I am glad that this home-schooling family has graduated superior students. I couldn't help but wonder if the superior education their children received was due to the parents choosing to home school, or because of their willingness to put their children's education under the authority of the state.I'm glad that the family believes their religious rights have not been violated. One of the points we have been making is that not all Christians will feel the way we do on this. As we continued to grow and mature in our faith, we have come to the realization that our religious rights have been violated, and will continue to be violated if we are required to turn over the supervision of our home education program to the state.
They believe that being accountable to someone outside of their home has been helpful. We have continued to state that if there are home-school families who believe they need some outside accountability in order to provide a top-notch education to their children, then they are free to pursue that accountability.
Our family believes that we are providing a top-notch education, and we do not need state-sponsored accountability in order to make that provision.
Our purpose is not to defy authority. The question is, whose rules do we follow? God's rules or man's? When man's rules, or laws, supercede God's rules, then we choose to follow God.
Yes, Romans chapter 13 instructs Christians to submit to the governing authorities, and we are doing that using Pennsylvania's Religious Freedom Protection Act.
This is a viable and lawful way for those who believe their religious freedoms have been violated to respond to those violations. So no, we are in no way disobeying "the very Bible they profess to obey!"
Another example of this would be the missionaries who defy man's rules when smuggling Bibles into countries where the Scriptures are illegal ... or where they serve God as "covert missionaries" in countries where Christianity is outlawed. Yes, man's law says that is not to be done. But God's law supercedes man's law in this case.
And no, we are not looking to apply the RFPA to any other area of our life. We are not "picking and choosing" which laws to obey and which ones to not obey. Again, we are using the current RFPA in a lawful manner.
Our children do obey and respect authority, starting with God's authority, and working from that point.
When the laws or rules of man restrict our ability to follow God's rules, then our response is the same as that of Peter and John, who had been ordered to stop preaching the Gospel.
Their response was, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God." Acts 4:19
Darrell H. Combs,
Indiana
