I was rocking my 11-month-old daughter on my lap as the news of the Columbine school shootings unfolded. I stared at the TV as videos of shocked and frightened high schoolers flooded every channel. It had only been a few short years since I too had been a public school teacher, and the Columbine incident shook me. My mind was pleading with the same question that most people were also asking: What was going on with America’s schools? What was the root of the chaos? And what could be done to change it?
Really…What is going on in our schools?
According to The Washington Post, from the time of the Columbine shootings in 1999 until the year 2018, there were “more than 226,000 students who have experienced gun violence at school….” And gun violence is only one of many issues that are plaguing our educational system in America.
When we are looking at what is wrong at the root level of American education, we can sometimes get sidetracked by the big issues like teen pregnancies, gang violence, teacher/student sex scandals, and “bathroom laws” that allow students to choose which gender bathroom they use on campus. But what about academics–the reason we place our children in schools in the first place? How do our schools rank? Academically speaking, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) ranked the United States 38th in math and 24th in science out of 71 countries.
Clearly, something is not right. Even huge proponents of public education would be hard pressed to argue with the simple fact that our schools are not up to par. But why??
The Root of the Educational System in America
According to Nancy Huff, a veteran public school teacher and author of Taking the Mountain of Education: A Strategic Prayer Guide to Transform American Schools, the false gods (idols) of Baal and Molech are at the root of the educational system in the United States. Though Baal took on many forms throughout history, the basic idea of Baal worship is putting faith in something that is made by man’s hands. It is always man’s attempt to create a god apart from the one true God.
In America, we have wrapped Baal up in a different package, calling it humanism. In short, humanism is an emphasis on the human rather than the divine (God). The American Humanist Association’s tagline is “Good without a god,” and their organization touts itself as a place where “being good without a god is an accepted and respected way to live life.” (American Humanist Association website)
We will be detailing the history of American education in future blog posts, but for now, let’s concentrate on the fact that there IS a root cause of all the troubling symptoms we are seeing in our schools. We must first grasp the importance of learning about the origin of the issues. If we focus on addressing the symptoms only, we end up throwing more money, time, and energy at the symptom, meanwhile letting the root grow undetected beneath the surface. And the results continue to be increased violence and decreased academic levels in our schools. Year after year we see similar results. By simply naming the root cause, we can begin to move towards a solution.
What Can Be Done to Address The Root Problem?
In the book Taking the Mountain of Education: A Strategic Prayer Guide to Transform American Schools, we must first understand that Baal and Molech are at the foundation of our educational system. Then we must divorce Baal and Molech. It is through repentance, prophetic prayers, and proclamations that we release the Spirit of God into the atmosphere of our schools.
This can be spearheaded by active prayer intercessors who step up to their posts and bring about change through the most powerful means possible: prayer.And this is not just your average lay-me-down-to-sleep prayer but rather the earnest prayer of an intercessor who knows the power of relentlessly asking, seeking, knocking until change occurs.
Whether we are seeking an answer to school shootings or the academic state of our schools or any number of issues, it is wise for us to go back to the historical roots of our educational system and learn what the foundation is. By doing that, we can ascertain why things are the way they are. And going back to God as our source, we can gather the blueprint for how to evoke changes.
