Archive for April, 2017

Moral Persons, Immoral Societies

Wednesday, April 26th, 2017

For the first eight years of my life I stood in front of an ancient oak tree in front of my family home on South Highway, McGehee, Arkansas, and caught a big yellow school bus to McGehee Elementary School. My buddies, Craig Towles and Pip Runyan, wickedly violated school bus riding etiquette and abandoned their boring bus stop two doors down and joined me so that we could surreptitiously deposit acorns AKA pretend “soldiers” in the middle of the road to be squashed by speeding autos AKA pretend German Panzer Tanks. The old oak tree liberally deposited brave acorn Wehrmacht African Korps recruits on the crab grass carpet that my grandmother had futilely tried to replace with St. Augustine grass.
We made the most of the oak’s munificence. Those little buggers made a wonderful chartreuse stain on the already steaming South Highway concrete crown. This was innocent enough—no one would miss a few acorns from a stupid oak tree—but before long, you guessed it, we—more precisely Pip—who was always full of errant but terribly interesting pretend scenarios—that boy always worried Craig and me—suggested that we abandon the acorns and started throwing grenades AKA rocks at passing cars (Pip will deny this of course but you must corroborate this story with Craig). We finally hit (blew up) a few Tiger Tanks and got into big trouble (were captured by the enemy—the Gestapo—and were thoroughly punished–our parents beat the crap out of us).
The truth is Jimmy, Craig, Pip alone would not do such a depraved thing (well maybe Pip would do it—he tortured cats too). In a group, together, however, such a thing not only was plausible, it was downright desirable. Jimmy, Craig, and Pip did things Jimmy or Craig or Pip would never do alone. In a crowd we did things we would not do as individuals.
A Christian theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr said as much in a book he wrote called Moral Man and Immoral Society. Niebuhr insisted that public politics is concerned with correcting, balancing as it were, the sinfulness of human nature, that is, the self-centeredness of individuals and groups. But he understood that while little boys, and political despots might behave nicely if they are alone, in groups, they became monsters. He suggested that moral men became immoral men when they were together in a social group.
Niebuhr fervently hoped that a person would experience redemption and thereby redeem his society by a Hegelian, reductionist struggle with sinfulness. Hegel said, in short, that folks changed as they struggled with life. Hegel hoped that people came through a struggle, hard times, as better people. Just like my mother hoped that my whipping for throwing the rocks with Craig and Pip would cause me to be a better person too. In my case, the mental dissonance, combined with physical pain, worked! I have never thrown rocks at cars since then. I still relieve myself outside behind another oak tree once in a while—another terrible thing that Pip and Craig taught me to do and my fussy mother told me not to do—but, hey, I live on a farm! But I have never thrown rocks at cars.
Niebuhr advanced the thesis that what the individual is able to achieve singly cannot be a possibility for social groups. He believed that Jimmy Stobaugh would be a good boy alone but inevitably, without a doubt, once he was with Craig and Pip or his other buddies he would indulge in chicanery. It was inevitable. Thus, Niebuhr believed in moral individuals and immoral societies or groups. He called it “the herd mentality.”
In other words, Niebuhr correctly saw the immorality of systems in society (e.g., social welfare) and its futile attempts to ameliorate individuals and their needs through systemic interventions. In other words, Niebuhr was not naïve — he knew that systems and cultures change and individual hearts change. But it was much harder to convince a group to change than an individual.
Niebuhr warned that one should try to change individual hearts first, but, in a last resort, power could and should be used to stop societies from harming its members and then other societies.
Once Craig and I were melting down Mr. Chilcoat’s discarded tar shingles to make spears. We were full of bad ideas but they always exhibited élan and ingenuity. We carefully placed the tar shingles in empty discarded metal pork and bean cans sitting in a roaring fire. Once the tar was bubbling we placed old broom handles in the mixture and, once the broom handles were removed, and the tar somewhat cooled, we place stone heads–carefully chiseled as surrogate Indian spear heads–into the warm tar. Thus, we created a alligator killing weapon that we used to kill pretend reptiles in Mrs. Beck’s water garden.
My dad, observing our behavior, and, furthermore, discerning the obvious dangers of placing boiling tar and eight year old boys in the same vicinity, prophetically warned, “Jimmy, stop or you will burn yourself badly.”
Well, he was right. Within the next hour I spilled burning tar on my right hand causing painful third degree burns. I spent the rest of the day in Dr. Parker’s waiting room. Even looking at lovely Jane Parker, Dr. Parker’s oldest daughter, my first heartthrob, only to be replaced by perennial goddess Jamie Fraser the following year, could not mitigate the pain. It was a Sunday afternoon and Jane had accompanied her dad to his office, which was normally closed. I longingly lobbied for curative sympathy from this exquisite beauty but Jane, always the pragmatist, simply thought I was stupid and resented that her dad had to waste his time on such a dope.
The thing is, I always wondered, why didn’t my dad STOP me from burning Mr. Chilcoat’s roof shingles and, more pointedly, from burning to the third degree his accident prone, stupid middle son’s hand? What if I had killed myself or something? I imagined Dad saying, “Well Jimmys dead—I told him it was going to happen.” Or “Well, now what am I going to do—there is no one to take the trash out in the morning!” My dad would have been sorry, I was convinced if the fates of burning tar had snatched me from this world
Or, worse, what if I hurt Craig—something I was always doing. Poor Craig, more times than not, got hurt more often by my dim-witted choices than I did. Craig got four stitches in his chin the next year when I caught his face with an army surplus shovel as we dug fox holes to escape the inevitable Japanese Banzai charge that would be visited on us at Guadalcanal. Didn’t Dad at least want to protect poor Craig? It would have been pretty embarrassing to tell Mom, and Mrs. Towles, “Sorry to tell you—Jimmy and Craig were killed while making tar spears to kill pretend alligators in Mrs. Beck’s water garden.” Pathetic parenting.
I once asked Dad and Dad with an iconic grin responded, “Jimmy, even at age eight, you manifested an obduracy that I could not overcome. In the presence of Craig, in order to maintain your pride, I knew you would never listen to me. You needed to experience the consequences of your actions before you would stop the action.”
Especially as I look down right now, as I type this digital magazine, and I look at my scarred right hand I realize my sagacious father was right.
Dad’s point was, individuals may be sincere in their understanding about several issues. In fact, they may be right about some issues. But they are wrong,
too. But when that group gains political hegemony, it can lose focus and direction and can do immoral things—like throwing rocks at cars—and stupid things—like making tar spears.
Individuals can be moral in purpose and in actions. But combining a bunch of individuals into a coercive group can cause the group to become immoral. For example, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was initially a pretty good thing for Germany. However, as he gained power, the good was replaced by the bad. This may not be inevitable, but it happens so often that we should be cautious in giving so much power to groups. As an interesting sidebar, Niebuhr is directly contradicting the liberal Dewey who applauded the notion that the community, or larger society, created the greater good.
The answer to this apparent contradiction is, of course the Gospel. Societies and groups change as individuals change. Niebuhr stressed the role of the Holy Spirit (what he calls the “religious imagination”). In a sense the group remained moral because the individuals in that society answer to a “higher power,” not to the coercion of the group or to the agenda of the group. Dietrich Bonheoffer, a German
World War II martyr, for example, was perhaps the most patriotic of Germans because he loved his God and his country enough to obey God and His Word above all persons. This was the only way, Bonheoffer understood, that his nation could be moral and right before the God he served. Unfortunately, he was a lone voice in
the wilderness!
We live today in a world that is full of the tyranny of the majority. The world tells us to relax, be happy and do what is right in our own eyes. We do things as a group we would never do as individuals. But judgment comes not to groups but to individuals!
The truth, then, is change—real change—is a “God” thing. Only God can really change persons. And as he changes persons, families, then he will change communities and nations. I believe this with all my heart and anxiously wait for God to change our individual hearts, then our nation, and then the world. For the time we have left, with all the effort we have, I wish to do exactly that: share the Gospel with one person at a time so that the world will change and God’s Kingdom will come on this Earth as it is in Heaven!

A Grievance Mentality

Sunday, April 23rd, 2017

Recently I was invited to join the Harvard Loser’s Club. This is an exclusive club, very exclusive. It is populated by Harvard graduates whose income is near or below the poverty line.
First, I am not technically a Harvard graduate. I know I am considered an alumni because I was a Charles E. Merrill Fellow (some think this is a greater honor than a degree) and I transferred to Princeton Seminary when I was a senior at Harvard Divinity School.
Secondly, I am not a loser. Dull, maybe, at times, I am sure my wife would say. But not a loser. I would love to attend the “Dull Men’s Club” that meets regularly in Pembrake, MA, south of Boston (Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2012, p. 1). They discuss such interesting subjects: Attendees have studied park benches around the world; leaf raking techniques. In one meeting they debated for 2.5 hours the best way to put toilet paper on the roll, over or under. Now that is an arresting subject! Sure interests me!
The problem is that losers and dullards have a tendency to define themselves according to what they are not, by what they don’t have rather than what they have. I call this a grievance mentality.
In 2017, we must be careful not to define ourselves according to what we are not, by what we do not have, by what we dislike rather than what we like. Let me explain.
Many social movements begin with a righteous cause but over time develop a grievance mentality against their opponents. For instance, the Civil Rights movement began in sincerity and earnestness that was righteous and good. It checked the unbridled racism that was polluting our nation. But eventually, Professor Shelby Steele in White Guilt argues, progress was slowed and then stopped by two things: African-American fears of whites and white guilt feelings that brought change in the socio-political realm but changed no hearts.
One reviewer explained:

The author [Shelby Steele] frames his book around a drive up the California coast during which he pondered the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair. Why is it, he asks himself, that President Eisenhower would have been drummed out of office for a sex scandal like Clinton’s, while Clinton would certainly have been impeached if he had used the racial slur Eisenhower allegedly employed on the golf course? The answer, Steele asserts, is a fundamental change in American culture. The success of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s showed that America’s power structure lacked moral authority. For white Americans, the only way to regain that authority has been to “disassociate” from racism, which Steele says is now more frowned upon than adultery. The result has whites straining to appear benevolent toward blacks, while African-American leaders take advantage of “white guilt” to gain handouts such as affirmative action. Steele, who made the same points in his National Book Critics Circle award-winner The Content of Our Character (1990), contends that white liberals see blacks for their skin color instead of their individuality. (“Most of today’s conservatives,” he contends, “sound like Martin Luther King in 1963.”) Black leaders, on the other hand, fail to call upon African-Americans to exercise personal responsibility. Steele has some noteworthy insights into the ways blacks and whites relate, but his arguments suffer from his tendency to establish and then gleefully demolish straw men and from his sweeping generalizations based on personal experiences. Steele claims, for example, that the racial discrimination he encountered as a child did little to harm his self-image and then applies his experience to all blacks. This is the same form of argument he finds offensive in others.

Will we define ourselves as a rejection of other educational movements or will we embrace the iconoclastic future God has called us to grasp? We must be careful to avoid all roots of bitterness as we examine our future. There are great dangers in forming and maintaining a cultural movement based on dislikes and anger rather than approbation and affirmation of new possibilities. We are children of the living God! We are not afraid of any world view, any sociological theory, any scientific theory. We choose to define ourselves by what we are—not by what we are not.

Harvard and Heaven: Prospering in the Secular University

Monday, April 17th, 2017

 Who could imagine that a movement that began so quietly in the 1970s would generate so vital and an anointed generation that is emerging at the beginning of this century? It is a time to celebrate and to reflect.

In 2017 it is an uncontested fact: home schoolers are dominating college admission test scores, and, it is growing more evident each day that they are highly qualified and successful college students when they are admitted. When I was growing up, eons ago, elite prep schools dominated the college admission classes. Today, the new “elite” are home schooled graduates. They are the most highly recruited, most highly valued freshmen at secular and Christian schools alike. I am privy to a Harvard University online chat room, and recently I saw this statement posted. “If Harvard wants to be the best, the most relevant institution in the years ahead, it must recruit and admit home schoolers.” Indeed.

And Harvard has reason to worry. I spoke to a Yale recruiter and she told me that, while Yale wants home schoolers, home schoolers do not seem to want Yale. They are not applying to Yale. Likewise, I have two distance learning students who were heavily recruited by Ivy League schools. They both chose local alternatives (a state school and a Christian school).

It is not the purpose of this article to lobby for any particular post-graduate choice, although I found my wife at Harvard—and Intervarsity Fellowship on Thursday night in Cambridge is larger than the entire student body at Gordon College (a Christian College) in South Hamilton. Mostly for fiscal reasons, the majority of Christian home schoolers go to secular colleges. That is an uncontested fact. We home schoolers, for whatever reason, usually attend secular colleges.

Therefore, this article is about the secular colleges we will attend—how they got to be the way they are and how we can prosper in such a place.

First, to most evangelical Christians, the modern, secular, university is a hostile place. It was not always so.

In fact, the American university was built solidly on evangelical principles. There were no so-called “official” “secular” colleges until the rise of the land grant colleges in the middle of the 19th century. An early brochure, published in 1643, stated that the purpose of Harvard University (the oldest American university) was “To advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches.” Harvard’s motto for 300 years was “Christo et Ecclesiae.” In fact, most of the U. S. universities founded before the 20th century had a strongly religious, usually Protestant Evangelical Christian character. Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Stanford, Duke, William and Mary, Boston University, Michigan, and the University of California had a decidedly evangelical Christian character in the early years of their existence but abandoned it by the 20th century. By 1920s, the American university had stepped completely back from its evangelical roots. This was true of almost every American university founded in the first 200 years of our existence.

Readers would be surprised to see how evangelical, Christ-centered early universities were. They had pastors as presidents. These men closely tied the identity of their university to a strong Christian world view. The core curriculum included Bible courses and Christian theology. These were mandatory Bible courses. All American universities insisted on a doctrinally sound content for sensitive courses and often required that faculty be born again Christians! Imagine this: the famous historian Frederick Jackson Turner was refused a professorship at Princeton because he was a Unitarian! Chapel attendance was required at Harvard and Yale! It is more than coincidental that the architects who designed early universities designed them to look like churches. At the University of Pittsburgh, for instance, the most prominent building on campus is the Cathedral of Learning.

Universities were founded because early Americans earnestly believed that American society should be governed by evangelical Christian people. They believed that American industry should be run by evangelical Christian entrepreneurs. They believed that American culture should be created by evangelical artists. The early American university was committed to making sure that that happened.

The marriage of spiritual maturity and elite education is a potent combination and to a large degree assured the success of the American experiment. Its divorce may presage its demise.

Today the university is not even loosely a Christian institution. Religion in the university and in public life is relegated to the private experience. So-called “academic freedom” has become a sacrosanct concept and precludes anything that smacks of religiosity–especially orthodoxy that evangelicals so enthusiastically embrace. Religion is represented on campus in sanitary denominational ministries and token chapel ministries (that were hardly more than counseling centers).

To a large degree, then, the American university abandoned the evangelical and the evangelical abandoned the American university.

This created a crisis in the American university and in the evangelical community. The secular American university compromised its “soul” for naturalistic; evangelicalism compromised its epistemological hegemony for ontological supremacy. In other words, the secular university became a sort of an academic hothouse for pompous rationalism. Evangelicals abandoned the secular university, and, until recently, more or less compromised their academic base. Evangelicals even founded their own universities but they were poor academic substitutes for secular offerings. Even as I write article, this is changing.

The university, if it has any value, must be involved in the communication of immutable, metaphysical truth. The American secular university is not about to accept such limits. It recognizes no citadel of orthodoxy, no limits to its knowledge. But, like Jesus reminds Thomas in John 14, our hope lies not in what we know, but most assuredly whom we know.

Most secular universities have concluded that abstract concepts like grace, hope, and especially faith are indefinable, immeasurable, and above all unreasonable. Not that God or the uniqueness of Jesus Christ can be proved, or disproved. There are certain issues which the order of the intellect simply cannot address, so we must rise above that to the order of the heart. Faith is our consent to receive the good that God would have for us. Evangelicals believe that God can and does act in our world and in our lives. Human needs are greater than this world can satisfy and therefore it is reasonable to look elsewhere. The university has forgotten or ignores this fact.

That is all changing—and partly due to the popularity of the American home schooling movement. In massive numbers the American home school movement—initially and presently primarily an evangelical Christian movement—is depositing some of the brightest, capable students in our country into the old, august institutions like Harvard. And, what is more exciting, the flashpoint of cultural change is changing from Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Stanford to Wheaton, Grove City, Calvin, and Liberty (all evangelical universities). Before long the new wave of elite culture creators will be graduating from American secular universities and Christian universities and they shall be a great deal different from the elite of which I was a part in the middle 1970s. I am not saying the secular university will change quickly—intellectual naturalistic reductionism makes that extremely difficult. However, I do see the whole complexion of university graduates to change significantly in the next twenty years. Never in the history of the world has such a thing happened.

Young people, make sure that you know who you are and who your God is. “By faith, Moses, when he had grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” (Hebs. 11:24) Theologian Walter Brueggemann calls American believers to “nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”

Refuse to be absorbed into the world but choose to be a part of God’s kingdom.There is no moderate position anymore in American society–either we are taking a stand for Christ in this inhospitable culture or we are not.

You are special and peculiar generation. Much loved. But you live among a people who do not know who they are. A people without hope. You need to know who you are—children of the Living God—and then you must live a hopeful life. Quoting C.S. Lewis, we “are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

Take responsibility for your life. Moses accepted responsibility for his life. “He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.” (Hebs. 11: 25) If you don’t make decisions for your life, someone else will.

Get a cause worth dying for. Moses accepted necessary suffering even unto death. You need a cause worth dying for (as well as living for). “He [Moses] regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.” (Hebs. 11: 26). We are crucified with Christ, yet it is not we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gals 2:20).

Finally, never take your eyes off the goal. “By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.” (Hebs. 11:27). What is your threshold of obedience?

Young people, if you are part of this new evangelical elite, you have immense opportunities ahead of you. A new Godly generation is arising. You will be called to guide this nation into another unprecedented revival. We shall see.

Public Education: How the Mighty Have Fallen

Friday, April 14th, 2017
“Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights.
How the mighty have fallen!
“Tell it not in Gath,
proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.
“O mountains of Gilboa,
may you have neither dew nor rain,
nor fields that yield offerings of grain .
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.
                                                                2 Samuel 1: 19-21
     From the landing at Plymouth Rock to today, communities tried to educate its members in a public forum.  Public education began in earnest in the 20th century.  Its dreams were worthy and laudable.  They have not come to pass.
     Today, the failures of that system are manifestly legin.  Almost no one will deny that public education is in deep trouble.  Yet, the failure of such a history-rich, august institution as public education gives me no pleasure.  In fact, it breaks my heart.  “Tell it not in Gath!  Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon!”
     My family is a loyal home school family.  My wife Karen and I home schooled all of our four children.  We are strong believers in home schooling and would have everyone home school if that were possible.
     But it is not possible. Not everyone can home school.  If we have our millions public education has it ten million.  And my heart cries out for the children and their parents. And you should cry too!
“O mountains of Gilboa,
may you have neither dew nor rain,
nor fields that yield offerings of grain .
For there the shield of the mighty was defiled,
the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.
     In the early years of our marriage, I taught in a public school.  In fact, I am still permanently certified in most states.  Later, I left public school teaching and became a pastor.  Recently, I spent three weeks substitute teaching for a social studies teacher.  My eyes were opened and my heart was broken.
     I met 16 year old Melissa.  Once a week she meets with about 12 students for a Bible study.  I observed that she and her friends are openly persecuted by most students and by some faculty. I met Frank, a faithful follower of Jesus Christ who also is a public school teacher. Melissa and Frank deserve our prayers.
     Home schoolers, public schools are not full of Godless, immoral brigands.  By and large, public schools are humane, sincere, if ineffectual, institutions trying to accomplish the same goals we home schoolers are trying to accomplish. But they are failing, we know that.  And, truly, public school teachers know that too.
     “Public education” is an oxymoron.  Education is the most intimate and valuable of experiences and occurs best in the crucible of a family.  Ineffectiveness has forced public education to embrace mediocrity with reckless abandon.
     But that is not our business.  Judgement is not our vocation.  We need only to cry out to God for public education!  47.7 million Public School students. 2.5 million graduates this year alone.  Saints, there were 47.7 million of them and 4.9 million of us.  We need to cry out for our public school friends and family members!  They are not the enemy.  Let not the enemy rejoice “in the streets of Ashkelon (a pagan goddess), lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad,  lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.”  Home schoolers cry out and intercede in prayer for the public schools of this country!

Online College Degrees—Pray About it!

Friday, April 14th, 2017

The best approach to going to college is to present a terrific SAT/ACT score and offer a great transcript. The SAT/ACT is by far, without a doubt, the most important credential that you bring to college admission and college scholarship determination. Absolutely. Can I make myself any clearer! In an age when schools are so different—schools even in the same zip code—when an A somewhere would be a C in another place—colleges MUST rely on the ACT/SAT score to determine admission. It has been that way for a while. It will be that way for years to come, if not forever.

Take the SAT and/or ACT junior year. And then apply during your senior year. That is the ticket!

One question that I’m often asked, is, what about an online degree? Should I do that? No, you shouldn’t.

I want to define terms a little bit first. An online degree is a college degree of sorts, a sort of Bachelor of Arts, a sort of Bachelor of Science degree. A sort of sort of. It purports to be like any other degree (never is a claim that it is better than a four year, resident degree!). But it is not. I know of no employer who would prefer an online degree employee over a four year college degree from a recognized university. Do you? Would you hire an online degree graduate from Liberty University before you would hire a resident graduate from Liberty University?

Online college students stay at home and take all course work via the computer. The course work plus CLEP credit equals an online degree. Occasionally they spend a week or two on site, but most of the work is at home.

This is different from taking some course work online. A lot of people do that. A lot of people get AP or CLEP credit. But most do not complete a degree that way. Taking a few courses is fine. There’s no question that you may take one, two or three courses online—or get some CLEP/AP Credit–but you should know that many colleges—the best colleges—will not give you credit for any online courses. Usually they’re basic courses that are essentially the same everywhere. Most general online course, or CLEEP credits, are not in your major area, and, they might save you some money.

Or not. Remember if you have a high ACT/SAT score the university/college that admits you will give you a nice financial package. Let them pay for your education. Besides, as I said, colleges that I attended will not give you credit for online courses. Period. No credit at all.

As I advised, don’t do it. I have some real questions about an online degree. You should too. If you don’t, call a few employers and ask them if they prefer online degree employees or employees who went to Vanderbilt or the University of Texas in Austin. Ask them if they would rather have an online degree graduate from an online program or a four year, resident graduate.

Another reason I have questions about an online degree, is that the best graduate schools, will not admit online degree students. And what good is a degree, online, if you can’t use it, to go where God is calling you?

Another thing is, online degrees are terribly expensive! I know one online program that costs about $15,000 and you have nothing when you finish. If you don’t believe me ask people who have online degrees. Ask them if they were able to go to graduate school. Ask them if their degree is viewed the same way as a degree from the University of North Carolina or Messiah College. Ask them if they would do the same thing again.

You are hit both ways. You are ineligible for merit scholarships, ineligible for need based scholarships, ineligible for scholarships period. But you have a huge bill.

It no doubt would be cheaper for you to go to a four-year orthodox college on scholarship. And that will happen to you, if you have a high SAT and ACT score. You may, think you’re saving money by doing an online program, but if a regular college is, giving you a huge scholarship, it’s really cheaper then why not do that?

There are a lot of convention speakers who are vilifying big name schools and talking about how expensive they are. Well, did you know that homeschoolers receive more financial aid as a population group at Harvard and Stanford than any other population group?

$15,000 is a lot of money. You could spend $15,000+ and then need to pay for 2-3 more years in another college (if this college will accept your CLEP credits) because all you have is a bunch of CLEP credits (which are much less respected than AP credits).

If you really feel God is telling you to get an Online Degree, why don’t you do it on your own? Really, the entire Online Programs can easily be replicated by your own efforts. Online agencies (except colleges—colleges do help you sign up for online courses) do nothing more than what you could do for yourself—FREE. I could pay someone to get my social security for me. I see Ads on television all the time. But why would I? For a little bit of effort I could write and get one for myself FREE. Don’t pay someone $15,000 for something that could cost you nothing if you would do it yourself!

You can also lose your health insurance if you are not a resident student. That could cost another $400 a month for some students.

An online “degree” might cost $15,000. Texas A & M costs $7,500/year tuition. The University of North Carolina $5922. You might spend $15,000 only to find that you need to spend another $28,000 because you do not really have a college degree! Unfortunately, too, you might have taken yourself out of the running for scholarships because typically four year students do not give scholarships to transfer students.

I am proprietary about the evangelical leadership emerging in this country. We do not want you to be distracted by smoke and mirrors. We do not want you to pursue Quixotic delusions that sound too good to be true because they are too good to be true!

We have nothing to fear in the American university. Nothing. Believers are more than conquerors in Christ. He has favored us with the great opportunity to lead our sad country into the next millennium. Let us stay focused on this task.

We don’t have the time and resources to waste on something that will not advance the Kingdom of God.

Just pray about it, and make sure you know what you’re doing, before you enter an online degree program.

The best approach to going to college is to present a terrific SAT/ACT score and offer a great transcript. The SAT/ACT is by far, without a doubt, the most important credential that you bring to college admission and college scholarship determination. Absolutely. Can I make myself any clearer! In an age when schools are so different—schools even in the same zip code—when an A somewhere would be a C in another place—colleges MUST rely on the ACT/SAT score to determine admission. It has been that way for a while. It will be that way for years to come, if not forever.

Take the SAT and/or ACT junior year. And then apply during your senior year. That is the ticket!

One question that I’m often asked, is, what about an online degree? Should I do that? No, you shouldn’t.

I want to define terms a little bit first. An online degree is a college degree of sorts, a sort of Bachelor of Arts, a sort of Bachelor of Science degree. A sort of sort of. It purports to be like any other degree (never is a claim that it is better than a four year, resident degree!). But it is not. I know of no employer who would prefer an online degree employee over a four year college degree from a recognized university. Do you? Would you hire an online degree graduate from Liberty University before you would hire a resident graduate from Liberty University?

Online college students stay at home and take all course work via the computer. The course work plus CLEP credit equals an online degree. Occasionally they spend a week or two on site, but most of the work is at home.

This is different from taking some course work online. A lot of people do that. A lot of people get AP or CLEP credit. But most do not complete a degree that way. Taking a few courses is fine. There’s no question that you may take one, two or three courses online—or get some CLEP/AP Credit–but you should know that many colleges—the best colleges—will not give you credit for any online courses. Usually they’re basic courses that are essentially the same everywhere. Most general online course, or CLEEP credits, are not in your major area, and, they might save you some money.

Or not. Remember if you have a high ACT/SAT score the university/college that admits you will give you a nice financial package. Let them pay for your education. Besides, as I said, colleges that I attended will not give you credit for online courses. Period. No credit at all.

As I advised, don’t do it. I have some real questions about an online degree. You should too. If you don’t, call a few employers and ask them if they prefer online degree employees or employees who went to Vanderbilt or the University of Texas in Austin. Ask them if they would rather have an online degree graduate from an online program or a four year, resident graduate.

Another reason I have questions about an online degree, is that the best graduate schools, will not admit online degree students. And what good is a degree, online, if you can’t use it, to go where God is calling you?

Another thing is, online degrees are terribly expensive! I know one online program that costs about $15,000 and you have nothing when you finish. If you don’t believe me ask people who have online degrees. Ask them if they were able to go to graduate school. Ask them if their degree is viewed the same way as a degree from the University of North Carolina or Messiah College. Ask them if they would do the same thing again.

You are hit both ways. You are ineligible for merit scholarships, ineligible for need based scholarships, ineligible for scholarships period. But you have a huge bill.

It no doubt would be cheaper for you to go to a four-year orthodox college on scholarship. And that will happen to you, if you have a high SAT and ACT score. You may, think you’re saving money by doing an online program, but if a regular college is, giving you a huge scholarship, it’s really cheaper then why not do that?

There are a lot of convention speakers who are vilifying big name schools and talking about how expensive they are. Well, did you know that homeschoolers receive more financial aid as a population group at Harvard and Stanford than any other population group?

$15,000 is a lot of money. You could spend $15,000+ and then need to pay for 2-3 more years in another college (if this college will accept your CLEP credits) because all you have is a bunch of CLEP credits (which are much less respected than AP credits).

If you really feel God is telling you to get an Online Degree, why don’t you do it on your own? Really, the entire Online Programs can easily be replicated by your own efforts. Online agencies (except colleges—colleges do help you sign up for online courses) do nothing more than what you could do for yourself—FREE. I could pay someone to get my social security for me. I see Ads on television all the time. But why would I? For a little bit of effort I could write and get one for myself FREE. Don’t pay someone $15,000 for something that could cost you nothing if you would do it yourself!

You can also lose your health insurance if you are not a resident student. That could cost another $400 a month for some students.

An online “degree” might cost $15,000. Texas A & M costs $7,500/year tuition. The University of North Carolina $5922. You might spend $15,000 only to find that you need to spend another $28,000 because you do not really have a college degree! Unfortunately, too, you might have taken yourself out of the running for scholarships because typically four year students do not give scholarships to transfer students.

I am proprietary about the evangelical leadership emerging in this country. We do not want you to be distracted by smoke and mirrors. We do not want you to pursue Quixotic delusions that sound too good to be true because they are too good to be true!

We have nothing to fear in the American university. Nothing. Believers are more than conquerors in Christ. He has favored us with the great opportunity to lead our sad country into the next millennium. Let us stay focused on this task.

We don’t have the time and resources to waste on something that will not advance the Kingdom of God.

Just pray about it, and make sure you know what you’re doing, before you enter an online degree program.