Homeschool News & Views

Issue 48, for December 9, 2007

From Homeschool Helpers

Greetings. This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers.

A movie came out attacking God. The movie is The Golden Compass.

The Golden Compass is one of a trilogy of books called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. The title of that book series describes it well – dark materials. Like the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, His Dark Materials is a fantasy series, teaching by allegory or type. However, The Chronicles of Narnia openly promotes the message of Christianity, to whatever degree. His Dark Materials promotes the message that the God of Christianity is a fraud and the organized church is an evil blight preventing mankind from reaching our fullest potential. In other words, His Dark Materials and The Golden Compass promote the message of Satan.

Pullman described his own series as Narnia’s moral opposite. “That’s the Christian one,” he said. “And mine is the non-Christian.” Pullman also said, “Every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don’t accept him.”

In Pullman’s fantasy God is ultimately revealed as a fraud. The trilogy includes an alternate garden of Eden story. In the Republic of Heaven people are free to reach their full potential without the oppressive effects of God or organized religion.

Pullman’s anti-God books have over 15 million copies in print, and he has won numerous awards for children’s literature, but he has never had the widespread publicity of The Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter. Now that will probably change, as his atheist anti-God message becomes mainstream. The movie is said to be well done, interesting and with attractive characters, and the atheist message of the author is very much toned down. One repeated problem with Christian movies is that often they are not well done. They are just plain boring and poorly produced by people of little talent. If I’m watching a movie like Left Behind about the end time, I am kinda hoping that the end time will come soon so that movie will end.

The movies which project the message of the world are often very well done by people of great talent, to make their deception more appealing. The Golden Compass movie, well done by people of talent, with tons of impressive computer graphics, will probably attract young people to Pullman’s books, where the anti-God message is direct and not subtle. To further the deception, it is said that if you loved the Chronicles of Narnia movie, you will love The Golden Compass. But those movies are based on perfect opposites. One upholds Christ. One denies Him. Big difference.

The Harry Potter series of movies and books pleasantly introduced the concept of witchcraft to the world. That is also very much an anti-God message. After that series of books and movies came out, other media programs appeared with the same general theme. One was the TV program Medium, obviously into spiritism.

Now the movie The Golden Compass follows that up, pleasantly introducing young people to the concept that Satan, the fallen angel, is the real God. It will probably be very successful, resulting in a series of movies, which will lead the young people farther and farther into rejecting Christ and honoring Satan, the beautiful fallen angel. Because of the protests against The Golden Compass, internet searches on atheism have already surged. No doubt the sales of the openly anti-God books will surge now, too.

Pullman wondered why his books did not reach the same level of popularity as the Harry Potter books. He said that he is “saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.” Pullman’s series ends with the Ancient of Days being defeated by the fallen angels.

Many people, like Pullman, look at what the Roman Church did from the fourth century on and conclude that the God of the Bible and His teachings are evil. Up until the fourth century AD the Roman Empire had persecuted Christians. When that failed to kill it, the Roman Empire merged with the church of Rome. After that, the Roman Church became the Roman Empire, with the head of the church finally having power even over emperors. That religious empire still persecuted people, although then it did it in the name of Christ. But that wasn’t Christ doing that. It was still the Roman Empire, with a new name. The Messiah was not in the Inquisition, which lasted a thousand years. That was not the millennial reign of Christ. The teachings of Christ are found in the Bible, not in church doctrine.

About a week and a half ago, a high school in Des Moines, Iowa had a Gender Bender Day. What is Gender Bender Day, you say? Don’t you parents remember back in your high school years, all the great fun you had on Gender Bender Day?

Well, maybe not.

Gender Bender Day is where boys dress like girls and girls dress like boys. The GLSEN – the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network – has an education plan offered to schools to teach young people how to cross dress. So a Des Moines High School wanted to do that.

Des Moines East High School had a Gender Bender Day. This was covered in a story on WorldNetDaily.com and received widespread publicity through the internet. The internet, not the nightly network news shows, is the source for news now.

WorldNetDaily said,
“A public school's "gender-bender" cross-dressing event, where boys were supposed to dress as girls and girls as boys, has prompted at least dozens, perhaps hundreds, of students to flee the tax-supported institutions in Iowa.

State officials in Des Moines confirmed to WND that at least 80 children whose parents were alarmed by the "Gender-Bender Day" during homecoming week at the city's East High School have moved their children from the various districts in the area into homeschooling plans. Several parents told WND that the number could be in the hundreds.

One parent wrote on a blog, writing in ALLCAPS for emphasis:

"TUESDAY AT ONE OF OUR LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS THEY HAD WHAT IS CALLED 'GENDER BENDER DAY!' IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS THEN LET ME EDUCATE YOU REAL QUICK … IT IS WHERE THE BOYS DRESS LIKE GIRLS AND VICE VERSA!!"

The parent continued, "THIS WAS ALLOWED AND CARRIED OUT AT OUR SCHOOLS!!! … I IMMEDIATELY PULLED MY CHILD OUT OF THE DES MOINES PUBLIC SCHOOL! WE ARE NOW HOMESCHOOLING ALONG WITH SEVERAL HUNDRED OTHER PARENTS!"

"I AM GETTING MAD WHILE I TYPE THIS … SO I NEED TO SHUT IT DOWN…"

Barb Heki is a board member for the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, and was ecstatic about the parental response.

"I'm just praising God there is a church with so many families that would take a biblical stand and decide that we're not going to put our children under anti-Christian indoctrination any longer. That's refreshing and encouraging," she told WND.”

It was said that one church in particular encouraged its people to leave the school. That church is Christ Apostolic Temple Inc. Fellowship, which is a black church in Des Moines. However, they had nothing on their web site related to this event. There was no message there encouraging Christians to leave the government schools.

WorldNetDaily continued, “A mother whose children were taken out of the public schools because of the cross-dressing promotion didn't want to be identified, but told WND she knows of probably 200 families who filled out state-required paperwork to withdraw their children from public schools.

"What it is is we're following the Bible," she told WND. "There was a situation that took place, which was the gender bender day. Our children were to participate in the cross-dressing. When they refused they were told they would get a bad grade..."

"The situation came out, and everybody was disgusted," she said. "Well, we're not doing it. All we did was pulled our kids out. Nothing more to be said or done."

On the other hand, the Iowa educrats said there was really no unusual response to their Gender Bender Day.

"There were a couple of calls at the office at the school from parents that were concerned," a spokesman for Des Moines schools said. “But he said the district itself had not seen any unusual activity regarding homeschooling.

"Let's just say the numbers you are hearing are greatly exaggerated," the spokesman explained. "Events like this at a high school are part of homecoming week activities and certainly are not mandated events. They're voluntary activities that the students put on.

"Now if the parents had any indication that their students were coerced or bullied then that's another matter. They've not brought that to my knowledge," he said.

Somebody is lying. The school said this was a voluntary activity. The parent said that the students were threatened with bad grades if they didn’t participate. The parent had no motive to lie. She was just reacting to the situation. The school official did have a motive to lie, that being to protect the school from negative publicity. Who was lying?

If the students were not officially coerced, which apparently they were, then they would have faced social pressure to act like homosexuals. And that’s really what Gender Bender Day is about, having everybody act like homosexuals.

State education officials said they had reviewed requests to homeschool for 80 students. They said that those 80 students were from all different grades and dozens of schools from several school districts, not just from East Des Moines High School, where Gender Bender Day supposedly got parents bent out of shape.

The Iowa Lieutenant Governor recently visited East Des Moines High School to announce a new state award for homosexuality. The award is called the “One Iowa Award,” and recognizes those who are working to create a “unified Iowa.” This government campaign seeks to make all Iowans of the same belief, "regardless of their race, age, gender, nationality or sexual orientation."

I would assume that the far left wing Lieutenant Governor chose that school to promote homosexuality because of the favorable reception there from the school administrators, the ones who had Gender Bender Day. So in Iowa there are government officials and government schooactively promoting homosexuality.

Some say, then, that hundreds of students left the government schools because of Gender Bender Day, where students were basically coerced into cross dressing. The other side says that there was no big reaction at all. I know that looking at the Des Moines Register newspaper for that week, there were no follow up stories about hundreds of parents being in an uproar. Had they roared loudly enough, the newspaper would have covered it. Even if 80 students applied for homeschooling, that leaves thousands in Des Moines who did not, and are content to stay with what the schools are doing. It would seem that Gender Bender Day in Iowa did not get too many people bent out of shape.

Last year a California school tried to have a “Gender Switch Day.” The principal said he wanted to teach the kids to be free thinkers. After some protest the school switched on Gender Switch Day and backed off.

In both these cases, the school administrators are still there. What kind of people are these, who feel compelled at great risk to their careers to push homosexuality? When they encourage free sex among youth, what is it that they hope to get for themselves?

Gender Bender Day will be back and will spread. Now in the public schools there is the Day of Silence, to honor and promote homosexuality, and Gender Bender Day, to dress like homosexuals.

And so goes another week in the spiritual war in America.