Know what you believe....

I don't know if you have been following what has been going on in the last few days in the homeschool community. It seems that it is making big waves and it doesn't paint a very nice picture of some people. Hhm, maybe that is not quite right, I should re-word the sentence. I personally have been disappointed by the stance some people took. 
If you happen to be a friend of Ken Ham and/or Answers in Genesis on Facebook, you will most likely know what is going on. If not, you may want to skip to Mr. Ham's page and read a little. I can try to recap a bit. Ken Ham was invited to speak at two Homeschool conferences, in Cincinnati and Philadelphia. Some of the other speakers were Peter Enns and Jay Wile. Well, I don't know much about Peter Enns but what I have about him and from him - well, let's just say I REALLY don't agree with him. You can read what another author wrote about Mr. Enn's theology here.  It doesn't come as a big surprise that Dr. Ham doesn't share Dr. Enn's theology either and there were some tensions. Ken Ham felt it was important to warn people about Peter Enn's Bible curriculum that he is selling at the conference as well. Ken Ham thought that at the very least people need to know what Mr. Enns believes. The organizers of the " Great Conferences" didn't like that and dis-invited Ken Ham/AiG from both conferences!
As just one example Peter Enns doesn't think that children should be taught about sin and flood until they are mature enough to discuss the tough subjects of PG-13 movies. If you click on the links, you will get a good understanding about what Peter Enns believes and why Ken Ham had to say something about it. Unfortunately Dr. Jay Wile sided with Peter Enns, along with Susan Wise Bauer, and was quite harsh about what he said about Ken Ham on his blog ( Jay Wile's) blog 
I would encourage you to read up on this for yourself. I personally am very much disappointed by Dr. Wile and was wondering if we should continue to use his science books. Then today Apologia send their Newsletter out where they distanced themselves from Dr. Wile. 
I am writing about this because I think that this whole situation is really sad. On the other hand it is also an eye opener and as such it is important for us to note it and dig into our bibles and pray. We NEED TO KNOW what we believe and why we believe it. There are many good Christian resources out there, we need to discern the best ones for our families. 
In all of this I have learned to better check into our curriculum and make sure I agree with the stance of the author. I have become way too trusting in the way I view Christian materials. I have been just scanning over things and didn't really check into what the author believes. Sometimes it is rather blatantly out there but often it is not so obvious but still finds its way into the schoolbook. I also find it very important to stay on the up and up about who is who in the "Christian " world. I think I will investigate Peter Enns for myself and I will have a lot of discussions with my kids about this. This is a good time to teach our children how to be discerning. If we don't believe this but that - why do we do so? What is the biblical basis for that? What does God say about this?  I think I have a pretty good idea of what we will be doing for Bible study for the next few months. At some point my kids will be out there alone, I really need them to be discerning and make good choices. In order to make good choices we need to find out where we stand not just  say what everyone says and do what the majority does. When we start doing that, we start being dumbed down. After a while we really don't anymore what is really going and we can be manipulated by all kinds of "winds".  As much as I cringe about the thought to have a Peter Enns book in my house (where in all likelyhood it will not stay) and read it and discuss it with the kids, I think we will put right in the schedule as an elective, critical thinking. I think for next school year we will have a subject called Apologetics on our schedule. I do agree with Ken Ham / AiG and I do agree with the Institute for Creation Research and we have tons of both those materials at the CRC library, this will be heavily perused next year!