Quite often I download radio programs from www.worldviewweekend.com and listen to them as I drive my car. While I cannot recommend any of the speakers without reservation, there is a lot of good information presented, and I do consider Brannon Howse, and most of the speakers, to be co-travellers with me.
That being said, I must state that Scripture would have you and me to be Bereans (Acts 17:10-12), and to check-out everything you hear by the Scriptures. You cannot trust any man, even if he claims to be a man of God!
So the other day Brannon stated that the idea that the citizen belongs to the state, as well as the origin of state education, comes from Aristotle, and in fact is a part of the pagan worldview!
Coming from a family of public-school teachers, this caught my attention! (my grandmother, mother, two sisters, my daughter-in-law, and numerous cousins are, or were, public school teachers) Having been a product of the public education system myself, there is also the question “What does this mean about my own education?”
So I searched for the writings of Aristotle on-line, and found that what he was saying is true. Here is the second paragraph of Aristotle’s “Politics” book 8, part 1;
“Again, for the exercise of any faculty or art a previous training and habituation are required; clearly therefore for the practice of virtue. And since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and not private- not as at present, when every one looks after his own children separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he thinks best; the training in things which are of common interest should be the same for all. Neither must we suppose that any one of the citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole. In this particular as in some others the Lacedaemonians are to be praised, for they take the greatest pains about their children, and make education the business of the state.”
Of course it is apparent from the last paragraph that public education preceded Aristotle, but it also appears that his writings popularized it,and facilitated its spread around the world. Aristotle was definitely a pagan, as were the Lacedaemonians, and so we see the beginnings of the attempt of the pagan world to control the thoughts of their citizens.
This practice continued throughout the middle ages in Europe where the Roman Catholic Church was the power behind the governments. Individual thought was prohibited and persecuted. Christians were tortured for owning bibles, fed to lions, and burned at the stake, with estimates of the martyrs as high as sixty million dead! No doubt the Roman Catholic church was following the teaching of Aristotle, the pagan, but this is no surprise since the Jesus of Rome is none other than the pagan god Tammuz.
The Muslims also followed this teaching, in their long standing practice of Jihad, and the numbers of dead at the hands of Islam, since Muhammad, are in the range of 270,000,000,000 people, and still climbing every day! The Muslim Issue estimates that the actual number of dead by Jihad is as high as 669 million, and they have evidence to prove it!
No, the human race has a tendency to think it has the right to enslave others, either literally or through education.
The Communists of the 20th century also had a go at this practice, and everyone was forced to attend state schools. Those who refused to follow the party line were imprisoned and many lost their lives in the gulags. The number of the dead in Russia is around 60 million. In China those killed by the communist party number around 30 million. The National Socialists in Germany, while they killed 6 million Jews, also killed between 16-20 million other nationalities, including Germans, in their concentration camps.
People, whenever they start to think of themselves as superior, always have a tendency to devalue the lives of others. Leftists like the Communists and Nazis killed over 150,000,000,000 people, and at the same time all of these groups practiced state run educational systems. In fact all of the groups I have listed above had one form or other of state run education systems, and in fact all of them kept their people in a state of semi-educated ignorance!
While this was going on in other parts of the world, the western world of the UK, Canada, and the USA were leading the world in technological innovation. The technological innovations of the west, over the last 200 years are too numerous to count, but this will stop because the west has not learned the lessons of fascism, but are now following suit!
Our education systems teach fables to our children. Even our universities are mixing fables with truth, and their students are not equipped to tell the difference!
Very clearly the early public education system, in both Canada and the USA were driven by teachers who had some sort of Christian faith, and their desire was to teach the gospel and to see their students saved and to become productive members of society. Their error was thinking that the government should do what God ordained that parents should do.
Satan takes a long view of history
Satan could not reveal his goal from the beginning so he had to introduce the idea using “good” goals and then gradually change the system from within. North American public education has been an enemy of God for a long time now. It didn’t start with the abolishment of public prayer in the 1960s, but much further back than that.
We always fail whenever we disobey the commandments of God;
Aaron, and the Levites, were to teach Israel, it was not to be left to the pagans;
Leviticus 10:11
And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.
Note that the “children” of Israel here are the adults of Israel.
Then the parents of Israel were to teach their own children;
Deuteronomy 4:9
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;
Deuteronomy 6:7
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deuteronomy 11:19
And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
This did not stop with Israel, but continues in the Church-age;
I Corinthians 12:28
And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
Teaching is not only for pastors and elders;
Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
II Timothy 2:24
And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
Some, who have been Christians for a long time, and now should be teachers are lazy, and too busy with the world’s business.
Hebrews 5:12
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
There is a time in every Christian’s life, when they should be teaching someone. God does not leave the teaching of doctrine to a professional class of pastors and teachers. Yes they have a role, but it is your job to hold them accountable to the Scriptures.
Ephesians 6:4
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Yes, the bible does say that it is the responsibility for fathers to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
I Peter 3:15
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
If the little man or woman in your house asks about the hope that is in you, it is your responsibility to answer them and not leave it to “professional” teachers. Even if they don’t ask, it is your job to teach them the gospel.
It is not primarily the responsibility of mothers, although they are partners with their husband, and should assist them in this task, but too many fathers have left the spiritual training of their children to their wife, to the Church, or to the public schools.
This is the whole reason we are in the mess we are in!
housetops 