Spiritual Formation 101

“The process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing destructive images and ideas with images and ideas that fill the mind of Jesus himself” (Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart). Our beliefs and our thought life provide the live possibilities for us to choose in the day in and day out of life. If our thoughts are mostly away from God, then our choices most likely will be as well. Renewing our mind is fundamental to being an apprentice of Jesus (Romans 12:2).

Truth

“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.”—Allan Bloom

“To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what it is not that it is not, is true.”—Aristotle

“…You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”—Jesus

“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair”—C.S. Lewis

Homeschooled Girl Ordered to Attend Public School Over Her ‘Rigid’ Faith

Came across this article…very interesting

“Amanda Kurowski is a 10-year-old homeschooled girl who performs well academically and is socially well-adjusted. But her strong Christian beliefs were reason enough for a New Hampshire court to order her out of homeschooling and into a public school.

The daughter of divorced parents, Amanda has been homeschooled by her mother, Brenda Voydatch since first grade. Her father, Martin Kurowski, is opposed to homeschooling, arguing that it prevents “adequate socialization” for Amanda with other children. He requested that she be placed in a government school.

In the process of renegotiating the terms of a parenting plan for the girl, the Guardian ad Litem – who acts as a fact finder for the court – reported that Amanda was found to “lack some youthful characteristics,” partly because “she appeared to reflect her mother’s rigidity on questions of faith.”

The GAL concluded that Amanda “would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs.” (more)

I do wonder if a child of an atheist family–who thought they could do a better job homeschooling their children than sending them to public school–would be critiqued in the same manner if their child showed similar “rigidity” to people of faith? hmmm….