Lex Ridiculum

Dagnabbit.

Here I am trying to focus on the impending arrival of our next little arrow. I'm going through life, minding my own business, re-reading books on how to lead little ones to God. I'm trying to ignore posts on my newsfeed from Judge Napolitano and Ben Swann, which constantly remind me that my liberty is being quickly eroded. I'm trying to ignore Syria and NSA and I-told-you-so moments, like:
If Ron Paul was president, he'd be sending up a holy-Patrick Henry-hue-and-cry over NSA.
If Ron Paul was president, he would not for a moment entertain the option of sending our soldiers to seize the dog that is Syria by the ears.
But, no. Most of us conservatives threw our vote away on the mouse who is Mitt...
the man who doesn't have...how do I put this delicately...the testicular fortitude of Celine Dion...
leaving us the mouse who is Barack.

I hate to say I told you so.

But doggone it.
I attended a court proceeding last night. And now I've got that ever so familiar political burr under my saddle. And the offending topic?
Curfew.
Again.
My friend, Karen, could probably hear my eyes rolling as the offense was read because she turned around and smirked at me. ( You may not remember. But Karen remembers last year's battle with city hall over daytime curfew--a battle in which my friends and I fought the first skirmish here and the final skirmish here.)

I sat there last night and listened to the evidence presented, and I must say...
Really, people.
Really!
We're going to get our knickers in a knot over when a sixteen year old is sitting at a picnic table in a park?!?!
This is truly stupendous.
No wonder our court dockets are overloaded.
No wonder our justice system is ineffective.

Can you imagine Sam Adams taking this sitting down?
Excuse me, Mr. Adams, I can see the Boston chief of police saying, but we need a nighttime curfew to keep your children safe. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men at 3 a.m? 
As if evil doesn't lurk in the hearts of men at 3 p.m.
A righteously indignant Mr. Adams volleys back:
And why, Mr. Police Chief, is it your duty to look over my shoulder as father and head of my home and second guess the freedoms which I choose to grant or deny my own children? Pray, Sir, do you intend to also lend your approbation to how I distribute their allowance? or manage their chores? or how I don my breeches each morning?

For this is as preposterous.
Consider for a moment the infringement on liberty that is 'curfew.'
Consider that while curfew might be a sound house rule, it is never acceptable civil law.
Consider just how noxious is the notion that a government of a free society would limit the movement of its citizenry.
Consider that the safety of the children is not left to the jurisdiction of the State but to that of the Family.
Consider that for Law to be King, Law must not be ridiculous.
And consider that this utterly ridiculous idea that 'government-enforced curfew is good law' will have some unintended consequences...

It can give a 16 year old youngster a criminal record that bars him from getting into the college of his choice.
Yes. Really.
Being out in public after midnight.
Do we really intend to create a populace where hardened criminals started out as...curfew breakers?

What are you in for? says convicted rapist.
Being in the park at 3 a.m.
Shudder.

We all need to rethink this one.
Chill out; eat some fruit.
Go listen to some Alice's Restaurant. (Arlo Guthrie got this one right--and it might be the most valuable 30 minutes you spend today.)
Get over our love affair with the Nanny State.

But we won't.

Please, people. I'm trying to grow a baby here.
Could someone else be Patrick Henry or Sam Adams or the Obnoxious Big Mouth in this city for a while?

What's that noise?
Oh, just us freedom-loving Americans.
Baa, baa, baa.

From the Hill: A Quick Thank You

This is not a hill I want to die on.
This is not the issue I want to define Who I am or What I stand for.

Nevertheless, every once in a while, I find I myself on this hill again. It's never been one I go looking to take; it gets brought to me.
An endless series of mini-lectures which blames women for problems in the church, problems in culture, problems in marriage. A view so convinced of the evil of the female gender specifically that whether a person really believes the Bible is judged by his views of women's issues. (I guess I always thought the litmus test would be whether he believes the gospel...)
Shoot, if I gave the opportunity, (which I do not, as I try to get out of, rather than into these conversations) I'd probably even hear about how Eve was the problem in Eden.
As if Jesus was called the Second Eve rather than the Second Adam.
But I don't want to go there.
Adam is not my target.
Men are not my target.
I don't want to be a female chauvinist any more than I want to men to be misogynists.

No, I do not want to die on this hill.
Problem is, I do die on this hill.
Regularly.
From friendly fire.
For weeks, I'm a wreck, detoxing and praying and forgiving and fighting the imbalance that would pull me into the other ditch.
As if I don't equally despise that ditch.

When a conference on fatherhood came to our region on the heels of yet another round of friendly fire, I admit I was a little jittery. This looked a lot like that hill again. But I know Brett. I know his heart. I know his grounding in the scripture. I know he's not going to get sucked in by troglodytes posing as patriarchs.  Bottom line: I trust him.

When he got home three days later, it was clear that he had been challenged and affirmed and was re-committed to leading his family. "You would have liked this," he said. I waited. I didn't want to contradict, but I was doubtful.

And here's what he heard:
He heard one keynote say that men must learn to live with their wives in an understanding way.
(And this washes over me like a cooling rain. So long, Created to Be His Doormat.)
He heard one panelist say of raising daughters, "They need to be smart; they need to be educated. They could be raising our next president."
(You mean...not just a uterus with a broom? Again. A cup of cold water.)

Brett's still talking about what he heard.
So is our thirteen year old, whom he took along.
Stories that deeply impacted them.
Teaching that challenged them.

Maybe someday I won't ever have to die on that hill again.
Maybe someday the fire will stop, and this war on womanhood, this war I did not ask for.
Maybe someday I will never have to run for cover or detox,
Or write about this or talk about this again.
Or maybe that's Heaven.

Even so...

To you men who embrace manhood without declaring war on womanhood,
To you men who know that we're with you, not against you,
That we're your partners in the chief end of man, not your enemies,
That we want you to be successful in your call to manhood, that we're cheering for you...

To you men who recognize that we are pursuing godly womanhood, too,
That we, by God's grace, have the capacity to be submissive rather than subversive...

To you men, whose manhood is built on scripture, rather than on our subjugation,
On dominion, rather than domination,
Who are trying to fix what broke in Eden...

To you men who have the courage to teach what is right and righteous about gender roles...
To you men who are so solid that my husband was able to affirm what you said--rather than correct it--to my 13 year old...

From one woman who is weary of being a casualty on this hill,
You are restoring my faith.
Thank you.

Carnivore

I think I'm lactose intolerant. I haven't enjoyed milk since I was about two.
And salad bars and baby food aisles send me scurrying in search of animal flesh.
I'm a carnivore. I like meat. No, I love meat, preferably meat that used to say, "Moo," grilled over hot coals, with a pink center. A little seasoning, a fork and a knife, and I'm good.

Oh. Did you think I meant food?
(Well, actually, I am a carnivore at the dinner table, but...)

I mean church. Give me a meaty sermon, served up hot, convicting, Biblical, challenging. Give me something to chew on all week. Give me something so dense I'll need some toothpicks to go with it.
Keep your milk.
Keep your best life now.
I'll take my best life later, thanks.

A few years back, I was having a conversation with a visitor to our church. He was trying to be diplomatic, I think. "We prefer a more...emotional...relationship with the Lord."
Translation: The worship here doesn't get me revved up enough. Too many hymns; too many words.

I was stunned, not at the position, because I already knew it to be true about a large segment of the Church population. No, I was stunned at the willing admission, freely given as if it was acceptable, justifiable.

It makes me sad because I think it points to a cheapened view of the Gospel.
I don't understand what about a perfect God-man dying in my place...
or loving me while I was still a rebel...
or extending the unmerited favor of God...
or finishing the work He began in me...
or promising me a place in Heaven...
doesn't make us weep with grateful, humbled emotion.

What? In my place condemned He stood doesn't do it for ya?

It's like a large portion of the Body is saying,
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The cross. The resurrection. 
Justification. Sanctification. I get it, already. 
That substitutionary atonement stuff--that's so first century.
Can we get on to the more interesting "Holy Spirit" stuff?
Can we get to the power and gifts?
Can we focus on how much God just loooooooooves me?

Are you kidding me???

Author/theologian DA Carson, in his book, The Cross and Christian Ministry, talks about his infant son, who was a projectile vomiter:

At least he had an excuse. He was young, and his digestive system was obviously not as well developed as his sister's at the same age. Best of all, he quickly outgrew this stage. But there are Christians who are international-class projectile vomiters, spiritually speaking, after years and years of life. They simply cannot digest what Paul calls solid food. You must give them milk, for they are not ready for anything more. And if you try to give them anything other than milk, they upchuck and make a mess of everyone and everything around them. At some point, the number of years they have been Christians leads you to expect something like mature behavior from them, but they prove disappointing. They are infants still and display their wretched immaturity even in the way they complain if you give them more than milk. Not for them solid knowledge of scripture; not for them mature theological reflection; not for them growing and perceptive Christian thought. They want nothing more than another round of choruses and a 'simple message'--something that won't challenge them to think, to examine their lives, to make choices, and to grow in their knowledge and adoration of the living God." (p.72)

Sighhhhh...

I am thankful for the Carnivorous Church.

I'm thankful for elders (like mine) who have such a high view of their men and good theology that they've taken them through a course in hermeneutics so that they can read the Bible better to themselves and to their families.
The making of carnivorous men.

I'm thankful for a such a high view of children that even the very young cut their teeth on weekly, meaty sermons with the adults-- a view which expects that even these little ones can take something away from it.
The making of carnivorous kids.

I'm thankful for a high view of women that expects them to display submissive feminine beauty with massive steel in their backs and theology in their brains. (Piper)
And we get the hermeneutics course, too! No knitting circle, this.
The making of carnivorous ladies.

I'm thankful for a such a high view of scripture and careful, expository preaching that is so concerned for God's glory and so centered on the Gospel that it might take three and a half years to cover the book of Matthew. And every sermon points back to the Cross.
The making of carnivorous congregations.

Meanwhile, back at the Happy Clappy Ranch...
we have Buffoons-For-Jesus (though I seriously doubt Jesus lays any claim to these Wide Path 'preachers') standing on the dais, proclaiming how much God is for you--with nary a mention of sin, repentance, or the price of redemption.

Simpering, spineless, large-smiled, small-brained, theology disdaining, scripture-altering, gospel-shrugging, crowd-pleasing, ear-tickling 'shepherds'...
who lead the sheep to thistly grass and standing water and cliffs' edges--and death.

Is there a place for these ministries?
Oh yes.
There is a place for them.

But I digress.

Al Mohler, in an appropriately scathing indictment of modern preaching, says, "The anemia of evangelical worship...is directly attributable to the absence of genuine expository preaching. Such preaching would confront the congregation with nothing less than the living and active Word of God."

Why is the Church impotent? Because we're all feeding like a bunch of silly vegans...
We're suffering from a severe protein shortage.
We're gaunt.
We're anemic.
We're losing muscle.

We can't even handle our Bibles. How are we supposed to handle a world at enmity with God?

And then we start hearing this trendy observation...which needs some discernment:
"I just wanna love God and love people."
I admit it; this makes me cringe.
Say this to me, and I'm staring at you through suspicious, squinting eyes trying to figure out...
Are you saying this because you're milk-fed or meat-fed?

If you're meat-fed, what you mean is,
If all of the law and prophets are summed up in these two commands, then I need to know the law and the prophets so I know what love looks like. I'm on the hook here. I better be feeding on and hearing preaching on the whole counsel of scripture.
But...
If you're milk-fed, what you mean is,
Shrug. I'm off the hook. I don't need to know the law or the prophets...or pretty much anything else. All I need is a happy Sunday service with happy songs and a happy message and, um, happy people being, well, happy. And loving people means that, um, I'm nice to 'em.
Yikes.

So you'll have to excuse me if when you say to me, "I just wanna love God and love people,"  you are then subjected to a barrage of questions posed by moi. My own kids have gotten the interview.
I'm just trying to figure out your diet.

I dearly hope my home is a place where our children are weaned from milk to meat as soon as possible.
I dearly hope we are cultivating in our children an appetite and a craving for meat, not milk.
I dearly hope that in my home, we're raising Carnivore Christians.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you, who for refuge, to Jesus hath fled?

Winging It--My Homeschool Plan for the Year

Today was the first day of school. And I totally winged it. (Wang it? Wung it? What is the past tense of the verb 'to wing' anyway?) My pregnant brain is seriously planning-challenged and distracted these days.

I've had school years when my goal was to teach them something in particular or to keep it cozy. This year? This year, I really just want to finish. I'm not even tacking on 'finish strong.' I really do just mean 'finish.'

We've got a few major things going on this year.
Our oldest will graduate in December with his B.S. in Air Traffic Control Management.
Our fourth will graduate in the spring from high school.
Just the prospect of having to do another graduation is daunting.
Dates, diplomas, invitations, speeches, locations....and on it goes...
I've got one seventh grader trying to finish Boy Scouts strong before we leave in December--you know, right before the Boy Scouts become the new Girl Scouts.
Throw in Teen Court, team policy debate, speech, ultimate frisbee and science club.

And we're swamped.

Oh.
Did I mention that this little one, who still has no name, will arrive sometime in the fall? Not that that's an incredible impediment to homeschooling. It's not the Year of the Newborn that's challenging. It's the Year of the Climbing Eighteen Month Old Who Has Learned to Test Boundaries and Eat Pennies that is the challenge. And that, thankfully, will not come until later.

So. Here we are.
My books have come in. And up until last night, as in night before First Day of School, I had not distributed them to their permanent homes on each child's desk. But I did manage--somewhere in between all of us grieving over losing the two college guys this weekend and settling a rather emotional roommate squabble--to have the 'this is what's expected of you this year' conversation with each kid.

I've got a senior and a freshman on the docket, in addition to seventh, fifth, third, and first grader...
And an energetic four year old caboose who chooses to root through our 8,000 pieces of lego while I'm trying to do read-aloud.

We'll be doing the usual three r's. That's a given.
But the senior will be our first to complete the third year of World Views of the Western World in which she takes a critical look at the 20th and 21st centuries and reads such happy gems as The Plague and Walden Two. Can't wait. Nothing says cozy like Camus. The freshman will be embarking on her first world view voyage with Starting Points. And the rest will be starting our study of modern history in Sarajevo with Archduke Ferdinand.

The real gem this year, I think, will be The Art of Poetry by Christine Perrin. If you truly have a sick sense of humor, you'll put this somewhere obvious-but-not-so-obvious and just wait...At some point, each child will come to you in a panting sort of panic and will ask, as nonchalantly as possible, who is doing a poetry study this year. And you get to be Mom of the Year when you answer, "Not you." Muahahaha.

No, this is a study for high school. And I think it's going to be good, since I'm only slightly better at poetry than at art, and that's only because it is a linguistic art form.
Cubism I don't get.
(though, if you must watch a nude descending a staircase, cubism is the way to go. But I digress...)
Linguistics I get.
I'm even toying with the idea, in all my evil genius-ness, of ending with a Poetry Slam.
BBBBAAAAA HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Yes, my rationalist bent gets seriously out of joint with all this romanticism. It's not that I don't enjoy beauty.
It's just that it has to be on my to-do list.

As in...
Stop and smell the flowers.
Stop.
Smell.
Check.
Next.

But what's truly romantic is the sounds and sights of books...
and kids curled up in chairs reading them...
and the coos of a newborn somewhere in the not-too-distant future.

Yes.
Even winging it, it's going to be a good year.

Twisting Eden

I wish for dominion
without domination.

I wish for earth care
without environmentalism.

I wish we created
without corrupting.

I wish for submission
without manipulation.

I wish for headship
without superiority.

I wish for fruitfulness
without exasperation.

I wish for equality
without egalitarianism.

I wish for relating
without recoiling.

I wish for the Tree of life
without the knowledge of evil.

I wish for the respite of nighttime
without fear in the dark.

I wish for work
without murmuring.

I wish for Imago Dei
without the imprint of sin.

I wish we were good
without being god.

I wish...

Eden.

Peacemaker

I was born in a house in a town just like your own.
I was raised to believe in the power of the Unknown.

When Alex took a college class last fall called Family Dynamics, none of us had any idea that it would impact our family. But it did. Late one night, Brett and I, as well as her two brothers who were also away at school, got an email as part of her homework, in which she had to identify a family weakness that could be addressed. It was the good kind of confrontation that simply confirmed what we all knew to be true about us. True...and bad.

When the answers and the Truth take different sides,
Will you still find me, will you still lead me through smoke?

That launched a series of family discussions in which God, in His grace, revealed to us a toxic part of our family culture that was having negative impact on our family. It was painful to walk through, and we had to have hard discussions with our kids, in which we reviewed the past, confessed sin, and asked forgiveness. But the pain was worth the peace that followed.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. (John 14:27)

We know that the world preaches a peace that does not ruffle feathers, does not stir the pot, does not make anyone feel badly about their beliefs. The peace the world teaches is tolerance and coexistence. And, in the end, this peace leads to eternal destruction.

But the peace of God is far more radical than that. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34). The peace of God is aggressive. It is subversive to the world's agenda. It's an underground resistance movement.

Peacekeepers avoid the problem, not wanting to make waves. Live and let live. It's the kind of peace the world preaches.
Peacemakers head towards the problem, not bothered about making waves. It's the kind of peace Jesus preaches.
Peacekeepers keep their mouths shut, go quietly, and avoid conflict.
Peacemakers take ground for the cause of Christ.

We are not called to be peacekeepers; we are called to be peacemakers. 

That goes for all of us who name the name of Jesus. But, specifically here, I'm thinking parents. I've been heavy-hearted by all the stuff going on over at Homeschoolers Anonymous. These wounded rebels were raised by neither peacekeepers nor peacemakers. They were raised by warmongers...strong-willed parents who took a my-way-or-the-highway approach to parenting. And what we see over at HA is the bombed out, barren, gospel-deprived wasteland of a pointless war. They weren't parenting to the glory of God; they were parenting to the glory of Dad and Mom.

For shame.

As my three oldest children approached adulthood, I began to see a trend.
They all had to grapple with how they were raised...
because even the best-intentioned parent can help them see through the glass only dimly.
It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to bring the kind of clarity that helps them own their own pursuit of Truth.
It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to help them see through the gaps we leave or the mistakes we make or the sins we commit when we are raising our children.
It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to lead them through smoke.

Smoke.

They might arrive at adulthood having to navigate smoke as a result of our warmongering...
or they might arrive at adulthood having to navigate smoke as a result of our well-intentioned humanity.
But either way, there's still smoke.
Smoke is a fact of life.

Regarding the smoke on the road ahead of them, the Holy Spirit will take them the rest of the way.
But regarding the smoke of their past, we have a responsibility to lead them through. If we know we've left smoke in the wake of our parenting, we must--we must--become peacemakers with our children.

Who do you believe when you can't get through,
When everything you believe seems so untrue,
When I'm lost in a place that I thought I knew,
Give me some way that I might find You--through smoke.*

Give me some way that I might find You...
through smoke.

When it comes to our kids, that's the first job of our peacemaking: clearing any smoke that we left as a result of our own sin so they can see the Lord more clearly.
When we screw up, we can't deflect with a 'well, we did the best we could' shrug of the shoulders. Ouch. That might look like humility. But it's really an 'I'm not apologizing' arrogance. And you can be sure you'll hear their heart slam shut as a result.
It's a horrible, sick-to-your-stomach feeling to find you've done your children wrong, but peacemaking heads towards the problem, repents, and sees the result called Reconciliation.

The other part of peacemaking is going after their sin.
That's risky because it can so easily provoke defensiveness in the confronted party.
I admit it; I really dislike this part of peacemaking, and nothing makes me want to hide behind peacekeeping like the prospect of some kind of scene. I don't like emotion; I don't like tears; I don't like drama; I don't like my kids being mad at me. I admit I'd much rather avoid all of that and go quietly.
But choosing to be peacekeepers with our kids' sin is the same thing as choosing their destruction.

No, thanks.

However...
peacemaking, in order to not be warmongering, has to be rooted in grace. The goal of peacemaking has to be the glory of God. Just look at the beatitudes. If I don't start by being poor in spirit, (that is, recognizing that I am spiritually impoverished and have nothing to offer God to make me right with Him, that any right standing I have with God is all a result of God's grace), if I don't grasp that, I will never succeed at peacemaking.

No one over at Homeschoolers Anonymous is beyond the grace of God:
not the rebel kids,
not the legalistic parents,
not the absentee elders.

But I'd rather not have to take the HA path to grace. And I'd rather not have my kids have to take the HA path to grace.

I'd rather be a peacemaker now.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9


*Through Smoke, Bear Rinehart and Bo Rinehart, 2009.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

(Note: While I enjoy a good debate, I do not enjoy the prospect of offending. Please take this in the spirit it is offered: an appeal to avoid the cliffs off of which other parents before us have fallen. Thank you. Noel)
--------------------------------

I'm not likely to forget her for a long time.
Doe-eyed little beauty.
Bright smile.
Gentle spirit.
She and my 8 year old had delightfully struck up a friendship, despite some obvious outward differences. My daughter introduced her to me with a grin, and then they skipped merrily off to play.

But my eyes blazed, indignant. She was from one of 'those' households.
My daughter never did find out her last name. And we will likely never see her again. But I think of her often.
She haunts me.
And I wonder what she will look like twenty years from now.
Will she look like all of those happy women from Russian or China or Cuba who are so beaten down by oppression that their only hope is someday Heaven?
Or will she look like Stevie Nicks, the smoky-voiced gypsy of Fleetwood Mac fame, who rejected her legalistic Pentecostal upbringing...only to find bondage somewhere else?

Stop dragging her heart around. 

Homeschooling.
I'm a long-time, ardent, vocal participant (and sometime critic) of homeschooling.
Both Brett and I have served in various leadership capacities within the homeschooling community.
Our ten children have blossomed in our homeschooling environment.
We've all made life-long, amazing, godly friends in homeschooling.
Big fan.

Still...

Homeschooling is largely responsible for a number of movements which, I fear, tend to live at the top of slippery slopes. These are popular movements among many of my dear friends. But I have some concerns. Let me explain.

Homeschooling is the movement which brought us Train Up a Child.
Not a fan.
This is the approach which advocates, for example, teaching an infant not to bite during breastfeeding by pulling her hair.
You are not Pavlov, and your children are not dogs.
Consider their frames. Psalm 103:14
Consider that there is a time before they know right from wrong. Isaiah 7:16
You are not grooming them for a dog show; you are shepherding their souls.

Training our children is not a rats-in-the-lab activity that focuses on reflexes or bells. Training our children requires addressing their souls, not their reflexes. It requires preaching the Gospel.
Good parenting communicates to the child and about the child, "I am a great sinner; Christ is a great Savior."
And it requires an "I need Jesus, too" attitude.
Ditch the dog-training. Find Gospel wisdom in Ted Tripp's Shepherding a Child's Heart or Doug Wilson's Standing on the Promises.
"The Pearls" (I just love how people refer to The Pearls like they're found in holy writ) turn the Train Them Up crank too far.

Homeschooling is also the movement that brought us the concept of daughter as Dad's Helper.
Not a fan.
This approach stems from a good and godly zeal to raise daughters to understand their task as keepers of the home.
But...consider that this is a very slippery slope, not to mention problematic.
Problematic? I think yes. First, the role of helper belongs to the wife, solely the wife. To place the daughter in that position is to usurp the wife's role. Second, the role of helper comes as part and parcel of the intimacy of the marriage covenant. You see where I'm going with this. And you can't--you.can.not--have one without the other. Third, where there is gender-specific training, that training is done by the same gender (Titus 2). In other words, daughters in the home should be Mom's helpers, not Dad's. One is scripturally defensible; one is...not. Finally, I venture to say that you would not let your son usurp the role of the husband by 'practicing being the head of the household.' You would not let him have authority over your wife (or else we've got another, far more serious issue...).
This approach turns the Titus 2 crank too far.

Homeschooling is the movement that brought us Hyper Modesty.
Not a fan.
Cover up, girls. Shame on you for your curves and your eyelashes and your silky hair. Here, you she-devil temptress, you, take this flour sack and this headcovering and get behind me, Satan.
But...isn't that immodest?  Immodesty, after all, is really letting something other than Christ in you attract attention. Black tights and sin-sifters stick out like neon signs in our culture. They attract, rather than deflect, attention.
It is no shame that our daughters have hips, legs, and breasts; it is a shame to pretend that they don't.
Making our daughters feel guilty for looking like women and liking it turns the modesty crank too far.

Is it sinful to train your kids like dogs? Technically, no.
Is it sinful to train your daughters to be Dad's helpers? Mmmm...no.
Is it sinful to cover your daughter in a burqa? Unfortunately, no.
None of these are reasons to send the elders in to do an intervention.
But, they are all slippery slopes which can have unintended consequences. And they can seriously backfire on earnest, God-fearing parents.
Worse, to teach something is Biblically correct when it is merely a house rule, is to be more pious than God. And it cheapens our claim to Sola Scriptura.

All this crank turning too far makes us off-plumb.
And off-plumb, even a little, is not plumb.
It's not okay, in an effort to avoid the ditch of lawlessness, to back into the ditch of legalism  .
Where does this land of Off-Plumb take us?
Where does all this risky insistence of parenting on top of the slippery slopes bring our children?

I give you Homeschoolers Anonymous.
(Note: There are other sites out there created solely to respond to homeschoooling off-plumb, too. Yes, I am keeping in mind that one man seems right until another states his case. But that wisdom works in both directions, and these sites are the other man stating his case.)

I've spent a good bit of time this week reading the posts over at Homeschoolers' Anonymous.
My heart is heavy.
These are kids who were raised in Off-Plumb.
They are angry. They are hurt. They have rejected the Gospel.
But, as my son Luke (who has been blogging with his friends about this issue over at Thinkers, Incorporated) so adeptly pointed out, there are no good guys over there.
Not the rebel kids.
Not the legalistic parents.
Not the absentee elders.
I'd venture to say that these kids don't even know what the Gospel is.

And I begin to wonder, parents, who of us is in danger of raising a future HA blogger?

I'm asking myself a few questions these days. Come ask them with me.

1. Am I putting obedience above relationship?
When my child fails--and he will fail--I need to bring him to the Cross. My goal should never, ever, ever be outward submission. That misses the point completely. Rather, my goal should be to get at that attitude in his heart that doesn't love God and His goodness. And getting him to please Mommy and Daddy also misses the mark. Put down your ego, for crying out loud. This is NOT about you. Getting your child to want to please the Lord is the goal. This sorely convicts me.

2. Am I recognizing that these children are fearfully and wonderfully made...and that they might be a whole lot different from me?
They have bents and gifts and talents which are uniquely theirs. Do I grant them, in the midst of our shepherding, a certain level of autonomy? Do I let him dream about the future, even if my kid is a romantic, and his ideas seriously yank my own rationalist chain? Or do I lay down the "Thou shalt run the family business" law? Do I let them see where their hearts lead them in searching for a mate? Or do I manipulate them into a romance not of their choosing? Do I grant them the freedom, for the sake of Romans 14, to raise households that might look different from mine?

3. How do I handle their sin?
Wow. I've been searching my heart on this one. If one of my children were to come to me and tell me that they struggled with same-sex attraction, do I have such a grasp of the Gospel that I am non-plussed? that I tell them that is evidence of their Adamic nature? that they must take every thought captive and fight the good fight? Or do I fly off the handle, take all their identification, and drive them to the middle of nowhere with $7 to their name (true HA story)? Where's the Cross in this picture? If the Cross is not dead-center in the story of my children's sin, then I am failing them utterly. If I am more concerned about my reputation among the Saints than about working and walking with them through every valley of the shadow of death, then I am failing them utterly.

4. Does my child have a biblical understanding of sex, gender, and roles?
Do I teach my child God's glorious plan for men and women, marriage, complementarianism, fathers and mothers, family, and child-rearing? Or do I swing to Biblically unsupportable extremes regarding both patriarchy and submission? Do I make sex and their bodies a taboo topic? Is fashion evil? Do I speak with harshness when I talk about their gender? Or do I speak confidently about all of these good gifts?

Bottom line:
If we tell our children we believe the Gospel, we jolly well better believe the Gospel.
If we want our children to approach us, we jolly well better be approachable.
If we want our children to know that we love them unconditionally, we jolly well better not set conditions on our love.

These tragic HA cases are tragic precisely because there is no Gospel to be found anywhere on that site. Like Stevie Nicks, they've jumped from a godless frying pan into a godless fire.
And they're good with that, they all say.
They're over there rationalizing about their sinful choices by saying that they are 'born that way,' And I agree; we are all 'born that way.' But that's bad news. And not a single soul over at HA is preaching the Good News. I think it's because their parents and their elders never preached the Gospel. What a shame. But then, the Gospel doesn't live in Off Plumb.

You want to see what it looks like for fathers to exasperate their children? It looks like Homeschoolers Anonymous.

We better be ready to be peacemakers in our home.
We better be ready to lead them Through Smoke...

Before the truth will come to fill our eyes,
The wool comes down in the form of lies.
When the answers and the truth have cut their ties
Will you still find me,
Will you still see me through smoke? *

which brings me to my next point...
More to come.

*Through Smoke, Needtobreathe, 2009