What is Faith & Public Education (Part 1)

Introduction

It’s that time of year again. That time when everyone gets ready to send their kids off to the concentration camps, I mean to the indoctrination centers of Right Think, I mean the grand halls of intellectual integrity, tolerance and fortitude, the government schools. Given this and given that sending their kids off on the trains, I mean the yellow school bus, is really the only thing that ninety percent of evangelicals have in common it is also that time of year when I release some episodes pissing all over those idols.

Last year we released episode nine titled, Public School: Stupid Is As Stupid Does, which is our number one watched video and listened to episode and episode eleven titled, Public School Idolatry. Now, given that these two masterful works were absolutely brilliant masterclass takedowns of the public schools, one could rightly wonder why I would do any more episodes on public education? And given that I have really been working on growing in humility, I can’t help but agree.

However, this year I wanted to do something a little bit different. We most certainly will still have all of our guns set on the public school as the chief administrator and facilitator and indoctrinator of secularism which is the chief ideological idol opposed to Christianity in our day. So yes, our guns are set on the public schools, but they are also set on all of the evangelical supporters of this godless socialist system in the name of evangelism that they may get around to at some point.

The fact of the matter is, evangelicals, given their uncanny and unwavering support of the public schools despite all sound reason and judgment to the contrary are, ironically the most vociferous supporters of godlessness in our country. Not only that, but despite what many of those same evangelicals would profess to be a deep love for their country, they are also systematically destroying it by supporting the greatest socialist program our country has ever known.

Despite all of their good intensions, which really amounts to nothing other than that, they are not only systematically tearing down with their left hand what they are trying to build with their right hand, but are spending a ridiculous amount of money in the process. However, what they are actually doing is much worse than that, in that, it’s not a wash…it’s not a very expensive zero-sum game. No, they are actively building what they are fighting against, and they are the ones paying for it. And worse yet, they are very passionate about doing so. I think Ezekiel would call them terrible whores.

All of this needs to be addressed, and challenged constantly and without apology, however, this year we are looking for wisdom from the past in order to get us there. It’s no secret to anyone that I am a fan of J. Gresham Machen having already done seven episodes reflecting on, what I believe to be, his most important and influential work, in Christianity and Liberalism written in 1923.

Machen raises concerns in this book regarding public education when he writes,

“When one considers what the public schools of America in many places already are – their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudo-scientific fads of experimental psychology – one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which there is no escape from such a soul-killing system. A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised.”

However, written a couple years after Christianity and Liberalism, is the lesser known but still equally awesome book, What is Faith? Now, it’s true, Machen’s objective in this book is not to bring down public education, however, he does seem to be much less optimistic than the above quoted, “is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times” almost seeing it as an unavoidable, temporary evil that would be better if it went the way of all the earth.

So I wanted to take some time to reflect upon some brief statements that he made regarding public education in, What is Faith? For the few of you out there that know of some obscure essay that Machen wrote regarding public education that is more extensive than the comments made in this book, that may be true, but you’re a dork and nobody likes you, and yes, you should get out more.

By What Standard?

In 1925, Machen published What is Faith? dealing with many of the same things brought up in Christianity and Liberalism, namely, the liberal disdain for definitions and their divorcing of religious experience from the mind, coupled with their disdain for historical Biblical Christianity. So then, his primary focus in this work is that Christian faith cannot be divorced from the mind. Machen, clearly denounces the purely pragmatic religion that was popular in the church in his day that emphasized experience, not just over the mind, but devoid of the mind, which somehow, miraculously made it more spiritual.

Contrary to what many said in his time and in our own, rigorous intellectual study of the

Scriptures and a genuine supernatural experience of the Godhead through Christ, by the Spirit are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one may not be necessary for the other, but it should go without saying and should also be painfully obvious that one enhances the other. For example, deeper knowledge of something should coincide with a deeper experience of said something.

Therefore, given this, it would seem impossible for Machen to not make some comments on the nature of education generally, and public education specifically, though it should also be noted that these are general comments in relation to his topic and not an exhaustive treatise on public education.

It should also be noted that Machen is not shy about placing the priority where it belongs

regarding education when he writes,

“The absence of doctrinal teaching and preaching is certainly one of the causes for the present lamentable ignorance in the Church. But a still more influential cause is found in the failure of the most important of all Christian educational institutions. The most important Christian educational institution is not the pulpit or the school, important as these institutions are; but it is the Christian family. And that institution has to a large extent ceased to do its work.”

What was a failure in Machen’s day is most certainly a colossal failure in our own. This is

important to note on the front end, as to avoid some obvious, but apparently not too obvious pitfalls on both sides. One is that if we just fix public education then everything will be better. But of course, in order to “fix” something one has to have a standard with which to bring it into conformity. Where does said, educational standard or starting point lay? Machen rightly says, in the home. If it doesn’t start there, parents are still looking to the state to fix the problems caused by looking to the state to fix the problems. Perhaps the most brilliant among us would say something along the lines of, “stupid is as stupid does,” or, “that is just plain old, violently stupid.”

Another pitfall is just assuming that if public education is bad, then the removing of public education would be good. Of course, I believe this to be the case however, this doesn’t go far enough. Then what? The sole responsibility of raising your children in the fear and nurture of the Lord, which most certainly includes their education still rests squarely on the parent’s shoulders. You can’t say, public school is bad and then send them off to be raised by someone else in an institution that functions just like a public school, even if that someone is a specialist and can teach them Latin, which will pay huge dividends in the future I’m sure.

At root, the underlying problem is always religious, Machen laments,

“That is the old way of coming to Christ – first penitence at the dread voice of the law, then joy at the gracious invitation of the Saviour. But that way, in recent years, is being sadly neglected. Nothing is more characteristic of the present religious conditions than the loss of the consciousness of sin; confidence in human resources has now been substituted for the thankful acceptance of the grace of God.”

Idols never deliver on their promises and always create the problems they propose to solve. In this case, the use of the Law of God to expose and convict one of sin in order to drive one to the foot of the cross, was minimized and even removed from the equation so that one need not have to deal with that pesky annoyance of one’s complete inability and their consciousness of sin. The only problem is, that when you remove the use of the Law of God as a means to convict of sin you also remove the standard of righteousness to which one is to conform.

Ironically, the removal of God’s law has the effect of the imposition of an alternative law, but it is not law that leads to the reception of grace, because man isn’t perceived to be fallen but rather imperfect, nor is it a law that leads to righteousness because the character of a righteous God is no longer the standard to which one is to conform. Thus, the solution proposed is what created the problem in the first place. Kinda like driving faster in the wrong direction to get to your destination. Again, Machen writes,

“Indeed, strangely enough, it is obscured in the sphere of education just by those who are becoming most keenly conscious of the moral bankruptcy of modern life. There is something radically wrong with our public education, it is said; an education that trains the mind without training the moral sense is a menace to civilization rather than a help; and something must quickly be done to check the impending moral collapse. To meet this need, various provisions are being made for moral training in our American public schools; various ethical codes are being formed for the instruction of children who are under the care of the State. But the sad thing is that these efforts are only making the situation tenfold worse; far from checking the ravages of immorality, they are for the most part themselves non-moral at the roots.”

The primary target in Machen’s sights regarding public education in his time was the imposition of a morality code as devised by the state. Now, most modern listeners would answer this objection with a hardy, “WHAT? Why in the world would he do that.” In fact, most parents today would be quite happy with this and even see this as the goal. “If we could just get morality back into the schools then everything would be better.” But whose morality? By what standard should behavior be conformed?

If you abandon God’s law, which creates an impending moral collapse, why would one seek a solution in anything other than repentance? Now, don’t get me wrong. I would much prefer the Stoicism being pushed in Machen’s day to the prevailing insanity in our own that Machen couldn’t even imagine, nor could we ten years ago. However, it’s important to note that when you cast off all restraint and remove, “Thus saith the Lord” from the equation, respectable morality will always and inevitably lead to unrespectable degeneracy.

Machen dealt with a veiled anti-Christian polemic that belittled the differences of all creeds, stressing the universality of the brotherhood of all men and the virtues that should be pursued and taught in schools. It’s tempting to say, “that’s certainly preferred over the unveiled anti-Christian polemic that we have today.” However, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t putting Humpy Dumpty back together again, nor are they getting that trannies junk back in his pants again.

What this should do for us, is enable us to see that the solutions being proposed by the vast majority on the right, including the vast majority of evangelicals regarding public education are the very solutions of yesterday that lead to the problems of today.

Machen, in responding to the, “Children’s Morality Code” that was recently published, in his day, by “The Character Education Institution” in D.C. said,

“But the real objection to some, if not all, of these efforts does not depend upon details; it depends rather upon the fact that the basis of the effort is radically wrong.”

The basis for this effort, and I would argue for all government education, is to create good citizens as defined by the State. Why should their Morality Code be taught by teachers and studied by students? Well, in order to find out what Uncle Sam thinks is right.

This led Machen to ask,

“But what of those not infrequent cases where what ‘Uncle Sam’ thinks is right is what God thinks is wrong? To say to a child, ‘Do not tell a lie because you are an American,’ is at bottom an immoral thing. The right thing to say is, ‘Do not tell a lie because it is wrong to tell a lie.’ And I do not think that it is an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into the public schools for a teacher to say that.”

Again, let me just point out the obvious, when you’ve conceded the principle you get all the consequences that follow. When parents conceded that there is a neutral realm, in which brute facts can be instructed apart from any reference to Christ, and that there is a universal morality apart from God’s law that can be taught in the government school, they said that the government has the ability and authority to be the interpretive grid through which these things are filtered. Or, in short, they could be as God sitting on the judgment seat.

If you don’t like what they are teaching or not teaching today, that doesn’t much matter. You’ve already conceded the principle. So you can complain about it all you want, but at the end of the day they don’t care. And you can go ahead and continue to try and evangelize the schools. They don’t really care about that either because they are the ones hiring all the teachers.

By sending your kids to a government school you are saying that they have the authority to instruct your children and to set the curriculum. They will do this in a way that is advantageous to them. In Machen’s day, a stoic morality was preferred to a Christian morality. In our day, a woke morality is preferred to a Christian morality. Either way, they will never ever teach something that opposes their authority. Paraphrasing Voddie, if you send your kids to Caesar you shouldn’t complain when they come back acting like Romans.

Trying to make America great again without any notion of what made her great in the first place is a fool’s errand, and trying to return to some form of universal morality and virtue of a bygone era in the public schools is also a fool’s errand.

Machen writes, and please take note that this is a rebuke of those on the left and the right,

“In general, the holier-than-thou attitude towards other peoples, which seems to be implied in the programme of the Character Education Institution almost from beginning to end, is surely, at the present crisis in the history of the world, nothing short of appalling. The child ought indeed to be taught to love America, and to feel that whether it is good or bad it is our country. But love of country is a very tender thing, and the best way to kill it is to attempt to inculcate it by force. And to teach, in defiance of the facts, that honesty and kindness and purity are peculiarly American virtues – this is surely harmful in the extreme. We blamed Germany, rightly or wrongly, for this kind of thing; yet now in the name of patriotism we advocate as truculent an inculcation of the same spirit as Prussia could ever have been accused of at its worst. Surely the only truly patriotic thing to teach the child is that there is one majestic law to which our own country and all the countries of the world are subject.”

Morality cannot be based on the experience of the human race generally or on the experience of the nation specifically.

“Moral standards were powerful only when they were invested with an unearthly glory and were treated as quite different in kind from all rules of expediency. The truth is that decency cannot be produced without principle.” J. Gresham Machen

When the solid masonry of God’s law is abandoned for the muddy embarkments of the state sponsored religion of secularism, society cannot and will not stand. Most Christians, I hope would be in agreement at this point, but then make an exception regarding government education. This is where the worldview rubber begins to meet the worldview road because it actually begins to affect them in a very real experiential way. They say, “I would never bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue…but, is it really bowing if...” Or, “how can we ever win anyone to Christ if we don’t bow.” Or, “I will bow, but I’m not happy about it.” Or, “I bowed, but not in my heart.”

Sending your kids to the government to be educated is bowing. Well, if ninety percent of

evangelicals are doing it, it can’t be wrong, right? Tell that to Shadrach, Meshach and

Abednego.

Conclusion

What is the foundation on which all government public education stands? It’s a very simple question. If Christians, can look at the government education juggernaut and say clearly that it is founded on Christ then they would have the burden of proof to show that, just as we have the burden of proof showing that it is not. However, this is not a discussion that evangelicals are having for excruciatingly obvious reasons. In fact, every single reason proposed by evangelicals as to why they are justified in sending their kids to government schools presupposes that the schools are diametrically opposed to Christ.

Jesus concluded His Sermon on the Mount with the following words,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:24-27

If ninety percent of evangelicals are trying to build on sinking sand, contrary to Christ’s own words, what do we honestly think the results are going to be? The results will be much worse than the loss of labor and time and resources. It will be the unbearable fate of being led by godless imbeciles and morons. Paul said, that in Christ are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). If He is rejected, what else can we expect?