Christian Education: Can it be Open to the Free Pursuit of Knowledge?

Christian education is primarily concerned with discipleship – raising up Christ-like Christians. However, many maintain that this endeavor is incompatible with the goals of higher education – free inquiry and the search for truth. After all, Christianity is convinced that it already has the truth.

One possible indication of this “incompatibility” is the fact that Christianity has been unable to retain the colleges that it has birthed. The vast majority of colleges founded in the USA were founded by Christians for Christian purposes:

• Of our 119 first colleges and universities, 104 were founded to teach biblical values…Even public universities commonly had Christian roots. (Michael Hickerson, Hickerson.com)

These same schools have not only disowned any association with their Christian roots, they have turned virulently against the mother who birthed them.

Why has this happened? Secularists allege that the Christian faith is indeed incompatible with higher learning. The settled beliefs and commitment of the Christian faith set Christians against the free pursuit of knowledge. Historian James Burtchaell illustrates this attitude among the faculty at the formerly Christian college, Davidson, which had required its professors to be “prepared conscientiously to uphold and increase its [Davidson’s] effectiveness as an institution of Christian learning.” One way they were to do this was to become a member at a Christian church. However:

• A strident voice from the Department of Bible and Religion denounced this contentless obligation as “a direct contradiction of our public espousal of an open and unlimited search for truth,” and insisted Davidson emerge from its “pious isolation” and fearlessly welcome adversaries. (The Dying of the Light, 830)

This “strident voice” suggested that, somehow, Davidson’s Christian commitments were in conflict with an “unlimited search for truth.” Consequently, Davidson caved in.

This raises an important question for Christian education:

• Can the Christian school or professor be open to truth and its evidences and still be totally committed to Christ and His Word? If your mind is already made up, can you still be open to the facts and open inquiry? 

The way we answer this question will determine our theology of education, the way we teach, and ultimately the nature of the Christian school or college.

Many “Christian” academics have abandoned the idea of imparting the essentials of the Christian faith in favor of “free inquiry.” Burtchaell offers the example of Ursuline sister Alice Gallin, executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities:

• My theological understanding of faith, and the obedience which is consequent upon it…is a gift from the Lord which enables us to say “I believe,”…I do not see how it can be the ground for the institution’s existence. I think, on the contrary, that the only legitimate goal for a college or university is an “educational” purpose, ie., to empower students to develop habits of mind such as analysis, criticism, synthesis, discipline thinking. (831-32)

Gallin assumes that faith and university education can’t mix and that the development of the “habits of the mind” cannot coexist with impartation of the Christian faith. In order to reconcile her faith with her career, Gallin privatized and retracted her faith from the world of learning. Consequently, it was relegated to no more than a blind leap that simply proclaims “I believe,” as if faith is entirely lacking of any evidential basis. As with many educated professionals, she had erected an impassable fence between her faith and her professional world, across which neither could intrude.

However, reality has little respect for our artificial fences; nor does the Lord. Our faith – our Christian commitment – is relevant to all areas of our lives. God is relevant to everything we do. His truths pertain to all areas of human endeavor – science, psychology, history, whatever! He is the sunlight that illuminates all truth. There is no area of our lives that our off-limits to our Savior. He saves us in our entirety and expects us to live entirely for Him. Paul therefore instructs us to bring all of our thoughts – even our actions – into alignment with the Gospel (2 Cor. 10:4-5).

However, “free inquiry” might not be so free. Although the university has thoroughly broken free from its church-shackles, it has accepted a new set of shackles – secular ones:

• The church has compliantly withdrawn to an impotent distance, while civil authorities at every level now make no apology for imposing their laws and regulations on zoning, gender and ethnic imperatives for enrollment, occupational safety, hiring and faculty appointments…But the greatest outside authority to which all these colleges…now defer is that of the academy itself. When the Western Association of States and Colleges told Saint Mary’s it could not prefer Catholics in faculty hiring, the college felt forced to acquiesce. (834)

However, there are many other more subtle influences – language, culture, cultural biases, money, peer pressure - that call into question to university’s claim to:

• Intellectual freedom, patient research, evidence based judgment, and rational argument. The implicit image is of free agents engaged in free inquiry and free conclusions…Rational discourse in the contemporary academy believes – or says – that it can abide no prior convictions, commitments, or loyalties. (850)

Although these are noble ideals – ideals that even the consistent Christian can endorse – there is a failure to take into account the sovereignty of our heart, desires and interests. Our thinking and even our participation in research and other scholarly endeavors are largely under the dominion of our heart and pragmatic concerns - our sometimes unseen “prior convictions [presuppositions], commitments, or loyalties.”

We all have our worldview commitments. For instance, the laboratory is now under the sway of naturalism, even though there is not one stitch of evidence in its favor. (Although we all acknowledge that our laws of physics work predictably and formulaicly, there is nothing to suggest that they work naturally and unintelligently.) Consequently – and it has been well documented – those who deny naturalism are denied jobs and tenure and are subject to intense ridicule. Although the university claims that it values diversity – and it might be diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity – it is not diverse in the very area that is so vital to the health of the university. There is little diversity of viewpoint.

Recently, Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist, University of Virginia,

• Polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

Diversity has given way to a stifling group-think, the perfect cauldron for indoctrination. Columnist Chris Hedges comments about the fact that our “elite institutions” have departed from their stated goal of free inquiry:

• The elite institutions disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent, and often subversive…[and] keeps the uninitiated from asking unpleasant questions. (from Be the People, Carol M. Swain, 11)

The fruits of “free inquiry” are also questionable, according to Professor of Law and Political Science at Vanderbilt. Carol Swain:

• Increasingly, people have come to doubt the objectivity of “scientific” findings both inside and outside colleges and universities. Scholars have begun to question certain aspects of the peer-review process. They know that each journal represents an ideological stance and typically accepts only articles that support that stance. (62)

However, the problem might be far worse. Daniel James Devine reported:

• The British Medical Journal [BMJ] reported that 13 percent of UK scientists say they’ve seen colleagues “inappropriately adjusting, excluding, altering or fabricating data,” indicating widespread research fraud. “The BMJ has been told of junior academics being advised to keep concerns to themselves to protect their careers, being bullied into not publishing their findings, or having their contracts terminated when they spoke out,” said BMJ editor. (World, Feb 11, 2012, 64)

And this might only represent the tip of the iceberg. Consequently, we need to be hesitant before extolling the university as the guardian of free inquiry. This brings us back to our original question:

• Can Christian schools and educators be committed both to Scripture and the free pursuit of knowledge?

First of all, it should be obvious that we all have our worldviews and philosophical commitments – the lenses through which we observe the world. If this is so, then we need to ask which lens obscures or blurs reality, and which lens brings it into sharp focus!

When I had approached reality with a secular lens – and through this lens I understood that the problems of humanity were external and not embedded within each human – I sought out the perfect community, where I could find peace, love and happiness. I also sought out the perfect woman. This assumption led to many avoidable disappointments.

However, once I donned a Christian lens, I began to shed my this-worldly utopian ideals. Instead, I began to see that our problems are internal – sin. I also began to see that, even though I might meet someone who appeared “normal” or “healthy,” they too had their issues and every society had its failings. This paradigm or lens allowed me to navigate more smoothly.

Our cognitive pre-commitments, presuppositions or paradigms can aid in understanding and the search for truth, or they can impede it. So here is the question we must ask: “Do Christian presuppositions aid in the quest for truth?” Biographer Jana Tull Steele reports of Duke Ellington:

• He used to say that he had three educations: one from school, one at the pool hall, and one from the Bible. Without the latter, he said, you can’t understand what you learned from the other two places. (Duke Ellington)

According to Ellington, the Bible provided the necessary software to make the data intelligible. Similarly, C.S. Lewis wrote:

• "I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun—not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." (Os Guinness, The Journey, 27)

A lens may either invite or restrict the light. According to Lewis, Christianity optimized the reception of light and illumination. Therefore, we cannot simply say that “Christianity’s theological pre-commitments hinder free inquiry.” Rather, these pre-commitments might actually facilitate learning.

History bears witness to the fact that Christianity provided the worldview which made scientific development possible. According to the late British scientist Robert Clark:

• “However we may interpret the fact, scientific development has only occurred in Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations—Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on—science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that, perhaps, science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but in fact, it never did. And no wonder. For the non-Christian world believed that there was something ethically wrong about science. In Greece, this conviction was enshrined in the legend of Prometheus, the fire-bearer and prototype scientist who stole fire from heaven, thus incurring the wrath of the gods.” ("Christian Belief and Science," quoted by Henry F. Schaefer, 14)

The Biblical faith had provided just the right lens or presuppositions for scientific discovery. Here are several of its key presuppositions:

1. God wants to be known and understood. (This gave a green light for investigation.)

2. God values order and operates by discoverable laws or principles. (Phenomena aren’t random but are governed by Divine laws which we can discover.)

3. God doesn’t change and therefore His laws have a basis for changelessness. (This is a pre-condition for discoverable truths.)

4. God created a world that is not illusory, but one that is “very good” and worth understanding rather than transcending. (Science is possible and worth our efforts.)

5. God directed us to care for the world. (This requires us to understand it.)

Although secularism (naturalism) unconsciously partakes of these Christian presuppositions, its worldview cannot affirm them. Secularism can only affirm the electro-chemical reactions of the brain (as a product of unguided natural selection). It therefore has no rational foundation to believe in truth and wisdom.

Without any appreciation for the existence of transcendent principles of truth, the principal of pragmatism – whatever gives the wanted results – must fill the vacuum. If “truth” is only a matter of what brings certain desired results, then “truth” is expendable in favor of the results. Secularism wants results that will make people happy, at least, those closest to us. However, lies will also make people happy and bring desired results. It is only the Christian commitment to truth that keeps secularism honest, at least for the time being. In fact, the history of radical secular experiments shows that “truth” is no more than a commodity to achieve certain ends – propaganda and the manipulation.

Perhaps, then Christianity is the foremost guardian of truth and free inquiry. If so, the Christian college would do well to hire only staff having an unswerving commitment to the truth and the light (with also an eye to competence) – the light that reveals all else .

This doesn’t mean that we shelter our prepared students from antagonistic viewpoints. However, we do so in responsible ways. We don’t present our first graders with sexual training. Instead, we respect the needs and readiness of our students. We deal honestly and confidently with these viewpoints, knowing that we are walking in the light, which will expose the darkness. Consequently, we have nothing to fear but acknowledge our weighty responsibility.

However, we also recognize that great contempt for the light hidden beneath a façade of “free inquiry”:

• “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (John 3:19-21)

National Socialism in the First Grade

Totalitarianism requires thought control. Consequently, such a society has its gatekeepers controlling the flow of information. Adolph Hitler had a lot to say on the subject:

• In every really great revolutionary movement propaganda will first have to spread the idea of this movement. Thus, it will untiringly try to make clear to the others the new train of thought, to draw them over to its own ground, or at least to make them doubtful of their own previous conviction…The organization receives its members from the followers in general won by propaganda. (Mein Kampf)

Hitler understood that propaganda and mind control had to include the nation’s youngest members. Western mind-controllers understand this principle:

• For a North Carolina first grader who wrote a touching poem about her grandfather's military service in Vietnam, everything was fine until she made a reference to God. At that point, officials at West Marion Elementary School deleted the line before the 6-year-old could read it aloud at a school assembly after a parent complained about the religious reference. The line read, "He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength."

Although this kind of censorship is justified by the concern to not offend others, this is just a hypocritical ruse. If offending others was truly their concern, they might have expressed some concern about offending this first-grader. However, the secular authorities envision this little child as Hitler had – as the object of indoctrination into the “new train of thought.”

This agenda separates children from their parents and the child from his childhood, making the State into his primary custodian. After all, the State knows what’s best about their children, while their parents are mired by repressive God-myths!

In this case, it’s a matter of raising children for sexual consumerism – children who would have no objection to any form of sexual experimentation. I would guess that if this first-grader had instead reported about his sexual feelings, his paper would have been used as a model for other first-graders.

Media’s Offensive War on Christmas and Christianity

There has been a lot of talk about the “war on Christmas.” There is only part of what seems to be a war on all positive expressions of the Christian faith. I just received this mass-email last night, and I tend to believe it:

• On the Today Show, Matt Lauer interviewed the wife of one of the Navy Seals killed in Benghazi.

• He asked her what she would say to her children about their dad and how she would want them to remember him.  She said, and I quote, "His love for Christ," and then continued with a few other things.

• Throughout the day and on MSN homepage, when the story is replayed they have edited the "His love for Christ" part out. Why? Because using the word Christ might offend someone.

• Well, I am a Christian and I am offended! Offended that they would edit it out. Offended that we as Christians are asked to tread lightly so as not to offend someone of another religion.

• I think anyone who missed the original broadcast this morning should know what NBC has done.  This man loved his country and loved his God and gave his life for both, just as Christ gave His life for him.

Although the media has been very free to report on the negative aspects of Christianity, it shows sublime restraint when it comes to anything that might cast Christianity in a positive light. How do they justify this? They sometimes justify their bias by claiming that they do not want to give offense.

This is hypocritical to the max. They have shown little regard about offending people like the above commentator. In other words, they are very selective about whom they are willing to offend. And they have been applying this double-standard for quite a while with almost no one to call them to account.

This is serious! The media is supposed to function as the watchdog to point the light upon injustice. However, who will point the light on the media when they systematically apply their double-standards!

As some in the media have confessed, they are more interested in social activism – promoting their own cause – than in truth. Without the vital role of media to provide accountability, “news” becomes propaganda and “knowledge” becomes a euphemism for politically correct indoctrination. Consequently, those who stand on the “right” side of political correctness can proceed with their devious plans without worry that the light will shine on them.

Hypocrisy or Indoctrination: The Choice is Yours

These kinds of lawsuits have become very common and are symptomatic of the insanity that is now overtaking the West:

• Citizens represented by the group American Atheists are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their appeal of a lawsuit challenging a Kentucky law that credits Almighty God with homeland security. 

• At issue is legislation passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A 2002 “legislative finding” said the “safety and security of the commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”

Does the First Amendment to our Constitution prohibit the use of such words or this expression of faith in the “Almighty God?”

Hardly! The “separation clause” merely reads:

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Does this clause - Almighty God - represent the “establishment of religion?” According to the American Atheists, it does:

• “This new legislation should not be swept under the ceremonial deism rug, especially as it ostracizes atheists from politics,” wrote Kagin, the national legal director for American Atheists, in his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. He was referring to the legal doctrine that a passing reference to God in official statements does not amount to a religious endorsement.

However, if this clause represents a violation of the First Amendment, so too does every single one of our 50 State constitutions, all of which mention God. For instance, the New Jersey 1844, Preamble to their constitution reads:

• We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

However, on a deeper more important level, the position that the American Atheists are taking is incoherent. Almost every politician and even those who have brought this suit mention their source of trust. They mention this trust in a variety of ways, but it all comes down to an alternative faith:

1. “I trust in the character and will of the American people.”
2. “We need to trust in ourselves.”
3. “Trust in science.”
4.  “Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.” (The Humanist Manifesto II)

These are no less religious statements that statements that recommend a trust in God. If this is the case – and it clearly is – then the admonishment to trust in self is no less religious than the admonishment to trust in God. Therefore, if it is illegitimate to say “trust in God,” then it is also illegitimate to say, “trust in yourself” or “trust in science and humanity.” In other words, “We can express our faith, but your expression of faith is forbidden.”

We need to inquire why it is now OK to deify self or science, while it’s not OK to deify the Deity Himself. Is this hypocrisy or the product of a calculated strategy to close down both voice and mind of the opposition? The choice is yours.

Religion in the Public Schools: A Dialogue with an Atheist

 An atheist challenged me to a dialogue. He understandably complained that a student shouldn't have to "experience any religious activity." However, I countered by pointing out that there are many "religious" activities that Christians are coerced into:

I think that you well illustrate the pushes and pulls that are now tearing at the fabric of our society, the consensus that had once held this nation together. I think that we are seeing its fragmentation, and I don’t think that there are any simple answers. Every values group wants to impose its own values, and wants to see the removal of the values of the “opposition.”

What’s the answer? I think that you appropriately used the example of Islam to point out that we’d all resent a teacher pushing Islam in the public schools. However, we could make the same case regarding the pushing of National Socialism, Communism, Cannibalism, or Pedophilia – belief systems that we wouldn’t ordinarily call “religious.” Nevertheless, their imposition still presents the exact same issues as the imposition of Islam.

Now, let’s add some other belief systems to our equation - Materialism, Multiculturalism, Moral-relativism, Religious-pluralism, Secular Humanism and Naturalism. These represent values-orientations – religions – and not facts. The values-clarification exercises – an extension of moral-relativism – teach the students that there are no right or wrong answers. Rather, it’s just a matter of clarifying your beliefs and understanding those of others.

Materialism makes the counter-factual assumption that our material world is all that there is, while Secular Humanism assumes that the human being is the end-all and be-all of all existence. I suspect that you would deny that these latter “isms” are religious in nature. However, others would regard these just as much as an unwanted and religious imposition as you would Islam.

In fact, we can take our analysis even one step further. Any selection of textbooks, teachers or even classrooms reflects our religion or worldview. Any time we make a ruling, our worldviews are in view. Therefore, our problems and conflicts extend far deeper than differences presented by Judaism, Islam or Christianity. We are facing a Western crisis in terms of the conflict of our worldviews.

Consequently, it is too facile and misleading to think that our problems will be solved by merely eliminating the “religions” from the public sphere.

The New Secular Religion and its Opposition to Prayer

Here’s one more story out of thousands on the same exact subject:

• For years, the Vermont town of Franklin near the Canadian border started Town Meeting with a prayer. A lawsuit stopped that from happening this year…Since the town votes from the floor and residents have to attend to be heard, the Vermont Chapter of the ACLU says residents are being compelled to attend religious worship.

What’s the matter with this picture? Well, let me suggest several flaws:

1. Perhaps the main one is that this violates the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”

2. Historically, prayer had been part of the Congressional meetings of the USA. Evidently, no one then believed that prayer violated the Constitution.

3. There is no compelling reason for the Fed to trump local sovereignty. What if 90% of the community wants prayer in council meeting? Why should the values or religion of the federal government impose itself on a local, popularly chosen practice?

4. All laws and judgments reflect a certain values orientation, and these judgments are necessarily religious in nature. It seems hypocritical of the Federal government to censure the town council for a religious practice, when the Fed’s imposition is also religious. It is also hypocritical for the ACLU to fault the council that it “compelled [residents] to attend religious worship,” while the Fed and the ACLU are practicing their own forms of compulsion.

5. It is therefore hypocritical to discriminate against Christianity and not against other forms of religions. Our public schools have become indoctrination camps for the religions of naturalism, multi-culturalism, moral-relativism, and sexual permissiveness. While it is acceptable to present arguments in favor of sexual license, arguments to the contrary have been deemed “religious” and therefore proscribed.

6. Any public school student is “compelled” to do many things that they don’t want to do. It is therefore not enough to censure a council because it “compelled” its guests to be subjected to a prayer. This is certainly preferable to being compelled to hear the lies and distortions coming out of many meetings. In fact, we are compelled to do many things that go against our values. We have to pay taxes and drive within the speed limits.

7. There is no neutrality. A prayer-less council meeting represents an imposition of another kind – one that can be equally offensive to religious people. This enforced silence conveys the ideas of secular humanism - the belief that prayer is not necessary.

8. A democratic nation must rule by the consent of its people. If it fails to do so, it will loose this consent and thrust the nation into turmoil. There are no vital national at stake to justify squelching diversity and the will of local communities. There are no reasons why the Fed must enforce uniformity. Such enforcement pushes us closer to having a totalitarian state.

We tend to forget that our legal climate wasn’t always this way.  Up until recently, it has been characterized by the understanding that living together required tolerance and the respect for the conscience and free expression of others, even for those with whom we disagreed. For example, in 1940, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case involving Jehovah Witness children who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Justice Felix Frankfurter argued for the majority that our common national interests for patriotic cohesiveness required the Pledge. In response, Justice Harlan Stone retorted that religious liberty argued for,

·             “The freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say, at least where the compulsion is to bear false witness to his religion.”

According to Stone, our freedom of religion and expression should even take precedence over certain national interests. In contrast, now even the passing fads of political correctness have been elevated over our religious freedoms.

Thankfully, Frankfurter’s decision did not stand. In 1943, in a very similar case, Justice Robert Jackson wrote for the majority and affirmed:

·             “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Sadly, now an invasive national orthodoxy is attempting to squelch all expressions of religious diversity. In contrast, in 1965, the Court heard a case that directly impacted national security but ruled to grant qualified U.S. citizens the status of “conscientious objector.” However, this designation could only be given to “those persons who by reason of their religious training and belief are conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.” 

This was a ruling that would certainly be divisive and could actually compromise national security. However, there was still enough respect for religion and the sanctity of the conscience that the court overruled national security concerns. Even the liberal Justice Stephen O. Douglas concurred with the majority:

·              “…any person opposed to war on the basis of a sincere belief, which in his life fills the same place as a belief in God fills in the life of the orthodox religionist, is entitled to exemption under the statute.”

Even in this critical area where there were legitimate concerns about national security, the Court ruled against imposing a uniform solution. Respect for sincerely held faith was deemed more important than the immediate national interests. How far have we come!

The Repressive State and its Religion

 

Repressive, totalitarian regimes are never satisfied with merely controlling the political process. They also seek to control the mind and indoctrinate the youth. Hughes and Mann wrote about the goals of National Socialism:

• From the beginning the Nazis were determined to subvert German youth to their own aims…By the end of 1933 all other youth organizations had been either banned or subsumed into the Hitler Youth…In 1939, two executive orders…made “youth service” compulsory…The Nazis monopolized every free hour and parents dared not object lest they were seen to be troublemakers. Youngsters, living more and more with their comrades, were gradually being weaned away from their families. (Inside Hitler’s Germany, 50-54)

Secular Western nations are quickly following in the steps of National Socialism and its totalitarian cousin – Communism – by indoctrinating children. Even as early as 1973, Dr. W. P. Shofstall, the state superintendent for public schools in Arizona commented that, “The atheists have, for all practical purposes, taken over public education in this country.” The results have been obvious:

• On November 17, 1980, the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The Court said that the Ten Commandments were “plainly religious…and may induce children to read, meditate upon, and perhaps to venerate and to obey the commandments.” (Erwin Lutzer, The Rebirth of America, 82.

Meanwhile, the Court has raised no qualms about the children venerating pornography or another religion – militant secular humanism:

• Secular Humanism would like us to believe that they are broadminded, pluralistic and neutral in moral matters. They are opposed to censorship, sectarianism and intolerance. The media has done a successful job of getting the American people to believe that it is he so-called right wing religious fanatics who are seeking to “impose morality on society”…Secular Humanism is imposing its own morality on the American public. It does so through the media, the schools and the courts. There is a clear intent to keep Christian thinking out of the mainstream. (83)

• As columnist George Will put it so ably, “And it is, by now, a scandal beyond irony that thanks to the energetic litigation of the ‘civil liberties’ fanatics, pornographers enjoy expansive first amendment protection while first graders in a nativity play are said to violate the First Amendment values.” (84)

However, this insipient totalitarianism doesn't just apply to education. James Schall, S.J. describes it is as a full frontal attack:

•  We have been taught to think that “democracy” is automatically “the best regime,” the only alternative to any totalitarian state power. Though it has been coming for some time, within these past couple of weeks, we are seeing clearly that the desire, force, and will to subsume all subsidiary social institutions, especially religion and family, under the control of the state is also endemic in current democratic societies.

Although the Secular West is not seeking to build an empire based upon racial ideals, it is trying to impose its own utopian values – multi-culturalism, moral relativism, humanism, naturalism, sexual-permissiveness - under the guise of neutrality. Interestingly, Secularism, National Socialism and Communism have all attempted to achieve their goals through the neutralization of parental and Christian influences.

Although we don’t have to contend with the Hitler youth, we do have public education which has become increasingly secularized to the point that the Bible is now verboten! Private schools are only an option for those districts that have a voucher system or for those parents who can fork out the big bucks. Consequently, the public system has been awarded a virtual monopoly over the minds of the youth.

Some decades ago, prayer and moral absolutes were rejected and “values clarification” exercises quickly filled the vacuum. These conveyed to the youth that there is no correct moral answer. Consequently, there can be no correct or even incorrect behavior, as long as it didn’t interfere with the schools’ interests. Instead, morality became just a matter of clarifying the subjective and arbitrary reasons that govern our meaningless choices.

In Canada, parents have just sustained an additional blow:

• In the past week we have witnessed the Supreme Court of Canada dismiss the appeal of a Quebec family for permission to exempt their child from that province’s controversial ethics and religious culture course, which critics say is “relativistic,” and teaches that all religious are equally valid. And we have heard a spokesperson for the Alberta education minister state that under the province’s new Education Act even homeschooling parents will no longer be allowed to teach their children traditional Christian sexual ethics. Without the right to educate our children as we choose according to the values we choose, what do we have left? State-imposed orthodoxy. Totalitarianism. These two developments come amidst the ongoing efforts of the Ontario government to impose their “equity” program, “diversity” curriculum, and transparently ideological “anti-bullying” bill on all schools – whether Catholic or public. Already the largest school board in the province has said that parents will not be permitted to exempt their children from parts of the curriculum they deem unacceptable.

This raises an important question that is seldom discussed by our secular establishment. Who should have the primary responsibility for the education of their children? To put it another way – why should parents be denied the right to veto and exempt their children from certain subjects? And why should certain morally objectionable materials be imposed upon private schools and the private and intimate relationship that parents enjoys with their children? What is the compelling national interest, if there is one?

Interestingly, Reich Youth Leader, Baldur von Schirach had expressed more reverence for the authority of the family than do many of our secular institutions:

• The Hitler Youth leader, however, should consider it his duty not only to maintain the best relations with the parents of the youngsters entrusted to him, but also to allow them every possible insight into the work of the organization. [In contrast, our schools are often secretive about the nature of their moral teachings.] He must be ready to answer questions put to him by the parents of his young charges and should try to become the confidant of the family…Every youth movement needs the spiritual cooperation of the parental home…The parental home is in an ever better position to give unqualified recognition to the service of the Hitler Youth, since this service supports the authority of the parents and does not impair it. (Nazi Culture, 296-97)

Ironically, our evolved secular institutions seem unconcerned about the “authority of the parents.” However, both the Hitler Youth [HY] and the secularists win our children by honoring them as “adults.” HY taught the youth the use of weapons, insisting that their youth were vital to their national defense. Similarly, the secularists insist that our children have the same rights as adults. Consequently, they should now report their parents for spanking them. (The communists also manipulated the youth against their parents, encouraging them to report any anti-communist talk or activity.)

While the HY used weaponry, the secularists have used an even more powerful weapon – sex – to convince the youth that their parents are backward and repressive and that the secularists will treat them with more dignity. They have been increasingly insistent that children have a right and even a duty to themselves to explore their sexuality.

No society will last long which turns the youth against their parents, those who truly love them and would sacrifice to protect them. The wise King Solomon realized this, so that when two women came before him – each claiming a certain newborn to be her own – he ordered that the newborn be cut in two, one half for each claimant. This propelled the real mother to cry out:

• "Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don't kill him!" But the other said, "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!" (1 Kings 3:26)

Our secular institutions are like the second woman. They must have their way despite the mountains of evidence demonstrating that society is faltering under their watch. How odd it is that “even home-schooling parents will no longer be allowed to teach their children traditional Christian sexual ethics” even in the face of unacceptably high levels of out-of-wedlock births, abortions, venereal diseases, and the many resulting social ills.

In the mid-eighties, D. James Kennedy wrote about this irony, claiming that his own Westminster Academy, which had been operating for nine years at that time, had never had an illegitimate birth:

• While the rest of America is marching forward with 600,000 unwanted births among high school students…by innumerable hundreds of thousands of abortions…by epidemic drug use…alcoholism…suicide….while we are marching forward into that brave new world, the Christian schools are teaching people about the moral standards of God…who can read far better than the students coming out of the public schools and are academically superior to them. (126)

What compelling reason does secularism have for its intolerance of home-schooling and Christian education? We tend to think that the proof is in the tasting – the results. However, secularism has proven that their ideology trumps the evidence. Why then is secularism committed to a uniformity in belief and religion – moral relativism, humanism, naturalism - even when this uniformity, this State religion, conflicts with the natural interests of the family and our First Amendment rights?

This brings us back to the question – Who should have the primary say over the education of children? The wise Solomon believed that it should be the biological mother, the one who was willing to surrender the child for his own well-being. Secularism repeatedly casts its vote in favor of State uniformity. But why? Does the secularist/atheist have compelling evidence to justify wrenching the child away from parental authority? Can the secularist/atheist demonstrate that society and its children have clearly benefited from secular indoctrination since the sixties?

All indicators would say, “No” – the highly elevated crime rate, drug rate, abortion rate, divorce rate, venereal disease rate…  What then is the justification for continuing this repressive, totalitarian, religious experiment?

The Closing of the Mind, the University, and Skewed Research

After Allan Bloom wrote about “The Closing of the American Mind” (1987), writer and professor, Roger Kimball, picked up the baton in 1990 to show how the universities were being converted from educational institutions into institutions of political indoctrination:

·        Demands for ideological conformity have begun to encroach on basic intellectual freedoms. At an increasing number of campuses across the country, university administrations have enacted anti-harassment rules that provide severe penalties for speech or action deemed offensive to any of a wise range of officially designated victims. Ostensibly designed to prevent sexual, ethnic, and racial harassment, these rules actually represent an effort to enforce politically correct attitudes by curtailing free speech…What this alarming development portends is nothing less than a new form of thought control based on a variety of pious new-Left slogans and attitudes. (Tenured Radicals: How Politics has Corrupted Our Higher Education, xv-xvi)

The fruit of these changes continue to ripen. Here’s a recent example of how politically correct politics drives and frames research:

·        The study titled “Childhood Gender Nonconformity: A Risk Indicator for Childhood Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress in Youth” appeared online yesterday in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study is reportedly the first to use a population-based sample to look at the relation between gender nonconformity and abuse.

·        [This] Harvard study has found an association in young people who were exposed to childhood “physical, psychological, and sexual abuse” and who experienced childhood “gender nonconformity” [or gender confusion].

The understanding that abuse directly impacts appropriate gender identification is nothing new. However, the conclusions and recommendations of the researchers are clearly politically-driven:

• “If [parents] have a kid whose behaviour is not gender typical, they really need to be supportive and protective of those kids,” [Researcher Andrea Roberts] said, adding that the “consequences of intolerance can be quite serious.”

There is an apparent disconnect here. If gender confusion is caused or related to abuse, and if this confusion can lead to many well-documented psychological and medical problems, it would seem to follow that something should be done to intervene into this pathological chain of events. However, there is no mention of any corrective measures. Instead, the researchers recommend that parents must “be supportive and protective of those kids.”

To demonstrate the lunacy of this advice, let’s just suppose that there was no correlation found between abuse and gender confusion. What then would the advice be? The exact same – Parents should “be supportive and protective of those kids.” “Tails I win; heads you loose!” This shows that this advice has already been prepackaged for the consumer, irrespective of the outcome of the research!

• The above statements make clear the framework in which the authors interpret their data and reach conclusions. Instead of viewing the child’s “gender noncomformity” as the anomaly that requires professional help so that the child can become a self-fulfilled little boy or little girl, it is suggested that it is simply the parents’ negative reaction to their child’s gender nonconformity that is the cause of the child’s trauma.

The researchers’ advice does not line-up with their findings:

• “Some parents also believe their own parenting can shape their child’s gender nonconformity and future sexual orientation; thus, their parenting may become more physically or psychologically abusive in an attempt to discourage their child’s gender nonconformity or same-sex orientation.”

The idea of corrective therapy is simply not on the table. Whether gender confusion is genetic or the product of abuse, the orthodoxy of the university requires that the parents just accept it, even though it has repeatedly been statistically demonstrated that there are tremendous costs associated with same-sex behavior

In contrast to the conclusions of the Harvard study, Dr. Paul McHugh, psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, claims:

• “We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.”

However, we are forbidden to proclaim the obvious. We are like Hans Christian Andersen characters required to praise the non-existent clothing of a naked and foolish king. How long must we be required to utter such absurdities?