So someone hooked me up to some facebook groups regarding the Christian culture of my youth. Some skeletons are stored much more comfortably in the closet.

But the doors were opened and out rattled the dusty (or not so dusty) bones.

The first one was, of course, A.C.E.- Accelerated Christian Education. That was where it all started. Here is a nice quote from the journal Phi Delta Kappa I found on Wikipedia regarding that initial horror:

“If parents want their children to obtain a very limited and sometimes inaccurate view of the world – one that ignores thinking above the level of rote recall – then the ACE materials do the job very well. The world of the ACE materials is quite a different one from that of scholarship and critical thinking”^[18]

‘Cause really, I prize the abandonment of critical thinking above most things. (where is the irony emoticon when you need it?)

But Facebook is demonstrating it’s wide range of people. There’s more!

HOMESCHOOL

That was lighter reading, perusing the groups of homeschoolers who reminisce about staying in their pajamas all day and finishing the day’s homework in 2 or 3 hours. And all this while testing 2 or 3 or 10 grades above their ‘schooled’ peers.

The homeschool groups were cheerier. But then they dipped back into the dark. Someone mentioned being schooled by ATI, the homeschool program developed by Bill Gothard

Bill Gothard…*shudder*… and the Institute for Basic Youth Conflicts. Hard to get more hard core stupid…I hesistate to use the word ‘stupid’ because it’s more damaging than that, but I want to be derisive and dismissive.

Gothard’s week-long seminar in Basic Youth Conflicts was a hitler-youth like winnowing of impulses and life choices into sin and salvation–and salvation always lay on the side of submitting one’s free will and personality to the authority of God. And the authority of God was not represented by an internal understanding or relationship with God…It was corporeally represented by the Church Leader. My pastor quoted Gothard almost as frequently as scripture.

Bill Gothard developed a highly structured Home School curriculum. THANK CHRIST I was spared that. I suspect it’s because it was expensive. But I would love to hear about what it was like from those who were subjected to it.

Facebook has a group for that, too. I found it through the “Bill Gothard is quite possibly the Anti-Christ” group.