Life Matters - September 6, 2023
“Our strength can become our weakness.” – Ike Yoder. That little one-liner from an old friend packs as much punch today as it did back in the day when I was told it and I think its because we have an innate knowledge that recognizes Truth when we hear it. We need look no further than the Old Testament kings to verify what we innately know about ourselves. Or am I merely exposing myself? I think not. Though I no longer expect to be a king someday, (actually I never aspired to be one) I do recognize strengths in myself. But that recognition comes with a sense of trepidation as I acknowledge the right heart and attitude being expressed by the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “When I am weak then am I strong.” (II Corinthians 12:10) In the context, he exhorts against spiritual self-reliance because of some material advantage (II Corinthians 11:18) and then presents the persecutions he’s endured as his resumé for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Though he had a “messenger of satan” (many scholars consider this to have been some physical affliction) buffeting him for which he “besought the Lord thrice” to be delivered from, yet he accepted God’s answer when He responded with “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” To which Paul’s response was, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (II Corinthians 12:9) Paul understood the need for checks on his spirit to bring balance in his life.
Woven into the tapestry of the U.S. Constitution are checks and balances designed in recognition of human nature, a limited government in acknowledgment of the unlimited evils accompanying unlimited governance and an attempt to hinder our strengths from becoming our weaknesses. Outside the perimeters of those checks and balances, however, America has been “saddled” with an agency that has proven itself very much in need of the checks and balances it has been skirting. An agency that was formed by humanists and is now being guided by humanistic atheism. An association that has successfully engulfed most of American academia. An association that has gained upwards of three million members, all being involved in various aspects of the educational system, all enjoying (perhaps “enjoying” is the wrong word?) preferential treatment from the dubious advantage of prestige and political lobbying.
According to Wikipedia the NEA’s (National Education Association) budget for the 2012 – 2013 fiscal year was $341 million. From 1982 to 2014 election cycle, the NEA spent $92 million on political campaign contributions, 97 percent of which went to Democrats. Now the largest Teachers Union in the U.S., the NEA was chartered by congress in 1906. The relationship between congress and an organization so recognized is largely symbolic, and is intended to lend the organization the legitimacy of being officially sanctioned by the U.S. government. Congress does not oversee or supervise organizations so chartered, aside from receiving a yearly financial statement.
The NEA’s self-description includes it having three million members “working at every level of education to shape our organization and impact.” That impact “blew up in their faces” during the COVID pandemic as students did lessons at home via computer and parents who formerly trusted school boards and teachers to do the right thing (teach academics) to their children became painfully aware of the socialist, humanistic, CRT and such-like indoctrinations their children were being subjected to. Often including ideas being pushed by educators so dull they can’t even explain male and female genders despite obvious biology being supported by XY and XX chromosomes.
I suppose back in the day when education was not so universally available, the NEA did some good things when it promoted availability of education for everyone. But the Teachers Unions of today are a far cry from their roots in academia. Their strength has become their weakness. A juggernaut of weakness that would be better in 50 pieces. Or, as my, and other conservative thinking parents opined in the 1960s, an inept juggernaut best left to its own devices. May the many souls caught up in this hapless juggernaut repent in their weakness to find Truth and spiritual strength in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. May the power of Christ rest upon us. Life Matters!