FOR SOME REASON, our country is embroiled in a debate over an issue that should be firmly settled: the role parents play in overseeing their children’s education.
Those on one side of the political spectrum — the conservative side — say parents should have a voice over the educational material. While they don’t insist on determining the curriculum or grade standards, they want oversight over core values, including what passes for acceptable information on sexual behavior and issues related to race and gender identity.
Those on the other side — I’m not even sure why there is an other side, but it’s the liberal side — supports the indoctrination of our youth to comply with liberal politics of the national teachers unions.
WHAT’S YOUR GENDER?
ADD TO THE LEFT’S support of same-sex attraction as a normal “alternative” life style is its sadistic support of children changing their gender, from recognizing the alternate first names they choose corresponding with their new gender to honoring the gender-appropriate pronouns accompanying their new gender identity.
THE BIBLE TELLS US to teach our children well, tell them about God and, as mothers and fathers, discipline them in the Lord with love and patience.
Yet, in today’s world, most of our children are taught (programmed?) by government-run public schools, many of which promote non-biblical values and demonize parents who raise objections.
How can that be?
That’s before we get to racial relations, where the left divides the classroom into “oppressors” and “oppressed” based on their race; global climate change hysteria; and demonizing our country’s Founding Fathers for having owned slaves, a common practice at the time, before Christians were able to put a stop to it.
While slave ownership is not something to admire, it was common around the globe 200 years ago, and our Founders struggled with the idea.
GENERATIONAL MORAL CODE
JUDGING ONE GENERATION’s moral code by the morality of another generation hundreds of years later is a monumental misstep. Not only can the deceased not defend themselves but it leaves their detractors open to the same scapegoating from generations yet to come.
Would leftists who sanctimoniously condemn slaveholders George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison — giants of an earlier era who brought forth the American Experiment — want the spotlight turned on them?
What moral failings of today could our progeny point to in disgust? Let’s look at a few examples:
- Abortion Rights — killing innocent lives in the womb;
- Exorbitant Debt — passing down entitlements costs to future generations;
- Urban Decay — skyrocketing violent crime;
- Educational Failure — declining test scores.
To that short list, we can add inflation, porous borders, mask mandates, and cancellation of dissent, plus many more.
Would today’s leftist crusaders want to stand up to values scrutiny from moral scolds 200 years from now based on THAT record?
SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT
- ISAIAH 54:13 (NKJV): All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.
- PROVERBS 1:8-9 (ESV): Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.
- MATTHEW 19:14 (NASB20): But Jesus said, “Leave the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
At least our Founding Fathers contributed something useful to hand their successors — a republic!
What contribution will our statue topplers, hero bashers, and sexual perverts leave for THEIR successors?
BIBLICAL VALUES ENDURE
THOSE OF US who take our Bibles seriously, especially those portions instructing us on how to raise our children (“It was that you should have children who are truly God’s people.” Malachi 2:15 (GNT)), know that God’s values, purposes, and agenda never vary. (“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 (NKJV))
What we’re seeing in the government-run schools, however, is anything but the eternal and universal values of our Creator.
Instead, they are the shadow values of the Great Imitator, the one Jesus warned us about: “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10a (NLT))
Jesus contrasts that dismal outlook with His own promise: “I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” (John 10:10b (NET))
POSTSCRIPT
THE LORD CLEARLY WANTS us to tell our children about Him, His goodness, His grace, mercy, and love, and also His righteous judgments, reserved for those who reject Him.
He says, “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.” — Psalms 78:4 (ESV)
We are not to leave that chore to the churches and professional Christians but are to handle it ourselves, leading by example and teaching them God’s Word.
Even more important, we need to pray for our children, starting even before they’re conceived in the womb and right through the day we take our last breath on earth.
God says, “I want Godly children.”
LORD, MAY IT BE SO.
PRAYER
ABBA FATHER GOD, how often do we fail to teach our children of the Lord’s will, of His love and His wrath, of His mercy and His judgment, of His call on our lives and our duty to obey. As our children grow to adulthood, we lose the role of protective parents with absolute authority to tell them Your truth, but we can continue fervently to pray for their conviction and to lead by example, to the best of our ability, with God’s help. O Lord, have mercy on our children’s souls, and the souls of their children, and so on down the line, that they will not suffer eternally for our failings. Bring them to repentance that our joy may be complete. In the majestic name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. AMEN
LoveAndGrace 