Hebraic Home Fellowships
Must Produce Godly Generations
[click here for a printable copy]
Training Succeeding Generations to Follow Jesus
Is An Inter-Generational Responsibility
Part 2
Whos Kids Are They?
Introduction to Part 2
One of the most significant battlefields
of the KINGDOM of God vs. Satan’s domain has been the
education of this nation’s children. Satan’s domination over public education has
been overwhelming.
Christian parents never anticipated the
insidious strategy that Satan has been slyly implementing
behind the scenes. For over two hundred years the adversary of
humanity’s soul has slowly been making changes in the
goals and motivation of public education. His ultimate purpose?
A godless society in which his tool, the State, would be the
provider of mankind’s needs and the lord of their lives.
As you read “Whose Kids Are
They?” you’ll gain insight into the history of
compulsory public education and how the influence of parents,
especially fathers, has been diminished in children’s
lives. Be assured that the information we uncovered exacted an
emotional toll from us.
As we researched, the goals and plots of
people who portrayed the government as “benevolent”
were beyond our comprehension. This was systematic evil that
lay unconfronted by most Christians, since they were oblivious
to its impact. You could parallel the insidious goal of
compulsory public education with the Nazi takeover of Germany.
“Whose Kids Are They?” is
pivotal for you. We hope you’ll be convinced that as a
follower of Jesus you need to do something to rescue succeeding generations
of children being raised in Christian homes from the snares of
compulsory public education. If you’re unsure after
reading this, please do your own research. You may need to
grieve as we did when the truth becomes real to you.
Biblical Parental Responsibility Has Been Usurped by the State
“So what’s wrong with public
schools?” you ask. That’s what we’re going to
expose in depth in “Whose Kids Are They?”.
If you’re the product of compulsory
public education, you probably believe that a good service was
done on your behalf. From the standpoint of helping people
achieve a measure of worldly success, that may be true. But
from a biblical standpoint, compulsory
public education has been a chief tool in creating a godless society.
This hasn’t happened overnight, or
even in the past generation. The goals
and motives of public
education have not changed dramatically from the late
1700’s to today, even if the moral values and textbooks
have.
Over the last two hundred years the goals
of public education and the motives of those who pushed for it
in this country have undermined the responsibility of
God-fearing parents to raise their children to love and to serve Him. The true goals of compulsory public education have
been hidden from the population under the guise of benevolence
— “we’re teaching your kids to be good
citizens.”
Government-sponsored education has proved to be the most effective means to
enable the “dark king” to continue to rule. Through government-sponsored education the kingdom of Satan continues its domination
over the minds of the people — therefore their world view
and perception of themselves.
This point is critical if you’re to
understand why this nation has not become “one
nation under God”: No one can serve
both God and Satan! And this is the key choice for any who want to raise up
successors in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Satanic goals and motives over the last
200 years have undergirded the creation of a powerful, godless
society in which the State is god — the supreme provider
of all things — and its citizens are imprisoned in the
bond-age of perceived “rights”.
Compulsory Public Education: Extending Satan’s Domain
Before exploring how compulsory public
education became the tool of government, you need to understand
the mindset of those who underhandedly made it the law of this
land. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, was an early proponent of state-controlled
education. He captured the prevailing attitude of the educators
of his time:
Let our pupil be taught that he does not
belong to himself, but that he is public
property. Let him be taught to love
his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the
welfare of his country requires it. . .
He must be taught to amass wealth, but it
must be only to increase his power of contribution to the wants and needs of the state (excerpted from Sheldon Richman's book, Separating School & State: How To Liberate
American Families, emphasis added).
When it was first conceived, compulsory
public education was resisted in many parts of the colonies.
Studies have shown that the literacy rate was higher in many
colonies preceding the American Revolution than it is today.
What are the goals of public education? We don’t mean
the public relations statements that so many Christian families
have been deceived into believing, but the real goals
articulated by the elite who made education both public and compulsory.
Sheldon Richmond’s exposé on
the history of compulsory public education reveals two major
thrusts:
• The aim of compulsory public
education was the creation of a homogeneous,
national, Protestant culture.
Actually, the main focus was to destroy Catholicism. Over the
years, even the Protestant ethic became undermined by secular
government indoctrination. Remember, the State must survive at
all cost, and uniformity of
thinking is vital for
survival. It’s ironic that the Humanist Manifesto signed
in 1933 [and reaffirmed in 1973] propagated religious Humanism
and destroyed Protestantism in the public schools.
• The State requires “Good
Citizens” to perpetuate its control. A good citizen is
someone who unquestioningly trusts and defers to government in
all areas. These two goals are inseparable, because State dominance can’t be brought about
without controlling the thinking of the individuals who comprise it. Beginning with the New Deal of the
1930’s, Social Programs have cooperated with compulsory
public education to accelerate government dominance. (From Separating School & State: How To Liberate
American Families, emphasis added.)
Throughout history, rulers of
Satan’s domains have aspired to use the educational
system to shape their nations. One of the earliest, if not the
first, full-blown state educational systems was hewn in Sparta,
an area now known as Greece. The Spartan state was organized as
one vast military camp. The children were seized by the state
and educated in barracks to be indoctrinated into the ideal of
state obedience. Sparta early realized the logical and
inevitable end result of a compulsory education system —
military power!
The Spartan model was studied by the Greek
philosopher Plato, who was to have massive influence on both
church and government systems. Passive
obedience to the State was Plato’s ideal. His work entitled “Utopia” was the
first model for State-supported compulsory education that
promoted blind obedience to the State.
Mandatory public education represents the
perfect opportunity to propagandize future citizens early in
their lives. Beginning in their earliest years, children can be
taught to have proper reverence for the ruling elite, and to
become willing taxpayers and soldiers for the
“king’s” army no matter which political party
they choose. They can also be influenced to value their self-esteem focus as
their right to separate themselves from the protective
authority of their parents.
The “compulsory” part of
public education is the vital link to make all of this happen.
If children were free to attend private schools or to avoid
public, tax-sponsored schools, the State's effort would be in
vain.
A certain level of toleration for private
schools and home education exists in this country. However,
general opinion of either of these models varies from
“elitist” to off-the-wall. Parents who submit their
children to private or home schooling are either wealthy,
religious fanatics, or bigoted isolationists, according to
conventional wisdom.
The State's sinister goals are always
disguised in benevolence. Universal public education has
actually been an insidious effort
to legally kidnap children to subvert loyalty to their parents. Remember, the State is Satan’s domain.
He is always out to destroy the
children just as he did the infant
boys in ancient Egypt and Bethlehem.
The patriarch Abraham was chosen by God
because He knew that Abraham wouldn’t
“outsource” his children: “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what
He has promised him” (Genesis
18:19).
Abraham took personal
responsibility for the outcome of
the faith and vocation of his family. The Scriptures hammer
home the responsibility of fathers
and mothers to train up their
children. Weigh our Lord’s commands to parents as you
understand the goals of the State to separate your children
from you: “Fathers, do not
exasperate your children; instead, [you]
bring them up in the training and
instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians
6:4).
From Sparta to the United States
Scholar Murray N. Rothbard has written
extensively about liberty, economics and education. Many of the
facts we present here come from his book, Education: Free and Compulsory.
We can thank the Protestant Reforma-tion
for introducing compulsory public education into the modern
era. Theirs was a well-intentioned, simple goal. The Reformers
advocated compulsory education for all as a means of
inculcating the entire population with their particular
religious views.
Martin Luther proposed compulsory public
education in his 1524 letter to the German authorities, the
very year the first modern public schools were founded in that
nation. Luther repeatedly called for other communities to
establish public schools and to make attendance in them
compulsory.
A century later, John Calvin set up
mandatory schools in Geneva. He used these schools to eradicate
dissent to his brand of theology.
The purpose of compulsory public education
was to indoctrinate citizens into the official religious
outlook.
The Calvinist theological backdrop
introduced compulsory schooling to this continent. The
English Puritans who settled New England were strong
Calvinists, and it was their influence that brought about
public schools and compulsory education. From there, a sinister
collusion among the educated movers and shakers made it
mandatory in the whole United States.
As you study the Humanist Manifesto of
1933 and its 1973 revision (included in Appendix A at the end
of Part 2), remember the motive of “religious
indoctrination”.
Humanism as embraced by the public
education system in the US is a religion that negates the one
true God. Ignoring His very existence in a system that holds
your child’s mind captive for six hours a day over the
course of 13 to 17 or more years sends an undeniable message that He really
doesn’t matter in daily life.
In 1717 King Frederick William I of
Prussia introduced Europe's first national system of compulsory
public education. Through public education his son, Frederick
the Great, brought about the greatest military society since
the Romans. His clear motto: “The
prince is to the nation he governs what the head is to the man;
it is his duty to see, think and act for the whole
community.” The most
despotic State in Europe — Prussia — was the first
to have a national system of compulsory education.
Step for step beside the compulsory school
system came the creation of powerful standing armies. With the
armies came universal compulsory military service. Remember the curse of 1 Samuel 8?
A battle cry of compulsory public
education is this:
• “Loyalty to the State,
• service for the State,
• education by the State.
• The State is the supreme
end.”
How Public Education Overcame Free Thinking
American advocates of compulsory state
schooling observed the Prussian system and adopted it as their
model for public education in the United States. Former teacher
John Taylor Gatto has researched the history of Prussian
influence on public education in this country.
1. The purpose of public education was not
intellectual training, but indoctrinating the children to obedience
and subordination to the State, and
dependence on their peer group.
2. Memorization was esteemed over individual thought and
reason. These educators feared free
thinking. They couldn’t
permit a young person to pursue courses of study that permitted
his/her individual investigation. Entire ideas were therefore fragmented into school subjects. School days were divided into fixed time
periods so that self-motivation to learn would be quelled by frequent time interruptions.
3. The State was exalted as the true parent of children. The school represented that which was considered
good for the nation. Therefore, anything that would represent
conflicting ideas needed to be squelched — even if those
ideas were planted by concerned and involved fathers and
mothers. (emphasis added)
All of this was done under the disguise of
“government benevolence”.
Government Benevolence: A Trojan Horse
During the early to mid-1800’s a
closely aligned group of educators tirelessly pushed
compulsory public schools to the forefront. This same
group, under a variety of names, continues to dominate primary
and secondary education to this day. To achieve their aims they
cooperated to influence and dominate state and local boards of
education.
Today this powerful affiliation is known
as the NEA, the National Education Associ-ation. Through
various means of lobbying and pressure they have managed to
impose their standards on state certification requirements for
teachers. No one can teach in a
public school who doesn’t undergo a course of
teacher-training instruction that propagandizes their
philosophy of education. And as we
mentioned earlier, humanism is the foundation for teacher training in
secular colleges and universities.
Teachers and administrators who ad-vance
the agenda and goals of the NEA are retained and accelerated.
These individuals are rewarded with tenure to entrench the
influence of godless domination and the government-backed
intimidation of parents.
Throughout the years the main premise of
educators to make compulsory public education the law of the
land was this:
Parents could not be trusted to raise
children of high character. The government knows better than
parents in matters of morality for the good of the nation.
Of course, morality and ethics are well
within the grasp of a biblically-based family to instill in
their children. In every respect the public school has worked
to remove parental influence over their children. Cries from
teachers for parental participation notwithstanding, the
involvement that is being sought is inculcation of government-ordered subjects and relativistic values.
Sociologists at the end of the
1800’s argued that with the supposed decline of
religion’s influence on community and family, the state
needed to exercise control over its citizens, especially the
young. One sociologist, Edward Ross, summarized the thinking of
the time.
“As the state shakes itself loose
from the church, it reaches out for the school. . .
Copy, the child will, and the advantage of
giving him his teacher instead of
his father to imitate, is that the
former is a [government] picked person, while the latter is
not” (from Sheldon Richman, “Separating School & State: How To
Liberate American Families”, emphasis
added).
Throughout the 1900’s public
educators gained such influence that they could intimidate
anyone who objected. Their boldness and confidence was
demonstrated as they signed the Humanist
Manifesto in 1933. This widely
accepted document asserted that man rather than God is the center of all things. [As noted earlier, see Appendix A at the end
of Part 2 for discussion of the influence of the Humanist
Manifesto on ethics and morality.]
John Dewey, chief designer of the
Manifesto, stressed that no fixed principles exist. Personal ethics are
dictated by the situation rather than by any absolute
principles given by God. Man decides the rules he’ll live by, not God.
Over time, Dewey’s position led to dependence on the peer group rather than the parent. After all, according to
Dewey’s premise, the “absolute values” of the
parents were irrelevant and even harmful to their children!
None of this, of course, represented the
society that was distinctive to America's revolutionary
heritage. The original American idea of society entailed a
group of people who as individuals freely chose and pursued
their own ends within a rule of
Bible and common law. Biblical
absolutes were essential if people were to serve God within a
moral and ethical framework. The Founding Fathers of this
nation presupposed that such would always be the underlying
basis of American society.
Modern educators operate far from the
assumption of our nation’s founders. William H. Seawell,
professor of education at the University of Virginia, announced
in 1981, “Each child belongs
to the state.” Amazingly,
reports Sheldon Richman, there was no public outcry. The past
two hundred years had already seduced people into acknowledging
the State as “god”. With the power of government
behind compulsory public education, who would dare speak up?
Public educators today share one
overriding principle, whether consciously or not. Their
participation in the system evidences their assent:
The school should be the mechanism through
which the state, run by the intellectual elite, would shape the
youth of the nation. In a word, the schools' business is indoctrination. (Sheldon Richman, Separating
School & State: How To Liberate American Families, emphasis added)
A Wakeup Call For Christian Families
From Sparta to Prussia to the United
States, proponents of compulsory public education believed they
knew better than parents how to raise children.
In light of the godlessness of that
pursuit, the central concern for the followers of Jesus should
be to biblically define the role of
individuals, families, and faith communities in their relation
to the State.
This calls for a more stringent look at
how the earliest followers of Jesus raised their children to
succeed them. Once you’re certain of your biblical stand,
you can confront today’s dramatic imbalance between
family responsibilities and State seizure of those
responsibilities. At this time State control seems to
overwhelmingly prevail. But armed with the conviction of
biblical foundations you can confront the State, and encourage
those who’ve been previously intimidated out of educating
their own children and the children of their faith community!
As they live out their biblical
responsibilities, God’s people can work out for themselves what
is in the best interests of their children. Through His Spirit
they can together seek ways to make their interests consistent
with the common good.
Besides the historic and biblical basis to
educate your own children, it becomes especially pertinent in
this time of rising violence and declining values in our public
educational institutions.
One of the falsehoods in particular cited
by proponents of compulsory public education has proved to be
false: that education would eliminate crime. This premise has
certainly been refuted by the growing juvenile delinquency rate
in compulsory-educated America, as well as in the types of crime that
have been so violently committed by youth. (From Herbert
Spencer, Social Statics, as quoted in Rothbard’s Education: Free and Compulsory.)
Who Will Establish the Foundations for
Your Children?
The key issue for you in this entire
discussion is simply this:
Shall the parent or the State oversee the training up of the child?
Every child who enters the world faces a
particular environment of his world around him and the people
he encounters. Within this environment he experiences life
through his developing abilities and the input of his family
and others.
As he grows, your child works with and
responds to his environment by forming goals and moral values.
How his life turns out will be based on many factors:
• his own personality and abilities,
• the moral principles you instilled
in him,
• his own particular preferences and
tastes.
In other words, all of the knowledge and
experience that has become part of your child helps to define
him as an individual. Since each child has been created as a
unique individual, the best type of education is that which is
suited to his own particular
individuality.
You’re probably familiar with this
verse, “Train a child in the
way he should go, and when
he is old he will not turn from it” (Proverbs 22:6). From ancient times this passage
meant that parents should get to
know the particular bent of their child.
Then they can guide each one into a life goal and vocation that
would glorify our Father.
Each of your children has different
intelligence, aptitudes and interests that you as his parent
can readily recognize. The best choice of when, what, and how
to present what he needs to learn varies from one child to
another.
Therefore, individual instruction by those
who know your child best — you and your extended
spiritual family — will be the most effective and the
most likely to instill godly values.
Parental instruction that’s
supported by others who have a personal
concern for your child(ren)’s
welfare and growth is a biblical pattern. Individualized instruction as you deal directly with your child can adapt to his
particular abilities and interests.
Who knows the bent of your child and his
personality and the call of God on his life better than his own
parents and others who are close spiritual family? Your familiarity with and love for your children
render you uniquely qualified to give your child the formal
instruction he needs. Your child
can receive individual attention and training that suits the
way God created him.
No one is as qualified as YOU to know
what, how much or at what pace you should teach your child. And
our Father has called on YOU to create the boundaries each
child needs, and to determine what kind of freedom he should
have to make decisions within your boundary framework.
Today’s Fruit of Compulsory Public Education
Under the seeming benevolence of the
State, the rights of children of Christian parents have been
violated. The child has been entrusted into the unloving,
humanist hands of the State, with little regard for his
individual personality and your biblical values. The true
intent is to instill godless
foundations and make your child a passive, obedient citizen of the State and of Satan’s kingdom.
While a number of dedicated Christian
teachers do work in public school classrooms, their
spiritual hands are tied by the stringent “godless”
policies they’re forced to follow. Even their desire to
show the loving kindness of Jesus is hamstrung by policies that
forbid physical contact or sharing of the Gospel that could
bring forgiveness, comfort and healing to needy lives.
One of the saddest points of American
history is the government’s dealing with Native
Americans. Stopping short of total an-nihilation, the
government under the guise of “benevolence” used
the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to indoctrinate the Native
Amer-ican and strip him of his unique heritage.
On many reservations government buses were
sent to kidnap children from their parents so that they could
be assimilated and mainstreamed into “American”
society. Sadly, the BIA was accomplishing by blatant action
what compulsory public education in this nation had been subtly
doing under the guise of “benevolence” for
generations.
Remember, for the State to continue its
control, it must impose uniformity in its teaching approach. Unquestioning loyalty must
replace spontaneity, diversity, and independent thinking if
passive, sheep-like followers of liberal godless propaganda are
to be raised.
This goal has been accomplished to a great
degree in public schools by emphasizing a strong peer group consciousness versus the godly influence of parents and the
Spirit-given desire and will to stand decidedly for Jesus.
Second, emphasis on sports and competition (even academic)
elevates a few for acclaim while the rest are left in the pack
of anonymity.
The indoctrination of self-pursuit, self-esteem and sexual experimentation are foisted upon the young by public school
authorities. Each of these arenas nullifies any ideas about
absolute values, even those which are strongly held by parents.
An obvious example: Schools have instituted compulsory sex
education, passing out condoms to inculcate self-gratification
and “freedom” to pursue inclinations of the
child’s sin nature. Even homosexuality has intentionally been
presented at the earliest grade levels as an acceptable
lifestyle. Any objections are dealt with as
“intolerance” and “religious bigotry”.
Compulsory public education must destroy
independent thinking and questioning. Therefore children are
taught through memorization. Because teachers are forced to “teach to
the test” and stress facts that will be required on
standardized examinations, children have little opportunity to
ask questions or develop systematic reasoning powers. Any extra
class time is filled with discussion of self-esteem and peer
consciousness and concerns of the “global
village.”
As Rothbard has noted in Education: Free and Compulsory, in many cases grades have been abolished,
particularly in the elementary years. However, grades help
determine to what extent children have been able to learn. The
result of teaching children of wide abilities as though they
were equal has geared instruction to the lowest common denominator.
There is little incentive to try to learn more than a
classmate, even if the interest and desire are there.
Individuality is suppressed when children
are taught that they must hold themselves back to accommodate
the slowest child in the class. No longer is the question of
right or wrong considered in any issue; the will of the majority rules. It
doesn’t matter if your child has been taught moral
absolutes and values at home. In the classroom, the opinion of
the majority counts even if that opinion represents the lowest common moral denominator of the group.
Educators have relentlessly pushed to
educate the child in all phases of life. This goal has passed
onto the State all the functions that biblically belong in your
home. Even if your children can’t be seized from you,
they can be molded to government objectives: dependence on the peer group and obedience to the
State. In order for the State to
remain beyond question, ethical, moral and biblical
considerations must be abolished from the classroom.
Compulsory public education has succeeded
in removing God as the foremost consideration in the lives of
most children.
Youth work in congregations has shown
itself to be ineffective in countering the effects of
government-sponsored education. Studies reveal that church
youth groups are 3% effective nationally in training up
children to have a personal relationship with God. Christian
college ministries are only 5% effective in producing young
people who actively follow Jesus even five years after
graduation. Nationally, 77% of the children raised in Christian
homes choose not to follow their parents in the faith.
The record of the development of
compulsory public education is a history of State usurpation of
parental responsibility for their children. It didn’t
have to be this way.
The Bible teaches God’s people to
respect their governments within the constraints of obeying
God’s Word. “Everyone
must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has
established. The authorities that
exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:
1). God doesn't intend for His children to be rebellious
against authority, but obedient to
Him.
The domain of Satan can’t tolerate
the KINGDOM of God in its midst. Paul warned that we must separate ourselves from
the unholiness among us:
What harmony is there between Christ and
Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
For we are the temple of the living
God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among
them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore come out
from them and be separate’, says
the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing and I will receive
you’ (2 Corinthians 6:
15-17, apperceiving Leviticus 26:12, Isaiah 52:11, Ezekiel 20:
41,34).
Consider yourself warned: Don’t put
your trust, or your children, in any human system that denies
or ignores God as the Lord of the universe, the One to whom all
allegiance is due.
Our God encourages questioning and pursuit
of truth. Questions are your steps
that lead you to truth. Through
questioning we develop the rules of life we will value as we go
on. None of us put our trust in Jesus without questioning His
reality and then responding to the grace extended to us by His
Spirit. He promised, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
Me” (John 8:32). It’s
in our response to His Spirit that we can then have the heart
and mind of Christ: “Then you
will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free” (John
14:6).
In order to exercise control over the
minds of generations, Satan infiltrated the educational
process. Teaching techniques that hinder questioning and
independent thought among children envelop their minds with a
godless perspective.
The ultimate fruit of this sinister mind
control is seen in the government-sponsored “Goals
2000” program in public schools, as well as the “No
Child Left Behind” policy. They sound noble,
don’t they? Yet children are taught not to reason, but to
remember specific facts for testing.
Often, history is altered to reflect political correctness and liberal agendas. English language studies are reduced to forums
to express feelings through journaling. Multi-ple-choice
questions rather than thought-provoking essays comprise most
testing. Ease of correction is the stated reason for these
formats. But beware. Control of minds and obedience to
Satan’s domain is the real goal.
Before answering the questions below,
first read Appendix A: Protect Your
Children From Government-Sponsored Religion, and Appendix B: Cultural
Characteristics Affecting the Restoration of Home Fellowships, on the following pages.
• Were you a product of public
education? If yes, how has it helped or hindered your ability
to live for King Jesus?
• If you are an older adult, how has
public education changed since you were in school?
• Were you aware of the goals of
public education which we’ve highlighted in “Whose
Children Are They”? How do they impact your heart
regarding today’s children?
• Why do you think the government
sees children’s loyalty to their parents as a threat,
even if it’s not spoken of that way?
• From Appendix B, in what family
stage is this nation: Trustee, Domestic, or Atomistic? For a
follower of Jesus, what family style is foundational to strong
faith communities?
• Are you willing to do whatever
God commands you in order to see His faith communities
restored? Are you willing to do whatever is needed to help
raise Godly generations? What changes might He be calling you
to make?
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