So Be True To Your School

What would you think of a government that, in an effort to train up loyal subjects, set up a program of indoctrination? The little tykes would be taken from their parents (who knows what kind of anti-social nonsense they might get there) and sent off to spend most of their time with state trained, state approved agents of the state. They would be herded together to learn all about how great their country and its government are. Pictures of The Leader, and those leaders from the past that have not been expunged from approved history, would adorn the walls of this building. The greatest of past leaders would be honored each year by giving the tots time off from school. The kids would be required to exercise for and to compete to win the approval of The Leader. (Gotta keep the soldiers of tomorrow in shape.) And of course the most athletic would be pampered and rewarded and represent the country in international competitions. The kids would declare daily their loyalty to the state, and having been taught to hate what the state hates, they even turn in their parents for crimes against the state.

Sounds an awful lot like the Nazi youth, doesn't it? Or some program set up by the three commie stooges, Uncle Joe, Uncle Ho or chairman Mao? Actually, the above paragraph is a fair approximation of our government school system. From the start government schools were designed to create pliable, obedient servants of industry and the state. They are drone factories, not only run by drones, but creating drones to go and make more drones.

Their goal is simple: to create citizens that are loyal to the state. That means that they must teach the children the religion of the state. It means they must seek to sever the ties of kinship. You, Mom and Dad, are in the way.

If you find yourself thinking that it is a horrible thing for these folks to indoctrinate children, and that if they were any good they would cease all that indoctrinating and just teach, then send the government schools you attended a nice thank you note for indoctrinating you so well. You see the trouble is not that they indoctrinate, it is what they indoctrinate them with. The trouble is not that they direct the loyalty of the children, but where they direct that loyalty. Or to put it another way, the problem is not that kids pledge allegiance, it is that they pledge allegiance to a flag, and to the (HAH!) indivisible republic for which it stands.

Our vision of education is decidedly Arminian. Many parents have the goal of remaining neutral on 0 the critical issues of the day. We don't want to force our kids to believe this or that. We just want to teach them, and then when they get old enough, they can make up their own minds. Everything from whether to be gay or straight, whether to be Arminian or Reformed, paedo- or credo- baptist, Christian or pagan, we want them to decide. And then we weep and gnash our teeth when they somehow reach the conclusion that this religion of ours can't really be all that important. Where did they get that idea?

The biblical vision is very different. Our calling is not to allow our children to choose what vision of reality they would like to be loyal to. We are not commanded to raise them up in the nurture and admonition of making choices. We are told that we must indoctrinate our children into the truth, and that that indoctrination is an unceasing part of our family lives.

Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up (Deuteronomy 6: 4-7). Now that is a big job, the job of education. It never stops, because out of our loyalty to the King, we are called to teach our children a loyalty to the King. We are the draft boards of the army of the Lord, and we will answer for how loyal our recruits turn out to be.

Now understand that by indoctrination I do not mean that we lie to our children, or try to hamstring their intellects. I do not mean what some might call brainwashing. But again it is because of the brainwashing we have received at the hands of government schools that we think any teaching which affirms truth is necessarily an attempt at brainwashing. There is real brainwashing, the circumventing of rational faculties and manipulation of the mind through assorted techniques. I don't, for instance, deprive my children of sleep and food and have them chant the Westminster Confession for hours on end. That is brain- washing. Telling my children, while they are yet too young to mount any kind of intellectual challenge, that God is the holy, all-powerful, ruler of the universe and Jesus is His Son, Whom they have a duty to trust and obey is not.

When we send our children off to school we will invariably create a tension of loyalty. Because God designed parents as teachers, we shouldn't be surprised that kids often see teachers as pseudo-parents. Remember when you were a kid, and not once, but several times you heard a classmate refer to his or her teacher as Mom? Whatever you do, do not let some other parent direct the eyes of your child toward some other god. Such loyalties can be hard to break, and by doing so we betray a lack of loyalty to the true God, who is One.