Christian Heritage Academy

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Christian Heritage Academy
Motto Isaiah 58:12b "and thou shalt be called , The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in ."
Type Private
Established 1972
Headmaster Josh Bullard
Location , ,
Colors Red, white and blue
Nickname CHA
Mascot Crusader
Website www.cha.org
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Christian Heritage Academy (CHA) is a private Christian school located in Del City, Oklahoma, USA. Established in 1972, CHA instructs its students in an American Christian philosophy of education through the Principle Approach methodology. Enrollment includes students from grades Pre-Kindergarten through twelve. The students are residents of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. There is also a "Christian Heritage Academy" located in Northfield, Illinois.

Curriculum

Mission Statement

CHA's mission statement is as follows: The purpose of Christian Heritage Academy is to assist the home and church in building a solid foundation in the life of each student--a life which is characterized by a personal salvation experience, the development of Christian character, the Christian conscience and Christian self-government. The ultimate goal of the Academy is to produce true Christian scholars who will be used of God to propagate the Gospel to the whole world and to restore our American Christian Republic to its historic, Biblical foundation.

Principle Approach

CHA's curriculum is based on the Principle Approach[1] developed by Verna M. Hall and Rosalie Slater".[2] This approach to education states that "the pinnacle of classical education was reached in [the United States of America]...two centuries ago".[3] The Principle Approach concept of "Providential History" maintains that "God commands us to make nations Christian" nations, that only "Providential history is true history" as taught by the Principle Approach, and that "the failure to teach Providential history has led to the secularization of America".[4]

Mascot and colors

The mascot of the Christian Heritage Academy is the Crusader. The school colors are red, white and blue.

Standards of Conduct

According to the CHA Standard of Conduct, each student is expected to honor the agreement both in school and out of school. "The school, therefore, expects each student to maintain Christian standards of courtesy, kindness, morality, and honesty. The school further requires each student to refrain from profanity, indecent language, gambling, cheating, sexual immorality, stealing, the use of any type of tobacco, drugs, alcohol, and pornographic materials, and from participation in unlawful, violent, or destructive acts." The Standard of Conduct agreement "should be understood that this is a joint agreement between the school, the parent, and the student. It should be obvious to the parent that the school will enforce these standards. It should also be obvious to the school that the parent enforces these standards while the student is associated with CHA during the school term and the summer".[5]

Dress code

Christian Heritage Academy has a dress code which is different for both sexes and for elementary students and secondary students.[6] CHA’s dress code policy serves to create a learning environment free from distractions and to encourage students in exercising individual responsibility and Christian self-government."

Historical overview

Opening

On September 1, 1972, Christian Heritage Academy opened its doors as a new private Christian elementary school in south Oklahoma City, meeting in the facilities of Sunnyside Baptist Church but separately incorporated. It was one of the first of such schools in the area. The school was small, having only 200 students in the first year. Toward the end of the first year, Ralph Bullard was hired as headmaster[citation needed].

School grows

In the midst of philosophical development, the school was growing. At its founding, CHA enrolled students in the first through eighth grades. Thereafter, a kindergarten was added and one upper grade each year until the school had a complete high school program, graduating its first senior class in 1977[citation needed]. Two senior traditions were established with the first graduating class: The American Christian Heritage Tour of the cities of Boston, Plymouth, Lexington, Concord, and Salem, Massachusetts taken in the spring before graduation and the unique graduation ceremony which CHA adopted, in which each graduating senior is individually recognized and lauded for their positive character qualities and impact within their class[citation needed].

On October 20, 1978, CHA sponsored its first American Christian Teachers Seminar. During the seminar, faculty of CHA shared the Principle Approach and the American Christian Philosophy of Education with representatives from other Christian schools within Oklahoma. As of 2010, CHA remains the only Principle Approach school in Oklahoma[citation needed].

1980s

Establishment of a Christian philosophy of athletics

Once a high school program was established, it became obvious that athletics would not only be important, but also would be a venue in which the school would be viewed by many others outside the school. A Christian philosophy of athletics was written to guide the athletic development of students and to reflect Christian values on the playing field and in the stands. CHA's philosophy of athletics is as follows: Since we are ambassadors for Jesus Christ, let us conduct ourselves in word and action just as Christ would conduct himself. Therefore, all that we do, we will do with a total release of our mental and physical abilities and our emotional energies towards our performance, having in mind that Christ is our only audience. Concerning our attitude towards players and fans of the opposing team, we will strive "to love our neighbor as ourselves" and "do unto them as we would have them do unto us."[citation needed]

Establishment of a Home School Satellite Program

In the early days of the home school movement, Dr. Cynthia Bower taught phonics classes to groups of home school mothers in the summer, and the school began providing the service of annual achievement testing. The school’s philosophical stand has always been that parents are primarily responsible for the education of their own children[citation needed]. Believing this, CHA developed programs to equip parents to teach and to give them educational support. Out of this was born the Home School Satellite Program. The emphasis of the program has always been on preparation of the parent to teach, but there have been opportunities for students to participate in some school events and/or classes. Many of these students have found their way into the CHA day school program because of this association.[citation needed]

World Missions emphasis

While reading about the state of Christian education, Ralph Bullard noticed that suggestions for what Christian schools should do seemed shallow to him[citation needed]. He discussed his findings with Tom Elliff, the senior pastor of First South Baptist Church and a patron of the school[citation needed]. As they tried to answer the question, “What are we educating them for?” one of the answers was, “We are educating them to reach out to others, not just at home but abroad.”[citation needed] This led to an emphasis on missions, not just with money and local help but actually working with missionaries outside the United States. Since 1988, many students at CHA have participated in an annual mission trip to Mexico. There has also been one trip to Russia and two to Brazil.[citation needed]

1990s

Hosting Pat Buchanan, Presidential Candidate

In 1996 CHA hosted then Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan for his Oklahoma Republican pre-primary rally.[citation needed]

Controversy

Historical Context & Foundation

According to the Christian Heritage Academy website, the school began in 1972 with a vision of Sunnyside Baptist Church and its pastor, Harry Boydstun.[7] Prior to the school's founding, demographic changes in primary education were taking place in Oklahoma City and in other cities across America. In the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of busing to end school segregation and dual school systems.[8] The federal courts began mandating that enrollment be racially balanced in the public school systems and be achieved through the forced busing of elementary students. Many parents were alarmed that the public schools were being radically reorganized and their children would be transported miles across town to be taught in some other place than their neighborhood schools. The movement of large numbers of white families to suburbs of large cities, so-called white flight and a string of Supreme Court decisions, reduced the effectiveness of the busing policy.[9][10]

Influence from the Gablers

In the spring of 1972, Sunnyside Baptist Church invited Mel and Norma Gabler to speak about their work during a Wednesday night service. In spite of the fact that neither of The Gablers had any college degrees, and neither attended secondary education for more than a year they were very active in school textbook issues in the state of Texas and made great strides in restoring that state’s public education system from the historical revisionism that they and many others saw in their students' curriculum. Neal Frey, who worked with the Gablers since 1972 and now runs the organization, said "that Mrs. Gabler’s larger public role was deceptive. "Mr. Gabler wore the pants in that family, and Mrs. Gabler wanted it that way".[11] The Gablers identified the changes that had come over the teaching of history as generation after generation of textbooks had the Christian founding of America expunged from them.[citation needed] They claimed that America was losing its Christian heritage because children were never introduced to it in schools: "Allowing a student to come to his own conclusion about abstracts and concepts creates frustration. Ideas, situation ethics, values, anti-God humanism - that's what the schools are teaching. And concepts. Well, a concept will never do anyone as much good as a fact".[12] During the service, pastor Boydstun sensed a mission to provide education within a Christian setting for the students of southwest Oklahoma City. After further discussion, the church established a committee to investigate the feasibility of a Christian school and later to began the development of the school program.[citation needed]

Doors Open

By September 1, 1972, Christian Heritage Academy opened its doors as a new private Christian elementary school in south Oklahoma City, meeting in the facilities of Sunnyside Baptist Church but separately incorporated. It was one of the first of such schools in the area. The school was small, having only 200 students in the first year. Toward the end of the first year, Ralph Bullard was hired as headmaster[citation needed].

Influence of Popular Right Wing Dominionists

Ralph Bullard’s first meeting with Dr. O'Brien led him to adopt the school’s educational philosophy — The Principle Approach to America’s Christian History, Government, and Education[citation needed]. In her office he saw two reference volumes: Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America and Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History. Remembering these titles, he ordered a set for the school[citation needed]. Under the influence of these key texts, Christian Heritage Academy came to enjoy many years of association with R.J. Rushdoony associates and Miss Verna M. Hall and Miss Rosalie I. Slater, the authors of the books and officers of The Foundation for American Christian Education in San Francisco, California, and later with many other friends and associates in the work: Mr. John Talcott, member of the Evangelical Council for National Policy,[13][14] a director of the Ocean Spray Corporation and founder of Plymouth Rock Foundation, whose Plymouth Rock Seminars were foundational to the school’s philosophical development; Miss Katherine Dang, then the principal of the Chinese Christian Schools of San Leandro, California, and teacher at the pilot school in Hayward, CA under the direction of CHA development contributor James B. Rose; and Mrs. Ruth Smith of Pilgrim Institute. All of these friends provided counsel and advice to the school as CHA developed its program and became one of the leaders in the American Christian History movement (see Dominionism).

Ethnocentric Publications by CHA

CHA has published several ethnocentric viewpoints consistent with their Principle Approach methodology including the "God Fashioned the Continents for His Story" publication where CHA poses the questions "Are there physical signs of the intentional hand of Providence? If the Lord truly has foresight (which He does), and if He planned the story that would unfold on earth (which He did), then wouldn’t it make sense that He would create the continents to oblige?"[15] Claiming that "America fits into that plan" CHA's publication states that America can clearly be found in the Bible and that "His design should point to the work of Christ in human history-- the story of liberty." God is seen as a "Master Painter" who is putting together the continents with a purpose, thus Asia, Europe, and North America are described as having been "admirably prepared" as opposed to South America, Africa and Australia which are relegated to their plant, animal, and wildlife.[16]

Of Native Americans it claims that they "occupied but did not possess the land" echoing R.J. Rushdoony and other Christian dominionists. In spite of evidence that indigenous tribes in North America had a history and civilization for thousands of years,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] CHA maintains the expansion of the Manifest Destiny across North America because it "was not designed to give birth and development to a new civilization but to receive one ready-made" and that it invited colonization through Manifest Destiny... "it seems to invite the European race, the people of progress, to new fields of action, to encourage their expansion throughout its entire territory."[15]

The publication also carries the following quote from Alexis de Tocqueville:

Although [North America] was inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may be justly said, at the time of its discovery by Europeans, to have formed one great desert. The Indians occupied it without possessing it. The whole continent seemed prepared to be the abode of a great nation yet unborn.[15]

German geographer Friedrich Ratzel visited North America beginning in 1873[27] and saw the effects of American manifest destiny.[28] Later German publicists misinterpreted Ratzel to argue for the right of the German race to expand within Europe; that notion was later incorporated into Nazi ideology, as Lebensraum

Principle Approach's Use of Noah Webster 1828 Dictionary

In order to circumvent the indoctrination of students, this method of education uses Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 as a part of its curriculum and maintains that "It will equip you for Christian leadership, strengthen your vocabulary, give you an edge in communicating your view and become your foundation for thinking and reasoning Biblically. This tool can be the turning point for you to be more effective in communicating Christian principles used in government, economics, and marketing or for your student to clearly understand how the Bible has influenced every area of life".[29] Also, it is taught that for one "to understand principles of liberty, one must return to the thought and writings of those whom God used to establish the first Christian constitutional representative Republic the world has ever known".[30]

Ironically, in his early years Noah Webster himself was a proponent of the American ideals of "liberalism" and "tolerance"[31] but in 1808 he became a convert to Calvinistic orthodoxy, and thereafter became a devout Congregationalist who preached the need to Christianize the nation.[32] Webster grew increasingly authoritarian and elitist, fighting against the prevailing grain of Jacksonian Democracy. Webster viewed language as a tool to control unruly thoughts. His American Dictionary emphasized the virtues of social control over human passions and individualism, submission to authority, and fear of God; they were necessary for the maintenance of the American social order.[33]

Courtship and sexual purity

Christian Heritage Academy draws focus to human sexuality, much of which is based upon the program school Headmaster Josh Bullard has created entitled "Created for Purity".[34] To help illustrate "what type of gift you want to give your future spouse" one of the program's exercises includes fathers presenting their daughters with two "purity rings".[35] One ring symbolizing virginity is "wrapped in white" representing a "pretty white package" that "they could give their spouses" which is then contrasted by the father "pulling another gift out of his pocket, which was tattered and torn".[34] Fathers are then told to explain that this torn and tattered package "which still contained virginity, but it was “beat up, battered and had been around the block.” Finally, Fathers can explain that "You can give them this pure, white gift, or you can give them the tattered one...that you can always be like the pure, white gift, but once you’re tattered, you can never go back to being like the pure gift.”[34]

The prescribed method of Courtship vs. Dating is taught in the classroom. Sexual purity is required as part of the code of conduct and is taught by the faculty.[36]

OSSAA Lawsuit

In 2007 CHA went to court against the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association, heard in the United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. In "Christian Heritage Academy v. Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Ass’n, 483 F.3d 1025 (10th Cir. 2007)" CHA filed this action after years of OSSAA failing to accept CHA as a member in their athletic association, "claiming, in pertinent part, that defendant Oklahoma Secondary School Activity Association's ("OSSAA's") membership requirements for nonpublic schools violated the Equal Protection Clause".[37] "For athletics, OSSAA determines athletic divisions, sets eligibility rules, and holds state play-offs and championships".[37] Although one of the judges described CHA's argument as a "doctorinal morass" OSSAA's decision was remanded.[38]

As of 2009, CHA along with other private schools, will not be forced to move "up" in the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association division classifications.[39]

As of 2011, CHA was categorized as an OSSAA 2A Football Program, with an enrollment of 216 secondary students.[40]

Association With Reclaiming America For Christ

CHA's association with "Reclaiming America" and "Reclaiming Oklahoma" center around the controversial Rev. Paul Blair,[41] football coach at CHA since 2008, Oklahoma Secondary School Activity Association's ("OSSAA's") membership former OSU and NFL football player, who is currently the pastor at the Fairview Baptist Church, in Edmond, Oklahoma. The right wing evangelical and socially conservative political group called the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ was founded by the late D. James Kennedy but folded shortly after his death in 2007.[42][43] Pastor Paul Blair of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma is also a CHA football coach and the facilitator of the CHA North satellite which resides at the Fairview Baptist Church location in Edmond, Oklahoma.[44] Pastor Paul Blair started an initiative to create a similar social and political action group called "Reclaim Oklahoma for Christ" [45] and after some success took over the former Center for Reclaiming America for Christ now known simply as Reclaiming America for Christ with the full support and blessing of Coral Ridge Ministries although they are no longer associated.[46] Pastor Paul Blair's association with Reclaim America for Christ started with an association with John Birch Society member, politically right wing Evangelical activist, and former Oklahoma Congressional candidate Charlie Meadows, who during a breakfast meeting decided to form "Reclaim Oklahoma for Christ" with Blair.[47] Pastor Blair along with John Birchers Clark Curry, and George Wallace founded Clouds Over America, a similar organization to educate pastors.[48]

In 2007 CHA went to court against the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Athletic Association, heard in the United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. In "Christian Heritage Academy v. Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Ass’n, 483 F.3d 1025 (10th Cir. 2007)" CHA filed this action after years of OSSAA failing to accept CHA as a member in their athletic association, "claiming, in pertinent part, that defendant's requirements for nonpublic schools violated the Equal Protection Clause".[49] "For athletics, OSSAA determines athletic divisions, sets eligibility rules, and holds state play-offs and championships".[50] Although one of the judges described CHA's argument as a "doctrinal morass", OSSAA's decision was remanded.[51]

Heritage Banquet

Notable Heritage Banquet speakers include:

Notable alumni

References

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  17. Dickason, Olive. Canada's First Nations: A History of the Founding Peoples from the Earliest Times. 2nd edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997.
  18. Deloria, V., Jr., (1997) Red Earth White Lies: Native Americans and The Myth of Scientific Fact.
  19. Hillerman, Anthony G. (1973). "The Hunt for the Lost American", in The Great Taos Bank Robbery and Other Indian Country Affairs, University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-0306-4.
  20. D.E. Dummond, "Toward a Pre-History of the Na-Dene, with a General Comment on Population Movements among Nomadic Hunters", American Anthropological Association, 1969. Retrieved March 30, 2010.
  21. ^ Fagan, Brian M. 2005. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. Fourth Edition. New York. Thames & Hudson Inc. p418.
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  23. Chenault, Mark, Rick Ahlstrom, and Tom Motsinger, (1993) In the Shadow of South Mountain: The Pre-Classic Hohokam of 'La Ciudad de los Hornos', Part I and II.
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  27. Mattelart, Armand. The Invention of Communication, pp. 212–216. University of Minnesota Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8166-2697-9
  28. Klinghoffer, 2006, p. 86.
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  37. 37.0 37.1 CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY v. OKLAHOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION, No. 04-6342. 483 F.3d 1025 (United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit 2007).
  38. CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY v. OKLAHOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION, No. 04-6342. 483 F.3d 1025 (United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit 2007) (“"it is not necessary to wade into this doctrinal morass”).
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  49. CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY v. OKLAHOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION, No. 04-6342. 483 F.3d 1025 (United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit 2007).
  50. CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY v. OKLAHOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION, No. 04-6342. 483 F.3d 1025 (United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit 2007).
  51. CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ACADEMY v. OKLAHOMA SECONDARY SCHOOL ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATION, No. 04-6342. 483 F.3d 1025 (United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit 2007).

External links

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