SRR # 79 | The California Public Education System And Its War On Christianity

I do a podcast.

I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

Biblical Courage and the Cost of Speaking the Truth

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. This is Simple Riff around the radio and my name is Tim. Abraham Kuyper once wrote, When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling and peace has become sin.

You must at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that principles that run against our deepest convictions as Christians are beginning to win the day in our culture.

And therefore, battle is our calling. And we must at the price of dearest peace, lay our convictions bare before friend and foe. And that is exactly what we want to do here on this podcast today. Unfortunately, though, we live in a time when many professing Christians refuse to speak out against the evils of our society for fear of offending people or for fear of disturbing the peace.

The problem with that is that there really is no peace to begin with, and their silence amounts to nothing more than a capitulation to the cultural perversions. You see, the Bible makes it clear that we are in a spiritual war, and as Christians, we must be willing to stand and contend and battle for the truth.

You see, when controversial issues come up, I oftentimes think of what Paul said in Galatians chapter 1, immediately after he anathematized the Judaizers, and he anathematized anybody who brings a false gospel.

As a matter of fact, we can read that in Galatians chapter 1, verses 8 -9. It reads, As I said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

And then, what he says immediately after this is what I want to get to. And you have to imagine that when Paul wrote this, that for some people, he disturbed the peace. Now, we know that they were troubled by what was going on, because Paul acknowledges that.

But some people had to have been offended with what Paul said. And this is why in the following verse, verse 10, Paul writes, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God, or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. You see, Paul was not interested in seeking the approval of man. He was not interested in trying to please people. He was willing to say the difficult things, and tell people the things that they didn't want to hear, tell people the truth, for the sake of being a servant of Christ.

You see, you can't try to please people and be a servant of Christ. And this is exactly why Jesus says in Luke 6, verse 26, He warns, Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

You see, the false prophets would often just tell people the things that they wanted to hear. They would tell the king exactly what he wanted to hear. They were positive and encouraging all the time. And they wouldn't warn people of the truth.

They wouldn't tell people the truth, because this would upset them. Well, on this podcast, we are going to strive to be servants of Christ. We'll be right back.

Hello, this is Tom Giuditis, president of the Trinity Foundation. Thank you for listening to Semper Reformanda Radio. For more information on the Trinity Foundation, please visit our website at www .trinityfoundation .org.

There you can read, download, and or print over 300 articles, or listen to over 200 MP3 audio lectures, and check out our over 65 titles of books and other media. And if you are between the ages of 16 through 25, you can enter our 2018 Christian Worldview Essay Contest on the topic of the book, The Emperor Has No Clothes, Richard B. Gaffin Jr.'s Doctrine of Justification by author Stephen Cunha.

Thank you, and remember, the Bible alone is the Word of God.

Ministry Updates and New Podcast Partnerships

Alright, I want to say thank you to Tom for that, and I want to encourage our listeners that if you are in the age range for that essay contest, be sure to check it out, because the 1st place prize winner will receive $3 ,000 plus books, the 2nd place prize winner will receive $2 ,000, and the 3rd place prize winner will receive $1 ,000.

So, that is definitely some incentive, I think, if you are in the age range for that essay contest. So, the other thing that I wanted to just briefly talk about is what is going on with Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Ministries.

And, basically, Semper Reformanda Radio has left the Bible Thumping Wing Network to start Thorn Crown Ministries and to bring on other podcasts that we want to promote. So, these other two podcasts are Radio Lux Lucid with Steve Matthews, and Steve is also the gentleman who is doing the podcast for the Trinity Foundation.

So, he's a pretty busy guy, but he's got some really good stuff coming out. He just did an episode on Radio Lux Lucid concerning Syria and what is going on with the United States bombing Syria. It's really fascinating stuff.

And Steve is really knowledgeable about economics, about politics, about just government-related issues, and he comes at it from a biblical worldview, from a scripturalist worldview. So, I've personally learned a lot from him already, and I'm very excited about passing that on to our listeners.

So, the other podcast that we are doing is The Protestant Witness, and that is with Pastor Patrick Hines. Now, Pastor Hines was the pastor who I interviewed for my episode, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, and I interviewed him about a sermon that he preached on John Piper.

And he's got some really solid stuff. He is really smart. He knows the Reformed faith very, very well. And he's also very good at addressing Roman Catholicism and also addressing issues that pertain to the culture.

And when I interviewed him, I realized that he was already talking about stuff and addressing issues related to the culture that I wanted to address. I just hadn't had the time. So, I asked him, I said, can we just make a podcast for you?

He agreed, and so big thanks to Pastor Hines. We're going to be uploading both of these podcasts and their episodes onto our webpage, and they each have their own dedicated page. And then we're going to put them on our RSS feed.

So, if you subscribe to us, just look for us, Semper Reformanda Radio. You know our logo. It's Luther. And subscribe to us, and you're going to get all of the content. So, with that, let's go ahead and jump into our topic for today.

Parents, Public School, and the Duty to Train Children

I want to first warn parents that the stuff that we're going to talk about today is not suitable for children. So, I don't think any children listen to this, but if you have teenagers that listen to this, just know that this content is not suitable for really anybody who's not an adult.

And I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of it right now, but later on we're going to be talking about some things that are not appropriate for kids. So, what I want to talk about is the sex ed in public school systems.

And I want to basically make a pitch that depending on where you live, it might be time to consider other schooling options for your kids. Now, my wife and I, we do homeschool, and I'm a big homeschooling advocate.

We do classical conversations, but even in that, you still have to be very involved with your kids. And going into homeschooling, I had some preconceived ideas that were just completely wrong. I thought that everybody was homeschooling for the same convictions that I was homeschooling for, and I found out pretty quickly that that's not the case.

There's a lot of homeschooling conventions where you have people that really are not Christians at all, who just want more freedom, and they're homeschooling, but not based off of what I would consider Christian convictions.

Really, as a parent, you just have to be involved. So, the first thing that I wanted to point out was that I believe that the Bible makes it clear that really it's the parent who is supposed to be the primary influence in the child's life.

In Proverbs 22 verse 6, we read,. Likewise, in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 6 through 7, we read,. And these words that I commanded you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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.

So, it's pretty clear that as parents, we are supposed to be the primary influence in our child's life, and we are supposed to train them up in the faith. It is the parent's role to be the primary instructor in their kid's life.

We read in Proverbs 1 verses 8 and 9,. Likewise, in Proverbs 6, 20 through 21, it says,. Bind them on your heart always. Tie them around your neck. You see, the problem is that in spite of the Bible's clear teaching about this, many parents send their kids off to a government-run school, which is actually hostile to the Christian faith.

And then, what happens is that they run into trouble in trying to actually fulfill this mandate, or fulfill this principle in Scripture. And what we see in the public school systems is really what I would describe as the fruits of wickedness being made manifest before our very eyes.

When we look at all of the school shootings, when we look at all of the violence and the rampant sexual immorality, kids having babies out of wedlock in high school, kids being introduced to pornography at a very young age, and when we look at the drug abuse that takes place, we're looking at rotten fruit of an evil and unholy system.

That's really what it is. And I believe that these symptoms are a systemic problem, and that we really can't address these symptoms until we address the underlying issues. So, what is the underlying issue?

Well, I would submit that it is a complete and total rejection of Christianity and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, let's think about this for just a minute. The Bible makes it clear that all wisdom, knowledge, and truth come from God alone.

Now, we have established institutions which have the primary function of educating young minds with wisdom, knowledge, and truth, but without God. And you see, they claim that what they're teaching is wisdom, knowledge, and truth, even though it runs contrary or contradictory to the Bible.

I believe it was Neil deGrasse Tyson who said in 2013, the good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it. Well, I would disagree with that, because as a scripturalist, and someone who's read Gordon Clark and even Bertrand Russell, recognize that science has epistemological limitations that it cannot overcome.

Science is a tool that allows the Christian, allows us to conquer the world, but there are epistemological limitations, and it doesn't really give us truth. But here's the problem, is that your kids are going to get Neil deGrasse Tyson's view of science in the public school system.

And when science runs up against the Christian worldview, it will be the Christian worldview that will be subverted and undermined in the minds of your kids. You see, I don't think a lot of parents have really stopped to consider just how anti-Christian the public schools really are.

And when I say anti-Christian, I'm sort of using it in the same sense in which the Bible uses the word Antichrist, because the word Antichrist really has a double meaning. The Antichrist in scripture is one who does oppose Christ, but it is not merely one who opposes Christ, but one who takes the place of Christ.

And here's what I mean by anti-Christian. The school system is not merely opposed to the Christian worldview, and it is opposed to the Christian worldview, but it also seeks to offer a worldview in place of the Christian worldview.

It is not neutral. The worldview that it offers is a secular humanist worldview in which mankind is the chief end of all things, or the final arbiter of truth. And that worldview is anti-Christian. Let me go ahead and play a video for you, coming to us from California, the great state of California that is just so liberal it's sickening.

This is a report from Fox News. This isn't a promotion for Fox News, but this video just happens to come from Fox News. And it was uploaded sometime in 2015. So this was a couple of years ago. Let's take a listen to this.

Gender Ideology in California Schools

An anti-discrimination program focused on gender diversity is drawing outrage from some conservative groups. Correspondent Claudia Cowan takes a fair and balanced look.

I see a lot of hands.

Instead of the three Rs, these elementary school kids in Oakland spent class time focusing on gender diversity and how they can choose to be a boy or a girl or both.

Gender identity is about in here. It's about what's up here and in here.

As part of a program set to combat bullying, Redwood Heights Elementary brought in Gender Spectrum, an activist group whose mission is to create more gender-sensitive environments for kids.

True or false, animals have only two genders.

These fourth graders were told that in nature, things aren't always what they seem. Some dolphins have both boy and girl parts, and clownfish can switch genders. Gender Spectrum says that diversity applies to people too.

Okay, let me go ahead and stop it right there, because this is just, this is insanity. Who cares what dolphins do? Nature is not a basis or a foundation for moral behavior. And that's essentially what we are talking about, whether you want to agree with it or not.

Is it morally right or acceptable to try to change your gender if you're a boy into a girl, or vice versa? And those are really the only two options. I mean, you don't have 64 or however many genders they've come up with now.

It's always changing, so it doesn't really even matter what the number is. It's always changing. But there are a number of reasons as to why this just completely fails. First of all, animals exhibit behavior that we would consider immoral.

Lions kill other lions and then kill the cubs of that pride and then try to force the female lions into mating so that they can bring about their own pride. Does that give you a basis for going and killing your neighbor and then trying to kill his kids?

I mean, think about this. Who cares what dolphins do? We're not dolphins. We're not animals. We're made in the image of God. And this basically comes from the idea that we are no different than any other animal.

We're just a little bit more evolved. And a more philosophical problem with this is that you're going to run into what came to be known as David Hume's guillotine, or the is-ought problem. And you can look this up, but I'll basically tell you exactly what it is.

It's the idea that you cannot get an ought statement that we ought to do something from an is statement, which is what we find in nature. The problem is that nature is only descriptive. And when we establish a system of morality, we need prescriptive statements.

And David Hume was no friend of Christianity, but he was at least clear-headed enough to recognize the logical blunder of trying to derive an ought prescriptive statement from an is descriptive statement.

And for those who want to buck the system, let me just inform you that it's a basic rule of logical inference that whatever concepts or terms you find in the conclusion of an argument must be present in at least one or more of the premises.

But nature can only describe what is the case. It cannot tell you what ought to be the case. So in the conclusion of your argument, you can't advocate for what we ought to do based off of what nature does do.

So I hope that's clear. This is insanity. Let's just finish this nonsense out.

People can be girls, feel like girls. They can feel like boys. They can feel like both. And they can even feel like, as I said, kind of like neither.

Critics say these lessons amount to indoctrination by activist groups.

Public schools are here to serve children and to educate children on behalf of the parents, not to cross the line and violate the rights of parents and families.

District officials say the topic of gender expression is part of a larger effort to ensure students feel welcome and safe.

Nobody's trying to influence the students to act in a specific way. We're just saying that if a student does exhibit these behaviors, that they should not be alienated, ostracized, or most of all, bullied because of it.

This school is taking a very extreme position in inculcating these children at a very young age with gender confusion as opposed to gender identity.

The school maintains most parents, teachers, and students had no problem with what was taught. But critics say there are not multiple genders, just boys and girls, and that this is the type of curriculum that could become commonplace throughout California if, as expected, pending legislation to teach transgender history to public school kids becomes law.

In Oakland, Claudia Cowan.

So let me just go ahead and tell you that that is one case in, I mean, so many. There's just simply not enough time to cover all of the cases, especially in California. But there are fights going on in North Carolina and other states right now that are having the exact same problem.

And that was in 2015. I've seen reports going back to 2011, and I mean, we're basically on a train wreck here, experiencing a train wreck. And it is astonishing at how quickly this is just going south.

Let me go ahead and just read briefly an article that came out from LifeSite on April 19th of this year, 2018. The article is titled, California school district says parents can't pull kids from new LGBT sex ed.

The article goes on to read, But only now are its controversial provisions starting to take effect in classrooms. Under the auspicious of health, the law says it will equip students to develop healthy attitudes on gender and sexual orientation, among other things.

It also says it will inform students about the effectiveness and safety of all FDA approved contraceptive methods and facilitate objective discussions about parenting, adoption, and abortion. Red state contributor, Kira Davis, a resident of Orange County, California, warns that among the teaching materials approved for use under this law are a study guide for the transgender children's book, I Am Jazz, as well as a sexual toolkit.

This toolkit offers kids tips on using sex toys. You know what, I'm just going to stop right there. This stuff is disgusting, what they're teaching kids. It is absolutely disgusting. Let me do this instead.

Let me actually read the memo that went out from this school district. This is outrageous. The memo reads,. In short, Education Code Section 51938 allows parents or guardians to excuse their children from all or part of comprehensive sexual health education and HIV education.

Well, that sounds good, right? But just wait. However, Education Code Section 51932B states that Section 51938, the one we just read, and the chapter entitled The California Healthy Youth Act does not apply to instruction, materials, or programming that discusses gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family, and does not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions.

Therefore, parents who disagree with the instructional material related to gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation may not excuse their children from this instruction. However, parents are free to advise their children that they disagree with some or all of the information presented in the instructional program and express their views on these subjects to their children.

Well, thank you, California, for giving us permission on what we may tell our kids. This is outrageous. If you are in the school district, if you are in California, if you are in North Carolina, if you are in some of these other places, you might want to consider very seriously that you need to get out of the public school system.

And I would actually advocate just homeschool your kid. I mean, if you graduated from high school, you're smart enough. It's not the most difficult thing in the world. They have curriculums out there for you.

They have co-op programs out there for you that you can get involved in. And let me just also say this, that I know and I understand that there are people out there who do not have this as an option.

Single moms who work may not have this as an option. How is she going to stay home and homeschool the kids? And this is really where I would like to see the church eventually step up and offer help in this type of situation.

Really, I think that's what the church is for, is to equip believers when they need the help. But let me be clear with everybody out there. If your kids are in the public school system, they are being indoctrinated.

The public school systems are not neutral. They are taught evolution. That man came from a single-celled organism and primordial soup. They are not made in the image of God, but they are nothing more than an animal or a creature.

Like the animals. Which is why we want to look at dolphins and say, well, hey, dolphins can do this. They can just be gender neutral. Or a boy dolphin can be a girl dolphin. So why can't we? Well, that's where they are getting this from.

And here's the other thing. Kids are not just being indoctrinated into an anti-Christian worldview by their curriculum and by what the teachers are giving them. But they are also being influenced by their peers into thinking a certain way and even acting a certain way.

Now, the Bible makes it clear. It tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 .33. Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Or another translation is bad company corrupts good character. And although the Bible actually tells us this and gives us this warning and says do not be deceived, we have many Christian parents who actually are deceived into thinking that their kids won't be influenced by their peers.

Yet, we see in Scripture that even the Apostle Peter and Barnabas gave into peer pressure at one point. And if you think about everything that Peter went through in his life with his walk with Jesus for three years.

He saw him crucified and then Jesus comes to him and restores him and tells him to feed his sheep and he sees the risen Lord. Even after all of that, Peter still gave into a form of peer pressure. This is what Paul writes in Galatians 2 .11 -14.

Let's go over that. Peter was eating with the Gentiles and then a party from James, the circumcision party, the Jews, came and he became fearful of what they might think or fearful of what they might say.

So he withdrew from the Gentiles and acted like the gospel meant nothing and he just basically shunned them and he led Barnabas and others astray with him. So if this can happen to the Apostle Peter, and obviously it's in Scripture because we can learn something from it, but if this can happen to Peter the Apostle after everything that he experienced, and I've heard parents say something like this, well, you know, my kid has done this at church and he's a youth leader and he does this and he's part of the worship team or whatever and okay, so he's experiencing some stuff at church.

Do you think that he's completely just impervious and immune to maybe being influenced by his friends or falling to peer pressure? I know I wasn't at that age. Honestly, I wasn't. And you see, in this instance, Peter just desired the affirmation of his peers more than he desired to be a servant of Christ.

And consequently, he led others to act hypocritically with him. So I'm submitting that this is because we are tempted at times to seek the approval of others. This is especially true of children when fathers fail to affirm their sons and daughters.

And I believe that this is part of the problem. I want to submit this to you. That many Christian fathers do not affirm their sons and daughters and consequently these kids seek the affirmation anywhere else they can get it.

Young girls often seek the attention and affirmation of young boys who do not care about them but just simply want to use them for their sexual perversions. And likewise, we see young men who seek the affirmation of their peers and this leads them into all sorts of trouble.

Many times these kids do not have what it takes at this age to just say no to their peers and they simply follow the whims of the culture. And as a result, sometimes this can be tragic. And as an example, I really didn't have to look outside of my own city for a glaring example of this.

Just recently, the El Paso Times published an article titled, Parkland Middle School Student Hit Killed on Loop 375 After Leaving Campus During Walkout. This is tragic. A Parkland Middle School 6th grader who left campus during the national walkout was killed when he was struck by a vehicle Friday morning on Loop 375 in northeast El Paso.

The boy who was 11 years old was hit by a Ford F -150 which was traveling north on Loop 375 at 1027 AM. He was taken to an area hospital where he died at 1130 AM officials said. This is tragic. What in the world was a middle school student doing in a walkout crossing a freeway?

Well, everybody else is doing it. You have people like David Hogg. If you don't know who David Hogg is, that kid's a mess and he needs Jesus. That's all I gotta say about that kid. But they're protesting gun violence in schools.

Is that where we are at in our society where middle schoolers who can't vote you can't change policy. They probably can't even tell us what the second amendment really is or what it was used for. If anything, these kids because they're wanting to walk out probably can't go past a few talking points that they've heard on some news organization like CNN.

Is this where we're at where these middle schoolers are staging a walkout? First of all, you're there for an education and it's an anti-Christian education anyways but you're there for an education. But hey, we're influenced by the culture.

Folks, this is sad and this is tragic. I can't say anything else about this but the fact that my heart just breaks for these parents. And finally, as I close out in this episode, I just want to tackle the idea that our kids are missionaries to the public school system.

Let's address this idea that our kids should be sent into the public schools as missionaries to reach the people who are lost. I've heard this put forth by several people several times and I'm just going to say that it is thoroughly confused.

I know that Jesus did say in Matthew 28 verse 19,. So, do you think our kids can fulfill this mandate by going to public school? I don't think so. You see, there is no historical or biblical precedent for a missionary for somebody who's actually going to do this to voluntarily submit themselves to the indoctrination process of an anti-Christian system in order to reach those who are participating in that system.

Yet, this is exactly what is required of those who wish to send their kids to public schools as missionaries. You see, you don't become part of the anti-Christ system in order to reach those who are held captive by that system.

We're not going to start going to Muslim churches and participating in their services just so that we can hopefully one day have a conversation with a friend, make a friend, bond for years, and hopefully one day the conversation will just come up and I can talk to them about Jesus.

No, that's not the way that it's done. And quite frankly, the indoctrination process that your kids go through in public school is intense. It is intense. And I don't think that that's a wise thing to advocate for.

So, listen, again, I know that there are other options besides homeschooling. You have private schools, and private schools are obviously a better choice than public schools. But I would submit, and this is just me, I would submit that if you can, homeschooling is the best option.

And I would say you can do it. There's help out there. There's resources. There's co-op programs. Alright, so that is going to be it for today. I want to say thank you for listening in to Semper Reformanda Radio.

Be on the lookout for all that is coming out of Thorn Crown Ministries. And again, the Bible alone is the Word of God.

You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down. Gonna stand my ground. Won't be turned around. And I'll keep this world from dragging me down. Gonna stand my ground.