As documented here, the Honor Academy teaches a theology of very strict submission to your authority. According to their teachings, even if you don’t agree with your authority figure’s decisions, you must submit to them and obey them because God has placed them in your life. To disobey your authority is to disobey God. What this teaching amounts to is giving another person entire control of your life – essentially giving man a place that only Jesus should occupy. While there are many Scriptural issues with this stance, in this post I’d like to focus on the fact that Teen Mania does not even practice what they so passionately preach.
Again, its funny how quickly they abandon their own teachings when it suits them.
Unarguably, a parent has more God-given authority in the life of their child than does the Honor Academy leadership. Can we agree on that?
So why are students allowed and encouraged to come to the Honor Academy against the wishes of their parents?
If after they’ve begun the Honor Academy, a concerned parent wants their child to return home, does the Honor Academy encourage submission and obedience to that parental authority? What if the parent does not want the child to participate in ESOAL?
Now, I don’t personally buy into their doctrine of absolute submission, but doesn’t it seem odd that they only encourage absolute submission when it doesn’t contradict their authority?
These double standards beg the question – Does the Honor Academy leadership really believe what they are teaching? Or are these just tools used to control the interns, stifle dissent and keep the free labor rolling in?
7 comments:
LizBR said…
I always appreciated that at my Christian college, there was a policy (written or unwritten, I’m not sure) that basically stated “the authority of the home is greater than the authority of the institution.”
That is why, when accompanied by one’s parents, a student could break certain rules that were not rooted in Biblical instruction, but cultural instruction. In other words, it may have been against the rules to dance, but you were welcome to dance with your parents present. The anti-dancing rule may be what the school considers best, but the school also recognizes that they cannot supersede the authority of the parents. The same was true of drinking, and I’m sure a few other rules.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if TM adopted a policy like this? In situations where rules are clearly extra-Biblical, the authority of godly parents (and I only throw the “godly” part in there to satisfy those who would say that it’s about respecting God’s authority and not man’s)would override Teen Mania’s. This could apply to of-age drinking, spending time with a significant other, partaking in unapproved media (books, movies, magazines, music, etc), choosing not to attend certain events/LTE’s, not driving absurd hours or performing other unsafe tasks, helping the intern to “break” their commitment of attending for a year, etc.
Sure, it’s not something I would want to live under, but if you’re looking at a bunch of 18 year olds who are trying hard to please God but are also dealing with conflicts like needing to tell an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend WHY they’re not able to see them right now, it might be a good system.
Not that I ever see it happening, of course.
August 19, 2010 7:41 AM
Eric said…
As Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me, except the bits that are given to this guy named Dave… wait, that’s not right, let me check my script here.”
If Jesus has “all authority,” then who else can claim to have any?
August 19, 2010 9:22 AM
Candor said…
True story – I was a mobilizer when I was in the cult. We were taught and encouraged to use the following phrase to prospective interns who wanted to sign up for the internship but lacked the support of their parents. We were told to tell them, “The Bible commands you to ‘HONOR’ your parents, it does not tell you to ‘OBEY’ them.”
And sadly, I regurgitated much of that BS to kids who would become future cult members. So sorry, kids! Honestly, I am.
August 19, 2010 11:47 AM
Anonymous said…
Funny because I do believe I read once (ok LOTS of times and then made by my parents to chant it in order to overcome a poor attitude) “Obey your parents in the Lord for this is right” Anybody else’s Bible have that one as well?
August 19, 2010 1:46 PM
Eric said…
Oh, good grief!
You’d expect perhaps a preschooler’s level of biblical literacy in people whose full-time job is supposed to be, let’s see, teaching the Bible to kids….
Parents, take note! Would you send your teenagers to a blind driving instructor?
August 19, 2010 2:11 PM
Krista said…
Candor – I remember feeding kids that exact same thing as a mobilizer. I remember Ron Luce saying that saying that sometimes you are honoring your parents by doing what God wants you to do vs. what they want you to do. However, what that ended up translating into was what the HA wanted you to do, not God.
August 19, 2010 5:39 PM
Candor said…
Krista, I agree. It was very much what the cult wanted you to do vs. what God (or even your parents) wanted you to do.
August 20, 2010 3:08 PM