Children grow up. Sometimes it’s hard to see the growth in our own children because we see them everyday. The changes are too gradual. But it can be startling when we see it in the lives of children we see only occasionally. So it has been for me to watch Alex and Brett Harris, the twin sons of my dear friends, Gregg and Sono Harris—seeing the twins (as everyone calls them) over the years in homeschool conferences, first as toddlers, then as boys, and then as young adults in homeschool speech and debate. But on their last visit in March, when Alex and Brett came to our community to present their Rebelution Tour Conference to a packed facility of 500 Christian teens and their parents, the change was amazing. Could these young men really be the same children who played with mine many years ago? Yes, children really do grow up, and here I am today interviewing them for TOS.

Alex and Brett are the sons of Gregg and Sono Harris. Gregg is an author, conference speaker, and homeschooling advocate who is widely credited with helping to launch the Christian homeschooling movement over 25 years ago. They are also the younger brothers of Joshua Harris, author of the bestselling book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, who is now serving as senior pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The third- and fourth-born of seven children, 17-year-old Alex and Brett are best known as the co-authors of the popular blog “The Rebelution” (www.therebelution.com), which has received over 255,000 hits since its launch in August 2005 and was recently voted the best homeschool teen blog on the Internet. The twins’ talent in speaking and writing has been demonstrated by six national championships in NCFCA speech and debate. Their article “Addicted to Adultescence” was recently featured in Focus on the Family’s Boundless webzine. Now Alex and Brett are taking the message of the Rebelution to a wider audience with the Rebelution Tour (www.rebelutiontour.com), a traveling one-day conference for Christian teens and their parents.

This summer and fall, Alex and Brett will be working in Alabama as grassroots directors for a slate of candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court.

Recently they took some time from their busy schedule to chat with The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

TOS: Welcome, guys! We’re going to start off with the question I know my readers are wondering: what in the world is a “rebelution”?

ALEX: Good question. The official definition of the “rebelution” is “a widespread teenage rebellion against the low expectations of an ungodly culture.” When you look around today, in terms of godly character and practical competence, our culture does not expect much of us young people. We are not only expected to do very little that is wise or good, but we’re expected to do the opposite. Our mediasaturated youth culture is constantly reinforcing lower and lower standards and expectations.

TOS: I definitely agree with that assessment of society today and the need for our teens to say, “enough is enough.” But I’m still curious, why the word “rebelution”?

BRETT: As you may have noticed, the word “rebelution” is a combination of the words “rebellion” and “revolution.” So it carries a sense of an uprising against social norms. But in this case, it’s not a rebellion against God-established authority but against the low expectations of our society. It’s a refusal to be defined by our ungodly, rebellious culture. Actually, we like to think of it as rebelling against rebellion.

TOS: Rebelling against rebellion. I like that!

ALEX: And it’s exciting, because the Rebelution has really become a type of counter-cultural youth movement among Christian young people from around the country, and even around the world, who are not only rejecting the lies and the corruption of media-saturated youth culture, but they’re returning to biblical and historical levels of character and competence.

TOS: Now when you say “biblical and historical levels of character and competence,” what do you mean by that?

BRETT: The immaturity and irresponsibility that has come to be expected of young people in our society today would not have been tolerated even a century ago. It’s definitely not the standard that God has for young people. In 1 Timothy 4:12, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” In other words, as young people we are called to be exemplary in all areas of life. Our generation is falling incredibly short of that calling.

TOS: What, in your opinion, caused the standards to drop so dramatically?

ALEX: The change has really taken place over the last 100 years. To give you a brief historical overview, prior to the beginning of the twentieth century there were only two categories of age: childhood and adulthood. But the reforms of the early 1900s, outlawing child labor and mandating education through high school, created an unnatural and new category age that we know today as “adolescence.” Even though young people still had all the desires and capabilities of adults, the opportunities and responsibilities of adulthood were delayed for four years or longer.

TOS: And they haven’t just been delayed, they’ve been replaced.

BRETT: Exactly. The opportunities and responsibilities have been replaced with relative idleness, and really, indulgence. Instead of serving as the launching pad of life, the teen years are seen as a vacation from responsibility. It’s crippling our generation. We call it the “myth of adolescence.” And the Rebelution is all about busting that myth.

TOS: Now who is your primary audience with this? I’m a mom and I love it, and I think most homeschool kids would agree as well. Is the Rebelution more targeted to public school students?

ALEX: Yes and no. Yes, because the public school system is where the myth of adolescence is most deeply ingrained. But at the same time, no, I wouldn’t say our message is exclusively, or even primarily, targeted to public school students, or that homeschool students don’t need to hear it. Actually, I think it’s just the opposite.

TOS: Really? And why is that?

ALEX: God hates it when we’re lukewarm. And I think a lot of young people in our generation, and homeschool students particularly, fall into that category.

TOS: Now when you say that they’re lukewarm, you’re referring to?

BRETT: Complacency. The world tries to get us in one of two ways. First they try to flat-out brainwash us through the classroom and through media. That’s the method of choice in the public school system, and it’s working very well. But the second way that our culture tries to get us to buy into the myth of adolescence is more subtle, and really, much more crafty. I think it’s the method of choice among the homeschool community, and again, unfortunately, it’s working. Instead of grabbing us and pulling us down, it happily paints us an exception. But an exception only proves the rule. Instead of [dispelling] the myth of adolescence, it reinforces it when we become satisfied with being “above average.” We become complacent. And either way, the world has won.

TOS: I agree. And really, being “above average” doesn’t mean much when the average is so low!

ALEX: No, it doesn’t. It reminds me of a study that was done about expectations in public schools, and it concluded by saying that the current ceiling for young people is really much closer to where the floor ought to be! In other words, the highest we’re allowing ourselves to go—in competence and godly character—is really much closer to the lowest we should be allowing ourselves to go. Unfortunately, many homeschool students tend to compare themselves to that low standard. They say, “Look at me! I’m articulate, I’m respectful, I’m mature for my age!” And if they don’t, other people will say it for them! The problem is that we live in a society where even mediocrity is considered exceptional. We don’t even have to exert ourselves, and we’re still showered with praise. Again, we’ve lost sight of the biblical standard.

TOS: So how do you see young people returning to that biblical standard? How do teens bust the myth of adolescence once and for all?

BRETT: The battle cry of the Rebelution is just three words, but it’s an explosive concept: Do Hard Things. That’s it. And “do hard things” is a mentality. It’s a mentality that flies right in the face of our culture’s low expectations. The world says, “You’re young; have fun!” It tells us to “obey your thirst” and “just do it.” Or it tells us, “You’re great! You don’t need to exert yourself.” But those kinds of mindsets sabotage biblical character and competence. “Do hard things” is just the opposite. It’s how we build character and competence. It won’t drop to meet the low expectations, it won’t just do what comes easily, and it won’t become complacent. It applies no matter who you are or what level you’re on, because there’s always something harder to do, something that will take you outside your comfort zone and cause you to grow. As it says in Lamentations 3:27, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”

TOS: First, wow! That sounds great! Makes me want to be a rebelutionary, too. Second, could you explain how the “do hard things” mentality fits into the bigger picture of the Rebelution?

ALEX: The Rebelution is made up of three fundamental parts. We’ve talked about two of them: character and competence. The third one is collaboration. It’s not enough for us to be individual exceptions. It’s not enough for us to try to ignore the culture. We have to create a counterculture. The way we do that is by networking, exhorting, and encouraging one another in the fight. By God’s grace, that’s what the Rebelution has become. And when you have a community of young people mutually committed to doing hard things in their teen years for the glory of God, that’s an incredibly powerful thing.

TOS: It really is. You know, it’s so exciting to watch what God is doing through the two of you in your generation. I wish we could just go on talking, but I’m afraid we need to wrap it up. May God bless you both in all you do.

I’d encourage all of our readers to visit and bookmark the twins’ incredible blog, The Rebelution (www.therebelution.com), and to contact them about hosting and scheduling Rebelution Tour conferences (www.rebelutiontour.com) for 2007.

Jennifer Steward Contributing Writer Georgetown, CA Jennifer Steward contributes to TOS’s Homeschool Units column and is a humorous and encouraging speaker, drawing from her 20 years’ experience homeschooling her eight children. She is the author of books on unit studies, organization, and many more. www.UnitStudies.com