In our previous blog Education In America: WHY We Do What We Do, we touched on a brief history of American education in order to understand the roots of WHY we do what we do. It would be wise to take an inventory of what has happened as a result of removing God from our schools and what we can actually DO to invoke change.
We can look all the way back to Adam and Eve to see our current trouble. Why were they booted out of the paradise that was literally perfect? Simple answer: Thirst for knowledge. But why? Think about it. They had God walking with them in the garden, and no doubt they had conversations with God. They could have asked him all sorts of things, and He would have probably delighted in answering their curious questions. After all, He created curiosity. So, why then did they get kicked out of the garden for thirsting for knowledge? Because they wanted the knowledge that was outside of God’s boundaries. And their choice separated them from God.
Mind and Spirit
The people who first came to America believed in educating the mind as well as the spirit. They often used the Bible as a textbook, keeping God integrated into the daily education of the children. Many of our founding fathers had been influenced by the philosophers who came out of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, where knowledge and reason were exalted as the end-all answer, and the spirit of man was not considered. We systematically removed God from education (and our culture). Today we call this secular humanism, and it has permeated our schools.
The American Humanist Association, whose tag line is “Good without a god,” is alive and active in its mission. Here is an excerpt from their own “About” section on their website:
”Humanism encompasses a variety of nontheistic views (atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, naturalism, secularism, and so forth) while adding the important element of a comprehensive worldview and set of ethical values – values that are grounded in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, informed by scientific knowledge, and driven by a desire to meet the needs of people in the here and now.
For the most part, we in America have accepted this humanism as the norm. Most of us are simply operating in ignorance. Ignorance of the true history of American education, ignorance of the definition of humanism, ignorance of any other available options for education. We simply accept it “as is” and then wonder what in the world is wrong with children today.
Just as Adam and Eve chose to pursue knowledge outside of God, somewhere in the foundation of our American education system we chose to do the same. We opted for “good without a god” and pursued the education of the mind without also educating the spirit. And really, we must ask ourselves WHY? Just looking at raw statistics, we can see clearly that the American system of education is producing sub-par results academically. And by sub-par, I mean that in the most recent testing of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the United States ranked #38 in math and #24 in science (out of 71 countries). (Pew Research Center, Fact Tank)
WHY do we insist on keeping God out of our education system? Many simply attribute this to the simple fact of “separation of church and state,” but many people in our country are not aware that the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in our Constitution. Rather, it appears in a letter by Thomas Jefferson when he was giving his view of the First Amendment phrase that says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This was NOT a call for us to remove God from our schools, but as God’s people in our nation, we drift ignorantly on, letting humanism push its agendas in the lives of our children.
How can you help?
So, is there anything we can do to change an educational system that has chosen at its foundation to remove God and to exalt mind knowledge instead? 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, intercessors must enter strategic-level spiritual warfare. They must know the history of American education in order to see the root causes and pray against the deep root issues (e.g. the spirit of reason).
