Scams and Christian Education: Inflated Credentials and Fraudulent Accreditation

A while back I encountered a book by a self-published author that was presented as very helpful and offered for free, but when I picked it up, it was such a basic and low-content product that it might do more harm than good. It showed a real lack of expertise in the content and in style. That isn’t too uncommon for self-publication, but it is sometimes interesting to see how an author got to the point of self-importance that caused them to want to publish something absent expertise.

To find out more, I read the author’s biography. This is something I’ve gotten used to doing as a serial book reviewer. Before I read a book, I tend to ask myself why this author is the person who has something to say on this particular topic. There are gems that can be found by people who have no clear qualifications or experience on a subject, but they are rare. I don’t consider it my responsibility to find and expose those gems.

What drew my attention in this case was that the author listed an advanced degree from an institution I’ve never heard of. It was a doctorate of some variety in biblical studies. (The author’s website actually lists a degree the institution does not offer, but that is a topic for another post.)

Not being a known institution of higher learning may reflect more on my ignorance than the quality of the education, but my interest was piqued. So, I searched for the institution online. And I found it. It has a very elementary website with a number of missing elements (e.g., the institutional history claims to be under development), typos in menus (e.g., “Distance Learning” became “Distant Learning”), and interesting language about accreditation, which led me on my quest. The issue went beyond careless typos into blatant dishonesty.

What I found is a profoundly deceitful example of trying to ape the world’s standards dishonestly. It was an attempt to inflate credentials for the individuals. For the institution, it was an opportunity to make a little money by offering a knock off imitation of a product very much in demand. It is likely that the primary target audience of the institution’s sham degrees is people overseas who want an American education at a developing world price.

Basically, what I discovered in following this trail was a Diploma Mill designed to inflate credentials and put of a false front of credibility. More significantly, the false front was deepened by relying on an unrecognized “accreditation agency” whose approval is self-designated and, therefore, virtually meaningless. It was a Diploma Mill certified by an Accreditation Mill: a double deception destined to dishonor the name of Christ.

Background on Accreditation

Maintaining accreditation can be a difficult process. Not everything in the accreditation process is really helpful or cost effective, but overall, it does provide some assurances of institutional integrity and quality that protect students and faculty from various forms of abuse. I say this as someone who has worked on accreditation reaffirmations for several institutions.

In the United States, accreditation is unlike many other countries. The federal government authorizes the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and US Department of Education to set standards and vet the agencies that accredit programs and institutions. CHEA and USDE both accredit accreditors. Neither accredits specific programs or even whole institutions.

There are six regional accrediting agencies that oversee the accreditation of institutions along distinct geographic lines. If you are looking at schools in the U.S., this is generally the mark of a degree that will have value in the marketplace after graduation. Regional accreditors certify the quality of an entire institution and do not accredit specific programs.

In addition, there are specialized accreditors that approve specific programs at an institution. For example, there are two accreditors for nursing programs recognized by CHEA and/or USDE. Those agencies are focused on nursing and will come into an institution (which is likely accredited by a regional accreditor) to check the specifics of the nursing programs. They will not look at the English major (for example) when they come to visit. If you are shopping for programs in a distinct professional discipline, it is often very beneficial for your program to be accredited by one of the recognized specialized accreditors. You can get a degree in nursing (for example) from an institution that is only regionally accredited and does not have a specialized accreditation, but that may have negative implications for hiring or licensing.

To be clear, a good education can be attained apart from accreditation. There may come a time when accreditation of orthodox, faith-based institutions in the U.S. will not be possible. However, at the present time, degrees from regionally accredited institutions are the baseline standard in the marketplace. Employers expect you to have a degree of a certain quality from an institution certified by an authorized accreditation agency. In certain fields (like engineering, seminary degrees, nursing, and other professional fields), specialized accreditation is also necessary for the degree holder to enter the workforce in their chosen specialty.

Diploma Mills

Other than hiring practices and licensing requirements, CHEA and USDE derive their significance from being gate keepers to federal aid money. Institutions that are accredited by CHEA or USDE recognized accreditors can (but don’t have to) allow their students to get subsidized student loans, federal grants, or other government authorized aid. Part of the reason for the rise in significance in accreditation was to ensure that GI Bill money and other Federal student aid money was being spent on real, value-added educational programs.

However, as educational opportunities have proliferated, undergraduate degrees have become more of an entry ticket into more stable professional employment. (There are signs that this is changing, which I generally see as a good thing.) This has made it more important for people to have “the piece of paper” that states they completed a specific degree. Enter the Diploma Mill.

A Diploma Mill is an organization (or individual) representing itself as a legitimate educational institution with degree granting authority, but which does little or nothing to validate the recipients of that degree have the knowledge, skills, or experience that the degree normally implies in common usage.

For many people, going to school to obtain a degree is a schedule and/or financial impossibility. It becomes very tempting for institutions to pop up to offer easy access to get degrees. In the worst cases, these “institutions” are simply people with a nice printer that will spit out a personalized piece of parchment with a legitimate sounding school name on it for a few hundred dollars. In less egregious cases, there are actual institutions that offer real classes, but the amount of work required to complete courses is far below reasonable expectations or the amount of credit they grant for experience is well above normal limits. Often the faculty at these institutions have degrees from other Diploma Mills (even the one they teach at), so have never been exposed to experts in the field.

These, and the variants between, are all referred to as Diploma Mills. Most of these institutions make no claim to accreditation, it is up to the buyer to figure out the potential market value of the offered degree. The price seems too good to be true and the product much needed. Most of the time, the product is cheap because it is fake.

To be clear (and fair to some good actors), there are non-accredited institutions that offer legitimate educations. In some cases, there are ideological arguments for not seeking accreditation. For example, some Fundamentalist Christian schools believe that seeking accreditation requires a compromise of the principle of separation from sin. We can debate the merits of that position, but it is a legitimate one. In other cases, an institution may simply not have existed long enough to have accreditation. An institution cannot get accredited until it has a track record of operation for the accreditor to evaluate. Accreditation is also a costly process, so some young or financially struggling institutions that are academically sound may not be able to afford it. Not having accreditation, however, should be plainly stated with an explanation somewhere in the institution’s literature and website. The simple lack of meaningful accreditation does not make an institution a Diploma Mill, but it bears further investigation.

Accreditation Mills

The rabbit hole that I followed based on the author biography, however, revealed a third type of institution: a school that asserts it is “Fully Accredited” with a link to an “accreditor” that is not recognized by either CHEA or USDE. The accreditor, in this case, is actually an “Accreditation Mill.”

Simply put, an Accreditation Mill is an organization that claims to offer a value-added certification of the quality of the degree from an institution but does little to ensure its quality. It offers the appearance of legitimacy, without the necessary diligence to ensure it.

In the world of educational deception, Accreditation Mills are generally more morally insidious than bald-faced Diploma Mills. Accreditation Mills are tools used by illegitimate degree conferring institutions to maintain the appearance of validity without doing the work needed to have it.

In the best light, a struggling institution may purchase their “accreditation” from an Accreditation Mill to stay alive. It’s hard to attract students to a school that is not accredited. However, purchasing that accreditation is an act of deception intended to give the appearance of legitimacy to an otherwise low to no value degree. It is, necessarily, a form of dishonest misrepresentation.

Institutions that represent themselves as “Accredited” or, worse, “Fully Accredited” by an “accreditor” that is not recognize by USDE or CHEA are using people’s general ignorance as a tool to legitimate them. It is, at the heart, a fundamentally dishonest and despicable practice.

A Problem of Standards and Legitimacy

Out of curiosity, I moved from the website of the Diploma Mill in question to the “accreditor” from whom the institution received their status as “Fully Accredited.”

As a side note, no institution or program should ever claim to be “Fully Accredited.” (Just as a woman cannot be a little bit pregnant, but is either pregnant or not.) In legitimate regions of higher education, there is accreditation or no accreditation. An institution may have findings against their accreditation status, but they are still either accredited or not. Some legitimate institutions mistakenly publish themselves as “Fully Accredited” due to ignorance in their administrations, but that term should be a flag to ask further questions.

In the case under investigation, the institution claims to be “Fully Accredited,” but the “accreditor” is not certified by either the USDE or CHEA, nor are they pursuing any official status. The claim is a false front design to deceive the ignorant about the market value of the degrees.

If you know what to look for, it can be easy to pick out this misrepresentation. In this case, helpfully, the organization is pretty plainly a low-grade confidence scheme. The “accreditor” has a link from their main page offering to explain their “legal status.” Their website advertises them as a registered 501c3, showing a recent filing as a non-profit entity in Florida (despite being based in Missouri). Above that document there is a strongly worded paragraph that warns visitors they are a legitimate organization and that they have sued and will sue anyone who publicly describes their disreputable activity as…disreputable. They object to the term “accreditation mill” and “diploma mill.”

Most dishonest people don’t see themselves as bad guys.

Below their Florida entity registration area host of mean letters they have paid lawyers to send to bloggers and review sites to attempt to have the evidence of their perfidy scrubbed. [Incidentally, I am not putting these frauds “on blast” by name because I don’t feel like wasting my time on exposing them, and dealing with frivolous complaints, when the type of fraud is much more significant and widespread that this one Accreditation Mill.]

The organization also attempts to mislead visitors to the website by having a “US Government” link on their main page, which has links to documents that in no way connect them to the U. S. government in any meaningful sense. Oddly, the jobs page provides links to several positions at public universities (including an LGBT diversity coordinator, which is odd for an organization that “accredits” KJV loving institutions) that are outdated by several years and well out of the reach of anyone who graduates from a school “accredited” by this organization. And, to top off the wonder of the train-wreck, they list a Gmail account as one of the primary emails for the site.

For those who explore the links, there are a large number of warning flags.

Even more telling, perhaps, is that there are typos in the accreditation standards on their website. For example (and sic), “Institutions muse provide a time requirement…” Such an obvious typo in one of the few standards the “accreditor” has seems sketchy, to say the least. Not to mention that the accreditation standards are so far below any accepted standards of quality as to be meaningless.

The whole thing is a fraudulent shell game. It is a dishonest ruse.

Why Is This Bad?

The ruse works because most people who are seeking a degree do not understand how accreditation works. It intentionally trades on general ignorance of what accreditation means

The ruse is damaging for several reasons.

First, some people may do the work and pay for the degree from one of these fraudulent institutions and not recognize that it is making claims that are fundamentally dishonest. When businesses require an accredited degree, they mean one that has been accredited by a recognized accreditation organization. Ignorant people who get jobs based on untrue claims, even if it is not due to their own dishonesty, may face job loss. Or, they may find that they get rejected for employment because the hiring manager investigates their qualifications and writes them off as either a fool or a trickster for representing themselves as having a valid degree. In either case, the too good to be true degree that they got is really false and can cause damage down the line.

Second, counterfeit degrees devalue real degrees. Someone who invests four years going through the work of earning a 120-semester hour Baccalaureate degree deserves more credit than someone who spent a year and a couple thousand dollars doing busy work (if that much) for a Diploma Mill diploma or a degree from a non-accredited institution. Getting a degree may not mean you are a better person, but it should mean that you’ve done something recognizable and meaningful. If someone does not value the process of becoming accredited or earning a degree, then be honest and don’t pretend to have the product.

Is this Illegal?

What many of these Diploma Mills and Accreditation Mills are doing is likely not illegal.

It is dishonest to take advantage of people’s ignorance or confusion to sell them a low-quality, low-value degree, even if it is at a cut-rate price. However, in the cases I examined neither the school nor the “accreditor” make openly false statements about the value of their accreditation or their relationships with the US government.

This is simply a case of using information superiority to take advantage of ignorant people who think they are buying a product they are not.

The guy selling “Oakley” sunglasses on the streets of New York may never tell you they are actually brand name products. He allows you to draw that conclusion from the similar logo and look without making the overt statement. His conscience is clear (maybe) and he is not legally liable because, in some sense, you have deceived yourself. He just set up the conditions for it to happen.

Diploma Mills and Accreditation Mills are immoral, but they may not be illegal.

Why this Annoys Me

In this case, the author whose biography prompted this whole investigation makes a claim to hold a doctorate. I happen to hold a doctorate from an institution with both a regional and specialized accreditation. My doctorate took me years and required me to write a book-length dissertation. His dissertation was completed online in monthly installments and required a “thesis” that would be a lengthy seminar paper in most PhD programs.

The problem here is that to the average person on the street, his credentials are the same as mine. The difference is that he didn’t do the formative work to earn that title or status, and it shows in the results he puts on display.

The individual who sparked this post got my attention for offering a low-quality book, but also because he preached one of the most illogical and rhetorically poor sermons I have ever heard. The credibility of his preaching was raised in the eyes of some because of his “doctorate.” The fact that he said multiple things that were incoherent or simply factually false discredits my degree, because a religiously-based doctorate becomes associated with foolishness. When people see his errors and associate them with the education he claims, it decreases the trustworthiness of those who earned their credentials from a reputable, accredited institution.

Worse still, people who hear him are going to assume that his objectively false statements are valid because he is supposed to be an expert. Having a degree in the field about which you are speaking should ensure some credibility. In the case of this author and speaker, any credibility would be falsely assumed.

Degrees from institutions that misrepresent the nature of their “accreditation” are issuing counterfeit credentials that devalue the perceived value of degrees for those who do the work to earn them from legitimate institutions. This is dishonest and represents a failure of neighbor love.

Both the dishonesty and the degradation of my earned credentials rub me the wrong way.

Degrading Christianity and Christian Institutions

Perhaps more significantly than my personal annoyance, however, is that creating Christian Diploma Mills or pursuing an Accreditation Mill certification to misrepresent reality is a form of treachery.

Notably the Accreditation Mill that I was focused on is “faith based.” When I did a search for institutions that were “accredited” by them, the ones I clicked on all claimed to be Christian or at least to offer some sort of theological education. (This despite the fact that one of them included “State” in their name to masquerade as a public university.)

Several of these institutions issue semi-standard fundamentalist warnings that their degree was not intended to advance your “secular career.” The insinuation is that non-Christians are likely to look down on your degree simply because it comes from a religious institution.

There may be some validity in that, though it has not played out that way for institutions like Notre Dame, Baylor, and Georgetown.

However, these institutions are working toward devaluing degrees from religious institutions because they are putting forth low quality substitutes for the real thing and crying about it. In truth, overtly Christian institutions that provide excellent educational opportunities tend to have students that do well in both “secular” and faith-based fields.

There are enough cultural forces trying to put highly qualified Christians in a dhimmi status without creating a back-alley café with greasy silverware and claiming it is just as good as a highly rated New York bistro. Being a shyster as a representative of Christ is a good way to get everyone to think that all Christians (or most) are shysters.

If institutions don’t want to play by the accreditation rules, that is fine, but it degrades Christianity and legitimate Christian academic institutions when people falsely claim to produce excellence when they are pumping out excrement. This dishonors Christ because it is intentionally deceptive.

Why Is This Dangerous?

The false credentials purchased through these online programs can be dangerous because it can produce people who, to those who aren’t aware, have the letters that signal expert without the knowledge to back it up. The low-quality book and poor sermon of the “doctor” I encountered is a symptom that could have truly negative consequences in another field.

For example, one of the institutions “accredited” under this false front offers a “Doctor of Psychology” degree for about $8,000. The courses for this degree are all “accelerated” with one offering noting that it expects students to do a 6-semester hour course in 6 weeks.

This requirement is unrealistic.

Most institutions of higher learning expect, for undergraduate programs, a basic 2:1 ratio between homework and class time. They also anticipate that a given semester hour will have 50 minutes of contact per week for 15 weeks. So, a typical 3 credit course could be expected to have 2250 minutes of contact time—or classroom time for traditional education—per semester with an additional 4500 minutes of homework. For those good at math, that is an expected 6,750 minutes of total work for the average student to master the material in that course. That comes to 112.5 hours.

This 6-semester hour course, therefore, could be expected to consume at least 225 hrs of the students’ time during that 6 week period. That is 37.5 hrs per week.

What are the odds that the amount of work in this class actually matches that standard expectation for an undergraduate program? Recognize that the work for a graduate or advanced course is usually more taxing.

I didn’t register for the class (and the syllabus was not online) to find out, but I’d lay even money that this class isn’t that rigorous otherwise no one would finish the program. Even if a student crams through some material in this six-week session, how much are they likely to retain? How can someone who has crammed that much material hope to be exposed to the range of literature in the field? Education typically requires soak time.

At the end of a series of these classes, someone with a little extra time and a few thousand dollars has a piece of paper that lists a degree that could convince a patient to come listen to their advice and pay them for it. Even if they never get a job from a medical practice, someone with no real knowledge could be giving advice to people in desperate need of real help.

All of this is an issue because people rely on degrees, accreditation, and certifications to mean something. Beyond being immoral and dishonest, when bad actors intentionally misrepresent their product, it could lead to real danger.

Conclusion

Credential inflation is not something new in the Christian world. The number of honorary doctorates given by Fundamentalist Christian institutions in the 20th century could probably feed a bonfire for a decade.

Credential inflation is problematic because it reflects a desire to see oneself as more important than one really is. It is an attempt to claim a level of expertise and experience that is not legitimate. It is an attempt to gain honor from the work that others have done.

Significantly, institutions and individuals that misrepresent their own credentials are dishonoring the name of Christ by putting their own honor above the truth. It is not strictly necessary to say something untrue to lie, one can simply intentionally mislead.

As Christians we ought to be known for our adherence to truth. Pursuing inflated credentials or misrepresenting the nature of credentials offered by an institution within the body of Christ should be unthinkable. May it become so soon.

The Green New Deal - A Review

The Green New Deal (GND) will either take off or get crushed by this most recent economic crisis. On the one hand, proponents of the GND argue they can provide everyone with everything they need (and a pony) while making everything greener, safer, and happier. On the other hand, we are doing a pretty solid dryrun of the Green New Deal and most people aren’t having much fun.

Jeremy Rifkin’s book, The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth, takes a swing at making a case that a centrally planned (if not centrally controlled) economy can make things better in every respect—better jobs, more money, better ecology, etc. This has been his focus for decades now.

According to his website, Rifkin serves as an advisor to leaders in the EU on their movement toward a green economy. He also lays claim to “advising the leadership of the Peoples Republic of China on the build out and scale up of the Internet Plus Industrial Revolution infrastructure to usher in a sustainable low-carbon economy.”

Of those two significant claims to authority, the second one helps shape my concerns about his proposed policy and show why the GND may not be the good deal that its proponents support.

One of Rifkin’s major claims is that fossil fuels are on the wane and that our current economic structure, which includes a significant amount of formal and informal infrastructure based on the assumptions of a certain mode of power, will be obsolete in roughly a decade. He argues that renewable energies like solar and wind will replace the bulk of coal and natural gas generation. He also argues that regulation and obsolescence will help push the internal combustion engine far to the margins for transportation.

(On a side note, one of the major Green New Deal advocates, Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez recently celebrated the economic harms done to the oil industry by the current pandemic in a tweet. She subsequently deleted the tweet and modified it to make it sound like her joy was less effusive about other people’s pain, but whatever her intent is or was, it is clear that she and other GND advocates see the current economic crisis as an opportunity to push their plans on the world.)

Inasmuch as Rifkin sees a rise in the prevalence of solar and wind generation, I think he is correct. Those technologies are quickly becoming economical. Even without the tax subsidy provided by the federal government, I would have probably installed the solar panels on my roof. Solar, in particular, is an energy source that has many more advantages than disadvantages. Wind, too, is very clean, though there are issues with migratory bird deaths, disruption of bird nesting areas, and aesthetic concerns for people who live near them. There are more kinks to work out for wind, but there is a great deal of promise, too.

The present problem is that displacing the baseload generation of traditional power plants requires a rapid development and deployment of hydrogen storage technologies (or another storage method) to be effective. In a May 2019 article on hydrogen storage notes that, “Hydrogen may be stored at elevated density in various ways but few of these have reached commercial maturity for large scale applications.” Rifkin’s promise of an all renewable future relies on that technology maturing and being put into largescale use in just a few years. I find that unlikely.

A better answer to a shift toward hydrogen storage might be an increase in nuclear power generation, which has small scale options that are nearing approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US that promise a significant reduction in risk and construction costs. The latter of which is the most significant issue with nuclear, though perceived risk is often the greater issue in the mind of the public.

Beyond what I view as excessive optimism is a much more insidious element of the Green New Deal in Rifkin’s model, which is that it requires submission to an increase in personal surveillance and loss of control by individuals and families.

One of the more significant demands in Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez’s grandiose GND proposals was to “retrofit every building in America.” To most people, that sounds like a promise to put in more insulation, add some weather-stripping, and maybe add a programmable thermostat. However, Rifkin gives some context to what that retrofit would include.

Rifkin is a big fan of the Internet of Things. A lot of Americans are, in fact, though the wisdom of that remains to be seen. The Internet of Things (IoT) is when people’s home appliances, home security systems, traffic lights, etc., are all connected to the internet. This is advertised as a boon because it allows you to check on your babysitter when they are alone with your child, monitor for porch pirates stealing your Amazon packages, validate whether or not you have another gallon of milk in your home, and remotely control your thermostat or garage door while you are on vacation. For Rifkin, by putting homes and civil architecture on the IoT, algorithms and the really smart people that develop them can gain efficiency. It also means that control of your privacy and your home is transferred to the entities that control the internet.

The GND infrastructure Rifkin is arguing for is one of heightened public surveillance. He outlines a failed public-private partnership in Ottawa. “The plan is to build out Canada’s first smart, digitally connected urban neighborhood, replete with state-of-the-art sensors across a seamless Internet of Things neural system. Ubiquitous sensors will provide surveillance, collecting data on activity taking place in the homes, the shops, and the streets, with the goal of helping speed efficiencies and conveniences in commerce, social life, and governance.” (38) The plan eventually fell through because people got nervous about Google’s participation. Rifkin remains very positive about the idea—in fact it is the soul of his proposal—as long as the government retains control.

There is a willfully blind aspect to Rifkin’s proposals. As he states, he is deeply involved in China’s rapidly expanding surveillance state. The ongoing human rights violations of the Chinese Communist Party against their people has been widely reported and is largely facilitated by the technological infrastructure that Rifkin is proposing. His overwhelmingly positive attitude toward China, which continues to be one of the worst polluting nations on the planet, is mysterious and naïve. This is no tu quoque argument, because Rifkin repeatedly cites China as a prime example of a nation that gets his vision.

Rifkin makes it readily apparent he is all for controlling the flow of information. He writes, “The dark side of the internet will require vigilant regulatory oversight at the local, state, and national levels. . .” (22) In context, he’s obviously concerned with controlling hackers, as the remainder of the sentence goes on about building in redundancy into the smart grid to minimize digital disruptions. It is also entirely clear from the paragraphs surrounding this brief snippet that Rifkin’s model of regulation includes more than digital redundancy and includes significant intrusion into the use of the internet. All of this intrusion for a “conceivable” chance to “increase aggregate energy efficiency to as high as 60 percent over the next twenty years.” (23) And, of course, he states that we must shift to this new remotely monitored infrastructure “because the only other alternative is to remain trapped in a dying, carbon-based Second Industrial Revolution economy.” (23)

All of this surveillance makes it possible Naomi Klein’s vision of controlling individual economic choices, in her book, On Fire, where she argues:

“Most fundamentally, any credible Green New Deal needs a concrete plan for ensuring that the salaries from all the good green jobs it creates aren’t immediately poured into high-consumer lifestyles that inadvertently end up increasing emissions––a scenario where everyone has a good job and lots of disposable income and it all gets spent on throwaway crap from China destined for the landfill.” (284)

When you are monitoring people’s activities in their homes, on the roads, in the sidewalks, and everywhere they do to maximize their commercial lives, then it is possible to ensure they don’t slip up and order an extra shirt online.

That others aren’t cringing at the proposals embedded in the Green New Deal shows that they have either gone round the bend, presuming a beneficent ruling class in government and in corporations, or they haven’t read the published literature. As for me, I want a greener future, too, but the vision outlined by advocates of the Green New Deal make it clear that our hope for the days to come lies in radically different places.

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth

By Rifkin, Jeremy

Buy on Amazon

NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

We're Not All Homeschoolers Now

When they announced that schools were closing for several weeks due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, I jocularly posted on social media, “Welcome to the homeschool movement, America.” That statement was untrue and may be misleading if people take it seriously.

My statement was meant humorously, but as the lockdown promises to extend for weeks or months ahead, with parents forced to cobble something together to continue learning and keep kids from bouncing off the wall, it’s important for people to understand that they really aren’t homeschooling.

The results achieved by homebound students who are attempting to continue curricula designed for a classroom setting are likely to be worse than desired. Valiant public and private school teachers will attempt to adapt the material in many cases, but the conditions we are all working under are not ideal for anyone, much less for students forced into their homes having been accustomed to being taught in classrooms. Parents whose districts have elected to cease their child’s education are being thrown to the wolves, so to speak, to choose something that will keep their kids occupied and academically engaged. That is a process that normally takes months for homeschool families, but must be accomplished in days under the current circumstances. The results are going to be different, even if it isn’t anyone’s fault.

Homebound Education is Not Homeschool

There are several key reasons why this COVID-19 enforced homebound education is not like homeschooling.

First, contrary to the typical objection, homeschooling is usually done in community. Socialization is built into the homeschool community through cooperative classes, where parents or another adult teach a subject they are familiar with. Sometimes this is done for upper level classes that require some specialization, but often it is done at lower levels to spread the teaching interactions so that parents are interfacing with other people’s kids sometimes.

Additionally, homeschool students are often involved in community activities and sports, which are cancelled right now. In some ways, the social disruption of this lockdown is impacting normal homeschool routines similarly (though not to the same extent) as public and private school students. Parents share teaching tips, share activity suggestions in online fora, pass around resources, and commiserate. Homeschooling is typically a highly socialized activity with a strong community.

Second, homeschooling usually necessitates a parent with significant free time is available to guide, direct, and keep the student on track. Many parents have had to continue to work while trying to oversee their child’s education, which is drastically different than the typical homeschool experience. Homeschooling is a full-time job, especially with multiple kids. Many parents that have been forced into support of their homebound student don’t have that option.

Third, the curricula that homeschoolers use is usually designed for homeschoolers. The teacher’s unions are correct that homeschool parents don’t have the same qualifications as the state-sanctioned teachers, but they aren’t doing the same thing either. Over the decades that the homeschool movement has grown, numerous high-quality curricula have been developed. They are designed to be taught by a reasonably educated, but not specialized, parent. (Many of these are even cross-referenced to the common core, interestingly enough.) The activities and instructional techniques are different than classroom lessons, which suits them to application at home. The homebound student working on his public school lesson is trying to use textbooks and curricula that presume a teacher will be present to teach and guide. It’s not impossible, but the material wasn’t designed for this setting.

Fourth, families that choose to homeschool have chosen to homeschool. This changes motivation, attitude, and preparation. Even if there is a stay-at-home parent for the now-homebound private school student, that family already decided that teaching at home was not for them. Being forced into homebound education doesn’t have the same sort of emotional investment as the family that has chosen to homeschool. Parents of homeschoolers chose that option. They also likely prepared for it by reading about the necessary teaching techniques and having lengthy discussions with other families about it. There is a fundamental difference between making do and choosing to do something.

Parental engagement is one of the key predictors in student success in any model of schooling. Homeschoolers tend to have higher academic outcomes than other students in large part due to high levels of parental engagement. At the same time, students in public schools with highly engaged parents will also tend to perform better than their peers. Volition and vocation make a difference in results.

Fifth, the homeschool family chose their curriculum based on careful research into the quality, instructional design, and interests of the family. This sounds similar to point three above, but it is a variation on the theme. The curricula chosen for a classroom, whether public or private, will be evaluated based on different criteria than material designed for virtual or one-on-one use.

In addition, people doing curricula selected by their school do not have the same options to change it. Sometimes homeschool families find that a curriculum flops for them, but that usually leads them to change course, even a month into the school year, to find something that works. Much of our homeschool curriculum is interesting for the parent and the students, and we use our own interests as one factor in choosing material. We can also modify the curriculum to meet or needs if it doesn’t quite hit the mark. That customization isn’t available to the families trying to continue their school’s chosen curriculum at home.

I’m certain there are other significant differences, but these are five of the most important. I think it is critical that families that are being forced into homebound education recognize that their experience is not typical for homeschooling and that homeschool families make it clear that this is not normal for them either.

Don’t Use this to Evaluate Homeschool Results

When the current lockdown is over, whenever that occurs, we will find that some kids will have made little to no progress during the end of this year. Other children will have experienced horrific abuse.

Opponents of homeschooling are likely to use these results against the homeschool community to attempt to increase regulations and governmental supervision. They already use the rare cases of actual abuse by homeschoolers as grounds for attempting to control curricula, mandating supervision by state officials, and ending the ability of parents to supervise their children’s education.

The homeschool community needs to make it abundantly clear that, although we are generally better equipped to adapt, this present situation is not typical homeschooling. We should also make it clear that the models of education that many parents of public and private school students are being forced into are not homeschooling either.

This is an unusual situation for everyone. Whatever the results are from our current lockdowns, we should not base future regulation of the homeschool movement on results that are not representative of the means, model, or motivation of those who have chosen home education as the best choice for their families. There may be superficial similarities to homeschooling, but this isn’t normal for anyone.

Additionally, families that might later consider homeschooling their children should not use their experience or other people’s stories about this time as typical data to inform their decision.

What Kind of Value Does Creation Have?

The amount of energy Christians invest in creation care should depend greatly on the value of the created order. Understanding how God values his creation should be at the heart of a Christian vision for environmental ethics. Scripture reveals that creation has more than instrumental value; it has a purpose other than simply supporting human life. But attempts at assigning intrinsic value to creation have a tendency to lead to indecision in important ethical questions and even nature worship in extreme cases. Instead of intrinsic value and in addition to instrumental value, creation has inherent value, which is value that is determined by its proper relationship to the value giver, according to how well it fulfills its purpose. Creation’s inherent value is maximized when it fulfills the purpose for which it was created.

Value of Creation in the Old Testament

The Bible opens up with a description of the Triune God’s creative act, by speaking all of creation into existence. Seven times God declares the goodness of creation in the first chapter of Genesis. The first six times Scripture declares that what God has just created is “good” (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), while the seventh time Scripture declares the whole of creation “very good” (Gen 1:31).

A cursory look at Genesis 1 may raise a further question whether creation was good because God declared to so or whether it had value because of its very nature. The text is helpful in answering this question. Each time the pattern repeats itself in Genesis, we see that “God saw that it was good.” In other words, God observed the goodness of what he created. It was not good simply because he arbitrarily declared it so, but because of some characteristic it had. In this case, its goodness is based on its proper relationship to the Creator.

Another natural question that comes from reading Genesis 1 is why God deemed creation “very good” after the sixth day. One argument is that God was especially pleased with the finalized creation because it included humans made in his image.[1] That view is possible, but a more natural reading of the text in its context indicates that God’s satisfaction with the whole of the created order, in which satisfaction he rested on the first Sabbath (Gen 2:1–3). There is a unity between non-human and human creation, with the distinction between their value residing in the image of God resting uniquely on humans.

In Genesis 3, non-human creation is cursed because of Adam’s sin. “Thorns and thistles” interfere with human flourishing, but the goodness of creation is not destroyed by Adam’s sin or by God’s curse. The continued value of creation in God’s eyes is affirmed by the institution of a covenant between God and all of creation (not just humans) in Gen 9:12–17, when God promises not to destroy the entire earth through flood again.

Scripture also gives evidence that God delights in his creation, despite the effects of sin in it. Psalm 104 offers a poetic vision of God’s continued sustenance of his creation. One striking pair of verses indicates that part of God’s creative purpose was for his creatures to play: “Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.” (vv. 25–26) Whatever Leviathan is, God created it to play in the sea. This has profound implications for leisure, but also for ways that God may receive joy from his handiwork.

God’s rebuke of Job in Job 39–41 also gives testimony of God’s care for his creation. Part of God’s challenge to Job in response to his complaint is to ask whether Job could provide for all of creation. God asks, “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions?” (39:39) In this passage God reveals that he is intimately involved in sustaining creation, even down to providing for individual animals.

Value of Creation in the New Testament

God’s particular providence for his creatures is clear in the New Testament, as well. For example, Matthew’s Gospel records Jesus saying, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” (Mt 10:29) The obvious point of the passage, when read in context, is God’s intended providence for his people, but the text leaves no doubt that he cares for all his creation, not just humans.

John 3:16 also includes a subtext of God’s care for his creation, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The primary focus of God’s saving work is the redemption of fallen humans, therefore when this passage is preached, it is usually assumed that “the world” refers to all the people, but the Greek phrase is actually to cosmos, or the whole creation.[2] To be clear, the restoration of creation is not like the salvation of humans; creation did not sin and therefore will not be saved in the same sense that humans will. Nevertheless, Christ’s death will lift the curse from the non-human creation as well as paving a path for redemption for his elect.

Christ’s role in creation is critical in understanding its value. In John 1, after declaring the deity of Christ and his coeternal existence with the Father in verses 1 and 2, the apostle declares that Christ created all things. However, the connection is even more intimate. In Col 1:15–20 Paul describes an ongoing connection between the divine Christ and his creation. Christ is the “firstborn of all creation,” by which Paul meant that he is the preeminent being within creation, an interpretation that is made clear by Paul’s assertions in verses 15 and 16 that Christ created all things. But Christ did not merely create and leave the world to function on its own, he became part of creation by taking human flesh, which is part of what the Christ-hymn in Colossians is explaining. Additionally, all things “hold together” (v. 16) in Christ, which refers to the sustaining work of Christ in creation. And Paul clearly declares that Christ will “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (v. 20). The implications are significant for creation care and the value of creation because of Christ’s participation in its formation, his sustenance of it, his identification with it, and finally his future reconciliation of it as one of the results of his death on the cross.

God will eventually renew all of creation because of the value he places on creation. There are differing views of the means by which God will renew all of creation, whether by destroying the present creation and re-creating it entirely or by purging the sin from it and refurbishing the present creation. However, the vision that Scripture casts for creation is one where the effects of sin are eliminated. In Romans 8:18–23, Paul explains that the created order is longing for the redemption of humans, with the implication that when sinful humans are glorified, the curse of Genesis 3 will be lifted from creation. Thus, Revelation 21 records a vision of the New Heavens and New Earth, where there is no longer any suffering or sin. Whatever process God sovereignly uses to take away the curse from creation, it is clear that the renewal of the whole cosmos is part of God’s ultimate plan for creation

Both the Old and New Testament show that God values creation. We have seen that Christ identifies with creation closely, as evidenced by the incarnation and his continued sustenance of the created order. It is necessary to development an environmental ethics that balances the goodness of creation with the special role of humans to establish some sort of vocabulary or set of categories that can help us communicate a biblical vision for creation. The following sections will address two common categories of value used for creation and offer a third that helps navigate resource usage by humans and God’s valuation of creation.

Instrumental Value

Instrumental value is the most common category for describing the worth of something. By definition, instrumental value is the utility of an object to a subject.[3] Instrumental value is highly dependent upon the situation and the position of the subject. The same object may have incredibly high instrumental value in one situation and almost none in another. For example, a $100 bill has almost no value to someone shipwrecked on a deserted island. The value ascribed to an object largely depends on the opinion of the individual or group making that judgment at a given time.

Creation has instrumental value. Humans eat plants and animals to survive. Homes are built from stone and wood. Trees provide shade. Fossil fuels provide much of the electricity of the world. Water is useful for cleaning, for sustaining life, and for recreation. Mountains can be useful for providing aesthetic pleasure when people admire them. The instrumental value of any of these things is dependent upon how people value them at a given time.

However, it is not enough to say that creation has only instrumental value. God values parts of creation that have no useful purpose, like Leviathan playing in the sea or the sparrow on the wing. As stewards, humans have authority to utilize creation, but its usefulness does not exhaust its value.

Intrinsic Value

To counter an overemphasis on the instrumental value of nature, some environmentalists argue that creation has intrinsic value. Philosopher C. I. Lewis defines intrinsic value as “that which is good in itself or good for its own sake.”[4] This category of value certainly elevates the worth of creation beyond its usefulness to humans, but it creates significant problems at the same time.

To have intrinsic value, an object would need to have value if nothing else existed.[5] For example, if a tree has intrinsic value, then it would be valuable if it were floating in space before the creation of the world and—if this were possible—without the presence of God. Lewis, an atheist, argues that nothing has intrinsic value, because there must always be someone to ascribe value to an object.[6] Christians, recognizing the eternal existence of the Triune God in perpetual communion will recognize that God fills the category of intrinsic value quite well. However, when the category of intrinsic value is used in contemporary environmental discussions, it is sometimes meant in the sense that creation would have value even apart from the existence of a divine creator.[7]

At its worst, believing that creation has value in and of itself can lead to panentheism (the belief that the divine is present in matter) or pantheism (the belief that creation is itself divine). Much of liberal theology through the past century has tended toward a diminution of the distinction between creation and God, so the use of the term intrinsic value with the possible misconceptions is not surprising.[8] The close, though unnecessary, relationship between these theological errors and environmentalism has been a significant contributor to orthodox Christians not engaging in creation care in a biblical manner.

We must be clear that describing creation as having intrinsic value is not always a marker of nature worship; the definition offered by an author matters. For example, Francis Schaeffer uses the term intrinsic value to refer to creation in Pollution and the Death of Man, where he qualifies the value of creation as being derived from its relationship to God, not its self-existence.[9] What Schaeffer needed was another term that allows for non-instrumental value for creation. The term inherent value would have provided what he needed.

A more practical problem arises from assigning intrinsic value to creation, because it makes decision making about environmental priorities impossible. Sahotra Sarkar, writing on philosophical arguments for biodiversity, argues that attributing intrinsic value to biodiversity removes grounds for moral obligation because obligation stems from relationship, which is no longer necessary. Even accepting there is moral obligation, intrinsic value puts all of nature on par, so that there are no grounds preserve an endangered species at the expense of another plentiful species because both are equally valuable. Sarkar offers a definition of intrinsic that sounds more like the next category of value we will discuss.[10]

Inherent Value

Inherent value is sometimes used interchangeably with intrinsic value,[11] but the vocabulary of C. I. Lewis is again helpful. Lewis carves out a category of inherent value where the value of an object is determined by its relationship to the valuer.[12] Another way of saying this is that an object has inherent value that corresponds to its fulfillment of its intended purpose. Inherent value is subjective value, but it is properly determined by God. For Christians, creation has inherent value when it is fulfilling God’s purpose for it.

This middle category of value between the absolutes of intrinsic value and the utilitarianism of instrumental value provides both a means for creation to be stewarded for non-utilitarian reasons and for something that has non-utilitarian value to be utilized when needed. Animals were made by God to glorify him and have inherent value. Humans can eat animals (Gen 9:3), but that does not give humans the right to kill animals wantonly or mistreat them. Because animals have inherent value, in addition to their instrumental value, we should treat them compassionately and consistently with their purpose.

Purpose of Creation

To summarize John Edwards’ philosophical treatise, The End for Which God Created the World, we know that God created the world for his own glory. In his tightly-reasoned argument, Edwards argues that God values objects according to how well they fulfill the purpose for which they were created.[13] Leviathan glorifies God when it plays in the ocean, because that is the purpose for which it was created. Humans, whether eating or drinking, glorify God by living according to the proper order of the universe. (Cf. 1 Cor 10:31) The degree to which creation is allowed to exist according to God’s design within the created order determines its inherent value.

Psalm 19:1 reminds readers, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Creation certainly is useful for supporting human life, but it also has a cosmic purpose in revealing the character of God. (Rom 1:19–20) The character of God is glorious. Creation testifies to that. When the goodness of creation is distorted to mask the glory of God—when it is polluted or worshipped—its inherent value is diminished.

Summary

Creation has value because of its relationship with the Creator. Christ made all things and sustains all of creation. His love for all of creation is so significant that he died on the cross, was buried, and raised three days later to redeem, restore, and reconcile all of creation to himself for his own glory. Much of creation has instrumental value, but it also has inherent value. We glorify God in how we utilize creation by doing so with gratitude to the Creator and by honoring the created order in the manner in which we use it.

[1] Elmer Towns, Theology for Today (Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2008), 555.

[2] Derek Carlsen, “Redemption versus the Fall,” Christianity and Society 14.4 (2005): 45–50.

[3] C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1946), 392

[4] Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 382.

[5] Robert H. Nelson, “Calvinism without God: American Environmentalism as Implicit Calvinism,” Implicit Religion 17, no. 3 (2014):259.

[6] Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 432.

[7] Earth Bible Team, “Guiding Ecojustice Principles,” in Readings from the Perspective of the Earth, ed. Norman Habel (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2000), 44–47.

[8] Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 1999), 550.

[9] Francis Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Downers Grove, IL: Crossway, 1983), 5:32.

[10] Sahotra Sarkar, Biodiversity and Environmental Philosphy (Campbridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 45–60.

[11] E.g., Mark Liederbach and Seth Bible, True North: Christ, the Gospel, and Creation Care (Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2012), 35–50.

[12] Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 391.

[13] Jonathan Edwards, Dissertation on the End for which God Created the World, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2003), 94–119.

Boredom and Heresy

One the central questions at the heart of debates over modern theological liberal Christianity and orthodox Christianity is the definition of the term Christian. The wide variance between the definitions tends to confound dialog because liberals (I will consistently use this term theologically, in a descriptive sense) have a radically different understanding of the word’s meaning than do orthodox believers.

There were, of course, points in the historic Christian faith at which boundary lines were drawn based on ongoing debates. Those early moments resulted in our statements of orthodoxy, such as the Nicene Creed, which contains the kernel (though not the totality) of orthodoxy.

These creedal statements that define Christian orthodoxy were often surrounded by heated debates as leaders and theologians parsed through Scripture with a critical mind. This has led some to conclude that they were arbitrary statements and that some sort of arbitrary (likely political) power was the determining factor in setting the boundaries of orthodoxy. That, of course, fuels much of contemporary theological revisionism, because Christian doctrine shifts from the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) to oppressive imposition of the ideas of a bunch of patriarchal dead guys.

In this case, I tend to agree with Dorothy L. Sayers, the modern mystery writer and a significant mind of the first half of the 20th century. In her essay, “Creed or Chaos?,” she writes,

“Teachers and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy.”

Compare Sayers’s perspective with that of the so-called father of the social gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch, who argues in his book, A Theology for the Social Gospel,

“The dogmas and theological ideas of the early Church were those ideas which at that time were needed to hold the Church together, to rally its forces, and to give it victorious energy against antagonist powers. To-day many of those ideas are without present significance. Our reverence for them is a kind of ancestor worship.”

There is certainly some similarity between the two. Both Sayers and Rauschenbusch recognize that there was often drama when the doctrines of orthodoxy were outlined and that resolution was needed for cohesion. The difference comes in that Rauschenbusch has very little respect for the formulations arrived at by the councils, whereas Sayers understands them to have been largely successful at arriving at an expression of the truth. Thus, Sayers regularly called believers back to orthodox Christian belief, while Rauschenbusch associated doctrinal orthodoxy with a form of “ancestor worship.” Rauschenbusch is  spiritual father of John Shelby Spong, who argued that Christianity must change or die.

Beneath this discussion is a radically different perspective on the ability of lay-people to grasp Christian doctrine. Both Rauschenbusch and Sayers recognize that many Christians are relatively uninformed about Christian doctrines, which results in doctrinal deviations.

According to Rauschenbusch, “When people have to be indoctrinated laboriously in order to understand theology at all, it becomes a dead burden.” This is a dubious statement, but it shapes the trajectory of Rauschenbusch’s attack on Christian orthodoxy.

This comes several pages after his assertion that,

“[The business of theology] is to make the essential facts and principles of Christianity so simple and clear, so adequate and mighty, that all who preach or teach the gospel, both ministers and laymen, can draw on its stores and deliver a complete and unclouded Christian message.”

The second statement is actually quite helpful. Theology certainly should be clear and simple as much as possible, but to eliminate teaching doctrine as a function of the church because some doctrines are complicated seems counter intuitive.

There is an implicit assault on the intelligence of laypeople in Rauschenbusch’s theology. He assumes that people are simply too intellectually dull to understand Christian doctrine. As a result, he argues, “If we seek to keep Christian doctrine unchanged, we shall ensure its abandonment.”

Rauschenbusch decided he would like to avoid the abandonment of Christian doctrine by changing it. I suppose that is one way of cutting out the middleman. No need to make the laypeople leave doctrine, when you can simply eliminate all the inconvenient parts that matter. This is a way of dumbing down the faith because you don’t think people are smart enough to understand doctrine.

Sayers, however, has a much more positive view of laypeople. She, too, recognizes that many laypeople are ignorant of Christian doctrines, but that is not entirely their fault.

She writes,

“It is not true at all that dogma is hopelessly irrelevant to the life and thought of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration is though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so.”

This is exactly what Rauschenbusch does and he encourages others to do the same.

Again, Sayers rejects the need to modify Christianity to make it relevant,

“If the average man is going to be interested in Christ at all, it is the dogma that will provide the interest. The trouble is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has never been offered the dogma. What he has been offered is a set of technical theological terms that nobody has taken the trouble to translate into language relevant to ordinary life.”

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

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The Christian mind is shaped by the wonder of God’s goodness and the nature of the world he has made. One of the central elements of the Christian mind is an interest in those things outside of ourselves. Sayers understands the Christian mind, while Rauschenbusch did not.

Rauschenbusch’s assumption was that his disinterest in orthodox Christian doctrine and inability explain it to others did not subvert the value of it. The wonder and mystery of a wholly other God whose existence and work are unlike our daily experience makes Christianity so much more relevant and exciting.

Sayers gets at the heart of the problem: ignorance and lazy teaching. Laypeople are not stupid; they have often simply never had teachers who took the time to explain Christian doctrine in terms that they understood. Teaching is a bridging strategy to make truth plain.

Instead of creating heresy as we give way to boredom, faithful Christian teachers need to explain the most exciting story that ever was: Christianity. That story is carried by the doctrines that modernists think people too bored, lazy, or stupid to understand.

The role of theologians and pastors is not to reshape Christianity into something that we find interesting, but to uncover the exciting truths within orthodox Christian theology. Once that happens, based on my experience, the doctrine sells itself.

Media Intake, Praiseworthiness, and Fear in a Pandemic

Toward the end of his theologically rich exhortation to the Philippians, Paul penned these important words to the church in Philippi that have been given as a gift to us a couple of millennia later:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8)

When Paul wrote these words he was in prison (Phil 1:7), likely in Rome, and certainly feeling the pressure of his captivity and uncertain fate (Phil 4:12–14). He was writing to a church in a culturally hostile situation, facing an unknown future, with their leader facing potential execution.

Paul was writing to a group of people who had every reason to dwell on everything that is wrong with the world and run through a million hypothetical futures as they waited for decisions from others or news from distant parts of the Roman world.

In other words, this is a great example of God inspiring a human author to write a message that would be applicable to humans in every age of this world, and especially in our current time.

“Always On” Information

One of the miracles of our age is that we have all the information in the world available at our fingertips at every moment of the day.

To quote Adrian Monk, “It’s a gift and a curse.”

The news streams in constantly on multiple channels and the talking heads on those channels have to find a way to fill those hours of time in a way that will keep people tuned in and keep the advertisers spending millions of dollars.

This is a recipe for stress, worry, and maybe even panic.

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Pillars of Creation. Public Domain. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/052/01GF423GBQSK6ANC89NTFJW8VM

It also provides opportunity for confusion as networks look for different opinions, the situation changes, and people look at the issue from different angles. When news anchors and talk show hosts—who usually know nothing about the issue they are discussing—riff for an extended period about things they are ignorant of, a lot of unfounded opinion has a way of making its way into people’s homes and can be interpreted as fact.

Non-experts battle experts for airtime. People seek positions that support their biases. Meanwhile we are desperately curious, stuck at home with little diversion, and hopeful for something that shows an end is insight.

It may be that we need to rethink our media absorption strategy.

Look for the Durable and Good

If the COVID-19 shutdown teaches us one lesson, I hope it is that we should spend our time thinking about true, honorable, pure, and excellent things.

Paul’s admonition to the congregations in Philippi is good advice for us all at all times in our media saturated age, but especially so when we our normal occupations are not available.

If you find yourself scrolling through social media and reading your tenth COVID-19 article for the day, then put down your phone, turn off your computer, and pick up a good book. If you recognize that you are watching the fourth hour of your favorite network’s coverage of this issue, with little new information other than different perspectives on the body count, then it’s time to turn the TV off and head toward Scripture.

As Neil Postman astutely noted in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, information takes the form that it is presented in. Television is, by definition, a transient medium that you have to experience in real time. Websites demand new traffic, which requires updated content with new numbers, slightly different perspectives, and combative arguments. Headlines are pitched with exaggerations, unfair generalizations, and misrepresentations in them to get you to click or stay tuned to bring the numbers up.

Look for something that is durable and good.

When your life is over, there is very little chance you will look back on the hours of cable news you read in these days and think they helped you grow spiritually. There is little chance that one more human-interest story from the crisis will really have made you a better person.

However, memorizing a passage of Scripture, reading another book of the Bible, studying an edifying book, picking up the work of literature you’ve been putting off, or doing something with your family will all be worthwhile.

Find a way to use this time for something that will have a lasting positive effect.

A Range of Options and Need for Discipline

Everything about the internet isn’t bad. It’s great that many knowledge workers can continue to do their jobs remotely. It’s a wonderful thing that we can connect with friends, families, and neighbors through instant communication. There are millions of valuable resources that are available for free (or a minimal charge) right now. We just need to be disciplined enough to put the candy (i.e., infotainment about the pandemic) down to pick up solid things.

We have a range of options, we just need to exercise them.

For example, I previously released a list of resources for the week leading up to Resurrection Sunday that would be helpful as a distraction in this time. Some of them can be ordered quickly. Others can be found online.

There are sermons from sound pastors available online for you to watch or listen to. Be discerning, but there is a lot of good material out there. Pick something that will expand your knowledge.

Conference lectures, academic presentations, and other instructional content has flooded the internet. Now is your chance to learn about Astrophysics, Classical Theism, or a million other topics.

We typically talk about starting a Bible reading plan at the beginning of the year, but now would be a good time to kick off. The most durable thing to think about is the eternal Word of God; consider investing some time into your Bible knowledge.

The challenge for us is not a lack of information, but a lack of discipline in focusing on the things worth learning. It’s important that we make the best use of our time, focus on spiritual disciplines, and avoid media that leads us into sinful worry and despair.

Our interests may differ, but the mandate from Paul is clear to focus on durable things that are excellent, praiseworthy, and commendable.

Don't Waste This Quarantine Sabbath

In Michigan we have been living under a lockdown order for about a week now. Before that we were being encouraged to minimize close contact with people in a precautionary way to help minimize the spread of this novel Corona virus.

For about the last two weeks most social activities, including school, sports, church meetings, and clubs have been cancelled. We have been, in a very unusual way, hunkered down waiting for this viral storm to pass.

My family homeschools, so the impact has not been as significant as for families that counted on others to educate and tend to their children for the day. However, they have had co-op meetings cancelled and an inability to do the normal range of external activities that break up the week.

The whole family has suffered from the loss of our usual Sunday routine of gathering with our local church to sing, pray, hug, and laugh. I have still been teaching Sunday school via Zoom and we have been offered music and sermons via video, but there is no question that this is a poor replacement for the real thing.

I have also been forced to work out of my basement office. This period of forced isolation coincides with a major project, so I’ve been working long hours in my windowless (but book-filled) cell staring at several large screen that I (with permission) borrowed from work when they forced us to leave. Coordinating big projects remotely can be effective, but it is more time consuming. In the end, I’m thankful that I have a job that will continue even during an economic downturn.

There will likely be lessons we learn about pandemic response, social responsibility, and emergency preparedness from this, but those are lessons that will frame structures and organizations in the future.

Learning from this Sabbath

Each individual and family should be asking some particular questions about their normal pace of life during this strangely enforced sabbath. What external activities have been taken away that don’t really matter that much? What family activities have been introduced that may be worth holding onto?

It may be that this current shutdown is the first time in a while that parents and children have been forced to spend much time in each other’s company.  Don’t let it go to waste.

In the United States families with kids are often harried as they run from school to sports to clubs to homework to bed to start everything over again. Anecdotally, I am aware that many nuclear families rarely sit down to supper together. They, therefore, rarely have the chance to catechize their children, because that responsibility has been farmed out to teachers, coaches, and youth pastors.

We should be using this radical change in activity level, enforced from outside (so parents aren’t the bad guys), to ask some hard questions about what matters and why we do what we do. Here are some suggestions to consider.

Questions to Ponder

First, are you using this time effectively to disciple your children or spouse? Are you all of a sudden at a loss for how to engage your children or spouse about the things that (should) matter most? If so, you are not alone, and you have been given an opportunity by God’s grace to figure out how to get better at engaging your family spiritually. This is a prime responsibility for those of us with families. A couple of meetings each week where someone else provides content is not enough. It’s worth getting this right. If you find success in increased discipleship during this time, would it be worth reordering your life to have more time for it after the quarantine has been lifted?

Second, what activities have been taken away that you really don’t miss much? Think hard about this one. Is the second ongoing sport for your son really necessary? Does it have to be travel league that pulls your family out of regular church attendance? Even if those activities are missed, are they more valuable than the family discipleship they displace?

Third, what activities have been taken away that are missed too much? A surprise cloistering like this can be emotionally difficult. I am sad for the high school and college seniors who are losing their graduation ceremony and that magic period of life where they stand on the cusp of a big-life change. I am sad for the people who were about to open their plays, had just opened a business, or had big travel plans. It is good and right to grieve some of these losses. But is our sense of loss proportionate with the eternal value of the thing lost? Emergencies like this can help reveal the idols in our lives. Take the time to consider what is being grieved and why.

Fourth, in what ways have you been ungrateful for the benefits society has to offer? Most of us take our jobs for granted until they are lost or threatened. Living in a Western capitalistic country, we take for granted that there will always be toilet paper on the shelves, until people start hoarding. We normally have opportunities to gather and worship together freely, but we seldom are sufficiently thankful for it. Use this time to ponder God’s enormous grace in putting us in a society that provides so many of our needs and wants without difficulty.

Conclusion

You may have other questions that are closer to your circumstance right now. We shouldn’t waste a crisis. Not so that we can impose our political and economic views on others with emergency powers, but so that we can ask fundamental questions about our way of life and whether it conforms to a godly vision of the world. This is a sabbath, even for those of us forced to work from home. Don’t miss the opportunity of the sabbath.

Resources for Holy Week

It seems that every Easter there are different political and social challenges that threaten to divert our focus from the Holy Week.

In the midst of all of that, Jesus is still Lord of all. That’s a vital truth and one that can be terrifically hard to hold onto.

I’ve put together a list of resources to consider for individuals, families, and local congregations.

Resurrection Letters

A recent favorite in my house is Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters, Volume I and the Prologue. The 14 songs were released on two separate discs in 2018. The Prologue disc has five songs on it that focus the listener on the crucifixion, with songs commemorating Christ’s last words, God’s welcoming Christ as the good and faithful son, and a contemplative song about God resting, referring to Christ’s descent to the dead. Resurrection Letters, Volume has nine songs. The album is Christologically rich as it begins with “His Heart Beats,” an energetic celebration of the Lamb of God waking up. Then it moves through more celebratory music which help the listener remember that Christ lives, that he sustains the world, and that he is coming again to make it all right again.

Leading up to Easter, I recommend putting the Prologue songs on heavy rotation and saving the Volume I songs for Sunday morning and the weeks to follow. Peterson’s hymn, “He is Worthy,” is one of my favorite songs of all time.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Fernando Ortega remains one of my favorite songwriters and musicians. His somewhat melancholy music is rich, homey, and often contemplative. His 2017 album The Crucifixion of Jesus can well serve as a Maundy Thursday service as his doxological music is interspersed with Scriptural readings to lead the listener through the events of the Christ’s passion leading to his crucifixion.

This is an album that warrants listening with devices put away, sitting on the couch, and focused on the goodness of God to send his son to die in our place. It is Christ honoring and worshipful.

The Final Days of Jesus

For those seeking to put the passion week in its chronological order, The Final Days of Jesus, by Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor is a helpful resource. It is designed to walk through the last days of Christ before crucifixion one day at a time with careful selection of Scripture passages from the ESV and helpful commentary, maps that show the locations of the events in the gospel narrative, and charts that put passages and themes in an easy to understand key. This is an aid to family worship, individual devotion, as it feeds the soul and the mind at the same together.

The Man Born to Be King

Once known as a detective novelist (and a fine one, too), Dorothy Sayers was also a playwright. The BBC commissioned Sayers to write a series of twelve plays that use material from all four gospels to tell the story of the life of Jesus. These plays were somewhat controversial when they were aired in Britain during World War II because Sayers had the apostles and Jesus speaking in the vernacular of her day. Some called it sacrilegious, but the content is theologically solid and Sayer’s largely achieves her goal of helping people understand that Jesus really lived as a human and that his disciples weren’t icons in a painting, but flesh and blood sinners like us.

C. S. Lewis liked The Man Born to Be King so much that he read it every Holy Week between its publication in 1943 and his death in 1963. This is a classic book that is edifying and enriching. It can deepen your love for Christ this year, too.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

For those with younger children, one key resource for teaching them the overarching storyline of Scripture is Sally Lloyd-Jones’ book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. The book is beautifully illustrated so that it will appeal to young children and older children alike. The text is theologically rich, so that this is a resource that will provide an education for the parent or grandparent reading it as much as the children sitting and listening. There is also an that comes with an audio version, which is read by David Suchet (BBC’s Hercule Poirot and Focus on the Family’s Aslan). The narration is well worth the extra few dollars for the CDs. For those willing to spend more, there are animated videos that tell each of the stories, as well. They are well-done and worthwhile.

“He Descended to the Dead”

For those theologically minded individuals willing to do a bit deeper reading in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Matthew Emerson wrote a phenomenal book on the descent clause of the Athanasian and Apostle’s Creed. I am planning a full review of the volume later, but this book is theologically rich, clearly written, and devotionally powerful. The first three chapters help plow through the historical debate about the meaning and authenticity of the descent clause, while the remainder of the book shows why believing that Christ literally descended to the place of the dead (and not just the grave) is important for theology. “He Descended to the Dead” : An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday is a book that warrants reading and especially in the weeks leading up to our celebration of Christ’s susbstitutionary death, burial, and resurrection.

Discernment Bloggers, Truth, and Christian Witness

One of the best attributes of the internet age is that it has eliminated the gatekeepers to public discourse. At its best, the internet enables people to bypass denominational filters, editorial boards at book publishers, and the like. Among other things, it allows for amateur theologians.

The lack of gatekeepers allows us to get access to raw information on a more regular basis. WikiLeaks can publish documents that tell a different story that official channels do. Individuals subjected to abuse without recourse can get their story out and get problematic institutional administrations removed. Pastors and laypeople without access to an official platform can engage in meaningful theological discourse.

There are a lot of positive aspects to the democratizing of information, particularly when it comes to Christian discourse. At the same time, the same democratization can have a dark underbelly.

One example of this is in the rise and proliferation of discernment bloggers. At their best, discernment bloggers highlight areas where institutional reform is needed and push dialog toward those topics with an intent to seek reforms and pursue a measurable good. It might be that a discernment platform might spring up for a season and, having dealt with the issue at hand, recede into the sunset.

In practice, however, discernment blogs often turn from meaningful discourse to perpetual gossip and divisiveness. They use several tactics to pursue popularity, which are exceedingly effective at getting attention, but tend to erode the foundations of morality and truth by those who use them.

Rather than simply relying on truth-telling as the means to communicate, discernment ministries often rely on exaggeration, decontextualization, railing, and intentional ignorance to undermine their ideological victims. What usually results is a shrill, relentless attack on the disliked party and anyone who defends them or looks like them.

Valid Beginnings

A caveat on this discussion is, of course, necessary. Some discernment bloggers started with a legitimate purpose or grievance. Usually that was to deal with a particular local or even national issue.

There are, for example, some discernment blogs that began in order to expose misogyny, clerical abuse, or subversive theological liberalism. Those are worthy issues to be opposed.

The problem is not opposing bad things, it’s that as the platform grows and, perhaps, once the original problem is rooted out and exposed, the topics of concern become broader and the quality of evidence considered for publication sometimes drops lower and lower. Mission creep is a real issue as eventually some discernment blogs have become little more than clearinghouses for ridiculous conspiracy theories. (Sometime consider the number of conservative Evangelicals who are supposed to be rolling in money from George Soros.)

The discernment platform becomes a thing in itself that takes up time and needs constant feeding. Sometimes this is even complicated by it becoming a source of income for the vigilante through advertising and sponsorships.

True Discernment

Discernment is an important attribute of mature Christians. Hebrews 5:14, in a plea for increasing spiritually maturity, states,

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Beyond the methods of abuse highlighted above, the biggest problem with many discernment blogs is that they are not particularly discerning. Contrary to Hebrews 5:14, they aren’t trained in discerning good from evil, but merely railing against those they don’t like. This is more likely to be true of discernment blogs that have been around for a while, whose missions have expanded from a particular issue to an attempt to take down the world.

Any person or group whose mode of operation is to fixate on someone else’s problem is not exercising true discernment, they are just being divisive.

A gourmet––someone who is fanatical about good food––may complain loudly about bad food at a restaurant. However, a true foodie is as likely to rave about good food as to rail against a disappointing meal. Even as they complain about food at one restaurant, they are likely to tell you where you can get the true and better food in another.

People who like football may despise the opposing team, but will be able to recognize when that team is playing excellent football. A good play may not result in cheers, but it will be recognized as something legitimately good. That’s the difference between enjoying a sport and simply hating the other team.

In many cases, internet “discernment” has become nearly entirely about hurling abuse at the disfavored parties. Biblical discernment looks much different.

Persuasiveness

The purpose of discernment should not be to heap scorn and shame on someone, but to persuade them and others to repent.

Persuasion may be a dying art in our day. The so-called longtail of marketing and the accessibility of media that fits my existing opinions means that entities can spend much more energy reinforcing opinions than persuading people of them.

We might consider persuasion to be yet another casualty of the internet age.

But Christian discernment includes the attempt to persuade. The arc of church discipline from 1 Cor 5 to 2 Cor 2:5–11 is one of redemption through persuasion. In this case, persuasion came about through expulsion. But that expulsion was always in hope of convincing the offender that he was acting like an unbeliever.

Christians ought to be, in fact, some of the most dedicated persuaders out there. As Paul argues in 2 Cor 5:1a,

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

The large passage that sentence is in talks about the ministry of reconciliation that Christians have been given, our role as ambassadors of the gospel of Christ, and our living compassionately among others.

Persuasion is the better part of true, biblical discernment.

Sweetness of Speech

In his Proverbs of Hell, Williams Blake states, “Damn braces, bless relaxes.”

This is true from both sides of the issue. Satan came to the Garden as an angel of light appealing to Eve’s curiosity and desire for godlikeness rather than as a tyrant seeking abject worship. He was persuasive and we all know the results.

In the same way, gospel evangelism is much more likely to be persuasive if it encourages the unregenerate to consider the beautiful truths of the gospel in light of their own darkness. Persuasion invites, ridicule repels. Evangelism of a rude, confrontational tone is much less likely to result in true (or any) conversions.

This should come as no surprise, as Proverbs 16:21 states,

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.

How we say what we have to say is truly important. This is true with regard to our communication of our political opinions on social media and in person. It is also true as we seek to expose deadly sin within the body of Christ.

Persuasiveness allows the words to be sweet even if the truth packs a wallop. Many attempts at discernment in this age have distorted that paradigm: The words pack a wallop, but the truth they express is meager or twisted.

Is Rudeness an Apostolic Ministry?

Discernment bloggers often cite examples in church history of strong rhetoric that appears to have been effective to support their tone and content.

For example, Paul is somewhat hyperbolic in Gal 5:12 when he states that he wishes the Judaizers would mutilate themselves. Jesus himself is pretty harsh with the Scribes and Pharisees on multiple occasions and even uses physical violence to make his point in cleansing the temple.

Outside of Scripture, some of the greats in church history take the gloves off for a round of theological eye-gouging from time to time. I mean, someone has been able to create a database of Luther’s insults to delight the hearts of homeschoolers around the world.

My argument isn’t that there is no place for strong language and rhetorical flourishes. Sometimes a joke at the opponent’s expense is a good way to bring onlookers to your side. It may be persuasive, as long as we recognize that the one being persuaded is not the butt of the joke but those “overhearing” the debate.

The key is that the truth we are communicating needs to overshadow the means by which we communicate it. When we lose that central aspect in our discourse, we have lost the mission.

Paul and Jesus may have used harsh language toward their opponents, but they communicated a positive message, not simply a criticism of someone they didn’t like.

This goes back to the gourmet raving about the good food at a favored restaurant: “Don’t go to Jimmy’s Grill, the steaks are dry and flavorless, but Bob’s Chophouse cooks the most excellent sirloin.” In true discerning communication, there is always an attempt to point toward the good, not simply to highlight the bad.

Throwing rhetorical hand grenades is pretty easy. Building a positive and convincing position is much harder.

Conclusion

One way to identify discernment blogs is that they often have very little positive message. They feed our desire to have our views validated by constantly showing why the other side is wrong, even when we agree with 95% of what the opponent thinks. The differences may be small, but it feels good to be “better” or “more truthful” than the other guys.

Many discernment blogs also handle the truth poorly by editing the words of others and adding their own context to attempt to paint the others in a poor light. This alone should cause those with real discernment to stay away from some of these discernment “ministries.”

As we think about godly communication, the pursuit of purity in the visible church, and legitimate attempts to reveal real problems in the body of Christ, we need to think about what discernment means. A more biblical model of discernment might not be as effective at getting clicks, but it might be more effective at honoring Christ. And, after all, isn’t that what we are supposed to be all about?

Prudence and Grace in the Face of Pandemic

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:25)

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. . . .  Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind (Rom 14:1, 3-5)

Fears about COVID-19 are spreading, which is leading organizations around the globe to make difficult decisions about the common good, economic needs, and individual well-being. Christians, too, must wrestle with these basic, but difficult questions.

For example, in light of a virus that is spread largely through human-to-human contact, should we meet together on Sunday to shake hands, pass the offering plate, and share the Lord’s Supper as we gather in our classrooms and sanctuaries?

Beware those for whom the answer to this question seems obvious. On the one hand, we should avoid glib over-confidence as if there is nothing to be concerned about. On the other hand, we should not too quickly abandon meeting together to renew one another in the love of Christ. Different concerns will play into decisions about whether to gather or not, and we should be careful not to judge those too harshly that disagree with us.

To Gather

My own bias is to continue to meet with any others that are willing to come out. I do not want to forsake gathering with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I would prefer to continue to spend time with my church family, as long as we take reasonable precautions.

Among those precautions are encouraging others who are not well to stay at home, washing hands carefully and frequently, and minimizing close, personal contact to a reasonable degree. There are simple measures to take to change the way the offering is collected and to change the delivery of the Lord’s Supper that can make continued gathering safe and encouraging.

Recognize that in this decision, I am middle aged with younger children that are not as significantly affected by the disease. We also homeschool, which minimizes the danger that we pose to others, though my job puts me in contact with a range of people during the day.

Not to Gather

At the same time, there are some for whom getting COVID-19 is a factual, significant risk. It is entirely reasonable for those with compromised immune systems to remain home, especially since there is a fairly lengthy period of contagiousness while someone with the virus is asymptomatic.

Additionally, there are those for whom sickness would be a greater economic burden due to lack of paid time off. It may be wiser for someone with a greater risk exposure to listen online.

And there may be some people for whom the fear of the virus is so great that it makes being in a space like a local church a source of great stress. It should not be a misery to attend church. If someone is really that fearful, then they should stay at home.

Prudence and Grace

In this time when there is a great deal at stake and a great deal of confusion, the best policy is to begin by being prudent and gracious.

People who are not well should be encouraged to remain at home. Those with compromised immune systems should listen online. Church leaders should evaluate practices to minimize close contact and limit the risk of spread. These are all prudential measures. It may be necessary for a church to “meet online” for a couple of weeks if the area is experiencing a high level of infection.

This requires those who continue to gather to be gracious. Cancelling services due to an abundance of caution is not a failure to love Jesus; it is an attempt to love neighbors faithfully. We may not agree, but each should be convinced in his or her own conscience. Not cancelling services is not necessarily a sign that a congregation doesn’t love their neighbor; it is merely a way of recognizing the importance of corporate worship and the encouragement it offers.

In the end, this virus will pass like an inconvenient blip in the memory of most of us. But we must remember that some people are not going to make it through it. There is no reason to take undue risks to keep average attendance at a certain level. Grace and prudence are in order.

Obedience to Authority

In some cases, the government may recommend or, perhaps, require cancellation of services. This, again, is a matter of conscience. I believe that a temporary cessation of services would be wise in the face of a government order, because the intention is to preserve life and minimize spread. We should not feel obligated to meet simply to spite the government.

Romans 13:1 urges us, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

There are certainly limits to this, but it is unclear to me that it is absolutely necessary to resist a temporary order not to meet. In the face of real risk, and not simply religious persecution, I see a temporary cessation of in-person meetings as a reasonable accommodation, although I do not like it.

In the end prudence and grace must be measured out in equal shares again.

Conclusion

There is no simple answer to the question of what to do in light of COVID-19.

However, whatever we do should be done for God’s glory and with the love of our neighbor in mind. We should be careful not to bind each other’s consciences or see ourselves as better than others for our decision to gather or not.

Ultimately, God will judge our deeds and our motives. We should be thankful for his mercy.