Bartholomew's Notes

Yesterday I noted that the proposal “encouraging” Southern Baptists to take their children out of public school had cited studies by the Nehemiah Institute, run by Dan Smithwick. Today I’ve been able to look at the Institute’s website; and sure enough, there’s Smithwick with E. Ray Moore, the retired military man whose Exodus Mandate promotes TC Pinckney and Bruce Shortt’s proposal.

The main work of the Institute is the PEERS test. PEERS stands for “Politics (civil government), Economics, Education, Religion, and Social Issues”, and by asking test takers (e.g. the children of worried Christian parents) various questions the Institute can determine whether the taker subscribes to one of four possible “worldviews”:

Biblical Theism
Moderate Christian
Secular Humanism

or – dread horror of horror:

Socialism!

To these four worldviews is applied a score:

Biblical Theism worldview- 70 – 100
Moderate Christian worldview- 30-69
Secular Humanist worldview- 0-29
Socialist worldview- less than 0

Smithwick has alarming news: “Results from seniors in high school have ranged from -59.43 to +100.00. The average was 33.34”. So perhaps Walt Brown won’t be in White House just this autumn, but if the sinister forces behind public education have their way Socialism will soon prevail, with all the Columbine-style school shootings that malignant system of philosophy involves (see my previous post if that sounds weird).

The site offers you a chance to do a mini PEERS test over the internet, and consists of twenty statements you are invited to agree with or not, along these lines:

Individuals should be allowed to conduct life as they choose as long as it does not interfere with the lives of others.

and:

Just as a minimum wage law helps poor people earn a fair income, a maximum wage law would benefit all citizens by using the abundance of money exceeding the maximum wage amount to finance programs beneficial to all (e.g., education, health care, etc.)

PEERS can “help individuals and organizations identify key areas where their views of life are contrary to Biblical reasoning.” Just think – you may be an agent of Goldstein and not even know it! Now you can find out and repent.

(NB: I’ve had trouble getting on to the Nehemiah site, but much of it is mirrored here, including the mini test. And the Nehemiah Institute School in San Antonio is a public school that appears to be unrelated to our organisation – I had a bit of a wild goose chase there)

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