Public Schools and Tyranny

Way back in 1923 J. Gresham Machen could foresee how public schools would become the “perfect instrument of tyranny” — a tool the state would use to indoctrinate America’s youth with its own secular, relativistic, and materialistic philosophies.

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. But the principle of such laws and their ultimate tendency are far worse than the immediate results. A public school system, in itself, is indeed of enormous benefit to the race. But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of private schools. A public-school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficial achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the Middle Ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the ultimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free.

The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to go on unchecked, will rapidly make of America one huge “Main Street,” where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens.

~ Christianity and Liberalism

A Nation in Need of a Radical Solution

As I write, a number of states are holding primary elections as a precursor to the general election in the fall. The big question is, will any of these elections bring the significant change needed to reverse our nation’s decline?

It’s not likely.

It’s not that I’m cynical. Nor do I think there are no differences between candidates. But as a society we have conferred upon the State the power to save us, and this the State cannot do. We have put our faith in politics, but the politicians are unable to deliver.

At least part of the population is beginning to recognize this. That’s good news, and gives us some hope that there are those who are up for radical change. The bad news is that the masses still like the idea of the State as a provider, and want to continue to get from the State whatever they can.

This cannot go on. We need a radical turn around – and soon — because here’s the root of the matter.

Over the past years we’ve seen God increasingly marginalized from American life. Everyone knows it, and the pace of denying God’s place just seems to be accelerating.

But there’s something else that’s been going on at the same time. While God has been increasingly marginalized, the State has been increasingly idolized. That is, we’ve come to the place where we look to the State as an idol, to assure us that we will be secure and satisfied — no matter what sane principles we may violate.

C.S Lewis on Tyranny

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

~ C.S Lewis

The Fate of All Towers of Babel

From The Chalcedon Foundation . . .

“At Babel, men resumed the task in process before the Flood. At Sodom and Gomorrah, Assyrian, Babylon, Rome, and in the modern states, men continue that task. The results are still the same, God’s destroying judgment on man’s Babylonian heart and works. The things which are, God subjects to His shaking, His destroying judgments, so that only those things which cannot be shaken may remain (Heb. 12:18-29).

Man’s attempt to unify man in his sin and revolt against God, and to take owner ownership and control over all possessions from their true owner, God, is smashed. All possessions are a trust from the Lord; the status of civil government is that of a minister (Rom. 13:4), i.e., a deacon or a steward, under God, and the same is true of all men.

This being the case, our work too is a stewardship and a trusteeship and is to be governed accordingly. When God created Adam, and set him in the Garden of Eden, He first commanded Adam to till or work the Garden, and to keep or guard it (Gen. 2:15). Only after that commandment to work is Adam told what he is permitted to eat (Gen. 2:16-17). Before the permission to eat of the fruits and produce came the necessity of being committed to work for the upkeep of the Garden. There were boundaries placed on Adam’s area, i.e., the limits of the Garden, on his diet, and on his activities or work, because the earth and Adam were alike God’s creation and hence totally subject to His law-word.

In Babel, this order was reversed. The city, its tower, and both work and possessions therein were the property of Babel. Stewardship and responsibility were to the state, and work also. In the modern state, we are totally circumscribed by man’s law, not God’s. The boundaries of our life and work, as well as the uses of our money, are regulated by the state. This is the nature of every Tower of Babel, past and present. The future of all Babels is described by the angel of Revelation 14:8, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”

The church at its worst has never equalled the modern state in its tyranny. It is a mark of the self-willed blindness of our time that men profess to fear a return to Christian rule rather than the statist tyranny which prevails.”

~ R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, p. 1035f