State Schools Are Not "Neutral," They're Anti-God

by Buddy Hanson (*)                                                                            Vol. XVIII, No. 2, February 2005

As a society, we can't have it both ways. Either we repent and return to the Christian values of self-government and capitalism, and take back the control of educating our children, or continue to confine ourselves inside the four walls of our homes and churches, until America is completely changed into a socialistic and atheistic country, which will then
demand that Christians not influence society. Either we will repent and return to being a Christian republic, where property rights are honored, low tax rates are protected, and we govern ourselves according to God's principles, or we can continue to do nothing except complain until America 's democratic metamorphosis is complete and we are governed by ruthless tyrants.

Either we will control our leaders by selecting them according to God's criteria, or we will continue to select them according to selfish motives of what tax monies they can steal from other communities to bring back to our hometown. Either we will continue to try magic bullets (government programs) in an effort to improve State-controlled schools, or we will change the weapon by beginning Christian home schools and parent-controlled Christian schools.

By every measurable criterion government schools are dismal failures. The situation is so bad that school administrators have long since stopped offering reasons to the contrary and instead ask for more money to improve education. This, however, is only a public relations stunt to deflect attention away from their true intentions. The truth is that government school officials don't consider schools to be failing to achieve their intended results. Pat Buchanan provides an insight into the mindset of government school officials:

"Our cultural opponents are not interested in the true truth, only in their viewpoint and objectives. ... this new faith is of, by, and for this world alone. It refuses to recognize any higher moral order or moral authority. The new gospel has as its governing axioms: there is no God; there are no absolute values in the universe; the supernatural is superstition. All life begins here and ends here; its object is human happiness in this, the only world we shall ever know. Each society establishes its own moral code for its own time, and each man and woman has a right to do the same."

According to Buchanan, the non-Christians who are influencing culture at all levels have two principal commandments to which they pledge unfaltering allegiance: "All lifestyles are equal," and "Thou shalt not be judgmental." Today's students, in the estimation of government school officials, are achieving exactly the results they hope for:

– They are not taught to think for themselves.

– They are taught anti-American sentiments.

Buchanan points out that in their view, "Anyone who would teach children that America’s culture is superior is an 'extremist' teaching a lie, who has no business in the public schools of America." Buchanan adds that because of The Frankfurt School's tactic of critical theory, our cultural opponents, including government school teachers, imbibe in:

– destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention, and
conservatism.

– constant repetition that Western societies are history's greatest repositories of racism, sexism, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, fascism, and Nazism.

– assertion that the crimes of the West flow from the character of the West, as shaped by Christianity.

There is a truism that states: "Whoever wins the war writes the textbooks," which means that the victors get to justify their actions and make their defeated foes look even worse than they may have been. This truism, however, applies to "shooting wars."

In our current Culture War where propaganda is used, rather than bullets, the truism is stood on its head to read: "Whoever writes the textbooks, wins the war." In his 1984, George Orwell put it this way: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

Alexander Solzhenitzyn writes, "To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots." Any cursory check of your child's history textbooks will reveal that America 's Christian history
has been re-written to conform to the objectives of non-Christian, one-world government humanism.

– They are encouraged to think of the State as their cradle-to-grave provider.

– Competition, personal initiative, sacrifice, and self-government are discouraged and disparaged.

– Throughout the 12-year curriculum students are presented with nothing but an unconnected assemblage of facts. With no mention of the Creator God of the universe, the student has no way of connecting the various academic disciplines or of knowing how all areas of life fit together. Buchanan states, "Faith in a prayer-hearing God is an unproved and outmoded faith. Traditional moral codes fail to meet the pressing needs of today. Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and
harmful."

According to one of the 20th century's most influential Christian philosophers, Dr. Cornelius Van Til, there are no "brute" facts; that, in fact every fact in the universe is hid in Christ. John Frame, professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary, writes, "In Van Til's vocabulary, 'brute' facts are facts uninterpreted by God and therefore
meaningless, the constituents of a universe of pure chance. Without God to relate the facts and laws intelligibly to one another, knowledge is impossible."

They are taught tolerance instead of truth. Since "God's Word is truth," (Psalm 119:160) and since government schools take every precaution to keep God out of the curriculum, students are taught error from Kindergarten to College!

Pat Buchanan, quotes the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's 1931 “A Plea for Intolerance” : "Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant. Right is right if nobody is right; and wrong is wrong is everybody is wrong. And in this day and age we need, as Mr. Chesterton tells us, 'not a church that is right when the world is right, but a church that is right when the world is wrong."

Sheen continues: "We are producing a group of sophomoric latitudianarians who think there is no difference between God as Cause and God as a 'mental projection;' who equate Christ and Buddha, Saint Paul and John Dewey; and then enlarge their broad-mindedness into a sweeping synthesis that says not only that one Christian sect is just as good as another, but even that one world-religion is just as good as another."

Before establishing an agenda to reform education, there are two basic questions that must be answered: 1. Why are the Children there? 2. Why is the teacher (and the school) there?

Christian parents, in answering these questions, will be able to develop a curriculum that is based on truth and will bring glory and honor to God. Non-Christian parents, in answering them, should be able to see the vainness and vacuousness of the State-controlled
curriculum.

Why Are The Children There?

Are they there to learn or to be socialized? Four basic elements that should be addressed in any legitimate curriculum, and four questions parents should find out regarding what their child's school thinks of their children are:

– Who are the children?
– Where did they come from?
– What should they do? and
– How should they conduct themselves while they're doing it? (Which means they must be taught right from wrong.)

It's hard to imagine how anyone could be classified as being well educated who did not at least address and discuss these four questions. Knowing the answer to them prepares a person to be a productive citizen. The problem is that no State-controlled school will teach or discuss such topics, since their curriculum prohibits absolute truths. Being true to their godfather, John Dewey, they are set up to teach social, instead of academic skills, and no wonder, since once God is removed from the curriculum all that is left is a mass of unrelated facts. For Dewey and others, the world is a product of chance, rather than a Creator God.

Professor Frame discusses Van Til's answer to such a charge: "...if chance is king, where do laws come from? They do not exist in the objective world, because that world is the result of chance, not the product of a designer who gives it a structure of regularity. Since Kant, most philosophers have believed that structures of order originate in the human mind. But why should we believe that such structures would have any application to the actual world? Indeed, if the world is not orderly in itself, they cannot apply it. Put these factors together: subjective laws applied to lawless facts. The situation is not only hopeless, but contradictory. It will not lead to greater knowledge, but only to skepticism about the very possibility of truth."

As Dr. Lynne V. Cheney, former chairman for The National Endowment for the Humanities, wrote in her annual report to Congress, "The aim of education is no longer truth, but political transformation. There are no truths to pursue, only political purposes."

True education should be centered on the knowledge of who we are, where we came from, how we got here, what our mission (calling) is, and where we're going, the answers to all of which, of course, center on Christ.

Why Is The Teacher (and the school) There?

Does the teacher (and the school system) talk more about "how to teach" (phonics vs. sight reading, lectures vs. hands-on, etc.), instead of about "what they teach?" In order for a person to be truly educated they have to know who they are and how their school
courses will help them live a successful life. In other words, we're talking about character development, and a person's character is not properly developed by going to school six hours a day for 12 years and studying a never-ending string of unrelated subjects and
meaningless (or "value-free") facts.

Is the teacher there to extend the values taught in the home, or subvert them by teaching state-approved values? If you want to do something scary, keep a record of how much time you talk to your children each day, then determine whether the time you spend with your children teaching Christian values even has a chance of off-setting the amount of time your school spends in order to teach its values. Remember, there is no such thing as a value-free curriculum. Either the values taught in your child's school are reinforcing
the ones you want them to learn, or they are conflicting with them. Two quick examples point out the impossibility of a value-free curriculum:

1. Socialism vs. Capitalism: There is no way for a textbook to accurately describe both systems without pointing out the total failure of socialism, and the consistent success of capitalism, yet guess which side the textbooks are promoting?

2. Horace Mann had a profound impact on the curriculum of public schools. He was a Unitarian who believed in the perfectibility of man. He very much disliked the curriculum of his day which viewed mankind in the traditional Christian/Jewish manner as a born sinner.
Think about this for a minute. If you're a teacher (or a coach or a supervisor) you're going to approach your students in one of these two ways. If you believe that we're all born good, you will present the information and then expect them to act correctly on it. If you
believe that man is born bad, as did the first Americans, you will present the information, and then build in some checks and balances, to make certain they do their assignments and homework.

Once you have determined that your child's teacher has values compatible with your family values, will the textbooks and other teaching materials (and the school administration) help them to teach in this manner? If the school administration believes that humans were created by God and have been commanded to "subdue and rule over the earth" the emphasis will be on serving God and fellow humans, not spotted owls or snail
darters.

If you still think there can be such a thing as a value free curriculum, consider the following subtleties between viewing ourselves as either part of nature, or as a special created being:

1. One view believes in the pragmatic "here and now." The "moment" is king, and whatever situational ethics we can use to gain favorable results today is the most important thing. As the saying goes, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." Needless to say, they don't place any importance in handing down moral values from one generation to the next, since today's values are apt to change at any time. This view also holds a low view of humanity and believes that wealth earned by hard work should be redistributed to those who are lazy and unproductive. The thought that a person should earn his or her living by effort, diligence, prudence, thrift, or ingenuity is not likely to be emphasized.

2. The other view sees God's controlling hand in history, and believes we can learn from an in-depth knowledge of the past, since nothing happens randomly. Therefore, this camp definitely believes in passing along civilized moral values from one generation to the
next. It also believes in giving one's best effort to whatever calling one has in life, so that a person can be self-sufficient and not look for government programs.

The word "educate" comes from the Latin "educo" which means "to lead out." Biblical expositor Dr. J. G. Vos explains: "Education is intended to lead a person out – to bring out his possibilities and enable him to become a better, more effective person – more helpful to society and more satisfying to himself. It is meant to help a person fully realize his potential as a human being. The educated person has a grasp of things, a sense of values, an appreciation of life, and ability to judge and appraise ideas and things, a competence to ask relevant questions and to penetrate popular prejudices and fallacies – in other words, a balanced, all-around effectiveness as a person – which the uneducated person simply does not have."

The real purpose of education is to train up the child in God's way and work. To guide the child to be a faithful follower, steward and ambassador of Jesus Christ; to help him or her to strive to be holy even as He is holy; and to be equipped for every good work in the service of the King.

In the words of our Lord to Moses, "You shall teach (My commands) diligently unto your children and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up."

The most fundamental element in education is the fear of the Lord. Fear is the part of one's character that respects God as sovereign. True education must have Christ as its foundation. Education is more than being equipped to read the classics. It includes teaching students to think about what they read. Such thinking must include determining whether the author is describing right or wrong behavior and in order to determine this, a biblical standard of truth must be adhered to.

[* Buddy Hanson is author of several popular Christian books including God's Ten Words: Practical Applications From the Ten Commandments. This article is an excerpt from another of his books: Choose This Day: God's Instructions On How To Select Leaders (Hanson Group, 2003), pp. 11-20.]

[© Copyright 2003, 2004 by Grace and Law Christian Policy Network, Used with permission from Buddy Hanson.]