr. Grelen makes it clear that he’s proud of that fact and
says later that he likes this story because it supports his
“contention that we can preserve our children’s
innocence.” He also quotes a Mrs. Card from an interview
with Homeschooling Today as related in Susan and
Michael Cards’ book, The Homeschool Journey. Mrs.
Card’s unashamed answer to the protection of children
from un-Godly influences was “’Isolation.’” ... “’I don’t want
to keep my children culturally illiterate or defenseless in
the world. But when you homeschool, you control when
they go into the world and where...’”
Mr. Grelen backs up his beliefs with Bible claims. “The
Bible admonishes us to be careful and diligent in the
raising of our children. God also admonishes us to dwell
on what is holy and pure.” He says, “...We are to deflect
doggedly anything that would interfere”...“The gift of
innocence is ours to bestow.” He’s speaking to parents,
but this also applies to us big brothers and sisters, as well
as standards for our future child-rearing.
Next, in the March 28, 1998 issue of WORLD, the
response from some readers to this article can be found. I
will show you excerpts from the two letters that were
printed. The first man says that, although he admires “Jay
Grelen’s zeal in wanting to ‘protect the innocence’ of his
children”, and he believes preteens need to be
“assimilated slowly and carefully”, the story of what Mr.
Grelen was teaching his daughter “reinforces
isolationism”. He states, “This models a retreat mentality
to an already sheltered child.” The other woman is more
vehement. “I am ashamed to hear of any Christian family
where they haven’t [heard a curse word].” She says, “We
are called to be salt and light, not isolationists. The call to
share Christ should mean that we and our children will be
exposed to ideas and human beings who will offend our
Christian striving for purity.” The first man also says, “Let
those of us who are Christian adults not shrink back from
the responsibility of sharing our faith in dark places.”
These are two conflicting views. Which side
do you agree with?
More... Perhaps this is illogical, but the conflict here
makes me think of a letter I received recently. It was from
a girl irritated by the fact that I’d given her a pen-pal who
was in public school, although she hadn’t told me that she
preferred to not be matched with a “non-homie” -and I, in
fact, wasn’t even aware that she herself was home-
schooled. She says, ”Public schoolers are very different
from us home schoolers. She most likely likes boys, is
going to date (vs. courting), and is just very different. I am
kind of uncomfortable around or writing to public
schoolers.” Christians, God has not called you to be this
way!! This is the same sort of prejudice that we see
between races, including generalization of a group of
individuals, snap judgments, and distrust. I’m quite sure
that if this girl hadn’t known that her pen-pal was a non-
homeschooler, she would have gotten along with her just
as well as with a homeschooler. I’ve heard that some
public schoolers consider all homeschoolers to be
illiterate; something after the style of country hicks,
rednecks, or something less admired.Just as wrong as this
is, so is considering all public schoolers to be un-Godly.
