Is Christian Homeschooling Breeding a New Kind of Domestic Terrorist?
Playboy looks at the connection no one seems to be making between recent shootings
Aaron-burden
On Saturday, April 27, as worshipers at Chabad of Poway were marking the conclusion of Passover, a gunman entered the synagogue and opened fire, killing Lori Gilbert Kaye and injuring two others, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein. Soon after this heinous act of domestic terrorism, it emerged that the anti-Semitic shooter, John T. Earnest, was a member in good standing of Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where his father is an elder, and that he was homeschooled prior to high school. Just as the Poway synagogue incident is the latest in a string of shootings to occur in American places of worship, so too is Earnest the latest in a string of domestic terrorists to have been homeschooled as part of a fundamentalist evangelical upbringing.
Two high-profile examples from 2018 include the Austin bomber and the Tennessee Waffle House shooter, both of whom targeted African-Americans. Researchers with Homeschoolers Anonymous, which has ceased to produce new work but still exists as an online archive of resources, compiled a longer report on violent criminals who were homeschooled. The pattern of evangelical homeschoolers committing racially motivated, violent crimes raises questions about how homeschooling and white evangelical subculture may be contributing factors in the radicalization of young people. Earnest’s branch of the Reformed tradition, as religious studies professor Julie Ingersoll described in detail for Religion News Service, has its origins in the defense of slavery and still valorizes overtly white supremacist theologians such as R.L. Dabney.
Some Orthodox Presbyterians are adherents of Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme right-wing version of Calvinist ideology that, as described by legislative policy analyst with the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, Kathryn Brightbill, “teaches that God’s plan for civil society is to implement Old Testament political law, including the stoning parts.” If we are determined to find solutions to America’s epidemic of gun violence and hate crimes, we must put aside taboos around criticizing Christians and take these considerations seriously. Brightbill is one of two experts on U.S. homeschooling, both of whom were homeschooled in evangelical subculture and who are now a part of the increasingly visible "ex-vangelical" movement, that I asked to weigh in on the issue.
Both Brightbill and Ryan Stollar, one of the founders of Homeschoolers Anonymous, contend that homeschooling as currently practiced in the United States fosters radicalization to the point of violence. Rather than place the emphasis on homeschooling itself, however, both Brightbill and Stollar point to evangelicalism’s authoritarian subculture and the fact that homeschooling in the U.S. is essentially unregulated. According to Stollar, the lack of homeschooling oversight in America “creates a legal cover for abusive parents to indoctrinate and otherwise warp their children.” This problem needs to be faced, but the homeschooling community resists doing so.
Some Orthodox Presbyterians are adherents of Christian Reconstructionism, an extreme right-wing version of Calvinist ideology that, as described by legislative policy analyst with the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, Kathryn Brightbill, “teaches that God’s plan for civil society is to implement Old Testament political law, including the stoning parts.” If we are determined to find solutions to America’s epidemic of gun violence and hate crimes, we must put aside taboos around criticizing Christians and take these considerations seriously. Brightbill is one of two experts on U.S. homeschooling, both of whom were homeschooled in evangelical subculture and who are now a part of the increasingly visible "ex-vangelical" movement, that I asked to weigh in on the issue.
Both Brightbill and Ryan Stollar, one of the founders of Homeschoolers Anonymous, contend that homeschooling as currently practiced in the United States fosters radicalization to the point of violence. Rather than place the emphasis on homeschooling itself, however, both Brightbill and Stollar point to evangelicalism’s authoritarian subculture and the fact that homeschooling in the U.S. is essentially unregulated. According to Stollar, the lack of homeschooling oversight in America “creates a legal cover for abusive parents to indoctrinate and otherwise warp their children.” This problem needs to be faced, but the homeschooling community resists doing so.
Homeschooling as currently practiced in the United States fosters radicalization to the point of violence.
Stollar, who is now an advocate of child liberation theology, contributed to the Homeschoolers Anonymous report, “When Homeschoolers Turn Violent,” which condemns the “knee-jerk” tendency “of homeschooling communities to respond defensively” when people with a homeschooling background commit violent crimes. Asked what drives this tendency among homeschooling families, Stollar replied, “That defensiveness has two origins: First, most homeschoolers are evangelical Christians, and evangelical Christians in general have a persecution complex. And second, HSLDA directly encourages it, and it’s highly contagious.”
HSLDA stands for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the most significant Christian Right lobbying organization that most people have never heard of. The HSLDA is largely responsible for the deregulation of homeschooling in the United States that has occurred since the 1980s. In Stollar’s assessment, HSLDA “encourages them [homeschooling parents] to think the government is out to get them. So, any time the media examines problems in homeschooling, homeschoolers interpret that honest examination as persecution.” He adds, “Another factor is that Christian homeschooling—evangelical Christianity in general, really—abounds with language about war and violence….You mix in some white supremacy and anti-Semitism, and you have the perfect storm.”
Brightbill agrees, and she notes that right-wing Calvinist theology is inherently violent, so that we should not be surprised when some adherents act on their violent impulses:
"When Paul Hill used Reconstructionist theology to build a case for justifiable homicide of abortion providers, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church defrocked him not because they rejected his case for violence outright, but because they disagreed with his application of Reconstructionism on the grounds that it wasn’t his place to do the killing. That's the church culture John Earnest was raised in—one where arguing for violence in principle isn’t excommunicable."
HSLDA stands for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the most significant Christian Right lobbying organization that most people have never heard of. The HSLDA is largely responsible for the deregulation of homeschooling in the United States that has occurred since the 1980s. In Stollar’s assessment, HSLDA “encourages them [homeschooling parents] to think the government is out to get them. So, any time the media examines problems in homeschooling, homeschoolers interpret that honest examination as persecution.” He adds, “Another factor is that Christian homeschooling—evangelical Christianity in general, really—abounds with language about war and violence….You mix in some white supremacy and anti-Semitism, and you have the perfect storm.”
Brightbill agrees, and she notes that right-wing Calvinist theology is inherently violent, so that we should not be surprised when some adherents act on their violent impulses:
"When Paul Hill used Reconstructionist theology to build a case for justifiable homicide of abortion providers, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church defrocked him not because they rejected his case for violence outright, but because they disagreed with his application of Reconstructionism on the grounds that it wasn’t his place to do the killing. That's the church culture John Earnest was raised in—one where arguing for violence in principle isn’t excommunicable."
The lack of homeschooling oversight in America creates a legal cover for abusive parents to indoctrinate and otherwise warp their children.
Brightbill also notes that the most commonly used homeschooling curricula—Abeka, Bob Jones, Accelerated Christian Education—contain “homeschool textbooks with both explicit and implicit white supremacist messaging.”
Indeed, even the most explicitly white supremacist groups are able to take advantage of America’s unregulated homeschooling climate. National Director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Thomas Robb is the driving force behind a group called White Pride Homeschool, the website of which points readers to HSLDA and to sources of homeschooling materials commonly used by evangelical homeschoolers, such as Bob Jones, the Advanced Training Institute and Accelerated Christian Education. As Stollar puts it, “white supremacists feel completely comfortable using mainstream resources in the Christian homeschooling world. That should tell you something is greatly wrong with many of the mainstream resources.”
According to Brightbill, the violent aspects of evangelical and fundamentalist theology and the “explicit and implicit white supremacist messaging” in common Christian homeschooling textbooks represent “a powder keg just waiting for the right combination of external factors to light the fuse.” And then she rattles off examples. “For Eric Robert Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber, that combination was being homeschooled by a mother involved in the white supremacist Christian Identity movement and coming of age at a time of increasing violence in the anti-abortion movement. For John Earnest, it was finding his way to 8chan and the explicitly anti-Semitic propaganda during a time of rising violence against Jews and Muslims.”
Brightbill’s organization, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, is fighting for reasonable regulation of homeschooling that would help prevent outcomes like this, but its primary opponent, HSLDA, remains a juggernaut. One thing seems clear, however. If Americans cannot find the political will to regulate homeschooling despite the fierce resistance of HSLDA’s loyal foot soldiers, homeschooling will remain a contributing factor to domestic terrorism.
Indeed, even the most explicitly white supremacist groups are able to take advantage of America’s unregulated homeschooling climate. National Director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Thomas Robb is the driving force behind a group called White Pride Homeschool, the website of which points readers to HSLDA and to sources of homeschooling materials commonly used by evangelical homeschoolers, such as Bob Jones, the Advanced Training Institute and Accelerated Christian Education. As Stollar puts it, “white supremacists feel completely comfortable using mainstream resources in the Christian homeschooling world. That should tell you something is greatly wrong with many of the mainstream resources.”
According to Brightbill, the violent aspects of evangelical and fundamentalist theology and the “explicit and implicit white supremacist messaging” in common Christian homeschooling textbooks represent “a powder keg just waiting for the right combination of external factors to light the fuse.” And then she rattles off examples. “For Eric Robert Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber, that combination was being homeschooled by a mother involved in the white supremacist Christian Identity movement and coming of age at a time of increasing violence in the anti-abortion movement. For John Earnest, it was finding his way to 8chan and the explicitly anti-Semitic propaganda during a time of rising violence against Jews and Muslims.”
Brightbill’s organization, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, is fighting for reasonable regulation of homeschooling that would help prevent outcomes like this, but its primary opponent, HSLDA, remains a juggernaut. One thing seems clear, however. If Americans cannot find the political will to regulate homeschooling despite the fierce resistance of HSLDA’s loyal foot soldiers, homeschooling will remain a contributing factor to domestic terrorism.
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