The New Social System: Keeping Parents Out

Not content with dismantling the NHS and drastically reducing benefits for the disabled in this week’s budget, the British Government this week unveiled plans to scrap the requirement for parents to sit on school boards of governors. As the Christian Institute also reports, parents would still have the opportunity to sit on school boards, but it would no longer be mandatory in the case of academy schools (which could soon mean all schools).

This ought to come as disturbing news to anybody who doesn’t view education as merely a convenient form of free childcare. Parents should have a voice in the running of their children’s schools; removing the requirement for parents to sit on school boards will inevitably lead to a weakening of the role of parents, and could see many schools – sorry, academies – phasing out the involvement of parent-governors altogether.

After all, what incentive is there for corporate education providers to involve parents if they can promote people who will deliver value for shareholders instead? How might one place limits on ideologically motivated educators if the board of governors does not represent a diversity of viewpoints?

The news is all the more disturbing as it marks another step in the land-grab by Government for access to children in the British Isles. Scotland’s controversial Named Person scheme faces strong opposition, yet continues to be pushed by those who want to see the state become both monitor and arbiter of how children should be raised. It is clear that some in Scotland think that they know better than parents.

Meanwhile, “education” on sex and transgender issues is being pushed on younger and younger children, in spite of the scientific evidence that this is unnecessary and even harmful. Parents’ concerns are routinely brushed aside as schools make decisions that run counter to common sense in order to privilege a minority, with the result that, for example, boys who claim to be transgender may demand to be allowed to use girls’ toilets and changing facilities, regardless of the effect on the girls who have a right to privacy and respect as well.

There is an ever-increasing push to keep parents out of their children’s upbringing, and to insert the involvement of the state in their place. This will fall particularly hard on Christian parents who quite rightly want to participate actively in the life and direction of their children’s schools. Some secular, liberal parents may be more at ease with what children are being taught about sex, abortion, homosexuality and transgender issues, while others may not feel as passionately and hence are less likely to seek election to school boards.

I cannot pretend to know whether the British Government knows what it is doing in these matters, or whether it is simply following blindly the logic of the marketplace and/or kowtowing to its wealthy donors who have vested interests.

What is sure is that marginalising parents from school boards is another step towards increasing state control in family life and the development of our young people, and this will have consequences for freedom of thought and religion.

Can We Have our Civilisation Back? Reflections on what the ‘inclusive’ SNP conference of 2016 Teaches Us

Where is the new rationality on LGBT values taking us? (Reblogged from The Wee Flea)

TheWeeFlea.com

Imagine the scene. You are a delegate at a packed SNP conference – with thousands of others. On a high because the SNP is still riding high in the polls and on target to become the Scottish government again.   The SNP youth come forward with a motion that the SNP should support the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE). One delegate, teenager Gaela Hanlon declares

“I have seen first hand 13 year olds who have been bullied to the point where they hate themselves so much they want to kill themselves. It happens all the time. How long will we turn a blind eye to this? How many kids have to die?”

She receives a standing ovation. But you feel a little unease amidst all the euphoria.
Given that TIE wants to prevent such bullying, and the motion states that the purpose is to “Promote a safe, equal and accepting environment for…

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Me every day on the internet

Things I repeatedly find myself saying on the internet and social media:

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– That’s not true.

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– That missing person was found weeks ago.

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– That person was never missing in the first place.

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– That’s a very old hoax.

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– That hoax is older than your Mom.

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– That’s a new hoax.

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– Just kidding – it’s even older than the first one.

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– And your Mom.

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– No, Jesus didn’t say that.

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– And Christians don’t believe that.

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– Or do that.

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– Or that.

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– Not if they are serious about following Jesus, anyway.

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– Which is what actual Christianity is, y’know, about.

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– Yes, we do have evidence.

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– Again, that thing you reposted on Facebook is a hoax – check Snopes.

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– And Wikipedia.

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– And any reputable news source.

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– And real life.

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– The effect of that change in social mores has not been nearly so beneficial as you claim, on any number of metrics that are commonly accepted as indicators of health, security and wellbeing.

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– I know it’s only “one study”. It’s not the only one, and I’m telling you to keep an open mind.

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– You’ll get the “lots of studies” when I find time to write a book about it. Otherwise, the research is out there. Has it occurred to you that maybe the real science doesn’t sell newspapers?

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– Or that politicians don’t care about it?

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– Yes, man did land on the Moon.

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– No, we have not collaborated with aliens to build a secret base there.

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– The second shadow comes from sunlight reflected by Earth, not studio lighting.

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– No, not everything you read on Snopes is true.

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– Because not everybody on Snopes understands what they are talking about.

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– Or that opinion is not the same as logic, analysis or an impartial and thorough review of actual evidence.

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– Nibiru? No.

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– Because we would have seen it in all kinds of ways.

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– But not on your mobile phone.

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– Nor as a second sun mysteriously caught on a TV camera in one broadcast but also mysteriously invisible to billions of other people, millions of other cameras and the whole scientific community.

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– Could you take my word on this one? Or make a common-sense assessment?

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– Please?

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– Nor Planet X.

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– Nor chemtrails.

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– Guns. Kill. People.

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– Yes, there is a Planet 9.

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– But it doesn’t do the things you say Planet X does.

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– Which would make it not actually proof of your crackpot theory.

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– Well, the person who first published the Nibiru theory claimed to have been spoken to by aliens.

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– Via an implant in her brain.

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– But who am I to judge?

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– No, Hitler and the Nazis weren’t Christians.

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– Pretty sure, actually.

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– And they didn’t get caught up in a secret plot to perpetuate the Third Reich through the 1960s space race.

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– The proposed changes in the legislation are not nearly so benign and neutral as this pressure group makes out.

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– It’s not homophobic to point that out.

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– Or transphobic.

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– Or bigoted.

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– It’s called freedom of speech.

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– And thought.

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– Yes, if it has a penis and testicles that produce sperm, it’s probably still a man.

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– It’s not homophobic to point that out.

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– Or transphobic.

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– Or bigoted.

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– It’s called scientific fact.

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– And thought.

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– Which was what we believed in before we decided feelings were the ultimate arbitrator of reality.

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– And after we did away with God.

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– Look, just let me know when Caitlyn Jenner starts menstruating.

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– Could you please actually read the Bible?

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– And try to understand that a New Testament can repeal sections of an Old Testament?

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– Or ask a Christian what they believe?

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– And how they come to that belief?

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– And how they live it out in practice?

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– Rather than telling them they believe and do what Richard Dawkins told you they believe and do?

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– Or that lobby group.

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– Or the National Secularist Foundation of Societies for Freedom From Religion And Anything That Questions Our Unquestioning Self-Regard.

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– *yawn*

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– Yes, I do eat prawns.

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– But not oysters.

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– You may have misunderstood the purpose of that commandment in the Old Testament.

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– And imposed a 21st-century, post-modern view of justice and democracy upon it.

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– Because an unmarried woman who had been raped couldn’t just go and claim social security in 1500 BC Sinai, that’s why.

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– Ditto that commandment.

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– And that commandment.

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– Seriously? Yes, that commandment too.

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– It’s not just an unfeeling clump of cells.

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– Three words: Abortion to term.

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– Liberal Christians don’t want to believe the Bible any more than you do. The clue’s in the name.

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– I know Rob Bell said it.

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– But Jesus didn’t.

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– If Jesus didn’t talk about that thing, maybe it was because it was already commonly understood in that era from 1,500 years of Jewish history and law.

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– Have you seen oysters? Seriously, no, thank you!

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– No, it’s not a Delusion.

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– And the translators do know what they are doing.

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– And the real history of the Crusades is not like that.

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– The evidence is there – you just have to investigate it honestly.

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– For yourself.

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– Because if Richard Dawkins is as blinkered, unresearched and biased as you are,* then it’s the blind leading the blind.

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– Well, there’s a chance that if you investigate these things for yourself you will achieve that thing that you’re always insisting I should do.

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– “What’s that?”

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– Learn something that will open your eyes.   :o)

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PS:

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– No, Jesus won’t turn you away for believing in Nibiru.

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– Salvation comes by faith in a God who has revealed Himself in numerous ways.

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– Not by passing a science test.

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Thank you for reading.

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*There is plenty of evidence that this is so.

Worth reading, from Christian Today: Hey, secularists! You don’t have a monopoly on truth (and neither do Christians)

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