May 2003 Archives

Today I thank the Lord for blessing me with thirty-eight revolutions around the sun. God has been so wonderful and so merciful and so kind to me, a man undeserving in every respect. Special thanks for God’s provision of a child comforter in the form of my daughter Jubilee who is traveling with me this weekend. This is the first birthday I can remember being apart from my bride.

It was my pleasure to return for the second time in five years to the Kansas state home school conference, brilliantly managed by the Middelton family. Brian and Kathy Middelton have been at it for sixteen years and are finally passing the baton to others, but do so with the blessed assurance that their highly professional work has not only set a standard of excellence for conference management, but has resulted in the blessing of many tens of thousands of Christians over the years.

My messages included “6,000 Years of Home Education and Covenant Faithfulness,” “Christian Controversies in American History,” “What’s a Girl to Do?,” and “Rebuilding a Culture of Virtuous Boyhood.” During my talk on controversies in American history, I reminded the Kansans that their community had once been ravaged by one of the most evil men in American history, John Brown, a terrorist who shot children on account of their parentage.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: The Secret Six by Otto Scott is the best book on the evil movement known as abolitionism which funded America’s first terrorist, John Brown, and did so in the name of anti-Christian Unitarianism. Christians should be aware that being anti-slavery and being anti-abolitionist were not incompatable sentiments for both Southerners and Northerners in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 31, 2003 | Permalink

I am daily receiving numerous heartfelt letters from Christians who have been touched by the Faith of Our Fathers film clip, and who want to share the stories of their own fathers. Nine times out of ten, I discover that these veterans, now in their eighties, have only recently begun to share with their families their own experience about the war. I believe the stories must be told. They must be told to honor the principle communicated by the Lord in Psalm 78. Below is a very small sampling of the many notes I have received from home educators about their parents and grandparents:

From Matt Chancey: “You simply must interview my grandfather — Bill Snead. He is the gentleman who is your oldest Witherspoon alumni if you recall. His beloved wife, my grandmother, died in February after 60+ years of marriage. He flew P-47s in the Pacific and flew top-cover over the “Mighty Mo” Battleship when the surrender papers were being signed. He loved and honored his father and taught me growing up that honoring your parents is something that must be done long after they’re dead. He has started a youth camp for abused children in his local community. He works at a local soup kitchen taking meals to the elderly — even though he is 83 years old this Saturday.”

From a Home School Mother of Four: “Thank you so much for your work on Faith of Our Fathers. I just viewed the trailer and it meant much to me — Colonel Henderson reminds me so much of my dear husband, still serving in the Army in Kuwait. (He’s been gone for seven months and has yet to meet his fourth child, born while he was gone.) Anyway, thank you for reminding me (not that I’ve actually forgotten) why I married my dear husband, and why I share him with the world as an officer in the U.S. Army. I can’t wait to watch the trailer with him when he gets home in a few weeks, and I know that the film will inspire him as he prepares to take command of a military intelligence brigade next summer.”

From the Son of an Iwo Survivor: “I look forward to seeing Faith of Our Fathers. My father was a young Marine on Iwo Jima as well, having survived the battles of Bougaineville and Guam without serious injury, which was remarkable in view of the high casualty rate within his unit. He said he often wondered why he was spared, but back at home my grandmother and aunt were up praying all night for him, when they heard on the radio that his unit was in battle. His parents and grandparents were people of strong Christian faith, and this essential underpinning saw him through the dangers and trials.”

From a Friend of a Vet: “I have a friend, Stan, from church who served in World War II. He was given the purple heart and saw many comrades fall. He spent most of his time in Europe, especially Italy. I greatly appreciate his stories of that time. He always mentions to people the great influence his crippled father had on him when he summoned Stan to his bedside (the night before he had to report for duty) and asked him to memorize Psalm 91. Stan did so and is convinced that God spared his life and purity through his father’s prayers.”

From a Proud Nephew: “If you are interested in interviewing WWII veterans, I would like to give you the name of my uncle. Albert Albrecht served in WWII with the ghost army. They were a decoy unit, which used inflatable tanks to trick the enemy. He is a very godly man, and he too was silent about the war for fifty years, since the army had a gag order in place. He now gives talks at schools and is working to preserve this time period of history.”

From a Home School Mother of Two: “I am a forty-four-year-old home school mom of two children who have been given to my husband and I for a time. My father is a WWII veteran of the Pacific theatre. He was on a destroyer, the U.S.S. Hansen for part of the war and was at the Phillipines, Okinawa, Iwo Jima during the war. My father also does not talk much about his war experiences. However, whenever he does, we listen intently. He was assigned to the boiler room — the part of the ship which got little recognition — however, was the first to go down if there was ever a direct hit. (The boiler room is below sea level.) My dad is now seventy-five years old and will always be a hero to me. He was a wonderful Christian father who set examples for a lifetime. Whenever I or my brother needed direction or discipline, he didn’t lecture us — he turned to the Bible and showed us the passage which was relevant from God’s Word. How could we argue with that? We didn’t. My dad is a man of deep emotion, however, he does suppress the expression of it whenever he can. Perhaps this is a trait of those brave young men who were raised during the Depression and other difficult times of our history. However, my father never let me lack for love. He will tear up upon the remembrance of those young men who were not yet shaving, yet they died for our country. They never were able to experience marriage, children, many Christmases, grandchildren, etc. Let us all remember these very brave young men who died on foreign soil to protect our country. I salute them will all of my heart.”

From Doug’s Bookshelf: Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers. Bantam Books, 2000, 376 pages. I have yet to complete this book, but am finding the story utterly compelling, not only for the history related, but because it is written by the son of John Bradley, one of the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima, but a man who would not speak of the event to his own family. Stephen Ambrose has called Flags of Our Fathers “the best book about men in battle that I’ve ever read.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 29, 2003 | Permalink

Yesterday, I watched the most remarkable of events. Almost sixty years after parachuting from his plummeting P51 Mustang over Tokyo Harbor, Bill Brown met for the first time the man who may have helped to down his plane. Commander Buck Bunn was one of the pilots engaging the enemy over Japan on May 29, 1945, with then-2nd Lieutenant Bill Brown. Both men remember the day vividly. The sky was bright blue and filled with hundreds of planes. Two American Mustangs would be shot down on that day. Only one of the pilots would parachute and survive. That was Bill Brown. In fact, it was later determined that friendly fire from a B-29 was responsible for the downing of the plane. Buck Bunn flew a B-29 in the vicinity of Brown, and personally observed him jump out of the plane. No one can be sure that Bunn shot down Brown, but the evidence clearly points to that as a realistic possibility.

Now, almost fifty-eight years to the day, the two men meet for the first time and recalled the events of May 29, 1945. They laugh as the one pilot turns to the other and apologizes:

“Sorry if I shot you down,” Bunn says.

“No problem. Don’t worry about it,” Brown replies.

There it is. The ancient score is settled.

Those of us observing the meeting watch with a mixture of pure delight and near disbelief.

Also present for the meeting is Colonel Bill Henderson, Marine Corps veteran of D-Day on Iwo Jima. Larger than life in every respect, Henderson is the most tenacious, intense, yet humorous warrior I have met from that era. Cane in hand, hat on head, and completely Kiplingesque in his attire, one cannot gaze at his visage without thinking that Colonel Henderson looks much like what one would expect from a genetic merging of Douglas Macarthur with Winston Churchill.

Henderson, Brown, and Bunn are a sight to behold. The three of these men reminisce and share their kinship as fellow warriors and brothers in Christ. All three are featured in the new upcoming Vision Forum film The Faith of Our Fathers, currently in production. (Click here to watch the trailer.)

The occasion of the gathering of these and other veterans from the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Afghanistan, was a special Christian Memorial Day extravaganza sponsored by Scott Brown (boardmember for Vision Forum Ministries) and Trinity Baptist Church of Rolesville, North Carolina (where Scott serves as elder). Those present were treated to free southern barbecue, jeep rides (WWII Willies), a live “big band” orchestra playing vintage WWII music, Civil War songs, games, and messages presented by the above mentioned veterans, Dr. Paige Patterson, and myself. From beginning to end, the event was splendiferous.

Especially blessed were the many families who attended, some traveling eight to ten hours to be present. Some of my friends (pictured below), the Michael Thomas family, traveled from Rhode Island.

Dr. Paige Patterson, Scott Brown, and I addressed the veterans on the issue of war as a parable of salvation and rescue — one man lays down his life for others. My two messages were titled respectively “The Heroism of the Fathers is the Legacy of the Sons” and “The Faith of the Fathers is the Foundation of the Future.” After the messages, Dr. Patterson and I spent a happy hour swapping stories about Africa. Patterson’s office is legendary for the numerous trophies displayed there, including lions and leopards he bagged during expeditions through the bush, but I wanted to hear the stories first hand.

After the Memorial Day event, I spent an hour interviewing on camera Commander Buck Bunn, age 78, on the life and times of a B-29 pilot fighting in the Pacific Theater during WWII. By his own admission, Bunn was a bit of a rascal during the war. However, his Christian parents left an indelible mark on his life. Their influence on him, even during his season of rebellion, ultimately culminated in his salvation in Christ after the war.

My two sons and David Brown, age 11, prepared a campfire late that night and made fresh coffee for Scott and me using pond water and MRE rations. We didn’t mind the muddy water. Somewhere around midnight, Scott and I jumped into a few sleeping bags, while the boys set up and slept in a small tent given to David by a Special Forces officer who recently returned from a half year in Afghanistan. It poured rain throughout the night, but we happily endured for the sake of the experience with the boys.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: I am currently reading a moving and dramatic tribute to the men who fought with Bill Henderson entiled Iwo Jima: Legacy of Valor. The book (which was loaned to me by Scott Brown) was authored by Bill D. Ross and first published in 1985 by Vintage Press, a division of Random House.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 27, 2003 | Permalink

This Sunday I preached in North Carolina at Trinity Baptist Church of Rolesville in a temporary open air tent pavillion assembled for Monday’s Memorial Day celebration. My text was Titus 2 and Galations 4, and my topic concerned the release of sons and the biblical test for adult maturity on the part of young men. One point I would like to mention in today’s blog is that young men are specifically commanded to act like older men. According to Titus 2, they are not only to be grave, sincere, and of sound doctrine, but they are to temper the temptation toward endless philosophizing by practical acts of good works among the brethren. Good works and a servant-like spirit are a wonderful antidote to the plague of anti-authoritarian, self-emancipating, philosopher kings which perdiodically infect and neutralize the effectiveness of some of the best and the brightest in Evangelical Christianity.

After the meeting of the church we enjoyed a delightful afternoon which included sitting around the piano with Scott and his daughter Kelly playing hymns and music from the soundtrack of God’s and Generals on piano and guitar.

Also that day Scott Brown did a wonderful job of addressing the local church on the qualifications for deacons. I especially appreciate the fact that he emphasized not only the requirements placed by Scripture on deacons, but the requirements which Scripture mandates for their wives. Men whose wives are discontent or gossips are specifically barred from the deaconate. Later we were privileged to observe eight baptisms in Scott’s pond, including Scott’s own daughter Claudia pictured below.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: I do recommend the book Biblical Eldership, by Alexander Strauch, as a very helpful introduction to the doctrine of eldership. It also comes with a helpful study guide.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 26, 2003 | Permalink

Our team of Christian home educators and paleontologists began the daunting task of excavating a Brachiosaur believed to be one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet in length. Like Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, and Argentinasaurus to name a few, the Brachiosaur on which we are working is a species of Sauropod, the very kind of animal described in Job 40 as the Behemoth. These animals are simply enormous. Evidence from fossilized dinosaur excrement indicates that they were herbivorous creatures and the biblical record reinforces this conclusion.

It was simply joyful to begin our day with prayer and a reading from Scripture about this amazing dinosaur, and then look face-to-face into the fossil graveyard of its bones. The animal is remarkably well preserved and nicely articulated in the rock matrix. The novices on our trip are learning to identify bone and to use a variety of tools, from rock picks to pneumatic precision drills called “chicagos.” Our first day yeilded so many new finds of bones that we have had to slow down the discovery process. Each newly-discovered dinosaur bone brings with it the responsibility of careful preservation and excavation. Some of the bones are in excess of eight feet in length and will require the better part of a week to properly remove. My personal prayer and vision is that these young men and ladies working on this site will someday have the privilege of seeing their work and discoveries presented to the general public through Creation museums which will tell the true story of their death and destruction at the time of the global deluge.

One of the massive Brachiosaur ribs we will be excavating and restoring.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: Creation and Change: Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms, by Douglas Kelly is one of the most helpful exegetical analyses on the market of the first two chapters of Genesis. This book is a must-have tool for those who hold to the historical, literal-gramatical approach to Bible interpretation and who seek to refute the various compromise theories which plague the seminaries of America.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 21, 2003 | Permalink

Today was spent preaching on worldview, history, and fatherhood at the San Antonio FEAST home school conference. One of the reasons why I enjoy these conferences so much is the eclecticism of the families who attend. A conference never passes without gloriously diverse and often passionate discussions with multi-flavored Christians on things of God. Today, I enjoyed a delightful discussion with a dear Mennonite brother who was blessed by many of my conclusions about generational faithfulness and Christian community, but who struggled with my theology which understands the Bible to teach continuity between Old and New Testament and embraces the sovereignty of God. Of the greatest concern to him, however, was that I would put pop-guns in the hands of little boys since “that breeds un-Christian violence.” I explained that God designed boys to be protectors and providers. Consequently, in my view it was the obligation of fathers to teach their sons how to use firearms for the purpose of self defense (and even provision of food), and that the Anabaptist position on “passive non resistance” was not only unbiblical, it was downright wicked and contrary to Scripture. Men should be ashamed of thinking themselves spiritual to sit and watch as their wives and children are molested and shot or their nation invaded. We agreed to disagree and parted as brothers. Earlier that day, I did a live radio broadcast on WKSLR for the Adam McManus show, discussing everything from home education to the problems with feminism. Great fun.

Beall and I first began participating in the FEAST conferences eight years ago and view the families who run this organization as among the finest in the nation. They are like family to us. We are especially grateful for the steady leadership and faithfulness of FEAST leaders Ruth and Gavino Perez, who for more than a decade have played a landmark role in encouraging the 6,000 plus home educators who live in San Antonio.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: Little Bear’s Outdoor Adventure Guide for the All-American Boy is 191 pages of pure boyhood. Here your sons will learn to trap, to build snares, to tan hides, to make cabins and shelters, and to do the things that boys love to do — and should do — to prepare them to be men. Available from Vision Forum.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 16, 2003 | Permalink

Today my son Joshua turned ten, so I took him to I.H.O.P. where I presented him with a special crocodile knife I had purchased for him from a reptile farm in the swamps of Florida a year ago in anticipation of his entry into the double digits. During our time together, we talked about what God had done in his life, my own dedication to his training, his obligations as a first born, and the legacy of his father and grandfather which we hope he will supercede by God’s grace. My mission is not that he would succeed (as the world defines success), but that he would succeed his parents and keep covenant with the God of his fathers. This is my prayer for all seven of my children. The anniversary of his birth is exciting to him, but it is sobering to me. He is losing his boyish ways and quickly becoming a man. How bittersweet. How wonderful. How overwhelming. This anniversary also means that the number of years I have to “train him up” and pass on to him what my father passed on to me is diminishing. May God help us to redeem the time, and enjoy it every step of the way.

“Oh Father of Lights, have mercy on this beloved son, who has been the strength of my arm for the last ten years, and give me grace and wisdom to faithfully shepherd him into the future.”

From Doug’s Bookshelf: America’s Jubilee by distinguished historian Andrew Burstein was one of my most enjoyed historical reads of 2002. Published by Knopf in 2001, this book is the delightfully written account of how, in 1826, a generation remembered fifty years of independence and how Americans sought to embrace the legacy of their predecessors. The highpoint of the work was the lengthy account of the triumphant twenty-four state American tour of the Marquis de Lafayette for the jubilee. As the only surviving general of the War for Independence, and the “adopted son” of Washington, Lafayette was welcomed with adulation and enthusiasm.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 15, 2003 | Permalink

We are prayerfully seeking the Lord to aid us in our conference preparation. This year, the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy will feature Judge Roy Moore and his attorney in the Ten Commandments case, John Eidesmoe. The Faith and Freedom Tour will be going back to New England, but with a special twist — we will be having the tour in November to allow us to enjoy Thanksgiving in Plymouth. Also exciting are the three up-and-coming dinosaur digs, one next week, and two in August.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: Even if you do not plan on attending the Faith and Freedom Tour, I recommend Dr. Paul Jehle’s Plymouth in the Words of Her Founders, published by Vision Forum in 2002. This is the first distinctively historical and Christian tour guide to the monuments and sites of America’s home town. It is a testimony to the blessing that occurs in a nation when we “remove not the ancient landmarks.”

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 14, 2003 | Permalink

My trip this weekend to Wisconsin CHEA was my third or fourth opportunity to keynote that state’s home school conference in ten years. Each time I have been impressed by the stalwart commitment of the Wisconsin state leaders to using the conference as a vehicle for casting vision and speaking fundamental biblical truth to home educators. It is a fair saying that the philosophical commitment which the state leaders bring to their conferences determines and defines the spirit of the home school movement in that state for the next year. Because of the ever changing face of the home school movement, and the growth of secularism in certain circles, it is all the more important that we always go back to basics, cast a biblical vision, and speak the fundamental truths. Future generations will remember these conferences as crucial for the great revival of parents, whose hearts have been enlarged toward their children. Remember to support those home school leaders on the front lines of truth communication in your state.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: The best book on the history of education in America is R.J. Rushdoony’s The Messianic Character of American Education, published by Ross House Books. I argue that this book and The Genesis Flood, by Whitcomb and Morris (published by Puritan and Reformed) are the two books most responsible for the launch in the 1960s of the movement toward presuppositionally biblical education, of which home schooling was the culmination. The latter launched the Creationist movement and forced the antithesis on the issue of evolution in the schools, and the former proved, beyond a doubt, the evangelistic mission of the modern state to advance the cause of humanism through education. These books changed my life. Also wonderful is Sam Blumenfeld’s Is Public Education Necessary?, published by the Paradigm Company.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 13, 2003 | Permalink

Today my son Joshua and I travel to the Wisconsin state home school conference to present some workshops and keynotes. With rare exception, I always travel with at least one member of my family. The children rotate, taking turns at travel. The family rule is that, as soon as they are out of diapers, they get to go with Daddy. Of course, this creates a helpful incentive to reduce our diaper bill. Some people find it odd that I would travel with children age three to ten, but it has always been a joy for me, and I welcome the opportunity to begin the training process early. Sometimes it is a balancing act to present a message before an audience and watch my children at the same time, but perceptive viewers will notice that I have my own secret code that I often communicate to my children through winks, nods, and motions — even when giving a speech. Sometimes I feel a bit of a failure and highly inadequate at the task, but I never regret having them with me. Ever. My prayer is that, when they look back on their childhood, they will never remember a time when they were not intimately involved in Mommy and Daddy’s life work, or when they were not spending special personal time with Daddy. We have little traditions we observe. For example, I always let them pick out a special book from one of the other home school vendors, and I usually bring one fun DVD which we watch together in the evening on my laptop. Another tradition is that we have a never-ending adventure story that I tell them in the evening time. Of course, they are the star of the story. They usually present me with drawings of Daddy talking in front of the group. I keep every one in a box. This may create a storage problem, but throwing them away is like cutting off my ties to their childhood, and I cannot seem to do it.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: This week Josh and I are reading about Freddy the Pig in Freddy and the Perilous Adventure by Walter Brooks. It is not a distinctively Christian book, but I read it for multi-generational purposes — my grandfather read it to my mother, my mother read it to me, and it allows me to tell stories of my childhood and my dear mother. I would describe Freddy as Mr. Toad meets P.G. Wodehouse. The multi-volumed Freddy series was recently republished, true to the original dust jackets and format, by Overlook Press in 2001. Hilarious.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 8, 2003 | Permalink

One of my most important goals as a father is to train my sons to be best friends for life. This has been my theme with them since their birth. I have thought and vigorously prayed about this for years. A week does not go by when I do not discuss with them the importance of brotherhood. Today, they are best friends, but I do not presume upon tomorrow. For my part, I want to be faithful, and never take for granted by my inaction God’s wonderful grace. (I realize the best of my efforts are meaningless apart from His divine grace.) However, because I believe in covenantal faithfulness, I recognize that eternal vigilance and proactive parenting are non-optional. I will reap what I sow. With this in mind, I encourage my boys to stick together, to protect each other, to do just about everything together, to physically and to vigorously wrestle with each other (but to finish by shaking hands and hugging), to encourage and respect each other’s unique giftings, and to never let the sun go down with an unresolved problem between themselves.

Why this seemingly obsessive passion for cultivating brotherly affection? I am painfully aware that the history of the world is the story of how fratricide destroys families and nations. From Cain and Abel to the American Civil War, Hebraic and Western civilization has been tainted by struggle between brothers. Ron Maxwell, director of my favorite film, Gods and Generals, described how this theme factored into his epic:

“In Gods and Generals, for example, I have Chamberlain, who was a professor of rhetoric and religion and had studied the classics, look across the Rappahannock from Stafford Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg while quoting from Lucanus’ epic poem about the Roman Civil War. As Hancock’s division crosses the Rappahannock Chamberlain talks about Caesar’s cohorts crossing the Rubicon. Because the conflict is as old as Cain and Abel these images resonate through history.”

Along this line, I found John Waugh’s book, The Class of 1846, to be a compelling overview of the problem in the context of West Point. No single group of men at any American military academy were ever so indelibly written into history as the class of 1846, whose graduates included Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George “Edward” Pickett, and many others. The class split almost fifty/fifty between Northern and Southern commands, a division which paralleled the untold tens of thousands of fraternal splinters occurring throughout the country. In his foreword to Waugh’s book, James McPherson explains:

“The description of the American Civil War as a war of brothers is more than a cliché. The war did divide families, especially in the border states. In hundreds of cases brother and brother, uncle and nephew, even father and son or son-in-law chose different sides. More than once they faced each other on the battle field. Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, whose ill-fated compromise proposal of 1861 failed to avert war, had one son who became a Union general and another who became a Confederate general. Seven brothers and brothers-in-law of Mary Todd Lincoln fought against the army whose commander in chief was her husband. In a metaphorical as well as a literal sense it was a brothers’ war.”

From Doug’s Bookshelf: The Class of 1846: From West Point to Appomattox: Stonewall Jackson, George McClellan and their Brothers, by John Waugh, published by Ballentine. 1994.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 7, 2003 | Permalink

Beall and I are pleased to announce that God has given us our seventh child, expected due in December. From the depths of our hearts we give thanks to God. We actively prayed for this child, and rejoice that God gave us the child. We are so happy!

When parents discover that they have conceived a child through the blessing of God, the first question they ask themselves is, “When should we announce the exciting news?” Some, especially those who have suffered the tragedy of miscarriage, understandably prefer to wait to see what will happen. Some years ago I was influenced by a comment made to me by my friend Scott Sommerville, one of the attorneys at the Home School Legal Defense. Scott pointed out that, because the unborn baby is a complete human with a soul from the moment of conception, the primary issue is not even the fears of the parents, but the living reality of that child who deserves our prayers and that of others from the moment we know of his existence. The sooner we announce, the sooner that human being benefits from the prayers of others. This is all the more true where there is a history of miscarriage. I found that reasoning persuasive.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: On matters of sociology, I find it very helpful to read the “enemy” scholarship. While their interpretations are usually horrific, the data presented is often enormously helpful to understand history from a biblical-covenantal-patriarchal perspective. One example is a volume I picked up entitled Childbearing in America 1650-1850, by Catherine M. Scholten. New York University Press. 1985. The author traces changes in the experience of motherhood from the colonial period to the industrial revolution, and makes the feminist argument that motherhood became more sacred as a result of fewer births. The exact opposite was true.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 6, 2003 | Permalink

Children embrace the passions of their parents, when those passions are wholeheartedly shared with the children. My father shared his passion for history and literature by constantly reading to me. When one considers the literature and studies to which the Puritans and later the Founding Fathers exposed their children, it is no wonder that their culture produced such a godly and literate generation of young men and women. From their earliest age, they were challenged not only to know the Word of God but to be well-read. For my part, I am convinced that even advanced literature can be made meaningful and exciting to young children when presented with the necessary enthusiasm and explanations from Dad or Mom.

This week I am reading Beowulf to all six of my children, age nine and under. We began tonight with a good one-hour reading. The experience was glorious. My children sat transfixed during the reading, and then begged me to keep reading, especially the boys who love discussions of swords, dragons, and battles. Books like Beowulf must be read with passion, clear enunciation, and regular pauses for explanation and discussion, or else you will lose the benefit of reading the story to children, half of which is found in the rich and guttural language, the metrical composition, and the descriptive phraseology. The beauty of Beowulf is not only its literary brilliance, but its rich Creationist theme, which dominates the epic from its discussion of Cain and Abel and references to the Nephilim of Genesis 7, to one of the antagonists of the story, the dragon, a clear, historic reference to dinosaurs living contemporaneous with man. For these and other reasons, it has long been my view that Beowulf is one of the ten most important works of Christian literature in history. Bill Cooper’s landmark work of scholarship, After the Flood, not only chronologically traces the lineage of Japeth directly to Anglo-Saxon Europe, but provides a brilliant overview of Beowulf from a Creationist perspective. Dr. John Morris and I both believe After the Flood is one of the most interesting and unique works of Creationist scholarship to appear in more than a decade.

The particular volume of Beowulf we are enjoying offers the poem in both the original language and a literal English translation. I like to read both to my children so they can understand the story, but also retain a sense of the power of the original language, and to familiarize them with the cadence and meter employed by the ancient bard.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: After the Flood, by Bill Cooper, published by New Wine Press. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, by Seamus Heaney, (Bilingual Edition), published by Farar, Straus and Giroux. 2000.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 5, 2003 | Permalink

I recently returned from keynoting at the Hawaii state home school conference where my entire family (including my beloved mother) enjoyed the hospitality of one of the most delightful state home school boards in America. Under the able leadership of the Alejado family, this group has brought a tremendous message of hope and family renewal to the Aloha State. Mahalo to these God-blessed servants of Christ. (After the conference I went out with one of the state leaders and enjoyed a morning of surfing. Later that day I had the joy of teaching my son Joshua to ride his first wave on a long board. We surfed in a location populated by older Hawaiian men, aged sixty and older. I was amazed to watch them, many of whom were large and pot-bellied, as they caught the waves with seeming effortlessness.)

During our visit to Oahu, my family and I studied and became intrigued with the remarkable story of Princess Ka’iulani, the Christian Hawaiian princess whose ancestry was linked to the heathen Kamehameha ruling family of past centuries, and the Reformed Christian tradition of the Scots, through her mother and father respectively. As a young girl, she benefited from a wonderful home education and even sat at the feet of her good friend Robert Louis Stevenson during his visits to the island. As an adult, she would wow the West with her Christian orthodoxy, poise and dignity, fluency in five languages, and courageous spirit. That spirit was proved when Hawaii was assaulted by American businessmen in the late 1890s. These merchants illegally besieged the royal Hawaiian palace and deposed the monarchy to pave the way for American annexation. The fate of the country rested with the crown princess. When news of her arrival in America to plead the cause of her nation hit the press, she was at first labeled a barbarian princess. But Ka’iulani would put her critics to shame with her beauty, grace, poise, erudition, and distinctively Christian message. Speaking to American legislators, she declared:

“Seventy years ago Christian America sent over Christian men and women to give religion and civilization to Hawaii. Today three of the sons of those missionaries are at your capitol asking you to undo their father’s work.... Today, I a poor, weak girl, with not one of my people near me and all these statesmen against me, have the strength to stand up for the rights of my people. Even now I can hear their wail in my heart, and it gives me strength and I am strong ... strong in the faith of God, strong in the knowledge that I am right, strong in the strength of seventy million people who in this free land will hear my cry...”

Ka’iulani, the crown princess of Hawaii, was seventeen when she confronted the American people, their legislators and leaders, with the Gospel and the Golden Rule. She died at age twenty-three. All of Hawaii mourned.

From Doug’s Bookshelf: For more on this remarkable Christian daughter of destiny, you might consider: Princess Ka’iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People, by Sharon Linnea, published by Eerdmans. 1999. This book will be available through Vision Forum beginning May 15, 2003.

Posted by Doug Phillips on May 3, 2003 | Permalink