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The Second Mayflower: How Christian Ethics Can Restore Our Freedom (3rd Edition)

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Four hundred years ago, a ship landed on the shores of New England bearing a fledgling band of people, committed to living life by the principles of God's Word. This people eventually formed a nation conceived in liberty and blessed by God. Now four hundred years later, their vision has almost faded. Liberty is dying. Humanism dominates. The family, by all indices, has disintegrated. But there still beats within the hearts of a remnant in this nation, the principles of the First Mayflower. In this 300 page manifesto, author Kevin Swanson lays out a vision by which the values of faith, family, and freedom may be salvaged for at least one nation for future generations. The voyage of the Second Mayflower is just beginning.

About the Author

Kevin
Swanson

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 35 years of experience in the homeschooling movement and serves as the Director of Generations with Vision – 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 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 80 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 Upgrade-10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child, The Second Mayflower, the Family Bible Study Guide Series, and others. Serving as a passionate supporter of home education, he has been interviewed on hundreds of media outlets, including Dr. James' Dobson's Focus on the Family and the Fox News Network.

Loving Truth Books & Gifts Review

Kevin Swanson starts his book with some historical and Biblical insights about our country's past, some key points about the present, and finally he will inspire you with a vision of how Christian ethics and education can restore a country - and not by "forcing" anybody's views on the public education system, but by being able to choose wisely the education for your own children.

America enjoys a heritage of faith, family, and freedom unlike any other country in history. Yet, today, we can be rightfully concerned about the decay of these values in our modern life and culture. The memory of that first band of Christians who in 1620 formed a colony in Plymouth has almost disappeared. But, Kevin Swanson, an author, radio host (Generations with Visions, can Google for his web site to listen to his show as well as archives), pastor, husband, and a father of five children, tells us that the vision of the first Mayflower is not dead, but the first Mayflower is about to give birth to a second one in the 21st century. As Kevin says, the hope is in a life represented in sharp contrast by that which is proposed by the humanists and socialists of today: "It is community rather than communism, Moses instead of Plato, Jesus rather than Rousseau or Marx." (pg. xiii). America's founders pointed out that freedom is impossible to sustain without a moral, self-governing people.

In order to correctly understand the present and chart a plan for the future, Kevin briefly reviews history for us, with some insightful points such as: "History books are not as much about events as they are about people. History is changed according to the faith and character of the people involved. So if we would truly desire to understand the cause of the greatest movements in human history, we would do well to study the beliefs, practices, and commitments important to those people." (pg. 17).

Of course, history does not repeat itself in a word for word fashion, and Kevin clearly points that out throughout the book, but certain recurring patterns can be seen from which we can learn valuable lessons. For example: God's blessings come to those who obeyed Him and His curses come on civilizations that embraced debauchery. America started morally strong, with some strong Puritan and Pilgrim leaders, strong colleges that taught that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Harvard, Yale, Princeton for instance), but than in the 19th century the moral fabric of society started to deteriorate, with education having been taken over by the social theories of Rousseau, Mann, and Marx. This transition was helped with some poor application of Biblical laws, such as in the Salem witch trials, plus faith and works were separated (instead of keeping them properly united, as per James 2:26). Although, Jefferson wisely stated "That government governs best that governs least", America started increasing its government in the 20th century in particular, from about 10% around 1900 to about 46% of the GDP around the year 2000. Why did our people change like this?

Kevin clearly sees the cause of this to be the K-12 and university education systems. So, what does the government do with all of that extra money? Primarily, on projects that replace the family. With a great understanding of Plato, Marx, Rousseau, Kevin traces key and obvious ideas and influences to our worldviews and beliefs, plus our policies as a country. From the impact on the family, to loss of personal freedom, to property rights, to dependence on the State ("By its socialist welfare and education programs, modern government lures people into a slave-like desire for security and dependence upon the state", pg. 74) prisons and criminal punishment (or lack thereof), government promotion of immorality (via various training programs like NY schools training 4th grade children to use condoms), shedding of innocent blood (ex. 48 million abortions done in the US since 1973),... the bottom line in these various aspects is that "education works", whether morally good or not (pg 92).

Just consider some of Kevin's research points: 

• "According to Rutgers University study released in 2005, American families are the weakest in the Western world. The study found that 'The USA has the lowest percentage among Western nations of children who grow up with both biological parents, 63%" (pg. 90, reported in USA Today).'
• "The vision-deadening influences of materialism, sexual additions, and entertainment at the expense of duty have become almost overpowering" (pg 98). 
• "Of all of the indices of the breakdown of the family in America, the clearest is the disappearance of fatherhood. And, when I say fathers, I mean dads who invest themselves heart and life in their sons and daughters". (pg. 94)

Kevin sums it up well: "We must reform our theology, our parenting, and our education systems, if we want to see any appreciable change whatsoever in the wider culture." (pg. 96) "The Christian faith is a love that motivates to obey the laws of God. Without love that obeys, there is no faith" (pg. 114) (see Luke 7:37-50). "For the apostles, repentance and faith were two sides of the same coin (Acts 20:21), but the modern church recoils from the law of God and the dreaded "R" (repentance) word, because such a message is too confrontational with the culture and would "turn off" the crowd." (pg. 96). The book will encourage, inspire, and challenge all Christians and possibly others who care deeply what kind of place we leave for our children and future generations.

You also may like to consider the following books: Upgrade: 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child by Kevin Swanson, and The Way of the Master by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron.

Review By:  Angela Zaev

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Upgrade: 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child  by Kevin Swanson $12.00

Family Bible Study Guide: Psalms (Book 1: Psalms 1-41) - Swanson by Kevin Swanson $18.00

Family Bible Study Guide - Psalms (Book 2: Psalms 42-72)  - Swanson by Kevin Swanson $18.00

Family Driven Faith: Doing What It Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk with God by Voddie T. Baucham Jr. $17.00

Whoever Controls the Schools Rules the World by Gary DeMar $8.00

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