Could the very state-run school system designed to educate our children be subverting the core values that Christian families hold dear? Kevin Love, headmaster at St. Brendan's Classical Christian Academy in Ogden, UT, helps navigate the treacherous waters of public school indoctrination, where the undertow of secular humanism and relativism threatens to pull our youth away from Christian beliefs.
Kevin and co-host Eric Conn talk about Ephesians 6 and Deuteronomy 6, asking a pivotal question: "What is the point of Christian education?" We also talk about Alan Bloom's prescient observations on the rise of relativism, which illuminates our discussion as we sound the alarm for Christian parents to take decisive action. The call to arms is clear: it's time to consider educational alternatives like St Brendan's Classical Christian Academy or Christian homeschooling to safeguard our children's faith and values.
As we press forward, we tackle the intricate dance between educational influence and cultural impacts, taking cues from Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind." The stakes are high in this battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation, and our strategy involves intervening before college, shaping the perspectives of our youth to appreciate the true, the good, and the beautiful.
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Could the very state-run school system designed to educate our children be subverting the core values that Christian families hold dear? Kevin Love, headmaster at St. Brendan's Classical Christian Academy in Ogden, UT, helps navigate the treacherous waters of public school indoctrination, where the undertow of secular humanism and relativism threatens to pull our youth away from Christian beliefs.
Kevin and co-host Eric Conn talk about Ephesians 6 and Deuteronomy 6, asking a pivotal question: "What is the point of Christian education?" We also talk about Alan Bloom's prescient observations on the rise of relativism, which illuminates our discussion as we sound the alarm for Christian parents to take decisive action. The call to arms is clear: it's time to consider educational alternatives like St Brendan's Classical Christian Academy or Christian homeschooling to safeguard our children's faith and values.
As we press forward, we tackle the intricate dance between educational influence and cultural impacts, taking cues from Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind." The stakes are high in this battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation, and our strategy involves intervening before college, shaping the perspectives of our youth to appreciate the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Sign up for the New Christendom Press Conference in June 2024.
Join the Patreon exclusive membership.
Every day, throughout this country, millions of children are being captured. Not like the slaves of old who were stolen in the night. No, these children are willingly handed over to a force so evil yet subtle, like the serpent's coaxing whisper in Eve's ear, unknowingly to both student and parent alike, these children are dropped off each morning to play by the adder's den with no more than a hug and a kiss goodbye. And for what? In order that their captors would progressively turn these children away from their loving parents. Slowly but surely, little Johnny learns to hate everything that has made him who he is His country, his people, his parents, even the truth itself. Alan Bloom warns us in his Closing of the American Mind. There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of Almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, the truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the student's reaction. They will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question two plus two equals four. End quote. Of course they were not born this way. You certainly did not raise them this way. Of course they were not born this way. You certainly did not raise them this way. No, it has been trained into them. Slowly at first, like a tsunami, first breaching the shores, but there is a point of no return. The swells of secular humanism will overrun every bulwark you've set up. They will blast through every rampart you've built, that great Leviathan. The public school does this by design, and we don't have to guess about this anymore.
Speaker 1:This isn't mere speculation or a fringe conspiracy theory. The great unveiling of 2020 dissipated the fog of war, and what did we find standing before us? Sexual deviants and purple-haired feminazis were intentionally teaching your kids to reject you and be like them. As with any zealot, they are not shy about their agenda. They have not hidden their plans. They want nothing less than to abduct and catechize your children in their image, to take your kids away from you. You are not the authority. You don't know what's best for your children. The teachers are the frontline warriors. You are dispensable, meant only to attend the baggage and stay out of their way.
Speaker 1:So, my friends, fathers and mothers in particular, this should give us pause to reflect. If you knew, for example, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this very night your children would be abducted, their kidnappers even telling you so. Is there anything you wouldn't do to protect them, to get them as far away from danger as possible? Or if you found they were already taken, is there anything you wouldn't do to rescue them again? This is the moment we are in. There's no turning back. There's no closing our eyes, pretending this isn't actually happening. Satan has rolled out his battle plans for all to see, and if you don't stand in the way, your children will be taken forever.
Speaker 1:In this first season of the St Brendan's podcast, we will be presenting our case against the public school system.
Speaker 1:It's more and more obvious that the government schools are the biggest threat to the broader Christian community. But don't worry, we won't stop there. We've done our homework and plan to show our work up on the board. The rest of season one, then, will be committed to explaining the sludge and slime, the muck and mire really the toxic fumes spewing out of the public schools, and what you must prioritize in order to rescue your children with a thoroughly Christian education. This is the very reason we started St Brendan's Classical Christian Academy here in Ogden, utah. Once you see it, there's no unseen. You have to do something to rescue your kids before it's too late, all the while resting on God's wisdom, grace and strength. We hope to explain what we've done and learned through this process so you can do it too, in your place, with your people, albeit hopefully with less headache. Welcome to the St Brendan's Podcast, where we exist to equip you with rigorous, practicable and affordable Christian education for many generations to come.
Speaker 2:Well, kevin Love, welcome to this episode, episode one of the St Brandon's podcast, number one. I am one of your hosts. I'm Eric Kahn and Kevin Love, headmaster of St Brennan's Classical Christian Academy. Thanks for having me Glad to be here. Yeah, I'm excited for this season to be underway. This is obviously something that we're super passionate about with Christian education, particularly, as you said, in the cold open. Just that we are, in our time, faced with this onslaught of CRT wokeness. Marxism really is insidious and everywhere. This is something that interests me. On the Hard Men podcast, I had Kevin Sorbo on. You know he was the Hercules actor. Yeah, I remember, yeah, and I remember asking him I said what is one thing, the most important thing that Christian parents can do for their kids in this era? What action should they take? And he was adamant. He said get them out of public school today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, important, do you see it? As is that important of an issue.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it has to be Um, and we'll get into this later on in the episode. But, uh, if, if you see it as we see it, I don't know how you could still have your kids in the public school, except for those, you know, very unique kind of unicorn situations where you know there's like legal custody issues or something like that, sure, but but if you have, if you have control over your children's education which, hey guys, you do, if you have control why are they still in the public schools? Again, toxic fumes Toxic meaning like it's killing you it's actually that bad and that serious. I mean, that's why we're doing this podcast. That's one of the principal reasons is because we have landed on a model.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is going to help, but the very first thing, the ethos behind all of this, was we are preaching from the pulpit that you can't have your kids in the public schools. It's just you can't at this point, and we'll explain why we've done the homework, right. But as we're saying that, we're also trying to encourage families to show there are other options, right. That's why we're here, that's why we're having this conversation, that's why we're taking time out of our day to talk about this. It's that important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's interesting. Our listeners would, I think, love to hear some of your background, how this all started. Obviously, you were pivotal in the founding of the school here, but maybe just lay out a little bit. Obviously, you're the headmaster. What do you do? How did you get involved in this project?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so funny enough, I thought, probably back in 2014 or so, I at that point was going through a fairly pivotal time in my life, had a mentor who was first introducing me to a lot of these ideas, introduced me to the Reformed faith as well. That's who I started reading. You know, homer Augustine, calvin, all of these guys.
Speaker 3:Classics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the classics in general, but then, also through that classical Christian education, started reading a lot back then. And I was preparing myself for two things at that point. One I was going to be a homeschool dad, right, that's kind of what I was. I wasn't even married at that point yet, but I said, hey, I want to get married, I want to have a gaggle of kids, I want to raise them in the fear and instruction of the Lord. That's what I want to do and I want to do it really well. So I started preparing at that point. But then also, that was when I was still in college, at the Air Force Academy, and I was thinking that I was going to go to school, get my master's, maybe eventually get my PhD, come back to the Air Force Academy and teach. That was kind of the trajectory that I was working down. So, you know, in my free time I was reading de Tocqueville at home. You know I was reading, yeah, the Iliad at home, just because I was preparing for that life. That was my life, right. So that was way back when. It feels like a long time ago now.
Speaker 1:But we moved out to Utah for the military in 2019, started coming to Refuge Church, did some teaching here, just through Sunday school, that kind of stuff. So got to know the guys, got to know the community fairly well. I got medically retired from the Air Force and at that point, just convictionally, we ended up going back home to California as a family. We ended up going back home to California as a family. We're there for about six months and then I got offered the opportunity to come back here as the headmaster to stand up the school and then run the school as a headmaster and pastor as well.
Speaker 1:So that's how this all really started is. I heard whispers of them wanting to start a school. You know, it was at that point it was largely Pastor Burkholder and Pastor Sauvé who I had heard maybe it was through podcasts or something when we were out in California that they were wanting to start a classical Christian school and I did the classic, you know me, which was just hey guys. You know, I know I'm kind of far away, but I can help from afar. You know I'm not really doing a whole lot out here right now.
Speaker 1:I can help if you need the help, right, and so. So finally, it boiled down to they wanted to do some kind of FaceTime call just to see how serious I was about this, and I think that that conversation came down to how quickly can you come out here? Yeah, right, and so I think it was. We were out here in a month after that. That was 2020,.
Speaker 1:Uh started getting the school, really getting, uh, our thoughts down on paper, all of that preparing for a fall of 2021 launch, and so that's when we started the school. So that's that's kind of the background, for it was, uh was preparing to be a teacher. Uh, that didn't work out for a few different reasons of the background for it was preparing to be a teacher. That didn't work out for a few different reasons, but it was also preparing as a homeschool dad. Right, and with all of that background and love and knowledge that God gave me, the wisdom that God gave me, I turned that, made a profit on it by, you know, standing up a school, and it's been super fun. It's been really enjoyable.
Speaker 2:So 2021 was the official launch year, fall 2021. Yep, okay, perfect, yeah, and we were, you know, very similar how we ended up here. I've been, you know, interfacing with Dan and Brian, got to know him over the years. We came out, actually met you, yep, and they said, yeah with the.
Speaker 1:You know, we think.
Speaker 2:Kevin is going to be doing the school and I said he's like 12. He just looks young, so but yeah, it was really the same conversation. We were talking about a media company and New Christian Press early idea for that, and we had a very similar conversation. They said you really have to be in Ogden to do that thing. So we ended up here as well, and a big part of it, honestly, was we had homeschooled for a long time and really enjoyed that experience.
Speaker 2:But we're also looking for, as our boys got older, things like male teachers and having more male presence and really community involvement, because even if you're homeschooling, typically you need like a good co-op or something like that, and so we were really intrigued by St Brennan's and was a huge reason, I think, for us to be here, and I think it's a lot of reason even through New Christendom. Probably the number one thing that we get asked about is actually the school, because I think there are so many people. You look at the last couple of years 2020, I think after 2020, you had something like 2 million new people joining homeschooling or looking for probably even more than that, looking for alternative education outside the public school system. So here we are, and we're talking about school. My wife's teaching at the school. Boys are in it. It's been a really good experience.
Speaker 1:You know, eric, I think one reason so many people are asking about this too is because, kind of, what I put in the cold open, they see it. Oh yeah, regardless of which method you're choosing, if you're talking about homeschooling, you're doing a co-op, you're doing some kind of university model, accs, our model, whatever it is. I think people see it, even if you didn't see it three years ago even if you didn't see it five years ago, they see it now.
Speaker 2:Well, and just so many media type comments. You know, in the last couple of years, things like Hillary Clinton or you know the you know heads of the department of education saying things like your kids actually belong to the state, not to you as a parent, and the parents are going wait a minute. I don't think I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:Did they just say what they've been thinking all along? Yes, I think they did yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we just took a very simple thing that really stuck with me from reading Doug Wilson, as we'll get into here in a minute. But the student will become like the teacher and you start looking at what the teachers are like and I'm like, but I don't want my son to be like that, nor should you. Yeah, as a Christian, you don't want to. I want to get some of your reactions on Alan Bloom really helpful author, particularly on this subject. But when you think about things like truth is relative and what our system is teaching CRT, wokeness, all those things you also kind of come to the realization with something like St Brennan's. It doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So when I was so, I had read Alan Bloom almost a decade ago, at this point, with his Closing of the American Mind specifically. He also does some other translation work that's helpful, like with the Republic, for example, but this, that book, really hit me in 2020, when, again, they had offered me the job to come out here and be the headmaster. I started going back through some some other books I had read and I was. I was rereading that book and I was just hit much harder this time with how depressing and how bleak the the landscape was that he painted for, like the college university system. You're basically saying. He says that there's one guarantee your professor has. It's that all of those students who come in like they've already been trained, they've already done you know, they've already gone through grammar school, they've already gone through their upper education before college, pre-college, and they they come to your desk, to your class, and you can guarantee that they believe that the truth is relative. That one that's really sad already and that's kind of, you know, probably the most quoted piece from that book, right, but? But it's more than that. He was talking about just the fact that almost every student can't even enjoy good music, for example, because they have been emotionally, even sexually, burned in the past and that has closed them off to ideas. It's closed them off to the true and the good and the beautiful. That was the picture that he was painting.
Speaker 1:I just remember reading that, going, wow, that's really rough. But he doesn't give like, hey, this is how you could have fixed that before you come to my classroom. And so I realized, wait, he basically just drew up my job description a little bit right, where he's saying education has failed so poorly and, by the way, I can't remember exactly what his background is he's like atheistic, like Jewish as far as like ethnically Jewish it was something like that, I can't remember, but I think it was atheistic worldview. As he's looking at this and even he is able to assess it Again, goes back to God's like common grace, where he's able to assess and say this is a bad thing, it's bad that all of these kids are coming in closed off the closing of the American mind.
Speaker 1:They've been closed off to the true and the good and the beautiful. Well, what do we do about that? Well, here's the thing, mr Bloom you fix it before you get to the college and university system right. So, as I was thinking about standing up a school, that hit me much, much harder, it doesn't have to be like this. It doesn't have to be this way. We could actually fix this. We could do something about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a lot of us same with the media company and a lot of the stuff that we've done here at Refuge is looking at 2020 as an opportunity, as you said, as a job opening. 2020 as an opportunity, as you said, as a job opening. One of the other things that we look at, though, as we look at history and I want to ask you this question is it seems like this isn't the first time that people have realized hey, they want your kids. We could even look at things like, you know, the children, exodus 1, there's a multiplication of the people, and so there ultimately becomes a war against the sons, god's sons, with Pharaoh. At first, we're going to kill them or we're going to attempt to kill them, and if we can't do that, then we're going to steal them, just outright steal their hearts and minds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why is it important to understand the historical importance of children as being so pivotal for the future? And one other thing I guess I would throw in there as I ask that question the left, in the 60s and following, really made a hardcore push to capture the institutions of education, and I think they were strategic and, in a lot of ways, it worked for them. Yeah, right, they really did capture the public education from like K through 12, but also the university system. That's where all this wokeness and CRT is being pushed. So do you see this historical trend of bad entities, bad players, going after kids?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is why that question is so important. It's because, if we can recognize what has been true historically, which is this principle, that it has always been about the children, for good or for evil, it has always been about the children, because it has always been about preparing, one way or another, the next generation. We think about covenant succession. You think about preparing your children to even stand, lord willing, in the same church that you're worshiping in this Sunday, this Lord's day. Well, yeah, we're concerned about the children. This is nothing new Historically. This is nothing new.
Speaker 1:You can think of the Spartans, for example. The Spartans you remember what they did with their boys, right? Oh, yeah, they would come over and they would examine your children. This is why a lot of them, a lot of the ladies, were tossed by the way, because they weren't going to be the males going out to war, either here against the slave revolts or out in the war, right? So you always had a king at home, king away. You have the Spartans, for example. You have them raising their young boys when they would go through the agoge training, like seven years old or so. You're not with mom anymore, you're with the men. You're going to be trained up.
Speaker 1:It's about the next generation, or you think of, I mean, even Socrates. You have some background with philosophy, right? With Socrates, he was accused of two things. One, he was accused of impiety, of blasphemy, basically against the gods, but well, really, atheism, right, that he didn't believe in any gods, even though he tries to disprove that. That was the first thing, but the second thing is, socrates was corrupting the youth. He was corrupting the youth. It was that important to the Athenians, right? And then also, you have Plato's Republic, though I disagree a little bit with the interpretation, but where they are training up the children, right, I think it's in books two through four. Somewhere in there. They're training up the children for this ideal citizen in this ideal city state. Right, it's always been about the children.
Speaker 1:This is nothing new, right? The reason that that's important, though, is thinking through our own modern issues. We have been deceived where we think that we can live in a morally neutral sphere, or a morally neutral educational sphere, like the public school system, the government schools, by the way, those are synonymous government schools, public school system. The reason they're called government schools is because it's the government that controls them, right, it's public schools. Public money is going to have public scrutiny, public accountability, right. It's the government schools, and they're training your students up and your children Lord willing, not your children, but if they are, they're training them up into a specific image, right?
Speaker 1:So the reason that this is helpful, though, is because it can remind us that this has been going on all along. This is nothing new. So even the Marxists, where they're saying hey, we're going to take over the institutions, we're going to have this slow, long march through the institutions and take over. That way, it's basically war without bloodshed is another way that it's been explained. Well, yeah, that shouldn't be a surprise to us. They tricked us, it's been subtle, right, and this is where you have a lot of. Even our parents and grandparents have not seen this as clearly, and it's gotten worse, to their credit, right. It's gotten a lot worse.
Speaker 2:I would even say rapidly because I'm thinking back. You know, I was in high school really late 90s into the 00s, and I remember it being a huge kerfuffle when I think it was like fifth or sixth grade they wanted to teach sex ed. But sex ed back then was still pretty tame by comparison to what's being taught now. So you'll see this on Instagram there's a lot of people who cover this. But you've got like literature for very young children, which is like manuals for all sorts of like demented sexual stuff, a lot of homosexuality. What are some of the other things that you see going on at the public school system that might be a red flag, raise an alarm bell if you're a Christian parent today.
Speaker 1:Where do I start? There are so many different things. I mean, one of the most frustrating things, I think, just because of how deceptive it is, how intentionally deceptive it is is all the things that are happening in a way behind closed doors, where they are intentionally not disclosing to parents. So you know, I've heard stories of a young lady getting an abortion. She went to the you know, the family counselor, or whatever you call one of their counselors at the school and they specifically hid that from the parents. Wow, right, so abortion is one example A lot of the the gender dysphoria stuff where you're actually going to start getting medication so that you can go through a gender transition, right, well, you know, you can't tell my dad, he would kill me.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're right, I'm not going to tell your dad. Then, well, that's horrible, that's awful, that's actually wicked. It's cruel to the person first off, but then it's wicked to the parents, who are trusting you with their kids to hide things from the parents who are the lawful authority in their lives. So that's, I mean that's probably the most glaring one.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say too on the transgenderism I think it's Abby Schreier in Irreversible Damage, but they talk about how, like, particularly young girls are targeted by this movement. So you know, even thinking through things like what they're taught in public school, that's always my question. You know, even pastoring in previous places where you'd have 12-year-olds who would come up to you as a pastor and say you know, I'm really struggling with this. I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual, I might even be a man, and my first question as a father and as a pastor is where are you getting this from? Like, a 12-year-old doesn't come up with this.
Speaker 2:And you can think back to our childhoods. When you see a little boy and he's like I'm gonna play with the dolls, and the dads are like nope, and then they never do it again and it's not a problem. But now those things are being preyed upon with children to over-sexualize them. And again, you're getting that from the public school system. We've seen a lot of articles in the news where they're specifically talking about how teachers will say publicly I'm trying to be subversive, to push these agendas. One of the crazy ones, Kevin Well.
Speaker 1:I was going to say it's always framed in love, though Not always, it's often framed in love Like well, I love them and therefore I'm helping them be authentic to themselves, and it's that kind of madness that then allows them to do something very clearly, like 10 commandments, kind of clearly like lying to the parents, yeah, which is not love Again, and this is omission, not necessarily commission, but omission is certainly still. You're still liable for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, and one of the ones I thought was craziest. You can look these up, but Georgia was one of the places the last year and a half where I saw one of the news articles about this but litter boxes in the bathrooms and I was like I'm sorry why do you need a litter box?
Speaker 1:Because of the furries right.
Speaker 2:Because I was originally I read it and I was like okay, like kids have like a singing eye dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's an anxiety animal, you know.
Speaker 2:It's when children think they're a cat and they dress up as an animal, believing that they're a cat, yeah, furry, yeah. And so they put a litter box To accommodate, and then you're like this is actually just madness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, casting off all restraint here you go.
Speaker 2:So a lot of craziness. I did want to play a video. We were talking about this before, but this is actually from Utah and this was a teacher who, I believe, was fired. Yes, so this is within the last two years. Yeah 2021. Okay, 2021 teacher was fired. We'll play the clip and then we can we can discuss.
Speaker 1:Pronouns and the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 3:Because I am the GSA faculty advisor. I love gay people. Well, I love that she protects them like I support that 100 percent. But then she goes on to threaten students. If I hear you say a damn word against any of them, I will open a can and I will make your life a living hell. Also, she goes on about saying how they parents are stupid Most of y'all parents are dumber than you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say that out loud Parents also telling us she has been known to do this.
Speaker 3:She did the similar things last year. She even told us you went as far as said pull them out of her class because this is how she will be all year long At one point the teacher.
Speaker 2:So first of all, you got students in there with phones. Teachers beware.
Speaker 1:Did you hear the girl? Well, I think it was in this one, or maybe it was in the other one. It was like this is a chemistry class, but, kevin, like, why are you talking about this?
Speaker 2:Like this idea that teachers are so emboldened Now. But Kevin, why are you talking about this, Like this idea that teachers are so emboldened Now? I got to. I got to say I went to a teacher's college that happened to teach a little bit of journalism, which is my background. But I remember going to that school. I saw what they were teaching in the classes, I saw what they were preparing teachers to become and it was a pretty eye-opening experience.
Speaker 2:Cause one thing that either homeschool or, you know, Christian classical educators will often think is well, we're not trained. Like they're trained and I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. Like I like spent four years with these people. I don't want them anywhere near my kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Teaching degree actually isn't isn't necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 2:But then you see instances like this and it's like they're pretty outspoken about what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you could see this and you could say, hey, this is a unicorn situation, but you have to think about it. Someone who is like that could not exist in that environment for long at all. If there are anything like that ever, right, right, If it was a really positive environment and you know, this was just like totally out of the norm, sure, they got canned. She got canned because there was such an outrage against it. Right, you still have a lot of the mores in a largely Mormon state. Right, you still have a lot of the mores that would fight against that Conservatism loosely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all that right, at least the older Mormons right, but at the same time it's existing within a system that does not outright reject it, and that's important to understand.
Speaker 2:And it brings up another important question about education that we have to continually remind ourselves of Is education neutral? Is it a space of neutrality? And I think the obvious answer is no. But then on the back of that, you actually have to do something about this. And this is where I think hearing about St Brennan's originally it gave me hope. It gives a lot of people hope to know these things are going on, because the real question is can you do anything about it? I think a lot of American hope to know these things are going on because the real question is can you do anything about it? I think a lot of American parents don't actually believe they have the authority or that they can do something to get out of that mess it feels like well, that's just public schools the way it is.
Speaker 2:But that's my question to you If this issue is so bad, so obvious a lot of parents the last couple of years have been teed off why are maybe not more being done about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I think one of the main reasons. Well, at least one of the things we have to think about, and this goes back to Alexis de Tocqueville, so hang with me a little bit, but You're like Putin, right?
Speaker 2:now, by the way. So follow me back a thousand years ago, yeah. Let me take you back. I thought this was a serious interview.
Speaker 1:But Alexis de Tocqueville is really important in this conversation, specifically in his writings in Democracy in America, because he saw this coming from miles and miles away. So he's right, I think first volume was 1835. Second volume was 1840. So I mean we're talking, you know, almost 200 years ago at this point. But he's really interesting because he goes on to explain and remember he's coming from an aristocracy, largely an aristocratic environment in France. He's coming to America and seeing at least more democratic. We're not a pure democracy, obviously, we're a democratic republic. But he sees the writing on the wall and he paints that for us, where he sees that the principal danger of democracy is what he calls democratic despotism. So it's still despotic, it's still tyrannical, but it's more that idea of the influence of the masses. It's kind of mob rule. Yeah, mob rule, but in a more subtle sense. Mob rule is pretty violent, physically violent, whereas this is not. This is more intellectually violent. It honestly would be helpful if I just read the quote. It's a little more lengthy but I think it'll paint the picture, just because it's really clear.
Speaker 1:This is coming from the Liberty Fund version of Democracy in America, starting on page 418. He says under the absolute government of one man. Despotism to reach the soul crudely struck the body and the soul escaping from these blows rose gloriously above it. But in democratic republics, tyranny does not proceed in this way. It leaves the body alone and goes right to the soul. The master no longer says you will think like me or die. He says you are free not to think as I do. Your life, your goods, everything remains with you, but from this day on you are a stranger among us. You will keep your privileges as a citizen, but they will become useless to you. If you aspire to be the choice of your fellow citizens, they will not choose you, and if you ask only for their esteem, they will still pretend to refuse it to you. You will remain among men, but still pretend to refuse it to you. You will remain among men, but you will lose your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellows, they will flee from you like an impure being. And those who believe in your innocence even they will abandon you, For people would flee from them in turn. Go in peace. I spare your life, but I leave you a life worse than death. The idea with all of that is when you have one man again.
Speaker 1:Democracy is formed off of this idea that we are all equals. Okay, so, equal. An equal person gives an equal voice, right? Let's just count the noses who voted. Okay, cool, Seven for this, three for that, seven wins. Okay, here we go. That's a pure democracy. But when we're thinking about that, because I looked side to side and I see everyone is my equal, well, let's say there was a thousand of us and there were 923 who were believing a certain way, thinking a certain way, saying you know, get the jab, get the vaccine, get the jab, get the vaccine. Well, you would go. Well, who am I? Just this one man, with so many of my equals, believing one way I must conform. There's no way 923 could be wrong in me, Just one little equal could be right. So there's this immense pressure to conform between the one and the many, between the one and the masses. It's like a one in the masses.
Speaker 2:Like a major case of groupthink.
Speaker 1:Yeah, groupthink or like peer pressure. You have peer pressure in school. We think about that. Oftentimes we're saying negative peer pressure at school, though it can be a positive thing as well. It's the one in the many problem, in a way, where you're looking at the many and you're saying I should change, I should be different then. So again, kind of going back to your question, why hasn't everyone done something about this? Well, it's because we're looking side to side, or at least many of us have. You look side to side and you say, well, I'm not an expert in education, I should probably just leave it to the experts and let them do their thing. They're Utah State certified.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's the other thing that has even changed since de Tocqueville's time and you can read a lot of stuff on this but how we've become what is called a technocratic oligarchy, a rule of the experts so this was really a lot of the COVID narrative as well was, well, let's leave that to the experts. Now, the basic data was that masks didn't work, but the experts were telling you to do it, so you had to believe it. Yeah, and there was a pressure to do that, and I think we've treated education much the same way. Yeah, where, unless you know the famous Supreme Court nominee, you know what is a woman? Well, I can't tell you because I'm not a biologist, meaning I'm not an expert in a very specific field. I'm like, yeah, but a two-year-old can tell you the difference between a boy and a girl. There's some basic anatomy and some other stuff. But I think it's weird how that pressure peer pressure, just like with teenagers can make people really dumb. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, this is where de Tocqueville, though, is also really encouraging. So he didn't just see the problem, he also saw the solution right. So, if you can picture it right, there's this one person, and then there's the masses, and that's where the compressor, the pressure, is to conform. So the solution actually is to have, uh, to build up more of these intermediary institutions, or um associations, you know, and that could be your church, that could be your school, that could be your bowling, you know league, that could be.
Speaker 1:yeah, whatever it is, it's groups of individuals who, when they get together, you know they're kind of rubbing shoulders and you know cracking a joke, and they go wait, you think that way too, because they definitely don't. You know the masses definitely don't, and you're reminded that you're not crazy. So that's what he said. That's the solution. If you want to fight back against this democratic despotism, then you need more of these intermediary institutions. So in a way, that's what our school functions like.
Speaker 1:But here's the kicker is, when you look around and you see in the public schools they're supposed to function that way, but they actually function like the masses Interesting, right, because they're guided by the masses. They're guided by the government, right. So it's the government schools and that's what it's going to look like. But for us, if we are going to fix this, fight back against this, it needs to be the family first and foremost. It needs to be the church needs to be the family first and foremost. It needs to be the church. It needs to be a school, lord willing, even if that just means like a co-op or a homeschool or something like that, where you are standing in the gap and saying you are not crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, I think correct me if I'm wrong but one of the huge benefits that I've seen since coming here and it's not just the school, but being a part of the community of refuge it was for the first time maybe in my whole life where you're surrounded by a community who's basically saying to you you're not crazy, yeah, we actually all believe these things, and so there's a safety and an encouragement that is in that when we send our kids to the school, I know that their teachers and you like, we're rowing in the same direction. And I couldn't say that previously. You know, like when I was in public school certainly, definitely not. But even homeschooling it was kind of hard because we were kind of on our own island and so we didn't necessarily have that huge community around us either. It just really does something to your psyche, to give you hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even as a homeschool right. You still might be saying but maybe we're crazy, maybe it's just us, and then the world is you know, maybe they've got it all figured out, I don't know.
Speaker 2:But you have some institutional backing. I also want to ask you, kevin, as we sort of unpack a little bit about education here from a biblical perspective, I think you also have to start by thinking about what is the primary problem that we have to address and deal with with education. Maybe part of that is this question of authority, so I want to get your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it kind of goes back to that lady we were just listening to in that video. Right, she doesn't seem like she respects the parents' authority a whole lot. She thinks they're stupid she thinks that they're stupid. I'm going to be honest with you guys your parents are a lot more stupid than you are. Right? It's like wow, Okay, it's like insulting both ways. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:You guys are dumb, but your parents are dumber.
Speaker 2:Your parents are really dumb, but this even gets back to a lot of the Marxist, communist regimes of the 20th century where it was like they would undermine the parents by like getting the kids to rat them out, turning their children against the parents. I was thinking of a case years ago Rush Limbaugh commented on this. There was a guy running for office in Michigan and his daughter came out in opposition to him and you know, in our culture and context, he was like well, you know, I just laud her for her courage and I'm thinking like that's a fifth commandment violation. She's basically saying dad's an idiot. I just want to support her in this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was because of education.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, cause this all comes back to authority, right? One thing that we do at our school is we're we're propping up the parents. We're not trying to cut out their legs, we're trying to stand them up and say no, you, you're going to listen to your dad. You, you, you need, you need to love your dad, you need to love your mom, you need to listen to her. Right, that's something that we are reaffirming, because this all comes back to authority.
Speaker 1:If you're going to do this school thing, whichever way you cut it, I don't care you have to recognize that the fundamental problem that we're facing is this issue of authority, and this is where the public schools are trampling all over it Again, like trying to hide something from the parents. That's disgusting, right, because you're thinking about the fact that they the parents dad, mom have been appointed by God to be the authority in that child's life, for good or for bad, right, maybe you do have a dumb parent, I don't know, but they are still the authority that God has placed providentially in that child's life, and they are to listen to their mother, they are to listen to their father. But that's where you can see, the public schools are totally stepping out of their lane, totally stepping out of God's way. And when you hate wisdom and love death, what do you think you find? Well, a lot of death, right, you're looking all around you and you've seen a lot of death. I wonder where this comes from. Well, hmm, surprise, surprise.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting to me too, the more that I, over the last, you know, 10 years, have looked into this. You get into, like the Westminster Confession of Faith, thomas Watson, on the 10 Commandments. When the Westminster divines would teach on the fifth commandment honor thy mother and father they said that the family was really the basis for authority structures in all of society. So really the fifth commandment was a training ground and the family is a training ground for teaching you authority across all spheres. So Thomas Watson even talks about city fathers, spiritual fathers, meaning in the church, but really it's in this family unit that we are learning authority spheres across society.
Speaker 1:But here's what's crazy when the public education system is undermining the authority of a father, it's undermining the structure of all of society, everything, yeah, because if that kid will disobey his dad I mean a lot of them are flagrant I mean, if that kid will give his dad the middle finger when his dad says, go take out the trash, what do you think he's going to do to the judge? What do you think he's going to do to his teacher? Right, right, I mean something so close and so fundamental and pivotal in his life that he can just stiff arm. What do you think he's going to do to the teacher? Who cares what the wrestling coach says? Right, he's not going to care about any authority in his life. Yeah, no, it's critical, but what we see in the Bible and this is from Ephesians 6.4,. Ephesians 6.4 teaches us fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The paideia and euthysia of the Lord. It's addressed to fathers, though. That's what we have to recognize. Ephesians 6, 4,.
Speaker 1:Basically, if you were to say this, in other words, if I was to say this in just really simple terms, because paideia it's like wait, I've never heard of that. That's a Greek word. It can mean so many different things. We can translate it seven different ways right. This is how I would boil this down. You, father, are commanded by God to give your children a thorough and robust Christian education. That's going to be every detail of their lives, that's going to be the macro and the micro, that's going to be everything. But you are to raise them up in the discipline and instruction, specifically, of the Lord, not of a pagan God, not of a worship yourself, not of a you. Do you none of that? But you are to raise them up in a robust Christian environment because you are giving them the paideia of the Lord.
Speaker 1:So it's addressed to fathers, it's not to the state. I think you kind of joked about it before, but children don't belong to the state. That is not who God appointed to raise this child. You know, they say it takes a village right to raise a child. Okay, I get what they're saying, but no, the village doesn't raise the child. The parents are the ones, the lawful authority, raising this child. It's not the school too. This is one thing I want to make sure people are really clear on, even in how we view it. So, yeah, definitely not the public schools, but even in how we view our job here. We are not an independent authority, but we are a deacon, we are a servant to the parents, we are partnering with the parents in this education.
Speaker 1:One interesting thing and this is a ditch that some people can fall into, but it's also not directed specifically to the wife. So what I mean by that is specifically that the father cannot just hand over the education of his children to his wife, as though that's oh well, that's just, that's her thing. You know she's the one who likes to read and she's the one who kind of does the school stuff, and you know I trust her, she's her thing. You know she's the one who likes to read and she's the one who kind of does the school stuff, and you know I trust her, she's got it. The father also can't do that right, because this was not directed first and foremost to the wife, though of course she'll come in alongside.
Speaker 2:She's his helper, she carries out the mission, but he's got to set the mission and vision.
Speaker 1:He's got to set the mission and vision involved. He has to care, he has to oversee this in some form or fashion, make sure that his children get that Christian education. The last one that I would say that it's not just, again to be clear, it's not primarily your pastors, notice. I did say primarily. So because I say this? Because one, we're pastors, we're thinking through this right, but Ephesians 4 makes it really clear that the officers of the church have been appointed by God so that the people are not swept away by every wind of doctrine. They actually do have a responsibility to the people in their church. Pastors do have some form of responsibility, but even with that said, the raising of that child in the fear and admonition of the Lord, it was not appointed to the pastors. Primarily it was appointed to the fathers.
Speaker 2:And this is so important because at each of those levels the state and the school I think one of the default positions of a lot of American Christians even is well, that's not really my responsibility, I just pawn that off to the school district or whatever. Or I think even in a lot of like homeschooling, this was certainly something that I had to battle against as a father of just saying like, hey, I'm doing work, homeschooling is really my wife's realm. Every now and then she'll bounce some curriculum ideas off me, but she's really in charge. And there were, you know, to my shame, there were a lot of seasons where I didn't really know fully what was going on. You start reading this and you say, wait a minute, I need to be. If you're gonna homeschool, you really have to be.
Speaker 2:As a father of the headmaster, yeah, and, as you know, being a headmaster that doesn't mean that I check in once a year. No, that means that I am deeply involved in the facets of what's going on on a daily basis. Yeah, in the facets of what's going on on a daily basis, and I need to be. And then the other one, finally, pastorally. I think you see this a lot, especially with the spiritual forms of education. In the Baptist camp I used to be a youth pastor and one of the things that would happen is parents would come to me and be like, hey, you need to teach my kid X, y, z, you need to make sure they become Christians. And I was like, actually, that's your job.
Speaker 2:The roles reversed yeah, but that was kind of our view was like well, we hire, it's the expert view, you hire out the expert, we hire somebody to do the work for us. Now, what I do like about St Brendan's, as you said, is it's saying, yeah, we're partnering, but you, father, you have the authority and so even on disciplinary issues, formation character, it's going to be conversations with you. Know, headmaster, love myself, my sons, you're going to be deeply involved in that process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why we try to keep you know. With something like that, let's say it elevates through the classroom with the teacher, there's some kind of discipline thing. If that gets brought to my desk, if it's serious enough that it gets brought to me, it's a text or a phone call home every time. It has to be right Because the parents need to be tracking along, need to know what's going on. If their child can't listen to their teacher, that's really not even that teacher's problem anymore, that's the father's problem.
Speaker 2:Well, and we've seen this time and again with disciplinary cases, where it's like if dad will get behind it and say like son, listen to me, you got to do this thing, typically, you see.
Speaker 1:It changes everything.
Speaker 2:It changes everything. And if dad says no, no, no, we're not, you know, I don't care about that, then it gets downplayed. So dad's role is pivotal here. Yeah, he has to. The other thing, I think that is really interesting as we think about the school and father's involvement. Also, you have this question of really trying to encourage people, which we're trying to do, not just to say like, here's the problems.
Speaker 1:It's not doom and gloom, it's not Alan Bloom, no, and that's what again?
Speaker 2:I think it's one of the reasons people are inquiring at St Brennan's whether they want to implement that model where they are. That'll be a lot of you guys, a lot of our listeners, or there's a lot of people who say I want to move, I want to be a part of a community like that. That's great too, but fundamentally, I think people want hope and help in the form of encouragement.
Speaker 1:So in the form of encouragement. So, agree, disagree. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's helpful, maybe just to come back to something that I say pretty regularly here at St Brendan's, which is it's defense first, then offense. That's how I'm encouraging all of my people. That's why we stood up the school. That's what I encourage families in specifically. This is what I mean. The first step is always going to be defense. If you still have kids in the government schools, in the public schools, you could literally have them out by tomorrow morning. Yeah, by just simply pulling the plug. You know, by being brave, being strong and courageous, pulling the plug, shooting your shot.
Speaker 2:And I think that's important because a lot of people myself included, as a normie, you know 20 years ago a lot of people don't even know that they can do that. So it's just showing people you have the authority, you're allowed to do that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean even from our school. Yeah, it's not like your hands are tied. If you said, hey, this isn't working out for our family, for whatever reason, we would say God bless you. And working out for our family for, for whatever reason, we would say God bless you and you could be out tomorrow. Yeah, we'll help you.
Speaker 1:You know, off ramp, whatever it is, but fathers, mothers as well, parents together, you could, you could just pull the plug again. It's like the matrix, right, you've seen the matrix. When Neo comes out, you know he has all the the whatever cords like popping off. It was painful, like you could tell, right, he kind of like went limp afterwards. Um, then he gets flushed. It's like ripping off the bandaid. You, you, you just need to go through the initial hurt, right, they might lose some friends over it. You might get set back a little bit in school, but this is totally, totally doable.
Speaker 1:There are so many options out there today. Right, you have your. You're just normal homeschool. I'm kind of doing my own thing. You have co-op, where you get some help with that. You meet like once or twice a week.
Speaker 1:You have the university model, which is where you typically meet maybe two days a week and you have almost like real school for two full days a week. So that's where you can get a lot more of your Latin and Greek instruction, maybe your high level history, that kind of stuff where you're getting help. You have ACCS that's probably the one where a lot of people know, the Association of Classical Christian Schools. That's a pretty common model with, like the neoclassical trivium, that kind of stuff. Or you have our model, you have the St Brendan's model. I mean there are so many ways that you could go about this, but you could have them out tomorrow morning done right, and so anyways, it kind of goes back to defense. And if we thought that this wasn't possible pre-COVID, all of a sudden everyone during COVID got forced into this and there was this flood of homeschoolers that go, hey, this is actually way better, yeah, I could do this, you know.
Speaker 2:It's interesting when you look at the numbers. You've got 1997, you've got something like a million. Is this I think this is across the US?
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've got like a million A million homeschoolers, something like that.
Speaker 2:So by 2016, you got 2.3 million. 2021, as we said, almost 4 million, 3.8. Yeah, so numbers on the rise. But it is interesting as you start looking at this, I was asked on a podcast. Somebody said this is kind of like it was like a big conservative organization. They said what is a way that Christians can win tomorrow? Like when you think about this strategy, how can we start winning? And you've said this. But I immediately said I said get your kids out of public school. Yeah, we can start giving them a Christian education starting now. Yeah, and basically understand, like the left was smart in saying education is really important, Okay, it's going to take time to reverse the institutional powers and all those things. Basically understand, like the left was smart in saying education is really important, Okay, it's going to take time to reverse the institutional powers and all those things. Maybe some of them need to be disbanded and reformed, whatever, but starting counter institutions, being a part of counter institutions right now is actually feasible.
Speaker 1:And again, what's the first step? Well, I'm literally just well, not literally, I guess I am metaphorically going to just pull the rug right out of under him. Yeah, you wanted to take the institution. Well then, my son's not in your institution Great.
Speaker 2:Not participating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not going to be a part of that. So defense has to come first. It's the fastest. You're going to get the most bang for your buck. Right Again, you could literally do this tomorrow. Right, my child was in public school today. He is not in public school tomorrow. Done, we're going to find out another way and that's going to take a little bit of time and there are plenty of resources we can help you out with that. But first step is defense, second step is offense. So defense first, then offense.
Speaker 1:If you read from Psalm 127, it says behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior, are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. So this is, this is kind of what we're trying to capture. Uh, capture where you don't have dull arrows, right, that wouldn't. You probably would still be put to shame, right, if you had a quiver full of just really dull arrows. You don't want that too. So we have defense first, but then you really need to equip them, you need to sharpen them, you need to train them, you need to build them up with this instruction in the Lord. So that's going to take positive reinforcement, not just this negative pulling the plug. So there is this component as well, but that's the second step, that's what comes next, after you've done that hard work of pulling the plug.
Speaker 1:But this is where well, first, I guess this is where St Brendan's comes in. That's why we did what we did. I mean, it took sacrifices, like we have to be honest about that. Yeah, whether it's pay cuts, I mean, just to be completely transparent, I could be making a lot more money working for the government right now, doing my contracting officer job Like I could have done that, right. But instead of money, we were looking at the mission, right. So mission over money where this was so important that we needed this, not just for ourselves, for our own kids, though of course we're doing that but for others as well, others in our community. So that was the ethos behind what we did with St Brendan's. Yeah, we pulled the plug, but then we also came together and started a school.
Speaker 2:And also being pretty creative about that. I think that's some of the appeal that a lot of people when they're interested in St Brennan's right, that we're saying if you're a member and you tithe, your 10% tuition is covered. That's crazy to people, mainly because you look at what tuition costs. But we also had to be creative with the way that we structure the forms, the way that we teach what we're actually trying to accomplish on a daily basis in the classroom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's fairly unique in that sense. It's not historically novel by any means, but it is a little bit more unique for those who are used to like a typical ACCS classroom or even just the classrooms I grew up in public school, right, where you have one teacher, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, all the way up, and then in high school you have, you know, your history teacher, your math teacher, your literature teacher, all that kind of stuff. Well, we're doing things differently with a, with a one teacher model in the classroom, with three grades per form and and it's guys, it's working so great, like it's, it's been really fun. Um, it's not historically novel, but it will take some explaining, right, which is what we're going to do later in this podcast as well. In later seasons or, honestly, in the Patreon. We'll be asking or doing a lot of Q&A, kind of answering, but yeah, so unique in that sense. But it's a banding together, it's a.
Speaker 1:Well, I do want to equip my children. I don't want to just play defense and pull the plug and then just have them sit around the house. That's not what I want. I want to really equip them, whether it's homeschooling or whether it's going to be some like St Brendan's model. I do want to equip them, and this is my encouragement. This is my encouragement to anyone who's listening to this. The first part is the truth that yes and maybe you're thinking about this a whole inheritance can be lost in a single generation because the father didn't teach his son Greek, the father didn't train his child up in his catechism, he didn't read the Bible, he didn't do family worship with the family, so that was something that could have been going for 15 generations before him. Theoretically.
Speaker 2:It could be lost.
Speaker 1:Could be lost, could all of that could be lost in one generation by one father failing in his duty, which is kind of disheartening to think about, right, because that's what's happened to us, in a way.
Speaker 2:But you also think about the fact that you could change things in one generation.
Speaker 1:Exactly right, that's the encouragement. So that's the first part. Is kind of sad to think about. Exactly right, that's the encouragement. So that's the first part. Is kind of sad to think about. But here's the encouragement. Is that that at least in principle, the faithfulness in principle can be restored in one generation. Right, you can still restore a lot of. We're doing family worship now at least once a day. Okay, good, where I'm training my children up in their catechism and reading the Bible and talking through that with them and praying're singing psalms, we're singing psalms, we do psalms and we go to church every Sunday.
Speaker 1:We make it a big deal that we are going to be at church. We're not just going to be in our pajamas, sitting on the couch all day. Right, we have restored that in principle and then you'll get the details over time. Those will come. You can get the Greek, you can get the Latin, you can do all that. That will build, that will come in time. But in principle you can also restore this in a single generation by your courage, by your will to act and asking for God's blessing and wisdom in that, and that should be an encouragement. That really should be an encouragement to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. And one of the things, too, as you mentioned, patreon, just making the plug for people. So we've got the podcast, we'll have a lot of content, information in the main, but I think one of the main things that will be helpful for people who are interested in Patreon encourage you to sign up. You can sign up for as little as $5 a month. We'll provide links, of course, in the show notes for that, but this is going to be really important, I think, for interaction, for community, for being able to access. You get some feedback from other people who are in the middle of this process. So, kevin, I can think there's a whole host of people who would be interested in this, from the person who says hey, and we get these emails and phone calls all the time.
Speaker 1:I get it all the time.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's a headmaster who says I want to start one of these. We can help you, kevin can help you to think through some of the logistics. Hopefully, as you said before, like we'll spare you some of the headache to be a part of that, but also to connect with other people who are doing this, I think is really pivotal. And then on top of that, we'll have the captain's log, which is more Q& a friendly style conversation with you on the Patreon channel exclusively. Yeah, more practical. Yeah, to address the day-to-day, because people are going to have questions like what curriculum do you use? How do you work through this curriculum? I know, even as my wife was teaching, she was like it's all good on paper, but you actually need you know you, for example, to be in the classroom saying, okay, how do I teach this portion? Yeah, in correcting some maybe small errors and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're completely right. So a lot of the goodness, a lot of the help that would come from the Patreon community is the me to everyone else in a way, instead of fielding individual phone calls and individual text messages and individual emails. I can do a lot more of the mass correspondence, but more than that, we really want to push into this community of people who see the same thing that we see and say, wait, we can't do that. And, yes, I have pulled the plug, but I do want more help.
Speaker 1:How are you guys landing math when? How are you guys doing Latin, even if we do it on the homeschooling side? How you know what curriculum are you guys using for this? Okay, cool, we can have that conversation and that can be so helpful because, to be completely honest, there's stuff I haven't seen too there. There's books I haven't seen, there's, uh, you know, a resource I haven't listened to yet that you guys will also share in that same community group. That then I am sharpened by, like, I actually really like that, I enjoy that, I appreciate that, and so so, yeah, we, we want, we want more and more as a marrier.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Parents, headmasters, whoever you are, if you're interested in that conversation definitely would encourage you to sign up on Patreon, kevin. Kind of final thoughts as we wrap things up by way of just encouragement and, I think, just giving people some hopeful, helpful things to leave this episode with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hope you all have been encouraged already. You know I've had fun, but I think we just do that. You know, you and I talking I want you to think about. You know, one of the principal commands that we have in the Bible is that we would take up our cross daily, that we would follow our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, that we would recognize that we are a people sanctified, we are saints, we are set apart from the world. You know, you have, you know, our instructions to not be conformed to this world. You know contrasting light and darkness. You have something like this in 1 John 2. You have something like this in Romans 12.
Speaker 1:But we have to recognize there is this antithesis between those who love the Lord and follow the Lord and those who have, you know, in Revelation, the mark of the beast on their forehead right. You have those who are following two different paths. We have to recognize that first and foremost. But to the men, to the men specifically, I want to encourage you. I don't want you to forget that you are strong, that God made you strong, that God made you that way for a purpose and that he has equipped you as a warrior in the middle of this battle.
Speaker 1:So you hear all the things that we're saying in this podcast and maybe you see it exactly as we do and you say, wait, this is bad, maybe I should do something about this. This is bad, you know, maybe I, maybe I should do something about this. You are right. God wants you to see that, because you are meant to protect, you are meant to take a stand and fight again, not because of what's in front of you simply, but to protect your family standing behind you. And to the women remember lean on your husband's strength, encourage him in taking the stand to protect your children. You need to be ride or die. You need to have his back. You both together, are a team stewarding this wonderful gift that God has given you, and the Lord is your strength.
Speaker 2:I love it, kevin. It's been a fantastic episode. I'm encouraged. I hope our listeners are encouraged. Encourage them to check the show notes. You'll have links there for Patreon and any other resources. I guess that's the final thing I'll say. We'll be having a lot of discussion about resources, curriculums, books on the Patreon channel, so be sure to check that out. We appreciate all of our listeners and until next time. We will catch you guys in the next episode.
Speaker 3:We sail for Eden's shores, and we sail for Eden's shores.