Tuesday, August 25, 2015

NEW ARTICLES TO COME AT NEW SITE: PastorMathis.com

NEW ARTICLES TO COME AT NEW SITE: PastorMathis.com

All my old stuff will be slowly moved there. And these two sites (polymathis, too) will always be here until Google kicks me out!..Don't laugh, Examiner.com canned me for writing too many gay marriage articles.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Pastoral thoughts on family integrated church movement, 8 part series

In Scotland, by the North Sea, the small town of Elgin had simple educational requirements. The directory for the local grammar school required that "upon the Lord’s day, masters and scholars shall convene in school at eight o’clock in the morning, and after prayer in the English tongue, the several classes shall be exercised—the seniors in the exposition of a sacred lesson [of the Psalms or catechism]...and the juniors in getting ‘by heart’ some select English psalms, or the ordinary catechism; they shall return to school in the afternoon at the first bell after sermon, and be exercised till the second bell in reading their sacred lesson…" (Grant, 427).
This requirement is dated 1649. Scotland had Sunday school 131 years before the supposed first Sunday school of Robert Raikes.
[Continued here...]
[The following are Pastor Mathis' lecture notes in a multi-part series from the Spring 2014 Presbytery of the Midwest Seminar, "A Pastoral Evaluation of the Family Integrated Church Movement." More information on the movement, homeschooling and the history of Christian education, see the new book Uniting Church & Family(Kindle format).]

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Homeschooling academic success exaggerated

 A recent Breitbart news article continues to propagate exaggerated claims of homeschooling academic superiority. Quoting an older article that summarized various unsubstantiated claims about homeschoolers in general, the Breitbart article garnered over 2000 comments.

The article slowly spread across cyberspace, propagated through local facebook postings, and was picked up by a Colorado news source. Although some of the readers noted in the comment section the unsubstantiated nature of the news-report, one respondent replied: "So what, who cares? The article is interesting and I happen to know that universities love home schooled students."

(continued here)

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

What will four more years look like?

What will the next four years of an Obama presidency be like?

To know the future one must investigate the past. In this case, the place to start is with his own words:

"Implicit in [the Constitution] structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or 'ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course..." (The Audacity of Hope, p. 93).

(continued here)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Christian news perspectives on the Aurora movie massacre

I have a unique opportunity to write unfettered for a secular news source. As the Christian Perspectives Examiner, I pray that my past and future articles will glorify God through this horrid crime:

1. People seek God after Aurora movie massacre
2. Aurora theater massacre affects local Christians
3. Christians pray for Aurora theater massacre

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Post-analysis of Supreme Court's defense of Obamacare

1. Foxnews on Robert's non-existent rationale and the definition of tax.

2. A proposed non-political solution at the Wall Street Journal.

3. How the younger are adversely affected by this law at Reason.

4. Freedom from paying other people's murders is a concern forgotten by many.

5. Other social-impacting concerns (no law is an island), here.\

6. Summary of minority opinion's rebuttal, here.


7. Helpful summary of the underlining constitutional problem, the General Welfare clause, here.

8. From Judge Napolitano, here.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Family Integrated Church four-part podcast series

For those who prefer audio interviews, here is the entire four-part series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Otherwise, check out the written series of related articles here.