Here is the text of an email I just sent to members of our congregation. It was written in response to a foraging into the privacy of one our homes carried out by a government employee who had no reason for asking such intrusive questions. She wasn’t from child protective services. There had been no report or reason for suspicion. She was merely doing what the government always wants to do, which is to usurp all authority to itself. Why any fool would think government employees are normally more solicitous, protective, and wiser in behalf of children than the children’s parents themselves is beyond me, but the fact of it is indisputable.
Tragically, the government sacrifices the normal on the altar of the abnormal by treating all parents as guilty until proven innocent, destroying the parents’ confidence and skill in raising their children according to their deepest commitments to the Christian faith and the Word of God. This is not hard to understand and it must stop. It’s one of the greatest dangers to our nation’s children today. Public school teachers, principals, policemen, and judges taking over parental authority in homes with no history of abuse or even neglect is not harmless, but destructive.
That said, here’s the email which just went out from our church office:
Dear fathers and mothers of Clearnote Church, Bloomington,
I’ve read the discussion about …the intrusive questioning of one of our [parents] by the government employee that took place recently. Thank you to each person who participated, and for the wise counsel, there. I wanted to respond to this… also.
This is the sort of overreach that we should be on guard against, not because we have anything to hide, but because we now live under a government that opposes the direct commands of God’s Word such as Proverbs 13:24: “He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Christians obey Scripture.
These government employees are trying to intimidate Christians into disobeying God. They contradict Scripture, saying that he who employs the rod hates his son, but he who withholds the rod loves him. They have been indoctrinated against God, His Word, Christian faith, and obedience by their teachers and bosses, so they are prepared to violate the responsibility God Himself has given fathers and mothers for their own children. Instead they claim they are the ones who should decide how children should be raised. This is rebellion against the rule of law and must be resisted by all citizens who fear God.
Since these government employees are committed to abusing the power of law and the guns that enforce it to shove the child’s parents to the side and steal their children, we must prepare for such abuse of government and not be caught flat-footed. Knowing any information we give them can and often will be used against our children and their best interests, the proper strategy is not to volunteer any information we are not required by law to give them. We must know the laws. Know your rights as a citizen and parent, and know them inside-out.
When we are aware of the commission of a true crime (Acts 4:19; 5:29), since we are good law-abiding citizens, we inform our civil magistrates. When they want us to inform them of our private family matters such as loving corporal punishment, we refuse. To do otherwise is to help them destroy our civil rights, and thus the rule of law.
If we are harming our children by not educating them, not feeding them, or physically or sexually abusing them, then we are rightly placed under the discipline of the civil magistrate. But when we are honoring God by teaching our children sodomy is degraded and by spanking our son for punching his sister, it is none of their business. Sadly, as one of our elders put it, “the state’s business is no longer gathering just the facts ma’am. Its chief business now is concocting crimes out of normality and godliness.”
Have faith to raise your children according to Scripture, dear brothers and sisters. Do it well. Do it lovingly. But in our fatherhood and motherhood as in all other things, God commands us to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
Much love,
Pastor Bayly
