Homeschooling in the Age of Trump

What are the implications for homeschooling in the Age of Trump?

You can read it below:

***

An Age of Divine Counterstrikes

Whatever you may think of U.S. President Donald Trump, one thing is certain:

His upset victory in the 2016 election shocked and confounded the enemies of America and Western Civilization.

Believe it or not, this has important implications for the education of your children.

Our enemies seemed unstoppable a few years ago, winning victory after victory. Their complete triumph seemed a foregone conclusion, all but inevitable.

All that has changed, and massive cultural shifts have begun all across the West. Donald Trump is one part of this, but by no means all.

We are living in a time of what I call Divine Counterstrikes—acts of God in history to accomplish his purposes, preserve His people, and defeat her enemies.[1]

Trump is one such Counterstrike. Why Trump? For one thing, had America elected, say, Pat Buchanan (who was the leading proponent of Trump’s nationalist/populist platform for many years before Trump ran for president), we might have been tempted to forget that God was at work.

So what did God do instead? He raised up a loud-mouthed billionaire playboy and reality TV star to defend and support His people, so that we might not forget that He can draw straight with crooked lines, that He can use anyone He pleases to accomplish all His will.

Further, we can only contemplate what condition our country would be in today had Trump’s opponent, Hilary Clinton, been elected. It was important that we do what we could to stop her, but how?

As I wrote at the time, “Hilary Clinton is the enemy of your churches, of your families, of your children, of your future. It is your duty to defeat her. You may wish God had given you a different weapon to do that than Donald Trump. But in His providential wisdom, He did not. Use the weapon God gave you, not the weapon you wish you had. You are not wiser than God.”

Trump has not been a perfect president. But he has been far better than many expected—and far better than our insane society deserves.

To take just two of many examples, Trump “issued an Executive Order prohibiting the U.S. government from discriminating against Christians or punishing expressions of faith”; and he “ordered a halt to U.S. tax money going to international organizations that fund or perform abortions.”[2]

Defender of America, and the West

Further, President Trump has boldly defended, not only America, but Western Civilization itself, in key speeches during his presidency.

For example, in his 2017 speech in Warsaw, Poland—a speech that got him branded as a…but I don’t have to tell you what he got branded as, do I?—Trump articulated very clearly some of the key values and ideas that have been foundational to The Christendom Curriculum:

“Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are. And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten. Americans will never forget. The nations of Europe will never forget. We are the fastest and the greatest community. There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

“We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

“We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.”

“We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.

“And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.

“What we have, what we inherited from our — and you know this better than anybody, and you see it today with this incredible group of people — what we’ve inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before. And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail…

“Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values. We did not and we will not. We will never back down….”

“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”[3]

The Education Battlefield

In his July 4, 2020 speech at Mount Rushmore, President Trump articulated some of the same concerns about education that led to the creation of The Christendom Curriculum:

“Our people have a great memory. They will never forget the destruction of statues and monuments…The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions.

“Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.”[4]

We have long needed such a spokesman in a position of leadership and authority. We never dreamed it would be Donald Trump. But he is the man God provided for this hour.

A New Era of Hope

Homeschooling in the Age of Trump means realizing that, as scholar Steve Turley has demonstrated, we are entering a new age of conservatism and traditionalism.[5] Trump is just one manifestation of that.

That’s why The Christendom Curriculum includes, in addition to this Battle Paper on Homeschooling in The Age of Trump, another on Donald Trump and Christendom.

There is much to do, and many battles left to fight. We are by no means out of the woods yet, nor is the outcome of the war certain.

But homeschooling in the Age of Trump means working and studying with a sense of optimism and hope.

That optimism and hope are central to the educational philosophy of The Christendom Curriculum.