One of our favorite governments resources, for parents planning lessons and/or teens studying independently, is God and Government by Gary DeMar. This course, containing 3 books [updated in 2013 to 1 hardback covering all], presents the foundations of all governments – not just the civil government that most people think of, but also home and church governments. By presenting “foundations” I don’t mean just introductory basic facts, but foundational principles, thinking through and reasoning how Biblical governments should operate and why.
There are 10 lessons in each of the 3 books, so at one lesson per week the course can be completed in a year. For a teen working through this, there is nothing you need to prepare to teach or for the lessons. Each lesson has a short introduction to read that will establish the context, then discussion questions to answer, mainly by looking up Scripture and reasoning the answer from it. Other resources are noted if needed, such as sections of the Constitution. Then a short summary is given to focus you on the main theme. Then comprehensive answers to the discussion questions are given.
It is best if you can set a bit of time to discuss with the student – or students with each other – once each week. I believe this is true in any learning, a student should have a place to share what he’s learning. This can even be over the dinner table. You don’t have to do all the research for the lesson yourself to discuss it, (unless you have time and want to). You can just use the provided answers. And they don’t expect students to come to such thorough answers on their own.
I really like their perspective, that the studies should not go on and on. “It is best for the student to want more than for them to say that they have had enough.”!! They encourage applying the principles learned to current events – especially issues that arise in elections – and constructing “biblical solutions that can replace humanistic policies and programs.”
If the student is interested in learning more about a topic, in the back of the book it lists further suggested reading by topics. Additional reading can either be left to the student himself to pursue according to his interest in various topics, or assigned.
If you want your student to write more in-depth essays on certain topics you can always assign those after your discussions, asking him to do further research and write out his reasoning through the topic Biblically.
There are a couple other resources that we like particularly for American Civil Government – one for pre-teens and one for upper teens. Hopefully I will complete our Governments Resources and Recommendations page soon with reviews of them.
