Uwe and Hannelore Romeike may have been considered outside the norms of civil society in their native Germany, but not in Morristown, Tennessee, where they and their five children now live. The Romeikes are homeschoolers who are determined to provide the education for their children, ranging in age from two to twelve. In Morristown, that is about as controversial as bass fishing, but in Germany it is a crime.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF] has a plan for your child — and for every young person on earth. The influential group is calling for compulsory comprehensive sexuality education for every child and young person ages 10 to 24 on the planet.

Whatever happened to being seen but not heard? Diana West asks that question in a recent essay, noting that there has been a massive shift in Western culture away from adult authority and toward the “wise child.” All around us are signs that authority and wisdom are now to be recognized in the young, rather than the old. This is nothing less than a reversal of what previous generations had believed and assumed.

Literary critic Lionel Trilling once referred to “the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet.” In reality, almost all literature is political in some sense. Oddly enough, the most explicitly subversive literature is often presented to the very youngest among us — our children. Far too many parents seem not to notice.

One of the most amazing statements by the Apostle Paul is his indictment of the Galatian Christians for abandoning the Gospel. “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel,” Paul declared. As he stated so emphatically, the Galatians had failed in the crucial test of discerning the authentic Gospel from its counterfeits.

Recent cases involving parents who claim a religious reason to refuse medical treatment for children have cast this issue back into the Public Square — and right into the headlines.