Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're looking at a move from education to indoctrination. We're asking the question, what is happening in our schools?

This is prompted by an article that was in the Wall Street Journal this week about socialists who are seeking to take control of New York City schools. The democratic socialist of America, kind of political entity, is targeting control of the New York teachers union seeking to have influence in that political entity to then have influence over what schools are teaching. And this is interesting because this happened successfully in Chicago when they took over the Chicago's teacher union. As a result, the Chicago School System took a nosedive. It shifted its goals from educational goals, things like test scores, reading levels, to political activism, raising issues that the democratic socialist felt were necessary.

It also resulted in things like spending a lot of money on political ad campaigns. Chicago teachers union spent over $6,000,000 on political ads, not to mention that one of its own party members is now the mayor of Chicago. The consequence of that shift and focus is that really just about every educational metric in Chicago plummeted. Student test scores, for example, tanked. And as a result, it left people in Chicago wondering, wait a second.

When did we go from thinking about education to thinking about political activism? And now the process is repeating in New York. Now if you're listening to this, there's a good chance you don't live in Chicago or New York, and that's not really the point I wanna make. Hey. What's happening with their school systems?

Instead, I wanna make this point. Do you know what's happening in yours? Because I think a lot of times Christians are incredibly passive when it comes to these kinds of things. We tend to just assume that everything's going well and someone would tell us if that wasn't the case. But the truth is, if you live in Chicago or New York, the Wall Street Journal might tell you.

But in smaller towns and smaller communities across America, if you aren't paying attention, these kinds of changes happen without you even realizing it. And that isn't an educational problem or even just a societal problem. It's a spiritual problem. The Bible tells us that we should train up children in the way that they should go, that one generation should cast vision to the next. It's putting the burden of child raising and child rearing onto us, parents and the community of faith.

That doesn't mean we don't enlist the help of other people, dentists, doctors, maybe even teachers and public schools. But it does mean we're aware that schools are shaping our children in more ways than just teaching them to read and write. We need vigilance, not passivity. This is the kind of life that first Corinthians sixteen thirteen, for example, is calling us to live. A life of sober mindedness, of paying attention to what's going on around us, especially, of course, as it relates to our children.

There's always a human desire to take the good things that god has given us, like our minds or our communities or even school systems, and to change them to produce something other than what god has wanted. Look. There's nothing wrong with school systems teaching our kids about justice and how to pursue it. But a pursuit of justice, independent of God ordained concepts of morality and truth and integrity won't just lead our children in the wrong direction in terms of not going to God. It can take them to some pretty dark and difficult places.

The history, for example, of left leaning socialism left unchecked by religion goes to some really dark places. We don't want our children being cultivated and inculcated in this environment. The church must influence the classroom. I know many of us grew up in a generation where we thought those things had to be kept separate. Like, I don't know where that idea came from.

The truth is we can't superimpose our morality and our religion on the classroom, but, of course, we bring our worldview to the classroom the same way the democratic socialist of America do. What Christians have done is applied the concept, so called, of separation of church and state to ourselves while everyone else ignores it. You don't need to make everybody else worship your god in your child's classroom. You do need to make sure that your child knows who your god is and isn't being led away from that god or even basic concepts of morality and justice that you want them to know and teach. When Jesus said to be the salt of the earth, to be the light of the world, that we were a city on a hill, He did not give us an exemption for the classroom.

We have to be salt and light in our children's lives, in the lives of our community, which means paying attention and pushing back against awful ideas that are not only not honoring to God, but historically have been pretty horrific. So are you paying attention? If not, start now. Start asking questions. Start showing up to meetings.

Let's make sure our schools are educating, not indoctrinating. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!