By Paul Dorr 2010
What is Eisegesis? It is the hermeneutical principle (opposite of exegesis) describing the practice of forcing a pre-conceived bias (in Farris’ case, a profitable one at that) on one’s exposition of the Word of God.
In a letter dated Dec. 12, 1997, to an unnamed home-school mother, Michael Farris, founder of Home School Legal Defense Association, established his belief as to why the government has the Biblical right to punish a parent who does not teach their child to read. An excerpt from that letter follows. It reveals his fundamental Biblical error, which, when believed by tens of thousands of home-school families, helps provide the fuel to his profitable enterprises.
He writes,
“I believe that God commands parents to teach their children. Deut. 6:7; Eph. 6:4. God does not command or authorize the government to teach children. God does not command or authorize the church to teach children (although Scripture does command the church to teach young men and women). I do not feel that I can interpret this scriptural pattern for others. But for me and my house, I believe that the Bible requires my wife and I to teach our children ourselves. (When they are young men and women we believe the church can play a substantial role and this is why our oldest daughter attends a Christian college).
“I also believe that God commands the government to punish those who do evil. I Peter 2:14. I believe that this includes the power of government to punish parents who do evil to their children. If a parent rapes a child, beats a child with chains, intentionally breaks a child’s arm, or intentionally starves a child the government has the responsibility to punish such evil doing. Likewise, if a parent denies their child food, clothing, basic shelter, or education I believe the government can punish such a parent because God requires the parent to furnish all these things to their child.
“Stated simply, if a parent has a child who has the basic intelligence to be capable of reading the Bible, and that parent deliberately fails to teach that child to read (by the time the child is twelve years old, for example) the government has the authority to punish such a parent because the parent has done an evil thing as defined by God. “But if anyone provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” I Timothy 5:8.
Here’s where Farris’s train flies off the tracks –
“Likewise, if a parent denies their child food, clothing, basic shelter, or education I believe the government can punish such a parent because God requires the parent to furnish all these things to their child.”
He doesn’t seem to understand the routine Biblical premise that there are many things the Bible declares to be evil, which still don’t rise to the Biblical requirement of civil sanctions. How about the husband not loving the wife as Christ loved the church – and goes out every night with ‘the boys’. Evil? Yes. Should the civil magistrate punish him and throw him in jail? No, as there is no such Biblical warrant! How about the man who made a private, but false statement about a fellow Christian in church and refused to repent, when asked to? Evil? Yes. Civil punishment? No! Pages of such examples could be written regarding such evils, where the role of the civil authorities in 1 Peter 2:14 does not apply.
A father who deliberately starves his child to death receives the punishment of the civil authorities – yes! He broke the 6th commandment (Thou shall do no murder) and God commands it be punished by the civil magistrate. (Ex. 21:12,13, Num. 35:16-17, 18-33, Gen. 9:6).
The Bible has many clear teachings on the nature of sins that rise to civil crimes – those blaspheming God, violating covenants and contracts, against the person’s body, property, public slander, perjury in public testimony, etc. But spiritual harm done through willful neglect to teach children to read – so that they may read and understand the Law-word of God – evil as such is, is not a civil crime. If willful, it may rise to pastoral and church discipline. Even then, what if a family in financial crisis (maybe part of an entire economic depression) willfully chooses not to pay to educate their children so that they can afford to purchase food and medicine for them? When civil laws are to be uniformly applied (Deut. 10:17-19, 24:14-15), should the government yet “punish these parents” too? Should the church even discipline them? Clearly not!
Farris defends his conclusions by wresting 1 Timothy 5:8 far out of its context. He applies his eisegesis. Read from verse 1 through 16 of chapter five. Context is critical in this passage as it is an application of the 5th and 8th commandments – honoring thy father and thy mother and not stealing from the church. It pertains mostly to the elderly. This text is making the distinction between the widows who “trust in God” (v. 5) and yet have, as Matthew Henry’s Commentary says, no family to provide for them as the 84 yr. old widow Anna lacked, in Luke 2:36-38. Those are to be taken in by the church (Luke 2: 37). The 1Timothy 5 text also makes the distinction between the Godly widows and the ungodly – she that liveth in pleasure (v. 6). Again, the Godly widow who have no family are to be cared for by the church, like Anna was.
But the family of such Godly widows, who have means and who yet do not provide for “his own” (v. 8), thus forcing their mothers to become the burden of the church, as v.16 condemns, are those who have denied the faith. Such Christians are, in affect, attacking the church’s diaconal work. Even then, Paul does not call on the State to punish those Christians who are so burdening the church. His response is limited to declaring their spiritual state in verse 8.
A categorical condemnation of a Christian father who does not teach his child to read, and as a result call for the civil authorities to punish him – can not be wrested from 1 Tim. 5:8. Rather Farris reads it into this text. Why?
Not sure, but my guess is that this provides a great guilt/fear manipulation to convince Christian home-school parents that they must submit to the most egregious aspect of the 19th century Prussian egalitarian, democratic experiment of civil religion, known as ‘government education’ – that is, their “compulsory attendance” laws. The original premise of such laws was to insure that the student learn how to read, by being in school. America’s mass illiteracy should well demonstrate that this notion was false.
Yes, Farris says in the letter to this home-school Mom that he does not approve of compulsory attendance laws. What he fails to inform this mother and those of us in Iowa, is that the vehi-cle to punish home-school parents who are not teaching their children – Iowa code 299A refers in the first paragraph (A.1), to the parents of “…a child of compulsory education age” as the ones held accountable by the civil authorities. These are the laws that Michael Farris believes the state has a right to enforce against Christian home-school families and they are founded on the compulsory attendance law. I can’t imagine it being different in any other state.
According to Ellwood P. Cubberley’s celebrated history Public Education in the United States (1919, revised 1934), “The history of compulsory attendance legislation in the states has been much the same everywhere, and everywhere laws have been enacted only after overcoming strenuous opposition.” This is cited in Underground History of American Education, p. 101, by John Taylor Gatto.
The advent of the resultant “truancy” laws, which our Christian forefathers strenuously objected to, have contributed mightily to mass consumerism, untold debts, systemic rebellion to parents, adolescent adulthood, a sexually perverse society, broad illiteracy and worst of all – the near categorical loss of the true Christian faith. Meanwhile, were the objections of our ancestors, who likely shared such Scriptural understanding, wrong? One had best be careful asking this, out of fear that Michael Farris will boldly declare, “Yes, they were!” After all, one of his former professors insists he heard Farris say in class once that St. Augustine is in hell. If he can condemn St. Augustine, falsely judging our Christian ancestors who strongly objected to the government asserting authority into the training of their children should be a piece of cake.
Once home-school parents believe the false notion that the Bible grants the civil magistrate the authority to punish them for not educating their children, are they not easy pickings to be one of the 80,000+ who send Farris their $105 each year to ‘secure’ legal protection from the government? Again, I am not dismissing the sin where Christian parents of means willfully fail to educate their children, while knowing that education entails far more than teaching them how to read. It is the civil magistrate’s trumped up authority, via’ Michael Farris, that is doing us so much harm.
Farris concluded his letter to this home-school Mom, “In summary, if you believe that it is necessary for HSLDA to argue that government can never punish those who do absolutely nothing for their children’s education, we are not the organization for you.”
Oh that it could be that simple. The problem is that Farris’ eisegesis does not conform to the Word of God. Those Christians, who by faith in Jesus Christ want families truly free under God’s Law, should understand that HSLDA is not the organization for the cause of home-schooling. We need to challenge this very public homeschool leader to stop his immensely profitable guilt manipulation and fear-mongering.
His track record has been to ridicule and sometimes lie about (as he did regarding Constitutional law professor Dr. Charles Rice) those who challenge him. Let such a response only inspire you to challenge him even further. Our ranks will grow as we strive to be faithful to God’s Word, and to the original Constitution.
Christos Kurios,
Paul Dorr
Rescue the Perishing · P.O. Box 115 · Ocheyedan, IA 51354
Ph 712-758-3660 | Fx 712-758-3475 | e-mail rtp@iowatelecom.net
“Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law,…For the Lord will not cast off His people, Nor will He forsake His inheritance. But judgment will return to righteousness, And all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, My soul would soon have settled in silence.” Psalm 94:12,14-17
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