Category: History

In our study of world history and sociology, we summize that some ideas and practices are better than others. 

For example, when the human sacrifice done to appease the Aztec gods was replaced by Cortez in 1521, a better culture followed, one that claimed the sacrifice of Christ was done to appease the Christian God. 

When the Spanish emphasis of power hierarchies, based on blood lines and papal authority, was diminished by the Protestant work ethic, based on the equality exercised by a priesthood of believers, a better culture came to thrive. An entrepreneurial spirit of self governance, unshackled from the dictates of kings and bishops, gave birth to the USA.

When, in 1779, former slave trader, and then clergyman John Newton published his hymn “Amazing Grace”, and influenced the 1785 conversion of Parliament’s William Wilberforce to Christianity, a better culture resulted. Wilberforce was instrumental to ending the slave trade in the British empire in 1833. He forced the East India Company to allow Christian missionaries, such as William Carry, into India. This ended the 1000 year old practice of sati, whereby widows were burned to death on the funeral pier of the deceased husband. A better culture resulted. Carry translated Hindi works into English, sharing botany and other scientific knowledge of the Indian subcontinent with Europe. 

Quakers, and other Christian abolitionists, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, influenced the Union to force an end to slavery in 1863. A better culture resulted. 

When pastor Martin Luther King, shared his dream that one day people will be “judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”, he was sharing a vision for a better culture.  His basis was in the theology that in Christ there “is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female.”

We could proceed to relate how better cultures resulted, such as from the collapse of the atheistic USSR in 1991, which had destroyed churches and killed hundreds of millions of its citizens.

The critical point is that the advance of biblical Christianity leads the betterment of culture. Thus, the sidelining of Christianity results in the worsening of culture.

Freedom.  Americans have fought for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to bear arms, . . . freedom from being subject to government tyranny. Self Guided Education (SGEd) learns that the price of those freedoms is not free.

Freedom comes with responsibility. Responsible citizens protect the freedoms of others. America has been instrumental toward decreasing the evils of Nazism, Communism, Antisemitism, and Islamic fascism. Why? Because Colonial America was formed by fleeing the imposition of dictators who tried to impose a belief system. 

The American Revolutionary War was a religious war. Although radical sons of liberty claimed it was about taxation without representation, and other secular grievances, the common man knew it was about religious freedom. These Protestants did not want to pay to support the Anglican Church of England (a Roman Catholic version that had been devised by King Henry VIII in order to claim himself pope with the power to divorce his wife).

The 1636 founding mission statement of Harvard College reads, “Everyone shall consider as the main end of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life.” For the next 200 years, most colleges in America were founded by Christians. Evangelist Jonathan Edwards (famous for Sinners in the Hands an Angry God, 1741), help found and later served as president (1748-1758) of Princeton (motto: “under God she flourishes”). 

Duke University was founded in 1924 with the mission statement, “The aims of Duke University are to assert a faith in the eternal union of knowledge and religion set forth in the teachings and character of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” 

Many more examples could be given, such as philanthropist John Hopkins, who knew the positive impact of Christianity on culture. 

American freedom was fought for in order to promote biblical Christian faith. In the sermon “That he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy to God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country. “ (Witherspoon, 1776)

Our US constitutional freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness derives from God. According to philosopher John Locke, God ordained governments (Rom 13:1) to protect those God given rights, not to supply or take away those rights. 

Thus, SGEd abhors government restrictions on what can and cannot be studied. Conversely, SGEd promotes the freedom to study that humans evolved from rocks, as is the doctrine of public education, but also the freedom to consider that God created them male and female. The freedom of SGEd allows a child to pretend they are a poodle one day, a male monkey another day, or an androgynous flamingo, in a continuum of gender fluidity. However, such freedom should not impose on others by force of rule, to reinforce such delusions through validating pronouns, or other draconian measures to control speech and thought.

The historic heart of this passion for Freedom comes from Jesus Christ.  “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”