"The latest" from CHEC

A friend forwarded a scanned copy of the following letter from Kevin Swanson, executive director of CHEC, dated June 4, 2009.

Links provided within the body of the letter are mine.

After 10 years serving as Executive Director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado, I will be taking on new responsibilities with CHEC. The board has appointed another Executive Director to succeed me, effective September 1, 2009. Mike Chapa will serve as the new Executive Director. For the last twenty years, Mike has served in the United States Air Force as a fighter pilot and as an instructor at the United States Air Force Academy. Recently, Mike and his wife Tonya have volunteered time to serve CHEC on the conference committee. They have homeschooled their six children from the outset.

This does not mean that I am retiring from CHEC. (As I recall, my original contract doesn't allow me to retire until I get to heaven!) I will continue as Director of CHEC's national operations under the Generations with Vision ministry.

Over the last ten years, we have seen CHEC grow by a factor of 400% in its bottom-line expenditures (and income). We have seen CHEC surface as a national leader for the homeschooling vision. Over the last decade, we have worked hard to emphasize a Christ-centered approach in a world given to man-centered, child-centered, God-ignoring methods of education.

Where public schools are increasingly hostile to any reference to the Bible or the fear of God as the beginning of knowledge in science and history classrooms, we have asserted just the opposite. You may have seen that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals disallowed the reading of the Bible in a Kindergarten class for show-and-tell! The Chief Judge in the case rejected any "reading of religious
texts," but forgot to mention the materialist worldview, the humanist worldview, the new age worldview, or the Muslim worldview in his brief. Every science and history textbook holds to some basic religious perspective relating to the nature of the universe, the essence of reality, the purpose of life, etc., etc. It is only the Christian worldview that is thoroughly repudiated by this increasingly aggressive, secular-humanist state. What little Christian worldview is left in this country is coming from homeschools and a very few Christian schools.

With the secularization of society, we have witnessed a steady corruption of the family and freedom, and of course, the inevitable move towards big-government socialism. We truly believe that we are struggling to retain something of the Christian faith, of family integrity, and freedom for our families in the generations to come. The way your children will live - their single parent rates, their divorce rates, their political perspectives, their support for euthanasia in the 2024 elections, their imploding birth rates, will all depend on the sort of social environment and the education program you give them in 2009.

We sit on the very cutting edge of the battle of worldviews - and the stakes are very high. Please pray especially for the CHEC Family Conference at the Denver Merchandise Mart, scheduled for June 18-20, 2009. We have had more problems with attacks from the enemy than [at] any other time that I can remember in CHEC history, and many of my good friends from other ministries have witnessed similar all-out attack[s] as well. We must be doing something right! I would ask that you pray for increased attendance, and an unimpeded course for our wonderful speakers that have agreed to stand with us in the storms.

With God's blessings,

Kevin Swanson
Executive Director

Several things strike me about the letter:

• CHEC's name refers to the Christian Home Educators of Colorado, yet the focus of CHEC's executive director for the past . . . while . . . has been (and is now being recognized as) "national" and on something, really, other than home education in Colorado.
  
  One can understand the mission drift.
  
  Swanson was a committed Theonomist/Reconstructionist/Dominionist before he began to work with CHEC.
  
  But then I can imagine his personal mental (and, quickly, the organization's mission) drift:
  
  
  • Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
     
  • Christian Home Education.
     
  • Christian Education.
     
  • Discipleship.
     
  • . . . I'm training my son.
     
  • He's my apprentice.
     
  • Apprenticeship.
     
  • Mentorship.
     
  • . . . My son is very entrepreneurial.
     
  • Entrepreneurship.
     
  • CHEC Apprenticeship, Mentorship, Entrepreneurship Program.
     
  • . . . My son.
     
  • A boy.
     
  • I need to help him become a real man.
     
  • The Vision Forum All-American Boy's Adventure Catalog.
     
  • Doug Phillips--a fellow-traveler on the Reconstructionist/Dominionist/Theonomic road!
     
  • Patriarchy. [I have found Cindy Kunsman to provide a lot of deeply insightful analysis of various spiritually abusive people, groups and practices. I think it is appropriate that I should provide a link to a page that collects everything she has written on her blog that touches on patriarchy.]
     
  • Generations with Vision.
     
  • Our message needs to get out to a national audience.
     
  • National ministry . . .
  
  ETA at 12:17 p.m. on Thursday, June 11: I wrote out this list partially for my own edification. My own heart and mind follows these kinds of paths. . . . And I think it can often be a good thing for a man or woman of God to be "listening" to these stirrings of the heart. They may, in fact, be God's "still small voice." So we have to be sensitive to that.
  
  But I think we also--those of us who are involved in providing leadership to organizations larger than our families-- . . . we also have to be careful not to confuse our personal call with the call of the organization. We have to beware dragging the organization down a path to which it really hasn't been called.
  
  I am disturbed to see how HSLDA, for example, seemed to get dragged into conservative Republican political interests that were on founder Mike Farris' heart but that were really distinct from what HSLDA itself was founded to achieve. Same thing, now, when we look at CHEC.
  
  And I have had to be careful about my interests that are distinct from Sonlight Curriculum
  
  Each organization--or, at least, each "brand" within an organization--needs to have its own distinct, and very clear purpose. And the leader--and the board that oversees the leader--needs to be vigilant that he or she doesn't lead the organization down a primrose path away from the valid goal for which it was founded (as long as that goal remains useful).
  
  If the original purpose no longer exists, then acknowledge the fact and re-brand yourself. But don't let Christian Home Educators of Colorado hold onto its name while it becomes the Kevin Swanson Publishing House, the Kevin Swanson Radio Hour, the Young Men's Apprenticeship, Mentorship, Entrepreneurship League or something else equally removed from the founding and still-stated purpose of the mother organization.
   
• I am hopeful that Swanson's appointment to a "national operations" position . . . and the appointment of a new "general" executive director for CHEC might signal a return of focus for the organization to what its name claims it should be all about. That could be a very good thing.
   
• Everything about Christ-centered v. man-centered education, etc.: Amen. I'm with him. More self-professed Christians need to wake up to what he is talking about, there.
   
• The "CHEC Family Conference" is not, necessarily, a home education conference. It's . . . a whole lot more.
   
• Swanson seems to view opposition to whatever-it-is that CHEC happens to be involved in as "attacks from the enemy." Indeed, since Swanson's "good friends from other ministries have witnessed similar all-out attack[s] as well," he feels confirmed in his path. "We must be doing something right!"
  
  Is it possible--and how is it possible--for a leader with such a mentality ever to acknowledge the possibility he or she needs to make some kind of mid-course correction?
  
  NOTE: I need to be careful. It has almost always been hard-nosed people with an unbending commitment to a certain objective--all opposition be d*mned!--that have achieved great things for the Kingdom.
   
• Interesting that Swanson doesn't state who his "friends from other ministries" are. --Considering what we've been catching from the "Men's Summit" recordings, I doubt he's talking about homeschool ministries. Much more, he's referring to the patriarchalists and family-integrated-church advocates with whom he has been associating.
  
  How sad that he takes the opposition such edge-of-the-bell-curve "ministries" face as, somehow, confirming the rightness of what he is trying to do . . . and then conflates that all with the stated ministry objectives of Christian Home Educators of Colorado (search for "Statement of Purpose"):
  

  Christian Home Educators of Colorado (CHEC), is a non-profit, Christian organization, dedicated to providing information, resources and leadership to all families involved in home-centered education. We believe that parents--committing time and resources to provide their children with an academically excellent education, grounded in proper values--have the potential to affect the very course of our nation as their children grow up to become competent Christian leaders in the years to come. Christian Home Educators of Colorado is committed to the advancement of home education, and consider it part of our mission to help ease the burden of this responsibility for all families across Colorado involved in home-centered education.

CHEC, Part III

I had hoped I could quit commenting on this particular subject. But a couple of comments on my last post inspired me.

"Shauna" wrote, quoting razorbackmama's comment,

I want to learn about HOMESCHOOLING, not fathers'/mothers' roles, patriarchy, and a whole slew of other stuff that have nothing to do with homeschooling. But then someone pointed out to [m]e that it's a "Christian Family Conference."

I'm pretty sure that was me! . . . My point was that it's an intentional move on the part of CHEC, and homeschooling isn't the primary component of their vision for Christian families.

And that reminds me of some things Messrs. Roach and Swanson said at our December meeting that didn't sit well with me and that I referenced obliquely in my December 18, 2008 2:24 PM email to Kevin Swanson, where I suggested CHEC might best serve its constituency by changing its name

to make its true character better known:

• Fundamentalist Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
   
• Christian Young Men's Apprenticeship, Mentoring and Entrepreneurship League of Colorado.
   
• Or some such.
   
• Something more "narrow" than the moniker "Christian home educators" implies. . . .

Why did I write that? (Kinda weird, wouldn't you say?)

Reason: Because these men seemed far more excited about their Apprenticeship, Mentorship and Entrepreneurship [AME] program than about homeschooling.

It also bothered me to realize, after the meeting, when I looked to find out more about the AME Program, that, on CHEC's home page, they make the program sound inclusive:

AME connects young homeschooled students and graduates to professionals, businessmen, and entrepreneurs to provide a life-integrated work experience focused on the character and future of that young person.

Through our website database, seminars, and more, we help connect young people to prospective mentors in various business and ministry opportunities.

But by all indications, in reality, it is for young men only. [Perhaps someone other than me can actually "test the waters" on this to absolutely, positively "prove" the point. I am working off of an increasingly faulty memory system in my own brain. Documentary proof would be helpful. . . . Or, maybe, a strong enough hue and cry could change CHEC's/AME's policies in this area.]

As for the homeschooling movement in Colorado, Sarita mentioned her concern that it seemed independent (i.e., non-government-sponsored) homeschooling has stagnated and may actually be in decline. And so, she asked, what kinds of plans does CHEC have in mind for promoting the movement.

Their answer (not in so many words, but in reality): Nothing. They're preoccupied with their AME program.

On a related note: They see the homeschool movement gaining momentum again, for some reason, beginning in 2017 when "the next generation" of homeschoolers begins homeschooling their kids.

Since we, ourselves, weren't exactly pioneers in the movement (we think that honor should go to people who were homeschooling in the '70s and (in greater numbers) in the '80s, and we didn't begin homeschooling till 1989), and since our children have begun ("just!") to homeschool their children . . . we wonder why Roach, Swanson and company aren't expecting "the next generation" to begin homeschooling before 2017.

But with all of these things having been said, I have to really question: how and why does CHEC think it is acting honestly when it calls itself Christian Home Educators of Colorado? Who is truly speaking up for the home education movement as a whole in Colorado . . . much less for Christian home educators?

My sense: it's not CHEC!

Are you being treated like a child? Who controls what you get to hear?

There's a little story I've been sitting on for close to a year. It's time I told it.

As most of my readers know, I am a co-owner of Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd., a Christian homeschool curriculum developer and supply company. I resigned from day-to-day involvement in the company effective April 1 last year.

Shortly after I resigned, I received news that the company had been banned from displaying its materials at the homeschool convention sponsored by CHEC, the Christian Home Educators of Colorado, our local Christian homeschool association. The letter that informed us of our having been banned was strangely uninformative. I am not at home right now, so I don't have access to a PDF of the letter to show you. But, in essence, the author said, "You don't meet our standards. We are unwilling to talk with you about it. Don't ask."

Happily, I have enough of a relationship with the president of CHEC (not much, but enough!) that I wrote to ask what was going on, what insight he might be able to shed on the subject. . . . I mean: It's not as if Sonlight had changed in any fundamental way over the 13 years it had been in attendance at the CHEC convention. . . .

Ultimately, Sonlight received no written or full "official" explanation, but got the message: the convention committee was of the opinion that the company isn't Christian enough . . . primarily because it isn't strict enough in its young-earth teaching. It carries Usborne books that, as virtually all secular books that touch on issues related to origins, present an evolutionary perspective.

That Sonlight doesn't schedule those pages, or that, when it does schedule them, counters those presentations with young-earth creationist material: Not good enough. Someone--a child, perhaps, without Mom's or Dad's permission, or maybe even a mom or dad--might find the offending books so attractive that they will read those pages and become convinced of their truth. . . .

CHEC, apparently, can't trust Christian homeschoolers in Colorado to do their own research, read what "the other side" is saying, and/or come to their own conclusions in these matters. CHEC feels the need to protect homeschool families from themselves . . . and from companies like Sonlight that don't teach origins in quite the way CHEC prefers.

What really bothers me: CHEC's behavior, in essence, answers my paper--Young-Earth and Old-Earth Creationists: Can We Even Talk to One Another?--in the negative: "No. We can't. And, to the extent it is up to us, we won't."

Moreover, its behavior suggests that, if it were up to CHEC, they would keep modern homeschoolers away from a whole lot of evangelical and fundamentalist stalwarts of the last hundred years or more: people like B.B. Warfield (a giant in conservative biblical studies during the late 19th century), J. Vernon McGee (key radio evangelist of the mid-20th century with the Back to the Bible broadcast), James Dobson (yes, that James Dobson--of Focus on the Family), and others. Y'know, these guys simply weren’t (or aren't) "pure" enough in their stance on the age of the earth and/or the specific mechanism(s) by which God created the world. Only leaders who teach in lock-step with Ken Ham and the Answers in Genesis and Institute for Creation Research crowd deserve a place at the CHEC convention.

Pretty amazing . . . and depressing (in my opinion).

But Sonlight's banning occurred quietly. In the "back room."

Who heard?

I think CHEC hoped to keep it that way.

But I finally decided to tell the story. Because I don't think stories like this should remain hushed up. We need to know how our knowledge is being circumscribed.

If you're involved in homeschooling, especially Christian homeschooling, I wonder if your state convention sponsors may be keeping you from hearing the "other side" in debates that concern you?

****Editorial "Revision" (1/30/09; 6:20PM): I was just reviewing some old documents and discovered my memory of the chronology of events was incorrect. I want to correct, here, my false memories of chronology.

I will post a separate/new post with unmistakable details that may clarify and/or throw greater light on what really has taken place.

(1/31/09; 11:30AM): Full update is now available here.)