REFORMED WITNESS
Volume I, September 1993, Number 9
Did you know that our Christian schools are a sine qua non? Parents of Hope Protestant reformed School in Grand Rapids found out why that is so, when they attended their fall PTA meeting and heard Rev. Kenneth Koole give a speech on the ever-growing importance of maintaining Christian education. They learned what is happening today in public, secular education. Rev. Koole calls it scary. And indeed it is. From the teaching of evolution, which is the justification for abortion and homosexuality, to the promotion of "outercourse" as an abstinence-based way to enjoy safe-sex, public schools have become "the breeding ground" for an anti-Christian perspective which is shaping the society in which our children are living, and will be called to live, antithetically. How important therefore for us as parents and teachers to be fully aware of what's going on in the public schools. For an eye-opener, read a slightly modified version of Rev. Koole's speech.
Also in this issue: The Purpose of Education
Reformed Education:
A Matter of Parental Priority
(or: Sine Qua Non)
Article by Rev. Kenneth Koole
From the Perspectives in Covenant Education, Volume XVIII Number 3
Spring 1993
See more articles by this author
The subject assigned is perhaps a bit ambiguous as it stands. It might leave the impression that your priorities are out of whack and that I am here this evening to admonish and correct. That is not the case. You are the wrong group for that. The fact that you are here as supporters of this Christian school, have your children enrolled, and are paying tuition so high that outsiders are left incredulous, indicates that with you Christian education is a matter of high priority. Still, with the cost of tuition added to today's already heavy financial load, the question arises, is it worth it? We need all the encouragement we can get. It is my intention tonight to give a reason why today this Christian school of yours is a sine qua non (that without which you can not do) more than ever before. I want to do that by way of contrast. We will do that in light of what is happening in the area of public school education. Now, you may ask, of what relevance is that to you? Probably no one here this evening has any intention of sending his children to public schools. You would rather home-school than do that (which, of course is a whole different matter and would take another speech). But, regardless of whether we have any inclination to send our children to a public school or not, we ought to know what is happening in the realm of public education. Let us not forget, it is the public schools which are producing the society in which we live. It is the educational mentality behind the public schools that is producing the deadly, diabolical atmosphere in which our children have to live and with which they are going to have to deal in the future. And they had better be well, well prepared. The Devil has launched his all-out war against the church of Christ and the souls of its citizens. He is doing that just as surely as some fifty years ago Hitler prepared for his "Blitzkrieg" by crossing the borders of Czechoslovakia, annexing it, and setting his sight on Poland next. There is no room for appeasement and negotiations. To think that there can yet be, by some compromise, peace in our times in the area of education is as misguided as to think that the slip of paper Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the outbreak of WW II, held in his hand upon returning from a conference with Adolph Hitler guaranteed peace in his days. It is a fool's hope. I want to alert you to what's happening in education today. First, I want to remind you of some of the principles (modern perspectives) that infect public education today. They are evolutionism, feminism, and egalitarianism. With each we will have to be brief. Brief, I say, not because these are not very important. They are. Evolution, for instance, simply determines the whole of modern secular education's perspective. But you are, I think, rather familiar with these things, and lengthy treatment is not needed. I just want to remind you that "evolution" is not simply a theory and view of the physical origin of the universe and world. Evolution is a perspective that affects the whole of education's mentality and instruction, every facet. In our phrase, it is a "world and life view." Evolution is now the theory that governs the teaching of ethics -- the standards of behavior and of what is right and wrong. In today's educational world, evolution translates this way: first, change is good, it is beneficial. After all, in the biological world change and mutation were necessary for the survival of species and life itself. And this must be applied to the realm of morals and ethics and what is defined as acceptable behavior. Change is not only inevitable, change is necessary. It has to do with the survival of the human race. And second, those who resist change, especially in the realm of ethics, fossilize. In fact, those who promote resistance to change are a danger to themselves and the human race. They must be silenced. ("They," of course, are "we" who are bound by the Word of God.) Such is the direction of secular education in our day as permeated by the evolutionistic perspective on life. Christianity stands in the way of man's advancement. It must be declared "extinct." To put it simply, evolution is the justification of all the immorality, defiance of good law, and disrespect for authority in our day. It is the justification of promiscuity, homosexuality, abortion on demand, genetic engineering, and all the rest. It justifies the disintegration of the traditional family unit itself. The traditional family is obsolete! It has outlived its usefulness. Our children must face this mentality when they get to college. Are they ready when they are 6-7 years of age, or even 14-15? Out of this evolutionistic mentality has developed the acceptance of "feminism" (what is known as the Women's Lib. movement), which has, by the way, given birth to "egalitarianism." Let us consider this egalitarianism first. Egalitarianism is a new word on the scene. It comes close to equalitarianism. It means that everything and everyone is of equal importance. It is the leveling of all values (really, the demolishing of things of real value). Nothing has greater value than anything else. For instance, works of Shakespeare have no more value than the incantation of witch doctors in Africa. Children must learn to appreciate both (with due emphasis on the latter, of course). The same holds for 'western' Christianity over against the spiritism (pantheism) of the American Indian. They are of equal value (except that you may make complimentary references to the Great Spirit and to the religion of the red man in the classroom, but none at all to the God and Christ of the Christian religion!). As well, all distinctions between gender, race, and creed are without value. Gender distinctions must be destroyed. In public education this means that teachers must break down the traditional roles of male and female, claiming them to be all stereotypes which have no root in reality. In fact, even the distinctions between parent and child are to be dismissed. The child has the same right of 'say' as the parent. In fact, children may file for divorce, disowning their parents. (Teachers, of course, are the ones who would give them counsel why the should do this). It is the business of the schools to teach children these 'rights.' This is egalitarianism taken to its full, evil absurdity. We could say more, but this will give you a taste of this most recent "ism" to hit the scene. Further, as we suggested above, egalitarianism has been spawned by feminism. Feminism takes Eve's rebellion to its full fruit. Feminism is not simply about equal economic opportunity in the business world. Nor is it about being able to play golf at the country club at prime time. Rather, feminism is an assault against all established order and authority, and it aims at the destruction of things as basic as the difference between male and female. Women can function in the role of male, and men can occupy the place of the woman (which today many try to do, sad to say). It is role reversal with a vengeance. Feminism demands liberation, meaning liberation from the home and having to bring up children. For education this means seeking to teach girls not to feel guilty about not having an interest in raising families. And if they should choose to have one, they should not feel guilty about not being home with their own children, letting their children raise themselves while the mother seeks fulfillment pursuing careers and what have you. And, do not forget, feminism comes pulling a large wagon filled with obscenities. For instance, it provides the justification for abortion, murder of one's own flesh and blood. Abortion is, obviously, the only way in which one can remain free from being tied down to the home, held hostage by child-rearing. So, of course, a student, pregnant before she can finish her education, has the right to obtain abortion. How else will she remain on equal-footing with the young man who impregnated her and continues his education? The feministic mentality promotes every evil under the sun in the name of freedom and equal opportunity. Feminism, as a reaction to what it calls discrimination, is going to support and promote every special interest group and movement around, including, for instance, homosexual rights and practices. Do not think that this militant, aggressive mentality doesn't pervade the education of the day. It is very shrill in its demands, and very influential. Public education is the breeding ground for this anti-biblical perspective which permeates now the very laws of society. Is this what we want our children's head filled with? What we teach our children at home would be contradicted every step of the way. Now, what is significant is how these principles with their decidedly anti-Christian spirit are being worked out practically. Let me give you a couple of instances. In the first place there is the promotion of what is known as "Channel One." Channel One is an educational program prepared for television to be used in the classroom on a daily basis. What is interesting is how the liberal news media are promoting this programing. You may have seen some rather favorable GR Press reports recently about its use by the GR public school system. At the moment it is being used here on a trial basis. But its adoption, as it has been adopted by other school systems, is inevitable. Ostensibly Channel One is intended to report news items and keep students up on current events and issues. Such is a cover-up. What is reported is far more than the news. As the Sept. 21, 1992 issue of Citizen (put out by "Focus on the Family") points out, Channel One is a daily new program that celebrates liberal politicians and media stars. After all, to hold student attention it must cater to contemporary teenage interests. This means turning to the entertainment world. The programing involves interviews with famous athletes, movie stars, rock singers, and so forth. Many of the latest releases of the recording artists (so-called) are previewed. At the moment the channel claims to be staying away from the sexually explicit and profane. But keep in mind that 37% of the corporation producing Channel One is owned by Times Warner Corp. Does the name ring a bell? It's the company that releases the worst of the rap songs. This is the company that recently released the notorious, vicious song, "Cop Killer," by Ice-T. It does not take a genius to predict that what is bad already about Channel One is only going to get worse and more explicit and more destructive of every proper moral value as time goes on. That is what the children and young people want, and it is what an increasing percentage of modern day educators want as well. Such is modern-day education -- promote the ungodly and their ways, and degrade the right, the true, and the good. A second instance of these principles at work is a comprehensive sex education curriculum being developed by and for public education. The direction it is taking is devilishly perverse and deceptive. In fact, it is downright scary. You are aware that the health departments of the public schools must make available to students condoms and contraceptives (and instructions on how to use them). For health reasons, it is said, the youth must be educated in how to practice safe-sex. Such encouragement of pre-marital sex is bad enough. What is worse is a comprehensive sex education program that has been developed by the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (called SIECUS for short) and which is being promoted for use in the public school system. This program purports to be concerned with the health and sexual safety of the youth of this country through what it claims to be an "abstinence-based program." Such, however, is devilish deception. What it is intent on doing is redefining abstinence opening the doors to promiscuity of the most defiled sort. What the program does is to make a distinction between what we call "intercourse" and what they call "outercourse." And outercourse is any sexual activity short of intercourse. To show just how far things have gone I want to give you a quote from the director of this SIECUS program. The explicitness is a bit mind-boggling. And keep in mind that this educated, liberated female is defining safe-sex for teens, and hence what is to be presented as a healthy, safe alternative to "going-all-the-way."Flirting, dancing... undressing each other, masturbation alone, masturbation in front of a partner...Teens could surely come up with their own list of activities (Citizen, Vol. 6, May 18, 1992).
Well, I suppose they could! Shocked? You old-fashioned prudes. Don't you recognize safe-sex when confronted by it? Surely such practice will not lead any further to something "unsafe." Teenagers have such self-control, after all. How knowledgeable about human nature such 'educators' are. Who can but stand amazed! What fools! What rot! And remember, the program is "abstinence-based!" Abstinence is now defined as anything short of intercourse. And youth who engage in the above mentioned defilements are to think they are practicing abstinence and to judge themselves as being moral, considerate, and upright. Incredible. As well, of course, this is a curriculum which will have to begin already in some form in the elementary grades. Let us ask the question again, how much is it worth to you (to me) to keep our youth from being instructed according to such standards and by such fools? Christian schools and educators -- what other alternative is there? I conclude by alerting you to the greatest evil of all infecting contemporary public school education, namely, its avowed intention to push "the state" as man's only 'god.' This is the spirit behind public education, whether all those who are participating in it are aware of it or not. It is the spirit of Antichrist. When we speak of "the state" we speak of what ungodly leading educators have decided to make of God-ordained government, namely, the supreme entity in establishing what good and evil are according to its own devising. The ten commandments have long ago become outdated. And of course it will be the ungodly educators who will be called upon by their former students (now in governmental power) to determine the standards for the new, perverted morality. What is striking is how long this desire has been around. In western education this mentality goes back to Aristotle at least. In his POLITICS he wrote:No one will doubt that the legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth, or that the neglect of education does harm to states. The citizen should be molded to suit the form of government under which he lives... And since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and not private -- not as at present, when everyone looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort he thinks best: The training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all. Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state (emphasis mine -- KK), and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole..."
Remind you of anyone? It does me. It reminds me of men like Hitler and Lenin. It is precisely this mentality that played into the hands of the Nazi and Communist regimes. But Aristotle was a free citizen and a supposedly democratic one. This type of democracy becomes the tool of the demagogues. The point is that the spirit of the state regulating and directing every facet of every citizen's life finds its seed in the earliest formulations of western thought. This is the philosophy adopted by the American John Dewey, the father of modern public school education. As John Whitehead points out,Dewey taught that there is no such thing as a truly distinctive individual. A man's intelligence, he urged, "is fundamentally conditioned by the collective thinking of other men; the mind is not a 'private' phenomenon, it is a social phenomenon." Man's mind becomes public property, an element of the collective. The true reality, then, is not the individual but society (John Whitehead, The Stealing of America, p. 17, 1983).
For "society," read, "state." Now read the quote over again, keeping in mind that this Dewey is the father of modern public education. According to this molder of public education the mind is public property, and the ultimate reality is the state. Is Dewey's agenda really any different at heart from that of Hitler and the Nazis? Do you wonder why earlier I described the spirit working in public education in terms of "Blitzkrieg," and Nazism? What agenda behind public education has been since its very inception is unveiled in the writings of a certain Orestes Brownson, a Unitarian turned Roman Catholic. Describing a movement in which he took part more than a century ago (and disavowed later), he wrote,The great object was to get rid of Christianity, and to convert our churches into halls of science. The plan was not to make open attacks on religion, although we might belabor the clergy and bring them into contempt were we could; but to establish a system of state, -- we said national -- schools (note the duplicity -- KK), from which all religion was to be excluded, in which nothing was to be taught but such knowledge as is verifiable by the senses, and to which all parents were to be compelled by law to send their children... The first thing to be done was to get this system of schools established.
And he claimed that "the view we put forth has gained great popularity, and the whole action of the country on the subject has taken the direction we sought to give it..." (Quoted by John Robbins in his Forward to Gordon H. Clark's book, The Christian Philosophy of Education, p. ix). Notice, the objective was to get rid of Christianity. The question arises, why always Christianity? It is quite simple: because Christianity is the impediment, the obstacle, to man's enjoying sin without always having his conscience pricked and disturbed. And the most effective way to make Christianity at last extinct is through state-controlled education of the youth. We have stated this is devilish. An educator of no less stature than C.S. Lewis put it exactly in such terms. In his preface to The Screwtape Letters (called "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"), Lewis has that experienced Senior devil, Screwtape (as guest speaker to a graduating class of Junior devils, informing them about the progress that the kingdom of darkness was making on earth), utter the following words:Thanks to Our Father Below, the threat was averted (the 'threat' being the use of public education to teach its students true virtues -- KK)... On the deepest level our leaders contrived to call into full life an element which had been implicit in the movement from its earliest days. Hidden in the heart of this striving for Liberty (i.e., freedom from the Christian moral law -- KK) there was also a deep hatred of personal freedom (men directing their lives by the dictates of their consciences -- KK). That invaluable man Roussseau first revealed it. In his perfect democracy, you remember, only the state religion is permitted, slavery is restored, and the individual is told that he has really willed (though he didn't know it) whatever the Government tells him to do.
Screwtape then goes on to say that "From that starting point we easily contrived both the Nazi and Communist state" (the Colliers edition, 1982, pp. 160-1). The points are these: as Rousseau conceived of democracy, only the state religion was to be permitted. And that does not mean simply that the state controls state religion, but it means that the state itself becomes 'god' for its citizens. Citizens live for the state. The state makes sure they do. And public education is to be the means to accomplish this end. C.S. Lewis' point is that, as far as the Devil is concerned, in American and English public education, things were going according to his agenda. Considering the state of affairs in contemporary public education (what government has forbidden, namely, all mention of the God of Christianity and of biblical laws, and what government is promoting, namely, every sort of immorality as natural and good), can there be any question that Lewis' assessment is correct? I wonder, though, whether the speed with which this spirit has overwhelmed the whole educational world of our day would not amaze even the perceptive Lewis. It is left to the "sceptered" island of the citizens of the "Lion of Judah's tribe" to withstand the assault upon all that is right and true. There is a gathering darkness. A solid Reformed education, biblically based, for our children who are faced with the society which public education is now in the process of spawning, is, no matter what the cost, the only alternative.This is the defense of true freedom, namely, "we will obey God, rather than men." We refuse to bow the knee to 'democracy's' Baal.
The Purpose of Education
By John W. Robbins in the preface to A Christian Philosophy of Education by Gordon H. Clark
See more articles by this author
Americans spend, collectively and severally, voluntarily and involuntarily, $300 billion on education each year; federal, state and local governments appoint commissions to discover why public education has failed; and books analyzing and lamenting the state of American education become runaway best-sellers. Yet with all this expenditure and activity American education continues to worsen, for not one American in a thousand understands the proper purpose of education. "The end of learning," wrote John Milton, "is to repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him..." If this be so -- and the Bible says it is so -- then the aims of education in America are all wrong.The purpose of education is not to enable the student to earn a good income.
No, the purpose of education is far different, far more noble than any of these things. The purpose of education is to make Christian men, men transformed by the renewing of their minds after the image of Him who created them.
The purpose of education is not to preserve our American system of government and political freedom.
The purpose of education is not world unification.
The purpose of education is not to teach young people a trade.
The purpose of education is not to encourage the never-ending search for truth.
The purpose of education is not to put the student in harmony with the cosmos.
The purpose of education is not to raise the consciousness of students and train them for world revolution.
The purpose of education is not to prepare students for productive careers.
The purpose of education is not to integrate the races.
The purpose of education is not the social adjustment of the child.
The purpose of education is not to stay ahead of the Russians (or the Japanese) in technology.
The purpose of education is not to create good citizens.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." Hosea 4:6
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