Tag: Harry Reeder

Kevin Swanson is not Tim Keller

Published on by D. G. Hart98 Comments

Some critics of the OPC and 2k wonder why Old Life has been silent about Kevin Swanson, the Generations with Vision Director who pastors and OPC congregation in Elizabeth, CO.

A simple reason is that Pastor Swanson has no following (to my knowledge) in the OPC say the way Lig Duncan, or Harry Reeder, or Tim Keller do in the PCA.

It’s also the case that Swanson almost never refers to the OPC in his self-identifications. At Generations with Vision:

Homeschooled himself in the 1960’s and 70’s, Kevin Swanson and his wife, Brenda, are now homeschooling their five children. Since graduating from his homeschool and then serving as student body president of a large west coast university, he has gone on to other leadership positions in corporate management, church, and other non-profits. Kevin has 43 years of experience in the homeschooling movement and serves as the Director of Generations – a ministry he founded to strengthen homeschool families around the country. As a father who wants to leave a godly heritage for his own five children, Kevin’s passion is to strengthen and encourage the homeschooling movement all over the world, and to cast a vision for generations to come. For the last 10 years Kevin has hosted a daily radio program – Generations Radio – the world’s largest homeschooling and Biblical worldview program that reaches families across the US and in over 100 countries.

Kevin has also served as the Executive Director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado for the last nine years. He has also authored several popular books for homeschoolers, including Freedom, Apostate, Upgrade-10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child, the Family Bible Study Guide Series, and others.

Kevin Swanson also serves as a teaching elder at Reformation Church of Elizabeth (reformationchurch.com).

The Speaker Lineup for Freedom 2015 listed Swanson as director of — yet again — Generations with Vision and the author of more than 10 books.

I’ve never talked to an OPC officer who has read a book by Swanson.

At Amazon:

Homeschooled himself in the 1960s and 70s, Kevin Swanson and his wife, Brenda, are now homeschooling their five children. Kevin has 43 years of experience in the homeschooling movement and serves as the director of Generations With Vision—a ministry he founded to strengthen homeschool families. Kevin’s passion is to strengthen and encourage the homeschooling movement all over the world, and to cast a vision for generations to come. For the last 4 years Kevin has hosted a daily radio program, Generations Radio, the world’s largest homeschooling and biblical worldview program that reaches families across the US and in over 100 countries. Kevin has also served as the executive director of Christian Home Educators of Colorado for the last nine years. He has authored several popular books for homeschoolers, including Apostate, Upgrade: 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child, The Second Mayflower, the Family Bible Study Guide Series, and others.

So far Pastor Swanson does not seem eager to put his stamp on the OPC the way TKNY has on the PCA.

So for now, paying attention to Pope Francis seems a little more reasonable than to Pastor Swanson.

Now More than Ever We Need Women to Shoot!

Published on by D. G. Hart23 Comments

So imagine the following scenario:

You are at a holiday office party. Conversations are flowing as swimmingly as the beverages. You notice out of the corner of your eye a person who seems to be bulkier than usual. You look over and see this person taking off a back pack and removing from it an automatic hand gun. He starts to shoot. Your wife, who is registered for “open carry,” prefers to keep her Sig Sauer P220 in her purse. She proceeds to remove her handgun and shoots the gunman just as he fires his first two rounds. Her shot does not kill but it does incapacitate the assailant. You call the police. The party breaks up but no one dies.

Consider the scenario that Harry Reeder proposes so oddly close chronologically to the shootings in Southern California:

It’s late at night. I hear the glass in the door downstairs breaking, the door opening and then footsteps. I turn to my wife and say “Honey, someone is breaking into our home downstairs and since I know you are willing, why don’t you go downstairs and see if you can overpower him? By the way if he maims you or kills you don’t worry! I have two daughters who are brave enough to follow you and risk their life to protect our home while I remain here safe.”

Reeder uses this case to argue against women in the military:

The unbelievable reality is that the men of this nation now allow politically correct elected officials in general and a President in particular (along with the elite self-appointed culture-shapers pontificating while shielded in the media and the academy) to institute policies which send our wives and daughters, not into the military to use their unique skills and abilities to enhance our armed forces, but into combat units to protect our Home(land) while they (and we) remain safely tucked away in our rooms. Forget for the moment the obvious arguments of how ignoring gender differences will inevitably force the adoption of inadequate training regimens, lowered physical and combat readiness standards, the redefining of combat protocols, inevitable sexual mayhem and a loss of combat unit efficiency which will cost lives (documented by a Marine Corp. study- more on this in Pt.2). Yes, I am aware of the claim that combat zones are now defined differently. But hand to hand combat, dragging a 200+ lb. comrade to safety, carrying 85 lb. support equipment, etc. has not and will not change.

But why couldn’t the first scenario work to argue for women in the military? If women may carry weapons for self-defense, how far removed is that from defending the homeland? And if women can defend themselves and their kin here in the United States, why not overseas (one reason is that we should not have so many troops overseas, but that’s a different question)?

But arguably the biggest question of all, why do you bring up biblical arguments against women serving in the military now when many Americans feel threatened by terrorists?

Timing is everything.