Humanism

Humanism in Education

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Humanism

Lesson: 2-8

Genre: Lecture

Track: 11

Dictation Name: RR141A2

Location/Venue: Conference, Greenville

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

…As it approaches the subject of education has a radically different purpose then does Christianity. I think we can best understand humanism by going to the first humanist manifesto. Now the first humanist manifesto that most people are familiar with is one that was issued in the 1930’s. But actually the original humanist manifesto goes back to the Garden of Eden. The tempter said: ‘Ye shall be as God, every man his own God, knowing, that is determining for yourself what constitutes good and evil.’

This is the first and great humanist manifesto. It is at the root of all sin and of all humanism. Because humanism is that religion which logically develops the implications of the fall into a religion. This is why it is so dangerous to turn our children over to humanists to be educated, and why it is a sin.

Now, when the child is brought up in terms of humanistic teaching, the curriculum is to use the words of the progressive educators, child centered. The child centered curriculum. Shelves full of books have been written in this century on that subject, the child centered curriculum. The whole purpose of the child centered curriculum is to enable the child to see his centrality in life. The world is to revolve around the individual. The child must learn to realize himself.

Now at once we have a conflict of course with our faith. Because instead of self realization, what our faith says as it comes to the child whether in the home or the church or in the Christian School. ‘Mans chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.’ Not self realization, but the fulfillment of God’s requirements of us.

The glory of His kingdom, this is our purpose.

Now ideas do have consequences. If we believe something, we are going to act on it. Some years ago, one very astute psychologist observed: “We are today a product of what we were thinking about intensely for the past 6 months. So we had better guard our thoughts.” A very astute observation. Now, if a child is brought up to see himself as the center of things, it has ugly consequences. Humanism speaks of the innocence of the child. Our faith speaks of the child as a sinner, a world of difference between the two.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with a pastor here in the south, The Doctor Robert (Mounts?), anyone here? Yes, one person. Well, Bob (Mount?) is an old friend, and something of a son of mine in the faith. Even though he is a Baptist. Bob is a marvelous person and a delightful sense of humor, and I recall with delight the fact that he once mentioned that when his son was born, he welcomed that son with such joy, and looked at him asleep in his mother’s arms, and said: “That child is such an angel, a bundle of innocence.” And he named the child John Calvin Mounts. Two years later, he remarked one day in the course of a sermon on sin that when he looked at his child first he thought he was an angel and named him John Calvin, an now he realized that perhaps he should have called him: “Satan Beelzebub.”

Well, what Bob was their humorously calling attention to with his characteristic wit, was the fact that we all recognize. We are born sinners, and the loveliness and joy of a child should not conceal from us the fact that the child is a sinner. We are all fallen creatures until Christ redeemed us from our sins. Now to educate a child into an egoism with regard to his sin has devastating consequences with regard to our society.

Some years ago, (Riesman?) and others in a study of the American Character, this goes back to the beginning of the fifties, called attention to what had happened, and anyone who read that book at that time would have had no difficulty in predicting what happened in the 60’s and the 70’s.

What happened with the hippy movement, what happened in our schools, what happened with the sexual revolution, and with more. Because what he said in that study was that because we are products, (I am putting it in my terminology,) Of a child centered society, and child centered education, we have become consumer oriented. The term is his. Each person sees himself as a consumer and the world there to provide him with what he wants. So it’s a: “give me, give me” attitude. Or: “do your own thing because life owes you everything and you need to realize yourself.”

As a result Riesman and his team of sociologists said: “Our culture is moving from a puritan work ethic to a consumer ethic. From producing to consuming. From work to an emphasis on play. And what has happened and it has happened all over the world, is that productivity for man hours has decreased. The decrease would have been much more dramatic if to an extent technology had not increased our producing capability. But now even our technological development is reaching a stalemate because a variety of problems, one of which I touched on in the previous session.

So that, our consumer oriented society, a product of child centered education, is rapidly approaching a crisis. It cannot cope with the crisis that faces us because a child centered culture reacts to problems with tantrums. Not with responsibility. I think you begin to see the difference between a Christian school and a state school. Because even if that Christian school be as some are, only a public school with a little bible added to it, and I’m sorry but there are some that are like that. They have not yet made their entire curriculum systematically Christian. But even if they have not, because of that Christian emphasis, instead of being child centered, they are rather God centered, work oriented. And the results are dramatically different.

There’s a different character and a different discipline. I have seen case after case where people have been horrified at what happens when a child starts going to school. Just the other day a woman told me about going shopping with a friend and, they went into the friends car and the friend dropped her off, and the mother turned to the kindergarten boy in the back seat and said: “Say goodbye to Mrs. W.” And the boy kindergartner looked up and said solemnly: “Goodbye dummy.” That’s not uncommon.

But I know one father whose wife insisted on a Christian school for their child who told me with tears how wrong he had been in dragging his heels about it. He said: “I realized there was a difference. When I asked my son a question he turned to me and said: “Sir?” and I suddenly realized the difference between my boy and others, a courtesy, a respect for me, that other fathers were not getting. Why? Because Christian education has a different center, and it has authority. Not the authority of the autonomous individual, but the authority of God the Lord and His word.

This is why the Christian schools have an unquestionable triumph ahead of them if they are not destroyed. I mentioned in the last hour that the humanists are aware of the superiority of the Christian Schools. In some of the earlier trials, the state would order the testing of the children, determined to prove that these children had to be inferior. Now what happens, let me say, is that most of these trials are of new schools that have only been open a year or two, schools that are a part of a very small church of 30-40 members and maybe have 10-18 pupils, and they meet in the church basement. And they figure: “Aha, here we can make a case against them, and establish a legal precedent, and then we can go down the road and hit these other churches and their schools with it.

And so what they would do would be to come around with the sheriff and arrest the minister and take him to jail, literally. Put him on trial, order that all the children be tested. And the results uniformly showed that these children were a minimum of two years ahead of the public school pupils. They couldn’t believe it. In one trial they were so convinced that the testing had to be in error, that they ordered a second test. The children came out even better. They ordered a third test. And the children did even better. Then they tried in the court to go back and report only the first test. But the defense attorney compelled that they report the third test. Now most of the time the state attorney blocks any attempt by the judge to order a test. They know that they lose out on the results.

In one instance it was a state board of education psychologist who was ordered to do the testing. The results were not as good as in most cases, it was a very new school, but there was no question in the state Psychologists mind what was being done in that school. Even though they were very new and were just barely underway. The state moved to bar his testimony, one of their own men. Now to me, the most shocking fact in this picture is not what these humanists are doing, that I can expect, it is that Christian people, parents and church members, drag their heels at the idea of starting a Christian school. Or oppose it.

I can understand the opposition of these people, because they see the handwriting on the wall. They recognize that if these Christian schools continue to grow at the rate they are going today, several new ones every day, by the end of this century there will be virtually no public schools. Every child in this country will be in a Christian school, and will believe the Bible from cover to cover. It will give us a different country, will it not. The state educators know what they are facing.

Moreover they fully recognize that their products cannot compete with ours. Their writings really are bordering on the hysterical and the totalitarian. One professor of education has proposed in the past few years that re-educational camps be set up, for the likes of us. And he said: “These will not be concentration camps, because what we represent is the truth.” We are in a very serious battle. As Christians, we have the greatest tool for the re-conquest of this country for Jesus Christ in the Christian school, and we dare not neglect it.

We need to fight for the freedom of the Christian school and church from all state control and interference. The very controls by the state that have made the state school so incompetent, they want to foist on us. On one occasion I had a long and bitter argument with a state educator. And finally he conceded, in a moment of bitterness, it had become a shouting match, I am sorry to say, between us, and he said: “Well, if it weren’t for all the requirements and things that the state regularly imposes on us, we could do a better job too.” And I said: “Well, the state pays and therefore it imposes the requirements. The Christian school gets the requirements from the people who pay.”

Now, who knows best, with regard to children? The state, or the parents? Do you know that the universal compulsory education laws are very much a fraud? We are told that those laws are what brought about universal education. Every child was in school before they ever passed those laws, and there are two or three states I believe Virginia is one of them, that found out not too long ago they don’t have such a law. What puts a child in school? It’s the love of the parents. Moreover the Coleman Report a few years back was ordered I believe under president Kennedy when he first went into office, and the Coleman report was designed to deal with integration and segregation, and they used what was then new, the computer, to tell them what the situation was. They fed data from all the public schools across the country into the computers. And the results were rather disturbing. That’s one reason why you have not heard more of the Coleman Report.

It came out under Coleman’s name and he didn’t like the results either, and has virtually spent much of his time since trying to disown what he then produced. And they found that there was no correlation between the money spent in a state and the results. They found there was no correlation between integration and results. No correlation between segregation and results. No correlation between race and education achievement. They found only one correlation, between the home and results. They found that if the home were a strong and stable home, no matter how poor the school the child somehow survived and did well. He could have done better in a better school, but he did alright.

But if the home were unstable, then the child did poorly, and was in trouble. Educationally and legally. They found that something like 15-20% of the white children came from such bad homes, and about 30-35% of the black children and that was the problem. The home. Now, this should tell us something. The good home was a product of a good faith. Of biblical teaching. Incidentally, the Harvard report on the Coleman report, a report about a report, said that the only schools that have ever worked in Ghetto area are Christian or Parochial schools. No public school, no state school has ever worked in a ghetto are.

Why? Because they provide a faith which can change those pupils, and the church provides a faith for the parents. So that the key to educational achievement begins with faith, continues in a Christian school, through the implementation of the Christian family. It takes the Christian faith, the church, working with a Christian family through a Christian school, and results are without equal.

Here we have the key. And you know since I was a teenager I’ve followed a great deal of what has gone on in politics and attempts by various people to turn this country around and restore America to what it once was. It has gone astray, badly. I believe it was just two weeks ago, I was in the mid west in what was once the backbone of this country, it was settled in the 1830’s by Yankees from New England, all of whom were church goers. Then it saw immigrations alter on in the century of Germans and Hollanders. It’s a white man’s country. Rich farms, fine small towns and cities, and I was in this city of 5000. The church where I was at was the only Bible believing church left, except for two very small holiness groups. They had a fine Christian School. All the other churches were modernist to the enth degree, and only a handful of the old people attending. And the community was so lawless, and these men at this church were facing court because the state was going to move in on their Christian school, and I was there to prepare them. They reported that child molesters from that community were driving right onto the Christian and public school grounds to try to seize girls regularly, and on one occasion not too long before they had caught such a man, and the girls testified, and the DA insisted that it be made merely a trespassing charge, and then he was turned loose.

In the second case they chased the man and caught him, and they were threatened because they were violating the man’s rights. They chased him with their cars and forced him off the road in order to capture him, and they were violating his rights.

And so the men were saying: “What are we going to do to protect our wives and our daughters?” There were no ghettos in that area, but there was no faith, and this is the key. Now, God has given us a very simple way: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith.”

Christian church, the Christian family, the Christian school, there is the weapon. The enemy recognizes its power. It’s time we did also. Thank you.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, I have not been involved in South Carolina, I was involved in the trial in North Carolina, where there were 62 churches and schools on trial, and that trial was lost. However, those 62--- And the state actually went to court to prevent a stay of execution, which would’ve enabled the Christian schools to continue until the case went to the Supreme Court, which could have been 2-4 years time. And they were going to jail, every one of those 62 pastors. However, that created such a ruckus up and down the state and the Christian schools hired one pastor and told him: “Please, resign from your church and spend full time going up and down the state to alert the churches.” And so the state backed off, and they passed a law giving freedom to the Christian schools.

Now however they are facing another threat, that of facing ERA onto the churches. Equal representation in the pulpit. And that pastor, (Dan Carr?), is very active in that battle. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the question has reference to an illustration I cited yesterday of a seminary student in Texas who sent his wife to the bank to borrow $800 a short term loan, because they needed the money, he was going to seminary and he was also working. She went with her two children, I believe ages 1 and 4, she was sitting across the desk from the loan officer, and the four year old was reaching and grabbing things on the desk, and she warned him and said: “You do that once more and I’ll slap your hand.” He reached again and she reached out and slapped his hand *swat* like that. Two persons in the bank immediately reported her to the welfare authorities for child abuse, and she was arrested before she got to her car, and the child was taken from her.

Now, the question was would I advise Christian parents not to spank their children in public? It’s a good question, it is becoming dangerous to do so. Welfare people are extremely ready to take such cases. We must remember that we as Christians are the number one enemy of these humanists. As a result we have to make sure that we have trained our children so well that a word is enough, in a public place, and that they will behave. Because there are too many cases all over the country of these people being on the watch for anyone who slaps a child to report it, and they are all too ready to move in.

A (loosedale?) Mississippi case of course is an example of what they are willing to do, how many of you are familiar with that? Oh, well, in that case, this church in Mississippi has also a home for problem children, and not too long ago they had a fifteen year old boy who is 6 foot in height and weighs 180 placed there by his parents; now there is no lock or key or gates or bars or anything; this boy was very unruly and he didn’t like the discipline, and he didn’t like being disciplined, so he ran off and claimed he had been beaten. So they moved in, the Sheriffs men, during a Sunday morning worship, and arrested the pastor and the assistant pastor, confiscated the church records; when a visiting missionary went back into the sanctuary to pick up his Bible they arrested him also. They took all the children from the home down to the county courthouse and stripped every last one of them to examine them for bruises. Providentially there was a good judge there, who not only dismissed the case, but apologized two or three times to the pastors for what had happened.

But that kind of thing is only unusual, that kind of case is only unusual because of what the judge did. Now I am not surprised that you did not hear about this case because this kind of thing is going on all the time, and it is not reported.

Yes?

[Audience Member] What would be the chances for persons of Godly principle to get into places of authority? …?...

[Rushdoony] I’m not sure I got the question… Would you stand up and repeat your question please?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, we need Christians in public office. We are the most poorly represented of any group in the country; the humanist’s, the socialists are all well represented, but the Christians who are the majority in this country, have almost no representation. We need to elect Godly judges, and our Lord says: “By their fruit shall ye know them,” So a mere profession of being born again is not enough.

Now, it is important therefore for us to organize politically, we‘ve had a crisis, I’ve referred to it yesterday, in California, where we had 61 or more churches that are going to be sold by the state for non-payment of taxes because the state taxed them and they refused to pay because they took a stand against homosexual rights, and the state said: “You are political now, and therefore you are no longer a church.” Now, I think we are going to turn that situation around by legislation; just by getting Christians organized. We have organized a group, among others, Californians for Biblical Morality. We have now about700 ministers in the group, and every one of them work on their congregation and some of them tell him: “You come to church Sunday morning with pencil and paper, we are going to write a letter to assemblyman so and so, or senator so and so about such and such a bill which would destroy what we as Christians believe in.”

One church got 5000 letters into the attorney generals office on one issue, and if you think the attorney general wasn’t floored, your very very wrong. He was very upset. We hope in two years time, it was just organized last October, to have a million Christians in the state of California ready to stand up and let the legislature know where we stand, and if you think the legislators are not a little queasy already your very wrong, because they are afraid of organized groups, and we need to organize to let them know what we think, and to elect our own people.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Yes, various state groups are now regularly in communication, state groups of teachers especially, the Christian Schools were first on the firing line, so for example the Alabama Christian School Association, the Ohio Christian School Association, the New England Christian School Association, and a number of others are regularly in communication, and I can usually expect a call from one or another of them within the course of a week, as these and other like groups take counsel together on one or another issue. We have 2-3 very fine groups in Washington now which represent the Christian cause; this is how we were able to put handcuffs on the IRS for a year with regard to Christian schools, we hope to renew it as of June. And we were able to do it because we got a flood of letters in to Congressmen and Senators. They didn’t want to do it, but they were afraid of the voters.

So things are beginning to take place here. We must never forget that we have a duty to stand up and fight against these humanists, to defend the freedom of Christ’s church.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the number of communications, media, people who are interested is increasing, we do have one or two groups, most notably Pat Robinson and the 700 club; now his position theologically is different from ours, but he has been very ready to have very differing theological perspectives on his program, I have been on it 3 times, to deal with these church and Christian school issues. He has a world wide audience of 40 million, so when he comes out on an issue it helps. Now, sometimes before the end of next month I shall be on a number of radio stations across country 5 minutes a week to give a report on these cases, this will be carried freely by these radio stations. The cost will be syndication, which will cost us $800 to a $1000 a month to tape and mail these and take care of the syndication costs.

But these stations will carry it as a public service, and we find many of the radio stations are very ready to cooperate here.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the attitude of the IRS and of the various states is that tax exemption is a subsidy from the state. That is a new doctrine. Tax exemption is what the early church fought for in relationship to Rome; Rome was ready at all times to say to the church: “Just apply and we will make you a legal religion, on the condition that you recognize the right of the state to control religion, and you say one thing as you get it: Caesar is Lord.” Well the church made its baptismal confession: “Jesus Christ is Lord.” I fought at all times on the issue that because Jesus Christ is Lord over Caesar, not Caesar over Christ, Caesar could never tax that which belongs to Jesus Christ, his church and school.

Rome went to all lengths to try and persuade the churches to become legal. The attitude of the church was that any church that accepted the legal status was not a church, and they wouldn’t recognize it as such. And that was what the first great split in the church was when the persecutions ended. Those who refused to allow the compromising churches back into fellowship, and those who said: “We can and must forgive them and receive them.”

Rome went so far, well, one emperor, had a statue made of Jesus and put into his private chapel, and let it be known that he prayed to Jesus every so often. And so the rulers, the governors and consoles would say to the Christians: “Look, our emperor has a high regard for your Jesus, he’s ready to recognize him as a God and to pray to him. Now what’s your fuss about, why don’t you submit and be licensed as a legal religion?” And they refused. And that’s how the Christian church got its tax exemption, by refusing to allow the state to have any control over anything that belongs to Jesus Christ. This is why we have the word sanctuary for the place of worship, because once you set foot on church grounds you had a sanctuary from the state, it could not come on to the churches property. It was like an embassy, and that is why Paul says we are Ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we have extra-territorial rights, it is foreign ground here, it’s a part of heaven here on earth. And this is why because they were able to communicate that idea, when Thomas Becket was killed in the sanctuary by Henry’s men the whole of Europe reacted with horror. Whatever his quarrel with Thomas Becket may have been, to enter into the sanctuary of God and there to kill a man was a fearful offense, because it is a sanctuary. It does not belong to the state. The state cannot come on the grounds of the church without changing its position, and coming as a petitioner, a worshiper. Never as a Lord over Christ.

Now the extent to which the church sometimes carried this can be illustrated, we had in the 60’s and early 70’s the long haired craze on the part of the hippies, their hair half way down their shoulders. Well, that was a part of the barbarian style in Europe, the German tribes, the Frankish Tribes, all the various peoples of Europe originally had that style, and the church in the early days and for some centuries, any time anybody came around, no matter whether he was a Feudal Lord or one of the kings men, the pastor would stop the services and order some of the deacons to wrestle the man to the ground and they would shear him right then and there. And they said: “You come into the Lords house on the Lords terms, and this is what scripture says about long hair on a man.”

Now that’s how they regarded the immunity of the church and anything that belonged to the church from the state. Yes was there?

[Audience Member] …?…

[Rushdoony] That’s a very good question, what protection is there for an independent Christian school which is not associated with a church? I believe that in terms of Scripture it is still to be classified as a church, it is a Levitical function. A Levitical function, so that an independent Christian School must be seen as something that is covered under the term church. And this has always been the position Christendom. Now, what the IRS today is trying to do is to separate even the churches school from the church, In several cases for example where the church and school are one building, it uses the term, and this is a good term, please put this in your mind to avoid this term, because it’s a term that has been promoted by these IRS men: Church Related School. You see. Its related but it isn’t the church. No. we must say the Church is a Levitical institution. Its ministry is, especially in the Protestant tradition, one of instruction. And as one man in New England told the state authorities when they were threatening him with jail, he said: “Look, I see no difference between teaching from the pulpit and teaching in Sunday school, and teaching Monday through Friday. It’s all a part of our ministry, and if all I had were Monday through Friday instruction it would still be a ministry.

What they are trying to do and we have seen this in one legal opinion that has been given, is to separate not only the Christian school from the church but the Sunday school and the sermon, and say: ‘Well, that’s educational.’ Now what does that leave to the church and to the first amendment? Why, only if you have a liturgy you see, in Greek or in Latin, and now the Catholics have abandoned even that, is it immune in terms of the first amendment. But for us it is all one ministry, instruction.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, first of all the more control you have in religion the more corruption you have. Jim jones and the Peoples Church was virtually a state church. It was totally political, controlled by politicians, working with politicians, getting state and federal funds and the like. Now, if you are going to control the Moonies You are going to end up by controlling every American, because to prevent what the Moonies are doing, and I don’t like what they are doing, you would have to pass laws that would take every churches freedom away, and every religion. Now, freedom will involve abuses, but if we are going to abolish abuses in government the same way, or in civil government, we would have to abolish state and federal government. After all, where is the most corruption in our society? Is it not in state and federal agencies? They are the most corrupt. I heard on business man in California say: “I would rather deal with the mafia than the federal government.”

And he said that after having had two years when the federal government was determined to get him, because he was independent, and they moved IRS men into a room in his place, just to sit there month after month after month, to look for something, to invent something, in order to nail him. And he said: “all the mafia would demand would be a pay off now and then as a license,” but he said: “A license with the federal government isn’t enough.”

Now, I know from men who are in the oil companies and in banks and so on, that at every election, both parties come around with a shake down. “This is how much we expect from you this year.” And they either give or else. Because federal inspectors will come around and will find some excuse to make them pay several times as much. This is why most of the big corporations are so cowardly, by this means of pay off they have step by step forsaken all sense of fight or freedom. Now, we can’t expect any laws by a government that has gotten so big, and so tyrannical, to help improve the situation with regard to religion, it will only make it worse. Moreover, some years ago, Curtis, a legal expert said: “A law never means what it was intended to mean, but what the courts can make it to mean.” So every time you pass a law it is dangerous. I would rather have the Moonies than the IRS.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] How does the doctrinal philosophy of a Christian school effect the school? Well, greatly, very greatly. One of the interesting things to me is, that the Christian school is creating a revival of the Reformed Faith. There is a very good reason for that. The minute you start teaching every subject, you are going to try if you are at all thoughtful, to develop a Christian perspective there, a Biblical perspective. Now what Theology provides the word and life view other than the Reformed Faith? So there is a steady drift on the part of schools that began as militant Arminian schools, into the Reformed Faith, a receptivity to it, so that in hundreds upon hundreds of schools that started in the past 10 years as ultra-Arminian schools, today they are very much closer to the reformed faith.

And from being no-point Calvinists as someone said, they are anywhere from 2 ½ to 4 ½ point Calvinists. So there is a development.

[Audience Member] I wanted to mention one thing to you as well as to the audience here, It was last year that we received word from the US Post office concerning our bulk mailing through them. The church has a bulk mailing and under that we were sending church mail, and school mail. And the information we got back was: “We want you to have the post office, you must have two permits. One for the church and one for the educational, for your school.” And our reply back was: “We do not consider our Christian school as a separate institution from our church.” and as a result we got the agreement from them, that in our church mail if we would put a (Church) return address on that, even though it was school mail we could still operate under the bulk mail. I’m not sure what all of their… but I wrote back and said: “We aren’t concerned about having to take two bulk mail from this, but our concern is, we are in one unit, church organization, that’s all.”

[Rushdoony] They have just hit another church and school on the same thing, the southern pines church and school in southern pines North Carolina, they are being denied their mailing permit on the grounds that they use it for both their church and school. So this is happening again and again, and they act as though the previous judgement’s made were of no account, they push each new group they find.