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The WallBuilders Show
Homeschooling And Parental Rights In America - with Mike Farris
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Homeschooling didn’t become normal in America because the culture got nicer. It became normal because families and attorneys fought for parental rights when educating your own kids could trigger investigations, court battles, or worse. We sit down with constitutional attorney Mike Farris to answer a listener’s real-life tension: how do you honor biblical teaching about submission to authority while still protecting your children and doing what you believe God calls you to do, especially when the law feels intrusive or hostile?
We dig into Romans 13 with a crucial distinction that changes everything: “authority” isn’t automatically whatever an official says. In the United States, the highest civil authority is the Constitution, and government actors don’t get to invent powers that were never granted. From there, we walk through practical, on-the-ground homeschooling realities, including when simple notification rules are reasonable to follow and when regulations turn into unconstitutional control over curriculum, religious conviction, or parental decision-making. We also point you to tools that help families who move often, including military families trying to keep up with different state homeschool laws.
Then the conversation widens into free speech and religious liberty as Mike explains his current work challenging the Johnson Amendment and what a court ruling could mean for pastors speaking about candidates during worship services. We close with powerful historical context from the American founding, including Jonathan Mayhew’s famous sermon on “unlimited submission” and why the fight over authority, conscience, and tyranny never really goes away.
If this helped you think more clearly about homeschooling, parental rights, or biblical citizenship, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
Welcome And Guest Preview
SPEAKER_03You find your way to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the Wall Builders program. Wall Builders program. Wobbler Show. Wall Builders Live. Wall Builders. Well, what name do I want to use today? We are the Wobbler Show now. Not Wobblers Live. 20 years of that, guys, and I'm I'm stuck in some of those old ways of doing things. Anyway, welcome to the Wall Builders Show today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And a little later in the program, our friend Mike Ferris is with us. Of course, Mike's done a lot of different things from Patrick Henry College to homeschool legal defense to arguing before the Supreme Court on all kinds of things and uh convention estates. I mean, he's he's involved in some major, major uh movements over the last you know decades and decades uh that have had a huge impact and of course work uh closely with us here at Wall Builders as well. So Mike will be with us to talk about uh actually answer one of our questions, which we could have saved for tomorrow for Foundations of Freedom Thursday, guys, but it makes a perfect program specifically to zero in, especially Tim, since you talked about it on Monday, homeschooling uh and and the importance of parental rights in that uh realm as well. I think today's gonna be a great follow-up to the conversations we've already had this week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I Mike, I think, was the guy who really led the charge in nearly all 50 states to make sure there was good laws on the books to protect parents in homeschooling. And I I know early on you and Mike did some things, and I say early on, I don't know what years that was. I I think early 90s, but um, I I do know um that we were around him periodically when I was a kid, uh, whether that was conferences, whatever else. So I you might have to fill me in on this now that we're live on air. It seems like a good time to ask that question. Uh but uh Mike has been the guy helping to give parents the opportunities to actually homeschool their kids. So again, I reckon you allude to when we have a homeschool question, Mike seems like a really good guy to help navigate the answer to this. But dad, how long ago was that uh when you first started doing stuff with Mike?
SPEAKER_00It was in the late 80s, and I'll tell you, just for people today who homeschool their kids and they take that for granted. Um, you mentioned earlier this week, Tim, that that we told you at certain places, hey, don't mention your homeschooled. I mean, literally at that point in time, in the in the late 70s and early 80s, there were situations. There was a church in Nebraska that was trying to have a Christian school, and the government came after them. The people literally barricaded themselves inside the church to withstand the police assaults, trying to take the kids away from them for having a Christian school. And it was not legal to have homeschooling in many states, and they were coming after parents. The police were coming after parents for educating their own kids. They were coming after churches who were having Christian schools. You were going to be part of public school. That's the way it was. That's what the law is, and that's where we're going. People today take so much for granted, not realizing the battles, and literally the people that went to jail or faced jail as a result of just trying to do things we take for granted today. And Mike was one of those early guys. He was out there defending parents when the state was coming after them. The state was taking kids away from parents because the parents were trying to homeschool their own kids. And now even those on the kind of left of center group don't question homeschooling. They don't like it because it's a different philosophy, but they don't question your right to do that. And so much of that is due to Mike Ferris, what he did. He's one of the great constitutional attorneys as well. Uh Lance Defending Freedom. He he was right up top in that organization. They've got, what, 13,000, 14,000 attorneys nationally? And so he was just a great constitutional thinker. Tim, as you mentioned, he started Patrick Henry College. Uh they had very limited, he he chose, I think, just four majors because they were going to train kids and train them really, really well in those areas. And they have been kids that have gone on to really change the nation in that area. So great question. It's a lot of stuff we take for granted today, but Mike was one of the pioneers back in the day when it really costs something to be able to do what we just all take for granted now.
SPEAKER_03Mike Ferris will be with us when we return from the break. Stay with us if you're listening to the Waffle Dorot Show. Hey friends, Rick Green from The Waffler Show, encouraging you to share the program with friends and family and listen to it on the podcasts that are out there. There's so many options out there for you to listen to in the car or from home or while you're working in them. You've got Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Catbox. I mean, there's so many options, and we just want to make sure you know that we've worked hard to get it out there and make it available for you on all those different apps. Everybody's got their favorite app, so choose your particular app. And if it's not on there yet, email us radio with wallbuilders.com and let us know about your favorite podcast app, and we'll make sure Wobblers Radio is listed there. But you can listen and most importantly, share it with your friends and family. That's how the program grows. That's how we get more truth in the hands of as many people as possible. And then, of course, wallbuilders.show, super easy place uh to find all of those podcast apps and to just download right there from that website as well as be able to share it with your friends and family. So check it out today, wobblers.show, or just go directly to your favorite podcast app, listen to the Wobbler Show, and share it with as many people as you possibly can. Welcome back to the Wobbler Show. Thanks for staying with us. Great to have Mike Ferris. Any chance we can get him. Mike, thanks for some time today, man.
SPEAKER_02Always a pleasure to be with my friend Rick.
SPEAKER_03Well, we had uh a listener question uh about homeschooling, and of course, first person to come to mind. Mike's the expert on homeschooling,
Listener Question On Laws And Faith
SPEAKER_03on convention, constitution. You named the topic. We know we'd love having you on and getting your input on it. And and uh we hadn't talked about this one in a while. So we thought it'd be a good time to good time to get you on. So I'm gonna read the question so the audience knows uh what we're responding to, and then brother, you just you just dive in uh wherever you want to take it. So here's what our our our listeners said. We're a homeschooling family, and I'm so grateful to those who have paved the way for us to be able to do this. I've heard mentioned on your show accounts of parents homeschooling when it was barely legal or maybe not quite legal. I was hoping you could expound on that a little more. I find it difficult at times to balance between a biblical submission to authorities and what I believe is best for my kids. My husband is active duty, so we do not have the option to just choose to live where homeschooling laws are least rigid. Truth be told, I find myself resentful of any regulation, but wonder if perhaps my attitude is not very Christ-like. Thank you for all you do, and know that you are instrumental in equipping me to better educate my children. Uh so Mike, I know you've been asked the same ty kind of question many times over the years. And for our audience that that doesn't know, I mean, you you basically uh spent decades making it legal in all 50 states and fighting for parents, and uh and of course you and I together serve on parental rights.org. I appreciate you asking me to be to be on that. Uh the the fight continues. But what would be your response to to this particular pairing?
SPEAKER_02Sure.
Authority Versus Officials Under Romans 13
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, from the beginning of the founding of Homeschool Legal Defense Association in 1983, I've I I had to wrestle with this question myself as an homeschooling dad, and uh I ha helped a lot of families think through this. Um I'd start with a scriptural text, and and that is that in in the book of Romans, uh Paul teaches us that we're supposed to be in submission to the authority. Uh it doesn't say uh officials, it doesn't say the king, it says the authority. And we need to understand for the starting point is uh the ultimate authority in the United States is the Constitution of the United States. Uh and so what an official says is not the same thing always, sometimes it is, but is not always consistent with the authority.
SPEAKER_03Because they could be out of line, or they could be using authority that that they weren't granted, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Or they could be uh directly violating the Constitution of the United States, yeah. And so their their use of the authority is unlawful. And so um, so we need to understand that the you know that's our our standard is the authority. Now in addition to that, there are clear biblical examples, the book of Daniel being one of them, um uh the hiding of Moses by his family is another, the hiding of Jesus from the edict of you know Pharaoh or Herod trying to kill all the babies and others, where people have violated the decrees of the uh government officials when those decrees violate the law of God.
When Civil Disobedience Is Biblical
SPEAKER_02Now, how that worked for me, for my own family, uh when we started homeschooling is that um I believe that God uh required my wife and I to homeschool our kids. We believe that that was a direct calling from him, how we read scripture and applied it to our own family. We believe that was our duty before God. And at the time, Washington State, where we were living when we first started, said you couldn't homeschool unless you were a currently certified teacher. My wife had been a certified teacher, but her certification had lapsed. And we violated the law because we homeschooled anyway, because we believed that our duty to obey God was higher than our duty to obey man, even at the statutory level. Now, we also believe that that law of Washington State violated the Constitution of the United States, and we were ready and willing to defend that that principle, not in uh, you know, a way of hiding, but in the way of, you know, if they wanted to challenge us, um, you know, our family appeared on the front page of the biggest paper in the news in the state on a Sunday morning. So, you know, our way of hiding was to be in the on the front page of the Seattle Times. So um, so we you know, we weren't hiding. We basically said, if you think that we're doing the wrong thing, you come challenge us. Um and so you know, we we we believe that now treating people with respect when you have conversations, yes, we should always do that. But it doesn't mean we have to obey their their edicts and their orders. Um and so the uh you know our contention was that the Constitution of the United States protected the right of families to homeschool their kids. Now it
Legal Limits Notifications And Curriculum Control
SPEAKER_02doesn't mean that no form of accountability to the government uh is uh spiritually uh inappropriate. Uh you know, like if if the government in Virginia, where we h when we homeschooled our kids, once we moved to Virginia, there's a religious exemption. And that law requires you to send a letter to the local school district, explain your religious beliefs, and ask the school district to recognize that you are exempt because of the nature of your beliefs. We did that, and the school district recognized that, and we never interacted with um the state of Virginia or the Loudoun County Public Schools again for the 30-plus year we lived here and homeschooled our kids. And so, you know, the they basically said, Yeah, you're you're right, we don't have jurisdiction over you. And so we we interacted with the statute. And if a if a statute only requires you to give notification or to to give information that isn't uh a statement that says you can't homeschool your kids, then I think you know we we probably need to be obeying the laws that don't really create a conflict between us and God. So if it's a simple notification rule or requirement that we teach reading, math, and science without dictating the details to us, we can do that. We can ob we can obey those kinds of things. Now, if they start to tell curriculum, like uh I've uh I had a superintendent one time in a deposition say that the family was required to do drug education to have a uh equivalent education. This was in Pennsylvania years ago. And I said, Well, do they have to teach drug education your way or can they do it their own way? I said, Can they tell their kids that taking drugs is a sin against God? And he said, No, you couldn't do that, because that would be something we can't say, and you have to teach it our way, not your way. Well, when it comes to things like that, we violate those kind of things and challenge them, you know, make them stand up and try to defend that under the Constitution. And so but but if it's if it's routine, ordinary notification kind of things, I think presumptively we should be obeying those things. When it comes to control content or directs us to do anything that would require us to violate a directive from God, then I believe that God teaches us we obey God rather than man.
SPEAKER_03Amen. Amen. So yeah, and it's just if it's reasonable, and like you said, it doesn't violate, um, that we don't have to be just, you know, um d rigid about it. I mean, there there are there are things that we can do. And of course, HSLDA has a fantastic guide on this for each state. So if you go to HSLDA.org uh forward slash legal, there's a map you can click on that state, especially for this caller that moves around a lot, and so you might get the system down wherever you are, and then all of a sudden you you're you know deployed somewhere else and you got to learn the laws of that state. That's one one great tool right there. Just going to that website and you can quickly learn. And HSLDA is great at answering questions, become a member so that you've you've got help there anytime you need it. Um, Mike, when you get you you said it was 83.
SPEAKER_02Is that when you started HSLDA? It was. Uh yeah, back when you were in kindergarten.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know what's funny? I was being homeschooled, uh, and I and I can remember, I remember seeing my pastor on the news because of exactly like what you were talking about, where you ended up on the front page of the paper and uh and he was, you know, defending parental rights and and and say we had a right to do that. But yeah, I can remember not answering the front door because you weren't sure uh what was gonna happen. So uh I was literally, I wasn't in kindergarten, but I was young. Uh
HSLDA Tools For Moving Families
SPEAKER_03so um, hey, catch us up on Mike Ferris. Like what do you what do you I know you're doing some stuff uh with NRB now. I know you still do COS, and um, what else are you doing these days?
SPEAKER_02Well, my
Johnson Amendment Challenge And Church Speech
SPEAKER_02my big project right now is uh I'm in the um second, the appellate phase of a case challenging the constitutionality of the Johnson Amendment. This is on behalf of NRB, National Religious Broadcasters. And so we we have challenged the constitutionality of the rule that says that uh churches and other nonprofits can't speak their mind about candidates. And we reached a consent decree with uh the the uh Justice Department under President Trump's leadership uh that uh we we were attacking it broadly, but they said here's our here we'll offer you a deal. If you will limit your decree simply to what churches say during the worship service, we'll agree that the Johnson Amendment cannot be constitutionally applied to that context. And we we agreed with them, but the trial judge that had to approve the decree would not do so. And so we've appealed, uh you know, NRB's appealed to the Fifth Circuit, uh, and the government um will file a brief shortly in response, and they're and they're gonna keep do the same position they took below, that they're they're gonna ask the court to enter to approve the consent decree. So we are uh uh you know hopefully uh very soon going to have a official federal court ruling that churches do not violate the the law when a pastor speaks about a candidate during the worship service. Now, if they you know hold a rally uh you know on Monday afternoon and or you know give money to a campaign, that's different. We're not you know, we're not legalizing any of that. It's just that the pastor's free to preach what he wants to preach, the whole council of the word of God, and if he wants to say that what this candidate says about abortion is unbiblical, and what this candidate says about abortion is biblical, he'll have the freedom to do that without any question.
SPEAKER_03That is huge, man. That is huge. It's been so many years where people just didn't know what to do. They had to kind of do it in a challenging way, and and just depended on who was in charge of the IRS. I mean, this this could be a a major uh game changer. Remind me, Mike. I know the Fifth Circuit's got some some good conservative justices on it. I think there's like, I don't know, 30 or something on there, though, and you'll I guess have a three-judge panel on this, so it depends on who you draw, or do you already know who who you draw on?
SPEAKER_02No, we you you don't know until uh just a few days before the oral argument. And so um, but there's a lot of good judges on the Fifth Circuit, and we just want them to read the law correctly. We we we don't need any political favors, we don't need any we just need a correct, easy reading of the federal law in question that we think we'll come out just fine.
SPEAKER_03That's great. Man, all right, we'll be watching for that. And tell me again the timeline on that you think.
SPEAKER_02Um well, I would guess uh around the end of the year, maybe you know, December, January, we'll have the oral argument. Because the briefing's is is is coming to an end you know within days now. And so it's uh we'll we'll within a couple, three months, we should have an oral argument.
SPEAKER_03All right. Well, we look forward to getting you back after that's done and and hopefully a victorious uh decision there that will affect uh people all across the country. That's huge. Mike Ferris, appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Rich. God bless.
SPEAKER_03Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.
How Homeschooling Became Mainstream
SPEAKER_01Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from Wall Builders. I'm gonna let you know about a new resource that should be a tool in your toolbox. This is the reprint of Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now, there's lots of reasons it would be cool to own a reprint like this, but one of the things that I want to highlight is not only is this a reprint that is in Thomas Jefferson's own hand and cursive, it shows some of his edits along the way, which is really fun, but it also shows what Thomas Jefferson thought was the most significant grievance in the original draft. It's the longest grievance, it's the last grievance. It was a grievance against the slave trade, arguing actually also against slavery, and arguing for the humanity of all that were in slaves. Thomas Jefferson thought that was the most important. Now, it didn't make it the final draft, and we will explain why in the resource packet you get when you order one of these copies. But friends, this is something that you want in your collection. Go to wallbooters.com and look for Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_03Welcome back to the Wall Booter Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Mike Ferris for joining us as well and helping out on that question. Uh homeschool has definitely changed, guys. As we, you know, you were saying at the beginning of the program, David. I mean, now you've got big conventions in pretty much every state across the country. You've got uh, in fact, not even just Christians homeschooling now. You've got people um that that just want what's best for their kids, even secular people that are not coming from a faith perspective, they want a better education for their kids. So you're starting to see this new influx into homeschool, especially since COVID. I mean, back in 2020, that was probably the best thing. You know, I think we even said it here on the program, it was like first uh 10 weeks of of uh everybody else's kids being home, respect for homeschool moms went through the roof. It was like all of a sudden everybody else realized, hey, you know what? This ain't easy. They they do it all. And uh so it also, though, made people realize what was happening in their public schools and made them want to homeschool. So, yeah, a lot of growth in that area right now.
SPEAKER_00It's been a couple of decades, but you go back to California, there was a Supreme Court ruling in California uh probably two decades ago where they said you cannot homeschool your kids. So you have to have certified educators who can produce the results, and so they banned homeschooling. And then in court, they said, well, homeschool kids actually score higher on the academic test than these certified teachers you're talking about at public school. And in a very, very, very unusual thing, the Supreme Court of California reversed itself and said, No, actually, you can homeschool. Look at the results we're getting. The kids are not having an inferior education, they're having a superior education, and that was about 6% of the students in the state, and their academic scores were much higher than the public school scores. And so, you know, 20 years ago, when everybody at in that state was not fixed on a political agenda, they actually acknowledged truth, and that was one of the great wins at that point in time. But my Mike hit something that
Romans 13 Misread And Acts 4
SPEAKER_00was very important. He said, you know, this was for many churches, they hit Romans 13 and said, hey, you're supposed to submit to government. The Bible says Romans 13, submit. And if the state says you can't educate your kids, you can't educate your kids. And that is one of the worst readings of the Bible that's ever happened, and it came from so many pastors because Hebrews 11, our faith hall of fame, is filled up with people who disobeyed government and God blessed them for it. I mean, just start right off the bat. Mary and Joseph disobeyed government. Jesus should have been dead because Herod ordered that decree, but they took the kid and they fled to a different place. That's not obeying the decree. And then you take the two Hebrew midwives and Maryam, the sister of Moses, saved Moses' life. All the boys are supposed to be killed. They rejected that law, they disobeyed it. It's what Paul did, it's what Peter did, it's what the three Hebrew children did, it's what Daniel did. I mean, go on with it. Virtually all the apostles engaged in civil disobedience to some degree, but in the early part of Acts, as the church was exploding and growing in the first chapters of Acts, they pulled in Peter and John and said, You guys stop preaching in that name. And both of them said, No, we're not going to do that. We're going to keep preaching. And so Peter ends up in jail. Paul ends up in jail. All the apostles essentially ended up in jail because they refused to do what civil government said. They were going to obey God rather than men. And that is a key verse to good memory verse, Acts 4.20, we will obey God rather than men. So if the government tells you to do something that God tells you the opposite to you, you better obey God, not the government. And that's what homeschooling really was. The kids were given to the parents, not to the state. And the parents were going to raise the kids. And those were fights that have benefited all of us for decades since those fights occurred.
Mayhew’s Sermon And America’s Motto
SPEAKER_01Well, and to this point, this is something that was a big debate uh for the founding fathers. Uh in in the church's kind of a first great awakening era period where there was Already some very patriotic churches that were very anti-some of what the king was doing, some of what the royal appointed governors were doing. And so you had guys, for example, like a Jonathan Edwards, who gave a sermon uh dealing with unlimited submission. Um, unfold that for a second, unpack that bag for a minute about the impact of that sermon. And specifically, just to tie a bow on this a little bit, and then if you would un unpack this some, but John Adams said not only was that sermon reprinted in Boston, John Adams says there was not a man in Boston who had not read that sermon. So this is literally a foundational sermon that shapes the Founding Fathers, and it's an exposition on Romans 13 where he exegetes the passage and gives a lot of biblical thought and interpretation that is very different than a lot of the modern thought. So, Dad, what what exactly did that pastor do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Jonathan Mayhew was a massive pastor in the Great Awakening. He was good friends with George Woodfield, had a massive influence. Now, Whitfield went all over the nation, but Mayhew stayed pretty much in Massachusetts. That was where his home church was. And he and Woodfield met on numerous occasions, but he preached a sermon in 1750. And it was a sermon on Romans 13 about unlimited submission to civil authorities. And the question is, if the if the government tells us to do that, Romans 13 says we have to do that. And he says, well, uh, kind of the same stuff we just went through. Look at all the civil disobedience that God blessed. You have to obey God rather than man. And so he concluded that sermon with a statement. He said, Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Because tyrants want you to do things that God will not bless. And if you rebel against a tyrant, which God is against tyranny, you're obeying God. And so that phrase was published in that sermon in 1750. And in 1776, 26 years later, that sermon had been in circulation for so much that after Congress approved the declaration on July the 4th, they came up with the committee of three founding fathers, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, to come up with a new motto for America. And that committee recommended back that statement, Rebellion to tyrants and obedience to God. That actually became Thomas Jefferson's personal seal as Secretary of State under George Washington. That was his statement, Rebellion to Tyrants, Obedience to God. It came from that sermon in 1750.
SPEAKER_01Well, and Dad, you mentioned Jonathan Mayhew. I think I said Jonathan Edwards at the beginning. So if somebody heard Jonathan Edwards, that's not who it was. It was Jonathan Mayhew gave who they gave that sermon. We do have that posted on the Wallbuilders website as well. But one of the things he points out that is so important in our contextual understanding of Romans 13 is in verse four, it says, for he, meaning the the the government. He is the minister of God to thee for good. And what Jonathan Mayhew pointed out was when you have government leaders that are not doing godly things, they're not doing good things, but they're actually uh upholding things that are anti-biblical, that are anti-godly, then he's no longer under that hierarchical authority structure where God's at the very top, and then you have all these different authorities that are over you. He says, when that person ceases to be under God, they cease to be above you in the hierarchical structure of authority. And therefore, at times the most godly thing you can do is oppose the ungodly commands given to you by a leader who's not submitting himself to God, which is what led to the motto rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. All this to say, in my mind, this is a lot of connection with part of what Mike Ferris was laying out. And I'm so grateful for the decades of the work he has done, uh, helping give parents more opportunity, choice, and freedom. And of course, giving us a great explanation for the question
Email List Support And Closing
SPEAKER_01today.
SPEAKER_03Great stuff, guys. So many good topics this week. And parental rights is clearly a theme throughout this week. But there's so many principles that we fight for here at Wall Builders. Folks, if you're not on our email list, you need to get on the email list. Go to wallbuilders.com, sign up for that. You'll get, we don't bombard you at all, but you'll get some really cool historical facts once in a while. You'll also get some ways to plug in. Be praying for all three of us as we travel across the country these last few weeks of the election. We're gonna be super, super busy. And uh, and I and I think God's just uh He's put us here for a time such as this. Uh David's gonna be on the road with Chad Conley. They're gonna be doing all of these events. All of that takes dollars to make it happen. So we appreciate lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. That's right. We got to give all three in everything that we do. So thank you to all of you that have been giving. Please consider even giving more in this critical time at wallbuilders.com. Helps us to reach even more people, train more pastors, more young people, more teachers, all of those things. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to the Wall Builder Show.
