My journey to the 2 Kingdoms Steering Committee began just over one year ago. Up until that time, raising our two boys in a small, rural South Dakota town had nearly isolated us from the darkness that seems to permeate many of the public schools in our nation. Both of our boys attended the local public school and were blessed with many great teachers and staff members, many of them believers, who encouraged them in their education and personal growth. Even during the COVID pandemic, we were grateful that our school was virtual for only a short period and reopened with very few restrictions. It was these very positive experiences that made what happened in April 2022, so unexpected.

Our school had decided to have an “Inclusion Campaign” which included assigning the elementary students (my oldest son was then a 6^th grader) to draw a poster which would be hung in the hallways of the school. My son’s poster only included the text, “Everyone is created in the image of God!” and a quoted Bible verse, Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” However, when it came time to hang them in the hallway, as my son later wrote in his grievance to the school board, “My poster was excluded from the inclusion campaign.” They refused to hang up his poster because it contained a reference to the Bible. Days later, two other posters which referenced Jesus were also taken down.

When I heard about this, I went to the school thinking it would only take a brief discussion and a few key resources I had printed off from the US Dept. of Education and the South Dakota Attorney General’s office to clear up what I thought was a simple misunderstanding. However, when I first met with the superintendent, I found that he had already contacted the school board attorney who had told them not to hang up any of those “religious” posters. The superintendent also said that none of the resources I provided mattered because they had to obey their lawyer.

At this point, I knew to make any headway, I would need some legal expertise. This led me to 2 Kingdoms’ own Col. John Eidsmoe. With his help through the Foundation of Moral Law, we were able to get all three posters hung up. However, I was still disappointed that not one school official or member of the school board, all of whom I knew personally, would admit that the school had violated my son’s Constitutional rights by taking down the poster. I realized there was, and is, still much more work to be done.

This desire to continue to shine the light of the Lord’s Truth into the world around us led me, after a couple days of prayerful consideration, to accept when Col. Eidsmoe called me earlier this year asking if I would consider a nomination to be part of the 2 Kingdoms Ministry Steering Committee. And while our situation wasn’t resolved as completely as I’d hoped, I have seen many positive steps in the right direction. Since that time, the superintendent has resigned, and we have had two members of our congregation run for school board. One was elected shortly after our incident, and the other was elected after running unopposed in the next election. We cannot complain about the darkness if we are unwilling to carry the light of God’s Word.

In Christ,

Pr. Barry Nelson
2 Kingdoms Steering Committee