H2O Church at The Ohio State University

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[inCULTcated]

I don't think it's a problem at H2O anymore (although I don't know what they've been up to for the past couple years).

Now that I think about it, though, anti-education sentiments are still rather strong at Awaken (given the brainwashing I experienced there), but they might be taking a different form now. I think what Awaken is doing now is targeting their anti-education efforts at young children rather than college students.

My main evidence for this is that they're trying to start their own private school called Virtues Academy, that way children can go to their school rather than public school. It really looks like this will make it so much easier for them to brainwash children into their bizarre worldview. Especially since, as far as I know, everyone involved in this project is a member of Awaken.

Anyway, here's the link if you want to know more about it: https://virtues.academy/

[Huldah]

Thanks for the link. Two thoughts come to mind.

First, concerning K-12 education in general. I understand your concerns about indoctrinating kids, but I think that's unavoidable no matter where you send them to school.

My kids and my grandchild have all attended public school, and the oldest also spent a couple of years at a Christian school. I'm not convinced that either system is inherently superior, or that either is inherently unbiased. Of course it can vary a lot from state to state and district to district, or even teacher to teacher. I happen to live in a blue state where some school districts are ideologically very far left, and where some teachers feel it's their moral responsibility to undermine any opposing worldviews. It may not be religious indoctrination, per se, but it's every bit as dogmatic. This is not an exaggeration.

Second, concerning the Virtues Academy in particular. Their website says that the school is a member of the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), which would be of huge concern to me because of the ACCS's close ties with Doug Wilson of Moscow, Idaho. (I won't go into details here, but there are multiple websites that document Wilson's history of questionable behavior and teachings.) I'd definitely vet an ACCS school pretty hard if I were thinking of sending my kids there.

I wish that public and private schools both placed more emphasis on critical thinking skills, especially on being able to understand an issue from both sides. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who think that understanding an opposing viewpoint is the same thing as agreeing with it. And worse, they think that disagreeing with someone means you hate them. It's such a mess. But I'm starting to ramble, so I'll stop now. I'm glad that you were never pressured to drop out of college to prove your loyalty to God.

[inCULTcated]

Just to be clear, I wasn't intending to give a full-throated endorsement of public schools. I know that public schools have their issues, and I know that a lot of people have very legitimate reasons for choosing private schools or homeschooling instead. What I was trying to get at was that, by my assessment, Awaken is exploiting people's fears of public schools in order to make money off of indoctrinating their kids, and they're using this particular private school to do it.

[inCULTcated]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who think that understanding an opposing viewpoint is the same thing as agreeing with it. And worse, they think that disagreeing with someone means you hate them. It's such a mess.

Amen to that. And I actually find that observation very relevant to my own experience of spiritual abuse at Awaken. Back when Kimball (one of the pastors at Awaken) was running an Equip Series on gender and sexuality, I found his presentation of the left's position rather inaccurate at times (or at least too overly simplistic to the point of being misleading). I tried to point out some things that I had seen and heard that conflicted with his portrayal (largely making the point that the LGBT community is far from being a monolith and contains many internal disagreements), purely as a messenger, without endorsing any of these things, and yet he attacked me for supposedly agreeing with these opposing viewpoints and then accused me of attacking him for my supposedly hateful disagreement of his infallible opinions.

[Huldah]

I tried to point out some things that I had seen and heard that conflicted with his portrayal (largely making the point that the LGBT community is far from being a monolith and contains many internal disagreements), purely as a messenger, without endorsing any of these things, and yet he attacked me for supposedly agreeing with these opposing viewpoints and then accused me of attacking him for my supposedly hateful disagreement of his infallible opinions.

I came back to post some more about ACCS, and realized that I had never responded to this post. But this is exactly what I'm talking about! And it's not a Christian vs. unbeliever or conservative vs. leftist thing, either. It's a shortcoming that crosses all ideological boundaries.

Very frustrating.

[Huldah]

The Virtues Academy is a member of the ACCS. The ACCS was founded by Doug Wilson, and still has close ties to Wilson's "denomination" (not sure if that's the correct term), the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).

Today I heard a podcast about the CREC. One of the people interviewed in the podcast is Christiana Wells, who was a missionary to Cambodia before her move to Moscow and association with a CREC Bible study. She has this warning to share about the teachings of the CREC, which I strongly suspect are reflected in the curriculum of the ACCS.

From about the 1:58:00 mark:

"This is a belief system that is thoroughly poisoned by wrong theology, or wrong teaching, and that it's reflecting in this really bad fruit...

"We believe that souls are at stake. That we believe that there are those being damned to hell by believing in a works-based salvation. That we believe that there are children who believe they're saved, and then go off living their lives, never needing a Savior, never needing to fully acknowledge their own sin."

She also says that there's a disproportionately high number of kids in CREC churches who eventually rebel against the the harsh legalism they're brought up in, and end up being rejected by their families as a result.

I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't send their kids to an ACCS school. Every school has its problems, some more than others, and there's no judgement in my heart for parents who have to make a difficult school choice when none of the options is ideal. However, I'm suggesting that Christian parents shouldn't assume that even a Christian school will evangelize children with the Gospel, correctly and lovingly. Even a Christian school can damage children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSqY_1hYXg

(This episode contains discussions of alleged sexual abuse. Not suitable for young children.)