There’s a big problem facing Christian families today. Thanks to decades of growing government spending and higher taxes, many Christian parents can’t afford to keep one parent at home to homeschool their children. Most of the Christian parents I know both work. So how do these Christians parents educate their children? Many don’t have enough money for anything except for public schools. But some turn to private Christian schools.

Here’s an interesting story from The Federalist about a Christian school in Nashville, TN:

Parents and staff at a Christian prep school in Nashville are upset about what they say is a trend away from biblical teaching and toward leftist ideology after Lipscomb Academy hired a principal who wrote his dissertation on school diversity policies.

This is a very expensive school for high-earning Christian parents. But what are Christian parents getting for all that tuition money?

Some of the parents have expressed concerns about leftist ideologies infiltrating the school:

Lipscomb Academy has shifted to a more politicized, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”-influenced education, some Lipscomb parents and others connected to the academy including employees tell The Federalist. They asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal against their children and their positions with the school.

The problems seem to be related to the new leader of the school:

These individuals claim the shift picked up when Brad Schultz was tapped to lead Lipscomb Academy. Schultz, whose 2013 doctoral dissertation was titled “Intentionally Diverse: A Historical Investigation of a Southern Private School’s Ten-Year Diversity Initiative,” began his tenure as Lipscomb’s Head of School in June 2020 — just as race riots took off in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities.

The Christian parents I know want their children to have an accurate and defensible Christian worldview. So that means not only learning what the Bible teaches, but how it applies to every area of life. And it also means not just taking the Bible “on faith”, but knowing how to disagree with other faiths and cultures using logic and evidence. It means being able to show objective evidence for the core claims of Christianity, such as the origin of the universe and the goodness of chastity, right to life, natural marriage, etc.

But what is Schultz concerned about in his dissertation?

Schultz’s dissertation relies on several critical theorists, including Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, and Max Horkheimer. According to its adherents, critical social theory aims to challenge systemic power structures on behalf of “oppressed” people.

[…]The dissertation expresses “concerns” that Northeastern Christian School’s mission statement — “To help each child grow as Jesus did in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man” — showed “signs of cultural invasion.” The mission statement’s “commitment to help students grow in favor with God” presents a “significant threat here of students being negatively influenced by a hidden curriculum,” he wrote.

“Is the school saying it holds the key to being in favor with God? If so, what is this saying to students who come to the school from different religious faiths or cultures?” Schultz wrote of the Christian school, which was “run and taught by members of the Churches of Christ.”

The dissertation also warned Northeastern was missing out on further “diversity” by turning away homosexual students and families. Schultz said the school uses “rules and disciplinary measures” to “prevent homosexual students and/or parents from ‘accomplishing its educational and spiritual purposes.’”

“As support for gay marriage continues to rise, the school’s stance towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage is likely to come into question,” Schultz wrote.

Do you think that a leader of a Christian school should be intimidated by what  members other religions – like Islam – feel about the truth of Christianity? Do you think that a leader of a Christian school should be intimidated by what homosexuals and proponents of same-sex marriage feel about the Bible’s teachings on those issues? I think the problem we are having today is that we have redefined Christianity to be about feeling good and being liked by non-Christians. Those were not concerns of Jesus, according to the Bible. But they are the concerns of people today.

We have a discipline called “apologetics” that teaches Christians how to be comfortable showing why they believe what they believe to non-Christians. But it takes effort to learn. It’s not taught in most Christian homes, churches or Christian schools. So many Christians never learn how to challenge non-Christian ideas like Marxism and sexual immorality. And some of those unequipped people end up as administrators and teachers in Christian schools. And  then those Christian schools don’t produce students who go on to become Christian scholars like Stephen C. Meyer or Michael Licona or Fazale Rana.

In the specific case of Libscomb Academy, they seem to value achieving racial diversity. They highlight that priority on Schultz’s biography page.

The Federalist article has many more details. Please go read it.

And if you missed our episode of the Knight and Rose Show on this topic with Dr. Corey Miller, you might want to check it out.

Now let’s flip over to Daily Signal and see what Tyler O’Neil has to say.

He writes:

According to two Lipscomb Academy parents who spoke to The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity, the academy sent the new Code of Conduct to parents Feb. 24, requiring them to sign it by March 5 in order to keep their kids enrolled for the 2026-2027 academic year.

[…]“Families shall respect the confidentiality of administration, faculty, staff, and other students, and parents/guardians/families,” reads a section on privacy. “Information about personnel matters, disciplinary actions, grades, or other student matters must not be discussed publicly or shared through social media, texts, email, or conversation.”

The privacy section demands that families not “publicly speculate or criticize personnel decisions or school matters.”

Libscomb Academy doesn’t seem to like parents (their customers) complaining about the quality of the school.

Also note:

Lipscomb reportedly threatened The Federalist with legal action when the conservative outlet started asking questions.

“After The Federalist started looking into the allegations about the school’s left-leaning turn, Lipscomb’s general counsel sent a letter to Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullmann warning that ‘publication of statements known to be false or made with reckless disregard for their accuracy could expose The Federalist to potential liability,’” the outlet’s M.D. Kittle reported.

Does this behavior sound like something Jesus would do? It sounds to me like something an atheist like Stalin would do. “Straight to the Gulag!” he’d say.

By the way, we have a forthcoming episode of Knight and Rose Show with Tyler O’Neil, so stay tuned to the podcast!

I wanted to announce to everyone that there is a Science and Faith conference in Dallas, Texas coming this weekend. And there’s live streaming. I have watched all the videos from the previous ones. It’s much better to watch and listen to them than to just listen to them, because of the slides. Anyway, one of the previous talks was about honeybees, and I blogged about it. BUT there is even more interesting design evidence in honeybees. Let’s investigate.

So, in my last post, I talked about the design of honeybees.

But here is the latest on the honeybees, from Science and Culture.

First, here is the topic – bee selection of flowers for efficient collection of nectar:

Animals are constantly faced with having to make behavioral decisions. An example is when they forage — searching for food. Bee behavior when questing for pollen and nectar has been a favorite subject for biologists to study. One reason is that rather than searching randomly for flowers, bees exhibit clear tendencies and preferences. Research has determined that bees use information about flower characteristics to make their foraging decisions.

Various aspects of bee foraging have been the subject of experiments. There are a number of factors that affect their decisions on where and when to forage. Bees typically have to choose between “Several dozen flower species which all differ in reward and signal, and they may encounter several flowers with different signals per second of flight.” Bees have been shown to be flexible, adjusting their decision-making behavior based on the conditions they encounter. One piece of information that bees use in foraging is the depth of the flower, which affects the time required to forage (called handling time). Flowers of shallow depth require less handling time, which can be viewed as a trade-off cost, and thus are more efficient. Other things being equal, bees generally prefer flowers of shallow depth with, therefore, reduced handling time. It has also been shown that bees prefer flowers that provide a greater reward (i.e., more nectar) if handling time is not a factor. Some experiments have shown that bees have a distinct preference for flowers with optimum concentrations of nectar. Bees also show a preference for continuing to forage on flowers of the same color, sometimes even when flowers of a different color offer superior rewards.

And here is the new study about this:

A recent paper from the University of Sheffield in the UK studied foraging by honeybees (Apis mellifera), analyzing their decision-making process, including an assessment of their accuracy and efficiency.

[…]In the experiment, honeybees were trained to associate different colors with either a reward or punishment, and with a range of probabilities.

[…]Key findings from the experiment include that for tests which were intended to provide easy discrimination between reward and punishment, the bees made the correct choice significantly more often than mere chance would lead us to expect.

[…]The authors indicate that the study, “Unveils the remarkable sophistication and subtlety of honeybee decision-making.” They also comment that the sophistication of honeybee decision-making has features in common with primates. That is all the more remarkable given the small size of their brains (less than 1 million neurons). These behaviors are largely controlled by a segment of the brain called mushroom bodies, which contain multisensory integration, learning and memory formation, and comprise about 40 percent of the brain neurons. In comparison, the brains of goldfish and hummingbirds are roughly 100 times larger. Despite the small size of the bee’s brain, expert Lars Chittka has documented the significant repertoire of honeybee behaviors, many that involve decision-making.

Very good article, and shows evidence of design in animals. I am a bird person myself, but bees have wings, so I guess I can like them, too. Certainly they are cute and offer a great case for intelligent design.

By the way, I recently bought a whole bunch of books for one of my co-workers who has 5 kids. I decided that it would be good for the kids to be exposed to apologetics evidence. One of the books was about the design of the human body. So, if you have kids that are aged 8-12 or so, you might want to check this book out. It’s never too early for kids to get serious about evidence that will help them choose and defend the truth.

And of course there is a new book for grown-ups that just came out written by a super-qualified engineer from the UK. I blogged about that one here.

I watched the State of the Union address to the nation by President Donald Trump on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was an excellent showcase of Republican party priorities, as well as showing voters Trump’s vision for the future, heading towards the mid-term elections. I was shocked to hear that polls show that Trump is under 50% popularity. Honestly, Trump was not my guy in the 2024 primary, but he has seriously outperformed.

Let’s start with the video of the speech itself:

I have to say that I like a tight speech, and this speech could have been a double-episode of Knight and Rose Show. He didn’t deliver it “scripted” but there was no rambling. For the first time since Trump became a high-profile Republican, I actually thought “this is a person who does a good job advocating for many of the things I care about – not just with words, but with achievements”. So let’s see some of Trump’s demonstrated achievements.

This article from The Federalist by Brianna Lyman lists a few of the things that he highlighed in the speech:

• The Duty of American Government Is to Protect American Citizens
• Flow of Fentanyl Across Southern Border Plummets
• Decline in Murder Rate
• Inflation Coming Down
• Justice for Iryna Zarutska
• Washington D.C.’s Safer
• Protecting Children From Satanic Trans Cult

The speech was crafted in a way that it would appeal to 70-80 percent of voters, regardless of party. But even so, the Democrat legislators refused to stand up and applaud for all these good things.

Let’s look at one of the things in Brianna’s list:

The president… spoke out about the satanic, left-wing efforts to mutilate children suffering from gender dysphoria.

Trump spoke about Sage Blair, who was 14 years old in 2021 when “school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

Blair was placed into an all-boys state home following an order from an activist judge after Blair’s parents refused to affirm their daughter’s gender dysphoria, Trump said. Eventually, Blair was returned to her parents and is now comfortable in the body God gave her.

“We can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “We must ban it and we must ban it immediately.”

But Democrats refused to stand.

“Look, nobody stands up,” Trump said. “These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy.”

They didn’t stand for any of the 7 achievements. So what do we get from this? Well, Trump can decide to prioritize lots of things as President. But what he prioritized was protecting innocent people from criminals and protecting innocent children from greedy child abusers. These things are popular with American voters. But Democrat legislators wouldn’t stand for them.

Let’s get out of the tactical weeds, and look at strategy. An article by Elle Purnell from The Federalist talked about the big differences between the two political parties.

The big difference is that Republicans think that American citizens are their bosses, and Democrats thin that illegal immigrant criminals are their bosses. Trump proved it with his speech:

[I]n Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump urged every member of Congress to “stand up and show your support” for the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Cameras panned to show nearly the entire left-hand side of the chamber awkwardly remaining in their seats. After two minutes of Republican cheering and Democrat scowling, Trump suggested that Democrats should “be ashamed of yourselves,” and the cameras showed Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Mogadishu, shouting angrily in response.

Another big difference between the parties is that Republicans think that people in the armed forces who take risks and pay a price to serve their country deserve to be honored. Democrats don’t think that people in the armed forces should be honored.

The article notes:

Throughout the address, Trump handed out medals to American heroes left and right: Medals of Honor to 100-year-old war hero Navy Captain Royce Williams and to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, a pilot in the recent capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

I have to mention that Slover served with the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), a very prestigious unit that does all the flying for covert operations, including hostage rescues. I read an entire book about them called “The Night Stalkers”. I read this book because I wanted to be more informed about them so that I could be more thankful and respectful about their deeds. This particular pilot Slover had both of his legs shot up by foreign security forces during the mission to deliver Venezuela from the tyranny of communism. He was standing on crutches.

Yet the Democrats would not stand up and applaud – for a Medal of Honor recipient. I doubt that Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib even know what a Medal of Honor is! I’ve read three books about Medal of Honor recipients. It should be required reading for immigrants. How can you live in this country and not know anything about the sort of people who make it safe for you to live here? When I am in a grocery store, I always go up to people who have Vietnam War or Korean War caps on, to talk to them. I want to praise them for their actions in our noble wars against communism. Republicans are people who know history and who respect heroes in the armed forces.

So, why post something about this speech? Well, this might sound crazy to people who think that Trump is a bad guy with bad character, but I think they should watch the speech. The corporate news media has been carefully indoctrinating voters with left-wing stories about the Trump administration. But the speech put the lie to all of that. I highly recommend sending the speech to people you know ahead of the mid-terms. Now is the time to get people in the middle to be aware of what the Republican party actually stands for. Don’t wait for the corporate news media to speak to your family and friends, they’re not going to do it fairly. You will have to do it.