About Progeny Press
Our Mission:
"To teach our children to think clearly, to understand literature, and to rely on the scripture for truth and values, and enjoy themselves while they do it!"
Progeny Press' Statement of Faith:
We believe:
- The Bible is the inspired Word of God and is true spiritually, morally, and historically. It is to be the foundation of all mankind's wisdom, behavior, and belief structures.
- There is one triune God composed of three Persons: God the Father; God the Son, Jesus Christ; and God the Holy Spirit. God is the creator and keeper of all things. He is holy and immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. There is no higher authority in heaven or on earth. There is no other god.
- Humanity is sinful. Through Adam sin entered the world, and through Adam and by our own actions we are all guilty of sin. We cannot achieve God's standard of perfection by any means of our own. Nothing we do can "earn" our salvation.
- Jesus, God incarnate, by His life fulfilled the Law of God, by His death fulfilled the penalty for our sin, and by His resurrection sealed His authority and power to bring His followers, righteous, before God the Father.
- Only by the grace and mercy of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, can a person be saved. Each individual must make this decision for himself or herself.
We believe these elements define a Christian and are beyond contestation. Upon other issues we may have strong opinions and believe the Bible is clear, but we recognize there can be honest differences of opinion. We also believe that Jesus Christ was the only man to be 100% correct in all His statements, and so we humbly accept that the remainder of humanity will be wrong in some aspect, including us. However, we continue to work together in love for the glory of God.
Our Story:
Why We Study Literature
At Progeny Press, we believe in teaching literature to prepare children for the tough questions and situations that life will throw at them. As much as we would like to protect children by shielding them from anything un-Godly, the best protection we can give is to arm them with the ability to think through issues by which the world tempts them and give them the ability and habit of taking those issues back to the Bible for God's answers. At Progeny Press, we believe teaching literature with the Bible firmly in hand, and open, gives children those abilities.
But why study stories and literature? Jesus himself taught with stories–we call them parables. He used his stories to clearly illustrate his message to his apostles. In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus uses the story of the Good Samaritan to amplify and illustrate his answer to the lawyer who asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus could have answered "All men," and the lawyer would have had his answer. But instead Jesus told a story. By describing the man attacked, the indifference of the religious leaders, and the care of the Samaritan, Jesus demonstrated not only who is a neighbor, but how the lawyer should practice neighborly love.
By telling this story, Jesus placed the audience within a common cultural experience and used the circumstances to lead the lawyer to an inescapable conclusion. Under the circumstances as laid out by Jesus, the lawyer could truthfully answer only one way: The one who showed mercy to the despised stranger was the neighbor. Jesus then used the story and the lawyer's response to instruct him in life: "Go and do the same." Jesus used a story to illustrate a problem, define the common cultural response to the problem, demonstrate the godly response to the problem, and instruct the listener in how to respond in like circumstances.
We can and should use literature, Christian and secular, as a map to anticipate the conflicts on the roads before us. We can and should use fiction as Jesus did: to view conflict in its cultural context, to view conflict in a Biblical context and find a godly response, and then use our understanding to prepare ourselves and others for similar circumstances in real life. This is the pattern we use in Progeny Press study guides.