Out of the Driveway, Into the Game: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – 180 Days at the Temple

One of the most shocking and uncharacteristic incidents in American history took place during the Korean War. The American military man has had a long, proud history of holding up remarkably well while being prisoners of war. They have been courageous, orderly, still maintained discipline and respected the authority of captured commanding officers. Despite the conditions and temptation to feel hopeless, the prisoners remained loyal to one another, resisted the authority of their captors and repeatedly made attempts to escape.

The Korean War, however, was a marked departure from that tradition. In Korea a relatively small number of Chinese Communist soldiers kept thousands of American soldiers under control without fences, barbed wire, physical torture, or any of the other usual methods. Major William Mayer, a U.S. Army psychiatrist who participated in extensive debriefings following the war, reported that only 5 percent of POWs resisted the enemy, 15 percent became hard-core defenders and collaborators with the enemy, and the other 80 percent were rendered passive by the tactics of the enemy.[i] Of the thousands of American POWs during the Korean War, not one made any attempt to escape during the entire period of imprisonment.[ii]

In his work, None Dare Call it Treason, John Stormer reported that “. . . some American POWs had broadcast anti-American propaganda, informed on other prisoners, wrote articles, letters, and stories praising life under communism, confessed to ‘germ warfare’ and other atrocities, and generally cooperated with their captors in every way.[iii]

What could possibly keep thousands of Americans from resisting their captors? It was simple really. They did it not through torture or intimidation, but with a teacher and a classroom. The Chinese had mastered the technique of classroom manipulation. They took groups of tired, scared, and confused soldiers into classrooms and encouraged them to relax and “confess” their feelings to the rest of the group. For weeks they would discuss things such as Christianity, Marxism, the American way, and communism. They were constantly told that there were no absolute moral truths, only differences in opinion. They were constantly told to lay aside their own selfish opinions and work towards creating a group consensus; this was they were convinced, beneficial for the welfare of the group. What they were not told is that they were being constantly shepherded towards predetermined conclusions. It was the facilitator’s job to constantly push his students towards this enlightenment.

The Chinese were so effective with these techniques in changing the worldview of the prisoners that an inquiry was called for at the end of the war so as to be able to study the techniques of the communists.

Edward Hunter, a foreign correspondent, author, editor, and specialist in propaganda warfare testified before a congressional committee on March 13, 1958:

I have been watching developments under communism in other parts of the world, and now I see exactly the same developments here in America. . . War has changed its form. The communists have discovered that a man killed by a bullet is useless. The objective of communist warfare is to capture intact the middle of the people and their possessions, so they can be put to use. . . A more exact term in the military lexicon would be “mind attack”. . . This is the modern conception of slavery that puts all others in the kindergarten age.[iv]



In describing this process, Hunter introduced the word “brainwashing” into the American lexicon. He explained that people were first put into a fog before they could be effectively brainwashed. They need to be shaken loose of their precepts and convictions until they lose belief in them. Hunter noted:

The one thing the prisoners least expected was to come into a classroom atmosphere. . . Americans respect learning and have been taught to. . . see all sides of every question. . . The facilitators lured them into believing the pseudoscientific Marxian philosophy, which teaches constant change, even in such basic conceptions as truth and falsity, good and bad. . . Where convictions were already worn thin by their upbringing, the line became blurred until these noble traits were twisted out of shape by becoming tolerance for evil.[v]



Textbooks were given to the prisoners that were written in English, covering the topics of American history, government, and economics. The information, however, covered these topics from a much different, but reasonable sounding perspective. It was done in such a way that unless these Americans had a solid foundation of these topics previously, they would not be able to detect the differences and misrepresentations. The facilitators constantly stressed that their captives examine the good points of every side so that they could get along with everyone and not be isolated in their beliefs.

The Chinese had learned a very practical and effective technique to control their prisoners. It was not through fear and intimidation, but was rather through indoctrination. Those who are controlled by fear are always a step away from revolt. Those who have been indoctrinated will go along willingly because their desire to resist has been removed.



The Temples of Secular Humanism



Being brainwashed is obviously an incredibly dangerous situation. Resistance can be lowered and the way someone views the world can be drastically altered. It is a battle for the mind. The only things worse than being in a battle, is being in a battle, and not really being aware of whom your enemy is, or the fact that you are under siege.

Yet, Christian parents send their children to public schools everyday not knowing that, in effect, we are sending our children to church five days a week. I was listening to a message from a nationally televised evangelist not too long ago, and made a point to stop and listen as he began talking about raising Godly children. His words proved the extent and degree to which so many people have been fooled in this area. He was talking about training our children to be Godly. It was mostly the usual things including teaching them to obey, knowing where they are at, controlling their friends, being aware of what they watch on TV, etc. Then he made a statement that shocked me. He said something to the effect that he was glad we didn’t have prayer in the schools anymore. He would not, he said, want most teachers teaching his children to pray because they probably do not know how to pray themselves. Stay with me for just a second because I have not yet gotten to the shocking part. He went on to say that schools have no business teaching religion. That is the job of the home. Schools, he stated, were a neutral place where simple facts and knowledge are taught. They teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, etc.

Is this true? Are public schools today simply neutral places that teach nothing more than simple facts to our children so that they will be educated and ready to face the world? As we will see in the remainder of this chapter, that belief couldn’t be further from the truth. This erroneous belief is exactly the problem with our children that are attending public schools (and many private schools for that matter). Public schools are not neutral, objective institutions of learning and neither are most colleges and universities. Public schools have become well organized places of instruction and worship for the church of Humanism. Secular Humanists and the newer denomination of post-modern Humanists dominate public schools. They are also quite prevalent in colleges and universities, although, at that level you see a much larger Communist and Socialist Humanist influence (the influence of Communist and Socialist Humanism in colleges and universities is outside of the scope of this current work).

What this evangelist had all wrong is the belief that we send our children to school to be merely educated in a non-partisan dissemination of objective facts. We believe that our children are being taught how to learn and how to acquire knowledge for themselves. This is not at all true. Public schools have become hostile ground for Christian ideas because they are dominated by a different religion, rather than no religion at all. The influence and beliefs of this religion of Secular Humanism will be the topic of the remainder of this chapter.

So, what is Humanism? What does humanism mean? The prophet Isaiah gives perhaps the best answer, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight (Isaiah 5:21). Humanism is belief in humanity without the need or benefit of God. It banishes the concept of God because it believes that human beings are sufficient in and of themselves. That is the very essence of humanism. Man is the center of the universe, and there is nothing bigger, and nothing greater.

I will be willing to bet that if I could ask 1,000 Americans what they think should be the main goal of public education; I would get many different answers. Most of them, I assume would have to do with the actual education of students. Yet, for a large percentage of schools these days, if not all, this is not the case. Behind closed doors, many educators talk about different goals than the types of goals on which most Americans are hoping our schools are focusing. The goals that I most heard about as a teacher were things like building self-esteem, teaching the students social skills, providing them a safe emotional place to go, and giving them new experiences. A few years ago I sat in on an in-service meeting where the presenter asked us as a staff about our purpose in giving grades and ultimately our primary goal in educating our students. Nearly every teacher agreed in one form or another that building the self-esteem of the students was the key for them. They also argued that students should be graded on their effort rather than their actual achievement. I found only one or two other members on the staff that was willing to voice an opinion that included that high standards and truly teaching our students factual information was their primary goal. This is indicative, however, of an education system that abandoned long ago the primary goal of imparting absolute facts to students.

Clearly the educational focus has changed radically from the days of the New England Primer which taught kids the alphabet through the use of the Bible stories, or the Old Deluder Act, which was passed by the people of Massachusetts to defeat illiteracy, which they believed was one of the primary weapons of Satan, the old deluder. Christianity is no longer allowed in schools, and the focus and techniques of education are quite different.

So what are the results of this change in the education system? How effective are the new techniques? In September 1993, the U.S. Education Department revealed the results of its study of adult literacy in America. Among the findings of the report were the facts that:

· 90 million American adults could barely read or write;

· 40 million adults had only the most rudimentary reading and writing skills;

· an additional 50 million adults fared a little better but were still considered to have

inadequate reading and writing skills;

· only about 20 percent – 34- to 40 – million scored high, handling challenging tasks that

involved complex documents and background information[vi]



The decline of the education system in America is undeniable. It’s results are sad and predictable. Student violence is on the rise nation-wide. Gang violence is a constant problem. Disrespect for teachers and other adults has become so common it is now expected and accepted to a degree. Teen pregnancies are rampant. The generation of the 1960’s and 1970’s created a culture that had no morals. Those generations have now produced a generation which in large part has no conscience.

Worsening the situation is the postmodern concepts of things such as “values clarification” that is often taught in today’s schools. This is a method of moral training that teaches that there are no right or wrong answers. Rather than teaching absolutes, the teacher should direct students in techniques that will assist them in coming to their own conclusions.

There is an account of the teacher who learned these techniques at a workshop and was dutifully applying them in her sixth grade classroom. Before long, her class decided that they valued cheating and would be exercising their newfound value on the next test. The teacher was perplexed with this dilemma. Don’t worry, though, she came up with a typical postmodern solution. She told the class that due to the fact that she was personally opposed to cheating, they could not do it her class. She then informed them, “In my class you must be honest. In other areas of your life you may be free to cheat.”

Without an absolute moral standard, we are free to choose whatever course of action seems right for us at the time. This is exactly what has happened in our schools. Students are taught that this is a good thing. They need to find truth for themselves. This is why there is such an emphasis these days on hands-on and explorative learning. The students need to be trained to discover their own version of the truth for themselves. Notice that I did not say, the truth, I said their truth. This, they are taught, is the ultimate goal of their education.

How did all of this come about? Was it an accident? Was this the result of a slow, unknowing drift of a country away from God? The answer is a resounding “NO.” The real question, then, is who are the real perpetrators and in what kind of battle are we engaged?



The Foundations Are Laid



Over twenty years ago, a former schoolteacher, Jo Ann McCauley went on the national radio show, Point of View with Marlin Maddoux and shocked her listeners. Her fifth grade son had come home with a history project on which he needed help. As Jo Ann began to look through her son’s textbooks she was concerned about the emphasis on people like Marilyn Monroe, and the fact that there was but one small paragraph on George Washington. She began a campaign to investigate not only the textbooks in her son’s school but she also looked into the American public school system as a whole. She came to the conclusion that the schools were being used to systematically change and undermine the moral values of American children. She concluded that what she uncovered “was the worst of all crimes: willfully manipulating the religious and moral beliefs of children, without their parents’ knowledge or consent.[vii]

To understand all of this we need first to go back to the early 1800’s. Harvard and Yale, and most other early American universities began as schools for the training of ministers and Christian scholars. By the early 1800’s, however, Harvard became dominated by Unitarians and liberal Christians who were virtually Christians in name only. Harvard began to send their most gifted scholars to Germany to learn under the tutelage of the German philosophers and scholars that they greatly admired. Before long, these students were bringing back to America the ideas and philosophies of the Germans.

The most influential of these German scholars were Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-1883). Kant taught that man was completely incapable of acquiring or comprehending any knowledge of reality. All was perception and opinion, according to Kant. According to Kant, there was no objective existence of a Creator or absolute truth.

Hegel’s major contribution was collectivism. He argued that the group, which he called the collective, had a primacy over the individual. The individual, said Hegel, had no reality apart from the group.

Marx boldly declared that God did not exist, that the world was composed of only matter. There was no Creator and man had no soul, according to Marx’s teachings. Marx’s belief in matter only led to his formation of the theory of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism teaches that there is nothing beyond matter, there are no absolutes, and that the way of the world is to constantly synthesize one’s old beliefs (thesis) with new ideas (antithesis). One would then abandon the old beliefs in favor of a new set of beliefs (synthesis) that was based primarily on the new and better beliefs that one had encountered.

We need not look any further than the modern educational system in the United States of America to see these ideas in living color, practiced on a daily basis. These ideas did not, however, find their way into the educational system by accident. No, it was quite intentional, and much of the work was done by John Dewey.

The most influential individual in American education in the last one hundred years is without question John Dewey. This is the same Dewey of Dewey Decimal System fame. His theories are still held in awe in schools of education at most universities. Any licensed teacher in the United States has, without a doubt, been well indoctrinated into the teachings, beliefs, and theories of John Dewey. Since disciples of Dewey are by far the dominant force in American education we would do well to take a closer look at a man with so much influence.

Far from being a neutral force in education, Dewey has contributed more to the Humanist takeover of American education than anyone else. Dewey was a leader and pioneer in the liberal, progressive education movement in the first half of the 20th century. He was an avowed atheist, an ardent evolutionist, and an unapologetic socialist.

Dewey was also a board member of the American Humanist Association and a signer of the 1933, Humanist Manifesto, which serves as sacred scripture for the Secular Humanist movement. He was, in fact, one of the leading pioneers of both Secular Humanism and the socialist movement in America.

He was always full of praise for Vladimir Lenin in Russia and felt that socialism was the future of America. Dewey believed that the ultimate goal of public education was to bring about a “state consciousness.” Dewey knew, however, that in order to get Americans to turn their backs on their belief in freedom and embrace socialism was to revolutionize the entire education system. The only practical way to do this, though, was to devalue in the eyes of Americans traditional education techniques and replace them with a system that concentrated on the beliefs and values of children. In his essay entitled “My Pedagogic Creed,” Dewey wrote:



I believe that the social life of the child is the basis of concentration, or correlation, in all his training and growth. . . I believe, therefore, that the true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, not literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s social activities.[viii]



Dewey believed that evolutionary theories should be at the very core of the educational and pedagogical (teaching) paradigms. He held that truth is relative and that absolutes are confining, not admissible, and even harmful. He railed constantly against the need for God or moral absolutes, declaring that “There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural laws or moral absolutes”[ix] He felt that any fixed constitution, rules, or standards would stand in the way of man’s social evolution. This of course was based on man’s biological evolution, his belief in the dialectic, and his reverence for the collective.

In Dewey’s vision of the new America, the State would be god, public schools would serve as the church, and teachers would be the preachers and prophets of this new religion. Serving as a pope of sorts in this burgeoning religion, Dewey commissioned public school teachers to spread the message of this new belief system with zeal. He gave them the vision that they were the founding fathers of a new era and a new advanced civilization. While envisioning this new faith, Dewey wrote:



Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of a proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. . . In this way, the teacher is always a prophet of the true God and the usherer of the true kingdom of God.[x]



Up until that point, traditional education was based firmly on the foundation of the Scriptures. Students were trained with the idea that there were moral absolutes and absolute truth. Education, then, was a matter of drill, memorization of, training in, and discovery of the truths that God had already laid down as part of the universe.

Dewey talked further about his own religious beliefs in his book, A Common Faith. “He claimed that religion is basically an attempt to adjust to the difficulties of life and should therefore be freed from the outmoded ideas of ancient faiths, such as Christianity. Since the world changes through time, so must religion. And science must be the guide for any modern faith, for it alone is the gateway to reliable knowledge.”[xi] By applying his religion of Humanism, steeped in evolution and socialism, Dewey began the process of sterilizing the American education system from any Christian influence or philosophies.

A quick perusal of Dewey’s writings shows that he was motivated to replicate a Soviet-style education system in the United States. He said that Russia’s revolution was “a release of human powers on such an unprecedented scale that it is of incalculable significance not only for that country, but for the world. . . There is an enormous constructive effort taking place in the creation of a new collective mentality; a new morality I should call it.”[xii] He went on to say “That which distinguishes the Soviet schools. . . from the progressive schools of other countries. . . is precisely the conscious control of every education procedure by reference to a single and comprehensive social purpose.”[xiii]

Dewey criticized and attacked the traditional model of education. In response to fixed standards, rules of conduct, moral training, and a sense of conforming to those standards, Dewey proposed his own non-traditional view of education:



¨ Expression and cultivation of individuality (as opposed to imposition from above);

¨ Free activity (As opposed to external discipline);

¨ Learning through experience (as opposed to texts and teachers);

¨ Acquiring skills as a means of attaining ends that have direct vital appeal (as opposed to drill);

¨ Making the most of the opportunities of this present life (as opposed to preparation for a more or less remote future);

¨ Acquaintance with a changing world (as apposed to static aims and materials).[xiv]



As you read the list, most of it will probably seem rather familiar. It sounds like a mission statement from most public schools today:

Dewey recognized how valuable the classroom could be in initiating social changes. According to Dewey, “The first great step as far as subject-matter and method are concerned is to make sure of an educational system that informs students about the present state of society in a way that enables them to understand the conditions and forces at work. If only this result can be accomplished, students will be ready to take their own active part in aggressive participation in bringing about a new social order.”[xv]

Dewey’s philosophies took over American schools of education at colleges and universities like a wildfire. They are now so standard in schools of education that many educators do not even realize that many of these ideas were from John Dewey.

Humanists have now accepted and encouraged the idea of using teachers as adjusters of the social agenda as the standard course of things. In her book The Change Agents, Barbara Morris says that we no longer have schoolteachers; we now have social “change agents.”[xvi] The goal of schools is to redirect and “fix” the morals and values of the schoolchildren. The term that I often heard when I was teacher was “re-parenting.” The excuse often given is that parents have done such a poor job of parenting that schools must re-train the children. It never occurs to these people that it is not the business of the school to teach morals and values.

The schools have completed washed any trace of Jesus and Moses from the minds of the schoolchildren and replace them with John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow, Wilhelm Wundt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Carl Sagan, and many others.

This concept of social brainwashing violates the very heart and soul of the 2nd Commandment of Exodus 20:4, which states that we shall not make any graven images. In other words, we should not be so presumptuous as to create our own idea of God and therefore our own rules and morals. In his book Ten words that will change a nation, Rob Schenk sums up this view of the 2nd commandment, saying, “This commandment, prohibiting the making of idols or ‘graven images,’ is aimed directly at this human predisposition for taking matters of right and wrong or ultimate moral authority, into our own hands. This is idolatry in its purest form. When a person chooses a lifestyle that violates the moral will of God . . . they erect an image that reflects their own nature rather than the nature of the One True God.”[xvii]



The Means to Get There



Another man whose philosophies have had an incredible impact on American education is Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci is certainly not as well known in American education circles as is Dewey, yet his teachings and philosophies have had nearly as much impact as Dewey’s. Gramsci was best known during his life for his ongoing argument with Russian communists. He was convinced their tactics were all wrong. He told them flat out that they were pursuing the communist revolution incorrectly. Rather than conquering the West through military or economic conquest, moral subversion would be the tactic that brought ultimate victory. They must deconstruct the culture of the west including a nation’s heritage, its morality, and its spiritual life.

While in prison in Italy, Gramsci laid out his plan for conquering America and converting the world voluntarily to Marxism in his nine-volume Prison Notebooks. “The heart of his strategy was the simple dictum that, in order to achieve a socialist victory, America’s faith in its existing moral and philosophical foundations and cultural institutions would have to be infiltrated and undermined. They would transform society’s collective mind from Christianity to Marxism gradually over a few generations. The war would be won by consensus, not force, and fought in the hearts and minds – not on the battlefield.”[xviii]

Larry Abraham, author of None Dare Call it Conspiracy, commented on Gramsci’s strategy, noting: He knew the West could be socialized through a combined overt/ covert undermining of religious beliefs and cultural values. This could be done with a ‘long march through the institutions’ by infiltrating the schools, the churches, the universities, the law, the arts, theater, literature, music, the news media, the courts, television, and the motion picture industry.”[xix]

Gramsci also embraced a technique that was formulated at the Frankfurt School, a German Communist Party school. This technique was called the “critical theory.” This is the practice of criticizing America and the West for every conceivable thing they do and blaming them for every problem in the world. It would charge the West with genocidal crimes against every civilization it had ever encountered. The vital component of this theory was to connect in the minds of the world this litany of crimes with our Christian beliefs.

Where Gramsci laid the foundational theory for overcoming the United States of America, the actual technique came from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel developed what has come to be known as the Hegelian dialectic. This was the specific technique used by the Chinese communists on the American POWs in Korea.

Hegel had been influenced heavily by the occult which led him to believe that distinctions of any kind were nothing more than illusion. This meant that universal truth does not exist. New truths are constantly being formed as an assumed truth (thesis) runs up against a new truth (antithesis). As the two “truths” collide, they merge into a new truth (synthesis). The synthesis then becomes the new thesis, and the cycle continues.

This Hegelian dialectic is played out everyday in American classrooms. It has become standard teaching technique and most well-meaning teachers have no idea of the roots or true purpose behind this mentally coercive technique. Teachers are trained to lead the class through a number of steps that will “clarify” the values of the children. American education heavyweight, Benjamin Bloom confirmed this admitting that the purpose of education and schools was to “change the thoughts, feelings, and actions of students.”[xx] According to Bloom a good teacher is one who possesses the ability to “attain affective objectives through challenging the students’ fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues.”[xxi]

The goal of the Hegelian technique is to reach a consensus. This new consensus is almost always at odds with the things that Christian students have been taught at home. Questions are asked in such a way that the emphasis is placed on the way the students feel about a topic. The concept of teaching facts takes a back seat to seeing things from everyone’s point of view and accepting all views and opinions as equally valid. The first rule of consensus is that no individual, group, or nation has access to absolute truth, and consequently, that no one has the right to impose his or her view on others. Suddenly, what kids have been taught at home or church doesn’t seem reasonable anymore. It all conflicts with what the teacher and the other students in the class are saying.

Met with new ideas and unable to challenge them effectively, the student begins to question and doubt what they have previously accepted as truth. The process continues with open-ended questions and the students are told that there are “no wrong answers.” Suddenly it is not a matter of believing something because it is true, it is a matter of things beings true because the student believes it. The exercises are designed to convince the student that there are no absolutes and that everything is relative. Once absolute truth is eliminated as a possibility, truth becomes whatever the group agrees that it is. Even more insidious is that once absolute truth has been removed, the student is defenseless against any foreign idea or philosophy introduced into the classroom. They no longer have any basis on which to object. The difficult part for parents and youth ministers is that most kids don’t actually realize that they have rejected moral absolutes. If asked, most will say that there is such a thing as objective truth. The reality is, however, they have been trained to think differently. Once they have rejected the concept of there being absolute truth, the student will question any absolute, prior established fact, or authority. They will be incapable of seeing the world and reasoning form a Christian viewpoint.

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell described the similarities between these teaching techniques and the practices of totalitarian governments in an article that appeared in Forbes magazine titled “Indoctrinating the Children.” He wrote:



The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on American school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of the individual’s underlying moral values, and inducing acceptance of alternative values by psychological rather than rational means.[xxii]





Author and researcher Berit Kjos traced the development of these mind control techniques:



Through the decades, the strategies used to manipulate minds in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were developed, first at the Tavistock Clinic near London and later at Germany’s Frankfurt School (originally called Frankfurt Institute for Social Research). Their mind-bending methods soon spread to a rising number of psychosocial research centers in America. They were fine-tuned at Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, and other American universities, at our regional educational laboratories and at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.[xxiii]



These techniques, as effective as they may be would not have been accepted when they were first implemented if they would have been called “The Frankfurt Brainwashing Education System,” so the concepts and principles were taken and have been repackaged into very positive-sounding programs and teaching philosophies. Radio talk show host Marlin Maddoux says:



To hide the true nature of the psychological attacks, the educationists have wrapped very old philosophies and mind-manipulation techniques inside innocent-sounding names. So, whether it’s called Outcome-Based Education, Values Clarification, Behavior Modification, Higher Order Thinking Skills, Cooperative Learning, the Delphi Technique, Dialoguing to Consensus, or any number of other deceptive names, it is designed to alter the beliefs and values of children.[xxiv]



Many of these may sound familiar to you. Chances are pretty good that the school your child attends uses one or more of these programs or one that is very similar and based on the same philosophies. All of these educational programs, however, draw their principles and precepts from the effective, destructive, and preeminently dangerous Hegelian dialectic. Maddoux warns that the Hegelian dialectic is not just an innocent pedagogy but “is an assault of such proportions that it can bend the human mind just as effectively as a tyrant can brutalize the human body.” The real purpose of the Hegelian dialectic says Maddoux, “is to bring about a global mental breakdown! They call it a paradigm shift.”[xxv]

These educational practices are not just being passed around as theory in educational training schools; they are being used in the classrooms now, and have been used for the past forty years. Bev Eakman, an educator in North Carolina, was given at an in-service workshop a seven-point list of the values teachers should try to instill in their pupils. The seven points were:



· There is no right or wrong, only conditioned responses

· The collective good is more important than the individual

· Consensus is more important than principle

· Flexibility is more important than accomplishment

· Nothing is permanent except change

· All ethics are situational; there are no moral absolutes

· There are no perpetrators, only victims[xxvi]



Eakman describes this process as a type of cognitive dissonance. It is an attempt, she says to encourage students to internalize everything. Everything they learn, then, is aimed at an ethical outcome rather than objective facts. She says, “So cognitive dissonance is. . . like setting somebody up for a psychological fall. It plays with the mind by pitting various perceived ‘authorities’ against one another and exacerbating tensions. After a while, intellectual deliberations shut down, and emotions take over. Only the strongest-willed individuals can hold out--the ‘troublemakers.’”[xxvii]

As stated earlier, a majority of teachers have no idea that this is what they are doing. They are taught these techniques as being the most current in effective pedagogical practice. In many cases, they don’t even have to think about it at all; all they have to do is follow the lessons plans that come with most textbooks.

National educational programs like Goals 2000, Outcome Based Education, and No Child Left Behind all feed into the nationalizing of American education, which make it easier to control. In order to receive federal aid, local schools have to abide by the standards and curriculum dictated by these federally approved policies. These policies often reflect Humanist thinking but the communities must teach them regardless of their own standards. At times the roots of educational philosophies may be even more nefarious than just basic Humanistic thought. Much of the educational philosophy behind Goals 2000, for example, comes from the writings of Alice Bailey. Alice Bailey is a New Age Humanist who is open about the fact that she received much of her ideas not from research or original thought, but from her spirit guide, named Djwhal Khul. I can’t help here but think of 1 Timothy 4:1, which says that one of the activities of demons is to teach new doctrines.

This Humanist takeover of the school system began to really take hold in 1957 with the onset of large amounts of federal aid to education. Since then the control of schools has passed from local school boards and communities to the federal government.

The mother load hit for the Humanist takeover in 1979 with the establishment of the Department of Education. In many respects this completed the takeover by Humanists of America’s educational system. This is ironic, because the Supreme Court has consistently ruled since 1963 that religion is prohibited from being taught in schools. Yet, Humanism is a legal religion according to the Supreme Court (Torcaso v. Watkins, 1961). This means that in effect, America has established a State religion; that of Humanism, complete with a spot in the president’s cabinet.

The constant mantra of needing more money for education that is trotted out at every local, state, and national election has been pushed for by the National Education Association. (The NEA is completely controlled by the Humanist agenda and is one of the most pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agencies in the country.) This money has nothing to do with educating the youth of the country. It is all about building up the infrastructure of a nationally controlled educational paradigm. It is intended to train the next generation of Humanists. The cute little “Catch-22” that the Humanists have created is that if a politician even whispers the idea of cutting federal spending of education or eliminating the Department of Education, they are labeled anti-education child haters and they will not get elected.

John J. Dunphy, in an article titled “A Religion for a New Age,” that appeared in the The Humanist, drives home this idea of Humanists setting up our schools as churches of Humanism. He maintains that classroom teachers will be ministers of another type. They will use the classroom he says, to indoctrinate humanist values in whatever subject they teach.



The battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith; a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an area of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of Humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian idea of ‘Love they Neighbor’ will finally be achieved.[xxviii]



This religious, covert takeover of the classroom is especially dangerous when coupled with the false doctrine of separation of church and state. The Humanists will cry louder than anyone if this so-called doctrine is violated yet all the while they are setting up the foundations for their own state religion. They continue to attack Christianity but see no problem with instituting their own religion into schools.

Paul Blanshard demonstrates the belief that Christian worldview is a poison for which Humanist education is the antidote. He ominously points out:



I think that the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward the elimination of religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a high-school education, and this militates against Adam and Eve and all other myths of alleged history.[xxix]



In other words, give the Secular Humanists twelve good years, 180 days a school year, in their temples, and children will be too educated and too intellectual to believe in the mythology presented in the Bible. The schools, according to Blanshard and other Humanists, are the only institutions capable of determining the amount of religion children should be taught, and according to their determination that amount is equal to the number of World Series wins by the Chicago Cubs in the last fifty years (which is zero, by the way).

Charles Francis Potter, author of Humanism: A New Religion, and signer of the Humanist Manifesto really clarifies the situation for any Christian parent that cannot understand how a child that they have so diligently trained to be Godly can come out with such a worldly view of life. He admits, “Education is the most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday Schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching.”[xxx]

It is so pivotal to understand that last quotation, I recommend you go ahead and read it again (Even though you already read it in the last chapter as well. It is that important). Let it sink in. Folks, we are not sending our children to unbiased, objective institutions of learning. We are sending them to church five days a week. It is a church that views the world and everything in it quite differently than we do.

I don’t know of any Christian parent that would willingly send their children to a Muslim, Buddhist or Mormon school 180 days every year. We would have grave concerns over the information they were taught and the worldview they were absorbing. Yet, our public schools are no less religious. The primary difference is that Secular Humanism is a Godless religion and the religion taught is much more subtle and camouflage than is the overtly religious schools. The point, though, is that parents wouldn’t send their kids to these religious schools willingly, and if they had to for some reason, they would be very conscientious in knowing exactly what their children were learning. These parents would take great care in preparing their kids for the false things that they would be taught, and would ready their children for how to handle the onslaught of incorrect beliefs. These same parents that would shudder at the thought of sending their child to a Muslim school pack up Johnny or Susie and send them to the Secular Humanist temple each and every day of the school year without giving it a second thought. In my opinion, schools must be treated like a fireplace inside of a home. It can be useful for some things, but needs to be constantly watched and have a protective barrier around it so that it is not allowed to freely come into the home.



The Pillars of Secular Humanism



Let’s turn now to the precepts and ideas being taught at the temples of Secular Humanism, so that we can recognize them when they show up in our children’s textbooks, homework, or even their own way of thinking.

H

umanists have a remarkably well developed worldview based on their religious beliefs but they have a game plan that is just as well developed. In their book, Mind Siege, David Noebel and Tim LaHaye describe five basic pillars of the Secular Humanist faith.



Atheism



The foundation of all Humanistic thinking and belief is atheism. All doctrines and dogmas of the Humanist faith come from the belief that there is no God. They hold that anyone who does believe in God is hopefully caught in a trap of medieval mythology. Christians stand in the way of any hope of a Humanist state that has achieved the full potential of human growth, development, and evolution. The Bible says that the fool says that there is no God, yet the Humanists have turned this nugget of wisdom on its ear and claim that it is the fool who says there is a God.

This deification of man has been around since Satan first lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Since then man has continually embraced the hope that we could be like God and, logically did not need him. More recently this way of thinking burst forth again with philosophers like Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hegel, and Friederich Nietzsche. Nietzsche finally reached the conclusion, “God is dead.”

God, of course, knew of man’s proclivity to reject our creator and even predicted the continuance of this sad practice in Romans 1:18-25. Even though the existence of God is patently obvious, man has rejected God and decided for themselves who or what they should worship.

Corliss Lamont describes the atheistic under girding of Humanism:



First, Humanism believes in a naturalistic metaphysics or attitude toward the universe that considers all forms of the supernatural as myth; and the regards Nature as the totality of being and as a constantly changing system of matter and energy which exists independently of any mind or consciousness.



For Humanism the central concern is always the happiness of man in this existence, not in some fanciful never-never land beyond the grave; a happiness worthwhile as an end in itself and not subordinate to or dependent on a Supreme Deity, and invisible King ruling over the earth and the infinite cosmos.



Humanism believes that Nature itself constitutes the sum total or reality, that matter-energy and not mind is the foundation stuff of the universe, and that supernatural entities simply do no exist. This non-reality of the supernatural means, on the human level, that men do not possess supernatural and immortal souls; and on the level of the universe as a whole, that our cosmos does not possess a supernatural and external God.[xxxi]



The extent to which atheistic beliefs have come into vogue in the last several centuries is unprecedented in the history of the world but they are not really new. Man has always been able to look around at the wonder of the world and the universe and surmise that there must be some type of designer. Those who rejected the God of the Bible and wanted to make their own rules chose pagan beliefs. With the onset of so-called science, which has eliminated the need for the supernatural, men can now feel free to choose atheism. Atheism, then, is based on the same mindset as ancient pagans; it has just taken a slightly different form.

An acceptance of atheism changes everything about one’s worldview. With no God in the picture, man is here simply by chance. There are no moral absolutes. Man is free to choose for himself what is truth. This means that God did not hand down undeniable rights that were outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Laws, morals, and standards are all decided upon and granted by the state. A belief in atheism leads to lawlessness, immorality, and violence.

These ideas are constantly preached in our schools today. God has been removed from the schools, it has been deemed unconstitutional to talk about God in schools today. We cannot pray; we cannot even hang the Ten Commandments on the wall. God has been systematically removed from the education system. Atheistic philosophy has seeped into every area of our schools.

In history, we have taken out all references to our founding fathers as men of deeply religious faith. This conception that the founding fathers were not primarily rooted in a Biblical worldview is a flat out lie. It is revisionist history at its worst.

Science is no longer taught honestly in schools. Evolution is now taught. In most states you cannot even present evidence that questions evolutionary theories.

Psychology, sociology, and indeed the whole philosophy of education itself are based on evolutionary presuppositions. The theories that now dominate education are based on the assumption that we are nothing more than evolved animals. This does not have to be overtly stated very often, although it is, because it runs through the thinking of every area in education.



Evolution



Humanism is completely built on the theory of evolution. Evolutionary type theories are not new; they go all the way back to ancient Greece and even ancient Babylon.[xxxii] They were always intertwined with pagan religious beliefs. Erasmus Darwin came up with nearly every theory that his grandson would later purport to be his own. Charles Darwin did not discover evolution; it was simply repackaged and marketed by him. It leapt onto the world stage with his 1852 release, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection of The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Men around the world who were actively looking for ways to live without the constraints of God seized upon Darwin’s book as a scientific justification for how they wanted to live. Their desire to reject God came before their acceptance of evolution, not the other way around. It is vital to understand that.

Despite the fact that not one single theory of Darwin has been proven to be correct over 150 years after they were first presented, evolution is taught as fact in our schools. Darwinism is, in my opinion, the most pervasive and powerful influence in education today. It is everywhere. It is presented to our students as fact.

The truly dangerous thing about evolution, in my estimation, is this seeping influence that it has had on all other aspects of education. Most Christian youth will tell you immediately that they do not believe in evolution. We have taught them that much quite well. What they do not realize, and most Christian parents do not realize it either, is that although they have rejected the face value theory of evolution, they have unwittingly accepted many of the underlying philosophies and beliefs that have come from evolution based Humanism.



Amorality



The obvious result of evolution and atheism is eventual amorality. With the systematic destruction of the Biblical foundations of this country, has come the disappearance of morality. Evolution teaches that man is nothing more than an animal that is slightly higher evolved. Anything that smacks of Biblical morality has been under siege in this country. Not only are Biblical values no longer needed, they hold man back from his predestined course of evolutionary enlightenment. The Humanist magazine proudly announced that, “Darwin’s discovery of the principle of evolution sounded the death knell of the religious and moral values.”[xxxiii]

Freedom must exist for man to realize his full potential. Self-expression is one of the most highly touted and protected rights in the Humanist mind. Humanists call for total freedom in lifestyle, sexual expression, verbal expression, artistic expression, etc. No matter that this has resulted in rampant STD’s, out of wedlock pregnancies, and a society that is completely falling apart at the seams. Human expression is so important that it is of no consequence that it has resulted in the death of over 40 million unborn children in America. I am personally dumbfounded by the apathy that exists in large parts of the Christian community over this issue. Christians by the tens of thousands claim that Jesus is the Lord of their life and that they desire God’s ways to be their ways, and yet they flock in droves to support politicians that support issues like gay rights and abortion.

A former student of mine once made a very telling statement in response to a question of why they had no interest in pursuing a relationship with God. He replied, “I want to live how I want to live. I don’t want any God telling me what I can and cannot do.” He went on to say that even if evolution was proven to be wrong and that there was undeniable proof of the existence of God, he would still not want to be a Christian. He wants the freedom to express himself as he sees fit.

This philosophy of amorality has unleashed an unholy Pandora’s Box on our society. As Noebel and LaHaye point out, “This philosophy has opened the door to situation ethics, permissiveness, free love, sexually active youth, and a flock of code words for adultery, fornication, perversion, and abomination – all of which are simply sin. Students from junior high to college – the target of amoral teachings for the past five decades – have been encouraged toward gross immorality.”[xxxiv] I think they are exactly right in this statement except that I would add the fact that students in elementary schools have also been targets of this Humanistic philosophy.

There is no room in this new Humanist society for the absolutes of the Bible. The Ten Commandments, in their view, are not just outdated; they are the vilest of attacks on human autonomy. Paul Kurtz agrees with this when he says, “Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire.”[xxxv]

This attack on sexual attitudes is one of the fiercest for the Humanists. Mary Calderone, former president of the Sexuality, Information, and Education Council of the United States, (SIECUS) demonstrates the Humanist attitude towards sexuality, saying:



The adolescent years are, among other things, for learning how to integrate sex usefully and creatively in daily living. Therefore, we must accept that adolescent sexual experimentation is not just inevitable but actually necessary for normal development.



I advocate discussion of it, [premarital sex] so that young people know they have choices beginning with masturbation, of course, and petting to climax and mutual orgasm before moving on to intercourse.



An extramarital affair that’s really solid might have very good results.[xxxvi]



Students are routinely taught that the homosexual lifestyle is legitimate. The homosexual movement (which is different from the homosexual lifestyle) was generated by the Humanists as an attack on Christian morality. The Homosexual rights movement is a carefully crafted game plan intended to change the moral standards of our society. Humanists have used it so vociferously because it has struck a sympathetic cord with many Americans. It is now the horse they have chosen to ride in their race to bring down Christian morals. Once they can get societal acceptance for homosexuality, it is a matter of time, in the mind of the Humanist, before the rest of the Biblical moral standards in America crumble.

Corliss Lamont drives home this attack on Christian morals, arguing that the moral person will be obliged to “discard the outmoded ethics of the past . . . The merely good is the enemy of the better. The Humanist refuses to accept any Ten Commandments or other ethical precepts as immutable and universal laws never to be challenged or questioned. He bows down to no alleged Supreme moral authority either past or present.”[xxxvii]

This Humanist onslaught against traditional morality will not slow down now that they have made great inroads in much of our society. Their ultimate goal is for universal recognition. They must control the next generation and to do that they must control the minds of the young. Adolph Hitler understood this when he once remarked, that if he had control of the textbooks he would control the state.



Autonomous Man



One of the more curious beliefs of Humanists is that man is autonomous. That is, he is self-directed; he is his own god; and he is absolutely good by nature. The only thing that is keeping man from realizing the potential of his own god-like goodness is the harness put on him by society. It is society, the state that keeps man from becoming all he can be. This is why it is so evil in the mind of the Humanist to limit the free expression of another human being. You are in essence, committing blasphemy when you tell a Humanist that he cannot or should not do something that he desires to do.

Humanists believe that man is innately good. Where this goodness comes from, they never really explain. They also lack any evidence to demonstrate that man is good by nature. This does not deter them in this belief one bit. Jean-Jacques Rosseau, one of the champions of modern collegiate Humanists, maintained that if man were good by nature, then he would remain that way if he were free from any outside influences. These influences, in fact, are from the society not the individual.

Today’s schools are full of self-isms: Self-actualization, self-image, self-love, self-sufficiency, self-esteem, self-satisfaction, self-importance, and self-realization. They have eaten away at the demands of the soul made by the Bible and turned man’s focus entirely on himself. The Humanists have turned the center of meaning from soul to self. The height of their desires is to feel good about themselves. They have no concept of sin and the need for repentance and salvation. Lamont demonstrates this every-man-for-himself mentality that stresses feelings over responsibilities:



The watchword of Humanism is happiness for all humanity in this existence as contrasted with salvation for the individual soul in a future existence and the glorification of a supernatural Supreme Being. Humanism urges men to accept freely and joyously the great boon of life and to realize that life in its own right and for its own sake can be as beautiful and splendid as any dream of immortality.[xxxviii]



One technique used quite often by Humanists to lessen controversy over the materials being presented in schools is to switch the definitions of words. They will use words or terms that mean one thing to parents but something entirely new and different to the students. The Humanist usage of the word “democracy” is a good example of that. Watching the network news generally drives me nuts for many reasons but my pet peeve is the way they continually push that we are a democratic nation. Humanists have gotten everyone to believe that, all the while gently switching the definition. Most adults think of representative government and rule by the majority when they think of democracy. Never mind the fact that the founding fathers were very distrustful of democracy. They went to great lengths to ensure that we did not have a democracy. They built us a Republic, one that definitely has some democratic ideals but was decidedly not a democracy. Yet that is all we hear these days: Democracy, democracy, democracy. The new definition of democracy being taught in schools is that of autonomy. They equate autonomy with freedom. Democracy means total personal liberty. By teaching this to the next generation of voters, Humanists have dramatically switched the direction of our country.

The philosophy of Humanism also stresses permissiveness in child rearing. This comes from the belief that humans are intrinsically good and will realize their full potential if left to their own inner desires. These children, however, grow up to be selfish children with no manners, no values, and no morals. Noebel and LaHaye remark that children raised under this philosophy will “seek to get, rather than give; lust, rather than love; demand, rather than contribute. When those around him do the same, the outcome is predictable; dissension, hostility, and eventually open combat.”[xxxix]

These ideologies are everywhere you turn in modern education. Students are taught that having a positive self-image and high self-esteem is of the utmost importance, rather than the Biblical principles that we are all sinners and should humble ourselves before God. Students are taught to look out for themselves first, to be selfish.

Take a large group of young children, put them together in one school building, teach them that there are no absolute standards, that we all determine what is right for us, and then teach them that their happiness is the most important thing in their life. When you do all of that you get exactly the situation is schools are in today. They are centers of disrespect and violence rather than institutions of serious learning.



Globalism



The ultimate dream for the Humanist is to achieve utopia here on earth. This only makes sense because there is no heaven or promise of the afterlife for the Humanist. Their goal, then, is to create a virtual heaven on earth. Humanists agree that the only way to do this is through one world government. Humanists assume that their type of government, socialism, is good and that the bigger government is, the better. Their definition of democracy is fulfilled in individual autonomy that is available only in a socialist, Humanist controlled, government. Julian Huxley, former director of UNESCO, says, “The general philosophy of UNESCO should, it seems, be a scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background. . . Thus the struggle for existence that underlies natural selection is increasingly replaced by conscious selection, a struggle between ideas and values in consciousness.”[xl] Lamont adds that, “A truly Humanist civilization must be a world civilization.”[xli]

Achieving this one world government necessitates total government control of the economy. Most Humanists agree that the quickest means to that end would be communism. According to Noebel and LaHaye, Lamont “demonstrates that a very important connection exists between Secular Humanism and communism, which few care to discuss. Humanism and communism are related: Humanism is the mother, communism the daughter; humanism is the root, communism the branch. Many of the ideas and beliefs that make up the communist worldview are similar to or identical with the humanist worldview.”[xlii]

The Humanists, long ago, identified the United Nations as the organization that could fulfill their dreams of a New World Order. They have infiltrated the UN to the highest positions and have virtually taken control of it. Three leading members of the American Humanism Association have been directors-general of three important UN organizations: Julian Huxley, UNESCO; Brock Chisholm, World Health Organization; and Lord Boyd Orr, UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

According to Claire Chambers:



Some of their leaders combined forces with leading advocates of population control and nationalized abortion, World Federalists, and others, in the formation of the American Movement for World Government. This group’s full-page advertisement in the New York Times of July 27, 1971, called for a “world federal government to be open at all times to all nations without right of secession,” with the power to curb overpopulation.[xliii]



The signers of this ad went on to call for the following amongst other things: an executive branch with the power to enforce world laws upon all individuals, the control of all weapons of mass destruction by the world government, and disarmament by all nations that would be controlled and enforced by a world police force. They declared that, “a federal world government must be established at the earliest possible moment by basic transformation of the UN or other reasonable means.”[xliv] Most Humanists consider their loyalty to a one-world government to supersede their loyalty as American citizens. Lamont refers to Humanism as the moral equivalent to world patriotism. In the Humanist Manifesto 2000, Paul Kurtz lays the cards on the table in calling for an immediate one world government: “We recommend an international system of taxation. . . This would not be a voluntary contribution but an actual tax.”[xlv] This tax, of course, would be used to fund the various UN organizations.

Noebel and LaHaye cite a pledge that is already being taught to some of America’s third grade children:



I pledge allegiance to world

To care for earth, sea and air

To honor every living thing

With peace and justice everywhere.[xlvi]



This pledge shows their allegiance to the idea of globalism. Note that they evidently “honor every living thing,” except for the unborn. None other than Walter Cronkite sums up the allegiance to globalism over Americanism in his call for a one world government when he says, “Of course, we Americans will have to give up some of our sovereignty.”[xlvii]



Conclusion



There are so many different ways and angles that Humanist thinking has seeped into our education system that it takes a truly alert parent to catch even some of the brainwashing propaganda. Be especially alert to the buzz words and phrases of Humanist education-speak such as: social justice, hate crime, sensitivity training, globalism, world citizenship, celebrate diversity, socialized medicine, universal healthcare, political correctness, homophobia, gay rights, feminism, no-fault divorce, tolerance, animal rights, progressive education, environmentalism, multi-culturalism, outcome based education, specieism, redistribution of wealth, alternative lifestyles, punished by rewards, effort grades, experiential learning, situational ethics, etc. The list could go on for a while.

The key for parents is to constantly be on guard against things that may seem harmless at first but are being used by Humanists to push their agenda. Allow me to give you a classic example. A big trend in education right now is ecology training. Students are trained to care about the environment, put Mother Nature first, and to participate in things like Earth Day. Could this possibly be bad, you ask? Have I gone off the deep end, spiraling into conspiracy theories that should be put next to the one about us never landing on the moon? Follow me for just a minute and I’ll explain. Most of this ecological training, which seems quite innocent is, in fact, the perfect arena to teach children many of the Humanist tenets. Through this area of education kids will be taught evolutionary theories of man, animal, and the environment. They are taught that man is just an animal and that it is our duty to care for animals as equals to man. Animals are elevated to a status that they were never intended be while man is devalued. They should have the same access to rights according to the Humanists. This is automatically under-girded by atheism. They can then be easily taught concepts of how important it is to stop those who harm the environment. This segues right into anti-business, anti-American government, pro-world government thinking. Furthermore, the kids are softly fed ideas about Mother Nature, the earth goddess Gaia, pantheism, and so on. Before they know it, they have accepted many precepts about how to view the world and the things in the world that are completely contrary to the Word of God.

So what should a parent do about all of this? How does all of this information matter practically? First, parents must be prepared to change the way they view the education of their children.

Far too many parents in our fellowships have done their very best in raising their children without the desired effect. They have gone to all the parenting workshops that were available. They had quiet times with their children and devotionals with the family every week. They prayed with and for their children regularly, and consistently and humbly sought advice from other parents. They held onto their belief that Proverbs 22:6 promised that if they trained their child in the way they should go that they wouldn’t stray from it.

Things did not, however, go according to plan. If we are honest with ourselves, too many teens in our fellowships have rejected discipleship of Jesus Christ all along, or after embracing it for a short time, have walked away, embracing the world instead. I simply don’t believe that most of these cases are caused by a bad heart. It is a result of not transforming the minds of our children according to the principle of Romans 12:1-2. If we are trying to teach children to be disciples of Jesus Christ, then the transformation of the mind is an absolute must. It is no mystery to me at all when children are allowed to learn how to think and view the world from their Secular Humanist schools with no deprogramming, and then they reject Christianity. The child who thinks as a Secular Humanist will find it virtually impossible to live consistently as a Christian for any length of time.

What happens with many of our kids is that we raise them in a Christian home, but we don’t properly prepare them. It is the same phenomenon as the kid that only shoots baskets in the driveway by himself. The first mistake many parents make is not training their children from the time they can understand language that there are people that want them to think and act differently from what God wants. As they grow older, they can be trained in the art of recognizing the worldviews and beliefs of those non-Christian influences (we will discuss this concept in detail in a later chapter.)

If all a parent ever teaches their child is to love and obey God, they are playing with fire. Those are wonderful and necessary elements, but it must go beyond that. I know too many parents who did that and then watched the painful sight of their beloved child walk away from the faith that was so dear to them. The foundation of Christianity certainly includes our love for God, but the Christian life is much broader than that. The Christian student must be taught a comprehensive Christian worldview that is applicable and relevant to every area of their life. If they are not, then disaster is right around the corner.

When a teen is not taught a relevant and comprehensive Christian worldview they will eventually encounter things through experience that they were not prepared to handle. New ways of thinking and viewing the world will be introduced that seem completely harmless to the unaware child. As we have already seen, these new worldviews are well thought out, they are intricate, and the methods of passing them onto children are devious and intentional.

Eventually the experiences of the child will not match up with a one-dimensional worldview that is not prepared to meet the world that they actually face. We will discuss this topic in greater detail in the next two chapters, but suffice it to say that, in time the student will abandon the worldview that does not answer their new experiences. They are being taught, after all, to accept whatever works for them at the time. The Secular Humanist worldview, although bankrupt and false, seems to be much more comprehensive and relevant than the shallow Christian worldview that most teens have.

When I grew up in a church environment, I saw a very different phenomenon from teens who chose to rebel against Christianity. There were two variables that accounted for the differences. One was that most of the kids in our church went to a private school. The second variable was that the worldview attack by the Humanists was not nearly as advanced as it is today. When kids in our church rejected Christianity, they did it violently. It was a rebellion that was usually born out of bitterness or hate for God or their parents. The rejection of Christ that I see from kids today seems much milder but is actually much more insidious and potentially permanent. The reason is the Humanist concept of relativism. Kids are taught to do whatever works for them at the time.

When they are younger teens, they are asked to study the Bible. They do, and the worldview of their parents and teen workers seems to work for them at the time. Usually the goal of the parents and youth workers is conversion not transformation. The soul is converted but the mind is never transformed. When kids come under attack from the world, the media, the friends, and most importantly, their school, their Christianity that has been built with hay and straw does not stand up to the test. So, they merely switch worldviews. This is generally not a conscious decision. They are usually not even aware of the switch, so subtle has been the indoctrination of the Humanist worldview. All the kids have really done, in their mind, is find what works for them at the time. It disappoints their parents, but the kids assume it is simply because they are choosing a different path that their parents don’t understand. After all, they have learned at school that one must find what is true for them at the time. At this particular time, they reason, Christianity no longer works, so it is simply discarded. There is no violent rebellion or animosity. For the teens it is an amicable parting of the ways. They often hold little if any ill will towards the church or their parents. They will even continue to go to church occasionally, especially when their parents ask. This is because they have been taught not to judge someone else’s truth. If Christianity works for their parents, that’s great. It just isn’t the child’s truth at that time.

So what are some practical things that parents can do? The first suggestion would be to take your child out of public school if at all possible. Homeschool is a wonderful option, but not all families can do that. Finding a good private school is a great second option. If neither of those choices is doable then the parent must ramp up their efforts to train their child to defend their mind against opposing worldviews, while teaching them a comprehensive and relevant Biblical worldview.

In the next chapter we will take an in-depth look at the relativity of the Secular Humanist worldview and how to effectively combat it. Following that, we will look at the concept of worldviews in more detail. The second half of the book will be a detailed consideration of a how a parent might go about giving their child an effective and consistent Biblical worldview.



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[i]John Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason (Florissant, Mo.: Liberty Bell Press, 1964), p. 94.

[ii] Dr. Fred Schwarz, You Can Trust the Communists (to Be Communists) (Long Beach, California: Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, 1972), p. 129.

[iii] Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason, p. 94.

[iv] Edward Hunter, Communist Psychological Warfare” (testimony before Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Session, Washington D.C., March 13, 1958).

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Marlin Maddoux, Public Education Against America (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2006), p. 105.

[vii] Ibid, p. 79.

[viii] John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed,” National Education Association Journal (May 1927), 134.

[ix] John Dewey, “Soul-Searching,” Teacher Magazine, September 1933, p. 33.

[x] Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed” pp. 6, 15, 17.

[xi] LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege (Nashville, TN: Word, 2000), p. 114.

[xii] John Dewey, Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World (New York: New Republic, Inc., 1929), p. 4, 15, 57.

[xiii] Ibid, p. 61, 67.

[xiv] John Dewey, Education and the Social Order (New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1934), p. 10.

[xv] Ibid, p. 10.

[xvi] Lahaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 115.

[xvii] Rob Schenck, Ten Words That Will Change a Nation (Tulsa, OK: Albury, 1999), p. 30.

[xviii] Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 110.

[xix] Ibid., p. 110.

[xx] Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning (New York: McGraw Hill, 1981), 180.

[xxi] David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom, and Bertram Massia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classificaiton of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain (New York: McKay Publishers, 1956), 55.

[xxii] Thomas Sowell, “Indoctrinating the Children,” Forbes, February 1, 1993, p. 65.

[xxiii] Berit Kjos, “Molding Minds Through Group Manipulation,” News With Views, September 15, 2002.

[xxiv] Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 136.

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] B.K. Eakman, “EDUCATION: Bushwacking Johnny,” Chronicles Magazine, September 2002. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/September2002/0902Eakman.html (July, 2006).

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] John J. Dunphy, “A Religion for a New Age,” The Humanist, January/February 1983, p. 26.

[xxix] Paul Blanshard, “Three Cheers For Our Secular State,” The Humanist, March/April 1976, p. 17.

[xxx] Potter, Humanism: A New Religion, p. 128.

[xxxi] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1977), p. 45.

[xxxii] Henry M. Morris, The Troubled Water of Evolution (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974), p. 69-72.

[xxxiii] S. S. Chawla, “A Philosophical Journey to the West,” The Humanist (September/October 1964), p. 151.

[xxxiv] LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 77.

[xxxv] Paul Kurtz, Humanist Manifesto II (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 18.

[xxxvi] LaHaye David Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 77.

[xxxvii] Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 235.

[xxxviii] Ibid., p. 14.

[xxxix] LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 82.

[xl] Julian Huxley, “A New World Vision: Selections from a Controversial Document,” The Humanist (March/April 1979), p. 35.

[xli] Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, P. 281.

[xlii] LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 83.

[xliii] Claire Chambers, The SIECUS Circle (Belmont, MA: Western Islands, 1977), p. 87.

[xliv] Ibid., p. 69-70.

[xlv] Paul Kurtz, “Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism,” Free Inquiry (fall 1999), p. 8-9.

[xlvi] LaHaye and Noebel, Mind Siege, p. 85.

[xlvii] “Cronkite Champions World Government,” Washington Times (3 December 1999): A2. Taken from a speech by Walter Cronkite before the World Federalist Association at the United Nations, 19 October 1999.