Book Review: When You Rise Up

R. C. Sproul, Jr. When You Rise Up: A Covenantal Approach to Homeschooling. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2004, 142 pp..

          Sproul is a Presbyterian pastor and director of the Highlands Study Center in Meadowview, Virginia. He is also the father of six (at present) and a passionate advocate of homeschooling. Sproul sees education as the covenant obligation of Christian parents. Home education is not, however, primarily about academic achievement. Christian parents should homeschool in order to offer spiritual formation for their children. According to Sproul, “the issue of education is always the heart. Changed hearts is the goal, the function, the very purpose of education” (p. 29).

          Much of this book centers on the author’s reflections on Deuteronomy 6. Sproul offers encouragement to parents who are considering homeschooling but who do not feel adequate to the task. He calls parents God’s chosen teachers telling them that if “your goal is to raise from godly children godly adults, then you are the one for the job” (p. 44). According to Sproul, Christian parents need not fret about the “how” of home education (curricula, etc.) but on simply offering godly instruction through conversation with children throughout the course of everyday life. Sproul says that parents should focus on teaching their children “the three Gs”: Who is God? What has God done? What does God require? (pp. 77-96).

          Sure to confound egalitarians, Sproul contends that home education must acknowledge the different roles of boys and girls. He says, “We raise our daughters to be warriors for the kingdom by raising them to be keepers at home” (pp. 108-09). Sons, likewise, are to be taught that “Boys protect girls” (p. 115). Sproul concludes:

Again, I do not want my daughters to be weak. I want them to be Jaels. But I want them to be women. I want them to submit in the Lord first to their parents and, later, to their own husbands.

In short, we need to be careful not to buy into the unisex nonsense of the world around us. We ought not be ashamed to have a boy curriculum and a girl curriculum, because we are raising boys and girls. Or better still, we are raising men and women (p. 116).

          Finally, Sproul responds to common objections to homeschooling. He contends that the main reason most believers do not homeschool “is that they are convinced that it is too big a responsibility” (p. 123). His response: “What does it take to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? The Bible, and the Holy Spirit to illumine the Bible” (p. 126). Another objection is what Sproul calls “the ‘efficiency’ argument” (p. 129). Is it not more efficient division of labor to have one person trained in a specific area to teach a larger number of children a particular topic in a school setting? Sproul’s blunt answer is that God did not tell parents to find the most efficient way to educate their children. “Instead he called parents to do the job” (p. 130). A third objection relates to the expense of homeschooling. Sproul is relentless: “The quick answer is, ‘Can you afford a Bible?’” (p. 131).

     Another objection is the “well-being of the child” argument (p. 132). Can the homeschool provide things to benefit the child like physics, advanced math, and sports teams? The simple answer again is that the parent must focus on teaching the Bible and the child’s “well-being” will be adequately addressed. Sproul also addresses the objection of “socialization.” He argues that his children are perfectly socialized, but they are not slaves to their peer group or to Madison Avenue. “Their identity is in Christ, not in pop culture” (p. 136). The final objection, Sproul addresses, is the one that often comes from Christians that by homeschooling parents lose the missionary opportunity to be salt and light in public schools. His response:

I’ve never met a parent who determined to send their teenage child off to a brothel or crackhouse for the sake of the lost. The only difference is, in the brothel or the crack house, the bad guys don’t have the authority to make their children sit and listen to the worldview being taught for seven hours a day (p. 137).

In addition, Sproul questions the sincerity of those who raise this objection: “Isn’t it at least suspicious that all those who are motivated to send their children out as missionaries send them where it is ‘free’ to attend?” (p. 138).

          Sproul writes as a passionate advocate of homeschooling. He challenges those who think that home education requires a certain method to be successful (classical Christian school advocates?). His simple answer is that parents need only be willing to obey the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 6. This book would be an excellent encouragement for the Christian parent who has been considering homeschooling but who has been reluctant to take the plunge.

Jeffrey T. Riddle, Pastor, Jefferson Park Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903