From the Easy Chair

The Relationship of Look

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 196-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161Q30

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161Q30, The Relationship of Look, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 119, March 24, 1986.

I am here with Sam Blumenfeld again. We recorded just a little while ago the previous Easy Chair and we found it so stimulating and so important that we are going to continue with the same subject to go into some areas we previously did not have time to touch on, because one of the things we need to recognize is how critical education is.

Education determines the future of a people. If you want to control the future, you control the child and the school. And this is why Christian education is so necessary because Horace Mann recognized that to control the future and to make it non Christian, to make it over in terms of his Unitarianism, he had to get control of the schools. And having gained control he has changed this country dramatically in the past century and a half.

Well, we need to regain control of the child and to understand the dangers inherent in public education. Sam, do you want to comment on those dangers?

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. You see, children in... in American schools, public schools today are at risk today in four very crucial ways, Rush. First, they are at risk academically because of the methods used, the teaching methods based on behavioral psychology, the look say method of teaching reading which produces 30 percent functional illiteracy. At least one third of the children who enter public schools emerge at the end of the process as functional illiterates.

Incidentally, Rush, the difference between an illiterate and a functional illiterate its hat a simple illiterate is someone who never went to school, never learned to read. But a functional illiterate is somebody who has spent as many as from eight to 10 to 12 years in school and emerges after the process with a reading skill so abysmally low that he can barely function in our society as a literate human being and, therefore, he might as well be illiterate. The difference is that you have to go to school to become a functional illiterate, you see. Our schools now specialize in producing functional illiteracy.

And it isn’t easy for the schools to do this, because it is not easy keeping a person in school for eight, 10 or 12 years and making sure that that person doesn’t learn to read. It takes quite ... quite a bit of effort.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, of course, they have found that this is true even of university graduates.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] They have had one major scandal in the past two years when it was found that a number of the football players in a major university who had graduated could not read nor write.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, yes. This is ... we know this to be true and... and we are continuing to produce this high rate of functional illiterates. Just to give you an idea, Rush, of how devastating this whole process has been on the black community, in 1930 the illiteracy rate among urban blacks was 9.2 percent which means that over 90 percent of the blacks in 1930 were literate. Today the illiteracy rate among blacks is about 50 percent.

Now have the blacks lost the ability to learn to read in the interim? And the interesting thing is that today they have affirmative action, equal educational opportunity, billions of federal dollars in the schools, all kinds of civil rights victories and yet you have this incredible decline in literacy.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Among people who have been in this country for generations.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You are dealing with fifth and sixth and seventh generation children, Americans. You are not dealing with people just off the boat. And yet these children have become so illiterate, there are so many black youngsters with no employable skills that they cannot fit in our economy. And so that is just part of the... that just shows you part of the devastation caused by the academic, by the methods used in teaching children to read in our schools. And we know that the black children can learn just as well as the white children. Marva Collins proves that every day at her school and, Rush, I had the great pleasure of visiting Marva’s school when I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and there I saw youngster of four years old, for our five years old learning vocabulary. They were learning words like preposterous, bacchanalia, claustrophobia, ostentatious, debonair. Can you imagine four year old little black children learning words like debonair? Well, they are, you know, they are human beings like everybody one else and they have been given the gift of language by God and so they have the same ... the same desires, the same need to communicate with God. And yet they have been.... they have been denied this by our education system. They have been treated like animals by our education system. And now hey are suffering such incredible poverty and disenfranchisement throughout the black community. And it is one of the great scandals of our time that... that we have done this to people who are supposed to have been liberated by Lincoln...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... in the Civil War and yet these people now are probably worse off than they have ever been.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I recall on one trip into the South one parent saying with real grief, understandable grief how her children who were in public school, high school, knew nothing about their past. And she asked them in shock when she became aware of how little they knew that, well, did they learn anything about Robert E. Lee? Didn’t know who he was.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ...probably some old coot who lived in a 100 or so years ago.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And she was shocked and understandably so.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Then, of course, there is the ... so there is that academic risk which is very real. In other words, you put your child in a public school and there is a 30 percent risk of failure. Now nobody in his right mind would fly on an airline with a 30 percent failure rate.

[ Rushdoony ] No. That would cure a lot of people of flying.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah. Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] It would me.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know, as a matter of fact, Rush, the only place in America where absolutes are required are in the airline business, you know, where they cannot risk using relative... relativity. You know, our ... it just shows you how our... how dependent our civilization is on accuracy...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...and precision of thought and language and meaning, that you cannot play around with people’s lives in such obvious spheres as in the aviation business. But you can get away with it in education, you see.

[ Rushdoony ] No, they will get away with it in the airline business if these planners have their way, because in the Soviet Union the ... the fatalities and the crashes are enormous, but they will publish no statistics concerning them.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is true.

[ Rushdoony ] They simply deny that that plane ever flew or that flight existed.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] So if you have a loved one on a particular flight that plane and your loved one disappears and there is no official knowledge of any such person.

[ Blumenfeld ] You don’t realize that, but I...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is true. You never hear about crashes in the Soviet Union, except if they are so incredibly spectacular that they ... that somebody has seen them or... or.... or there are some witnesses.

[ Rushdoony ] There is a very, very high rate because when you take God out of a society you do take meaning.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And we still preserve it in some spheres. We have enough of the old character left, but we are going to lose it, too.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is true. That is true. Well, then the children are also at risk spiritually in the public schools because the schools nowadays are doing everything in their power to undermine the faith, the Christian faith of children in... in American public schools. And they do this through a variety of means. They do it through values clarification, sensitivity training, situational ethics, evolution, death education.

Rush, are you familiar with death education?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. It is a horrifying fact. Why don’t you go into it...

[ Blumenfeld ] All right.

[ Rushdoony ] ...because it think most people are not aware of the fact that there is such a thing in our schools today. All over the country...

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right.

[ Rushdoony ] It is this death education. It isn’t always labeled that in the classroom, but that is what it is.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. And what it entails is this. They... they take children to cemeteries, funeral parlors. At one speech I gave a mother came up to me and told me that her daughter had actually watched a mortician embalm a corpse, that this was part of their visit to the funeral parlor. And I have heard stories of children trying out the coffins in these funeral parlors. The children then, of course, write their own obituaries. They write suicide notes. They discuss suicide at great length.

[ Rushdoony ] And forms.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... of killing one’s self.

[ Blumenfeld ] How to commit suicide, when to commit suicide and reasons for committing suicide.

[ Rushdoony ] And why death is just as good as life.

[ Blumenfeld ] Exactly. Exactly. And I... you know, and this increasing rate of teenage suicide, I believe, can be attributed to some degree to this teaching of death education, because both began the rise in the teenage suicide rate coincides with the insertion of death education in the schools. And it is interesting, Rush, that wherever you have had these suicides and the newspapers have written about them, no mention has ever been made of death education. They call in all kinds of psychiatrists and psychologists to deal with this problem and we know it is a spiritual problem and yet they will bring in secular psychologists to lecture the students and to discuss suicide at length, but no mention is ever made of these death education courses that are given in the schools.

[ Rushdoony ] And the parents don’t hear about it. The children don’t talk about it or they just suppress it and most families are unaware that it exists.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, so ... but sometimes it... it is so horrible that they become startlingly and shockingly aware, for example, in a couple of weeks ago in Nebraska three high schoolers committed suicide in the same school in one week and this just shocked that particular town.

Now here you have ... you have middle America, conservative Christian Nebraska and students committing suicide and nobody really knows what is going on in that school.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] But they are probably teaching death education in that school and the parents are completely unaware of it.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Now in addition to death education you have got dungeons and dragons.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... which is now taught in the schools. And dungeons and dragons opens up the world of demonism to the youngsters. Incidentally, dungeons and dragons attracts the intelligent youngster, the literate youngster. So he may escape being a functional illiterate, but now he is into dungeons and dragons. And also it attracts he affluent youngster, because you have got to be able to afford a computer to play dungeons and dragons.

Now dungeons and dragons deals with ... it is role playing in... with demons, magic, wizardly, spell casting, spirit raising and, of course, devil worship. And now we have growing numbers of satanic cults in public schools.

I received a call from a young lady the other day after I was on a talk show, a young Christian girl who was a senior at high school who told me that there is a ... a... a devil worship cult in her school. I imagine by now that in every high school in America you have groups of youngsters who are into devil worship. As a matter of fact, John Lofton was telling me how some of the girls in his neighborhood, these young ladies were going into the basement and holding séances and raising spirits. They are, you know, dealing with demons. This is ... this is not kid’s stuff. These youngsters are playing with fire. And we know now that there is the growth of Satanism in the United States of... of devil worship and of satanic cults. And I remember, Rush, at the... at the Seattle meeting you mentioned that for the first time the media is beginning to discuss or . ... or has become aware of the existence of these cults.

And one of the things brought out in that 20/20 show that you mentioned was the fact that some Americans are now practicing cannibalism. But these are well educated Americans, probably some of them have college degrees who are now performing ritual murders, usually only young children, cutting out hearts and eating them. And whenever I discuss this with... with an audience, I always give that as an example of human depravity. And when I tell them that John Calvin characterized human beings as being innately depraved, he was not exaggerating, that this was just a... a one of the forms of depravity we are seeing in our society today being practiced by so-called educated people. And this is the sort of thing that is occurring now in America.

So you put your child in a public school and you don’t know what is... and... and you are playing Russian roulette with that child’s soul.

[ Rushdoony ] And the parent will argue that their child won’t be affected and their child is there as a witness. I recall some years ago this mother in southern California who was very angry and stomped out of a meeting and I did not see her again, because I said it was the duty of Christian parents to have their child in a Christian school. And she went on about how wonderful their church was and how marvelous the youth work was and how her daughter had the best kind of Christian training imaginable and she was a good witness at school.

I never saw her again, but I heard from her about six, seven years later when she called me weeping. Did I know a school that could take her daughter, because her daughter was no into demonism. She was out sometimes for two, three nights, was into drugs and promiscuity. If the mother tried to say anything to her, the girl thought nothing of pulling a knife and backing the mother against the wall with knife to her throat and threatening her life.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, my.

[ Rushdoony ] And she wanted to know if there was a Christian school in town that would take her. And I said it would take a full time guard to stand over your daughter every moment. And she wanted ... well, she felt it was unchristian that they wouldn’t take her daughter. And I reminded her of her stand a few years back when she continued to whine and feel sorry for herself. Somebody was to take the mess she had created...

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ...and hand her back her daughter, perhaps to stick her back into the public schools again.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Well, you see, that is the risk that parents take when they put their children in... in... in the public schools. That child can come out an Atheist or a Nihilist or a punker or a Satanist. You know, you don’t know what you are... what can happen, because not only is there Satanism, there is yoga, there is transcendental meditation, there is astrology. Everything is in the schools. Every sort of Paganism you can imagine, Rush, is now being taught in the public schools and Christianity has been eradicated from the public schools...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] As a matter of fact, Paul Vitts, professor Paul Vitts of New York University recently completed a survey of American text books and he found that the text books had been completely rewritten by the Humanists and that every vestige of Christianity and patriotism have been removed from the... from the schools.

[ Rushdoony ] I was told that...

[ Blumenfeld ] ...From the text books.

[ Rushdoony ] ... by a teacher in the deep South once when I spoke on the necessity for Christian education at the request of the pastor. It was a hostile congregation. They did not like the fact that their pastor was strong for a Christian school. And one person after another at the door told me, “You, of course, are an outsider and you don’t know the South. This is the deep South. Every person in our school, every teacher is a born again Christian.”

And when it was over everybody had gone. This teacher had been standing over there watching, a woman came up and said, “They don’t know what they are talking about. We may be born again Christians, but our text books which we are required to stick to are anti Christian to the core.”

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, absolutely, Rush. As a matte of fact, I... when I was in North Carolina I... I read over their new education reform bill and the new program that was being put in the schools. It is so completely humanistic, I have never read anything so intensively humanistic than the program in North Carolina. And I am sure the South Carolina... I... I... I read over the South Carolina program. It is just as bad. The southern states are... some of the Christians there are just fooling themselves.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...into thinking that a Christian teacher can take Humanist text books and turn them into something Christian. It is impossible to do that.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, North Carolina has been a leader in one area of leftist thinking after another.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Governor... former Governor Hunt was a tremendous force in this respect. So a great many of the far out federal programs have been, first of all, introduced through North Carolina. And yet it has a very conservative population that is not at all aware of what is going on and what that famous triangle with its...

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ...educational institutions and research centers has been doing to the state.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yeah, it is... it is... it is a very powerful force and, of course, the North Carolina Education Association is part of it. And it is interesting. All of these reform bills that have been passed by the various states supposedly to achieve educational excellence are going to do just the opposite. All they are achieving is more Humanism. They are putting more Humanism in the schools under the guise of achieving excellence. But not a single one of these programs that I have read even mandates the teaching of intensive phonics to correct the reading problem. Not a single one of these programs makes even the slightest effort to change the way reading is taught in these schools. And so how can you... how can you believe that they are anything but a rouse and but a ...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... but another deception on the part of the educators to lead the American people in a direction they want them to go.

[ Rushdoony ] I often meet people who are very, very staunch southerners, some of whom feel that the Yankees are out to do the south in. But, believe me, there is and never has been anyone including General Sherman who has done more damage to the South than their own schools headed by their own people.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] They need to wake up and every part of the country needs to recognize what is being done to it by these educators.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] The systematic destruction of everything that people treasure.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And believe in.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, so we have... we have covered the... the academic risk and the spiritual risk. Now there is the moral risk that the student faces in the school, because who does the student, the youngster come in contact with in the public school? The drug users, the drug pushers, the sexually active, the... the users of foul language, the blasphemers. I mean, I think it is a sin to put a Christian child in a school where he has to listen to blasphemy day in and day out.

Now when it comes to drugs we... we have known that drugs have been a problem in the schools now for years.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And it is getting worse. Cocaine is now sweeping the high schools of America. And there is a... a new very dangerous form of cocaine called crack. It is a highly concentrated form that can be smoked and is very cheap and is immediately addictive. It is addictive on first usage. And it is now being pushed through all of the high schools of America. And there is no way that these particular ... that... that they can get this out of the schools, because the schools have become the market places for the drugs in this country. And, of course, we know that the Communists are behind a good deal of the drug traffic, Cuba, Nicaragua are sending us... trying to do everything in their power to destroy American youth through drugs.

And now, of course, we are also... in the sex department, we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in America. We have girls at the age of 11 and 12 and 13 becoming mothers. If they... if they don’t become mothers then they go for an abortion. And it is devastating for a 12 year old girl or a 13 year old girl to have an abortion, because the idea of killing one’s own child stays with that person for that person’s entire life. You know the... the abortionists and the ... and the birth control people want to give you the idea that, well, having an abortion is like blowing your nose, you know, that you just forget about it. But once these people have killed their own child it is in them. They have it in their minds for the rest of their life.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You have women who are remembering the anniversary of their own dead unborn children, you know.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Saying that had that child lived he or she would be 20 years old or would be 16 or we would be doing this or we would be graduating. They don’t forget, you know.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Blumenfeld ] This goes into their psyche. As a matter of fact, I have heard it told that over 90 percent of the women who have an... an... anorexia have had abortions.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, very interesting.

[ Blumenfeld ] And that this is a from of self punishment, that since society won’t punish them, they are punishing themselves. They have sentenced themselves to death. And that is the way they do it, by starving themselves to death. It is... it is an incredible development, but people seem to think that women, millions of women can have abortions and not suffer any spiritual or physical consequences.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And we are exposing our young people to this, because, do you know what the solution that the educators are now offering for the high number of pregnancies in the schools? Well, now they are going to create contraception clinics in the schools themselves. And in the high schools of... of Chicago they are now giving out pills and condoms, pills to the girls and condoms to the boys. And this they think is going to solve the problem when it doesn't even address the problem of... of the sexually transmitted disease, because, you know, that is very rather flimsy protection from such diseases like AIDS and herpes and Chlamydia and hepatitis and, well, there are a half dozen diseases that are... that are now being transmitted among these young people.

The schools offer no... no protection. As a matter of fact, the latest ... the... the latest idea of the educators is to start teaching sex in kindergarten. And speaking of North Carolina, when I was in Charlotte, North Carolina recently there was a front page story in the Charlotte Observer about the new sex curriculum of the schools beginning with kindergarten. And the parents of North Carolina, supposedly Christian and conservative, are being confronted with that kind of a sex program. And, without a doubt, it is going to be put in the schools. I have no doubt about it, because, Rush, wherever parents have gone before school boards they have been turned down and ignored, because the school boards have nothing but contempt for the parents. They don’t care what the parents want. They don’t care what objections the parents have. They will put that sex education course in the schools because they want it and the Humanists want it.

Part of their program to destroy the young lives, these young lives. And then you add to that the ... the blasphemy and the ... and the foul language and it is just horrendous.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. You know, Sam, back in the early 50s there was a young man in Los Angeles who in high school was a drug dealer. He was a major drug dealer. His territory covered the entire school and some of the grade schools and he told me his goal at that time was to become a major leader in the mafia and he was on his way up until he got tripped up by the Jesus Christ. But he told me, point blank, that there was not an urban high school in the United States in the early 50s that did not have a drug dealer in every classroom, nor a grade school that did not have at least one drug dealer amongst the students.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... on the campus. And things are much worse now.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes. Yes, they are getting them at a younger age, too. They are getting them in grade school.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And they are starting to get them at a younger age. And it is... it is... it is... it is so frightening that I can’t imagine why parents are surprised when something happens to their children in the public schools. I mean, what do you expect if you put your child in a cesspool. He is going to come out, you know, dirty.

[ Rushdoony ] Too many of them remember the public schools as they knew it.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And refuse to believe that a thing has changed since they were young.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well it has changed drastically. You know, Rush, when I started substitute teaching in 1970 in the high schools and... and junior high schools of Quincy, Massachusetts, I hadn't been in a high school in 25 years and I was absolutely shocked by the changes that had taken place since from 1945 until ... until 1970, just the whole... the whole atmosphere, the ... the slovenliness of it all, the intellectual slovenliness, that is what shocked me is the... the... the... the complete decline in standards. And, of course, it is much worse now.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Today the youngsters learn absolutely nothing and they are under such risks, you see. So when you look at the ... at the ... the risk in drugs and sexual promiscuity, you know, you... you wonder how parents could put children in that kind of an atmosphere. Now they say that, well, Christian schools are not perfect. Well, of course they aren’t, but at least the risks are reduced.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Every few years the state educators tell us they have turned the situation around.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And that things now are better, that quality education has come in and so on. I know that when Sputnik went up in the 50s we were told that this was what had awakened American education to necessities for change and that, therefore, from now on we were going to see quality education in our schools. We have only declined further.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes.

[ Rushdoony ] When they produce a good test result periodically it is because they have lowered the quality of the testing.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. As a matter of fact, this recent.... you know, this... all of the sudden this secretary Bennett was... was jubilant because the SAT scores went up a few points. But what he didn’t... wasn’t telling the American people is that all of these youngsters are now taking special courses in how to pass the SATs and not only that, but the people... the youngsters who are taking the SATs are supposed to be the best. They are the ones going to college. And what that simply indicates is that the youngsters are doing a little better this year than they did last year. But it says nothing about those at the bottom.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... the one third who are just ejected as functional illiterates and the second third who are ejected as sort of semi literate. So it is ... it is very deceptive.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] There is one other risk, though, that that children are under in the public schools and that is the physical risk because of the violence in public schools these days. Children go to schools with chains and knives and guns. Even teachers have been murdered in public schools these days. But the number of assaults and robberies and ... and rapes that go on in public schools today are... is ... is so alarming that most children feel afraid in school. They really are physically afraid in school. And so, Rush, if you add up all of these... these risks, the academic risk, the spiritual risk, the moral risk, the physical risk, you ask: How could a Christian parent in his right mind put a child in a school with so many risks?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] I mean, if the child doesn't become a functional illiterate he is liable to become a Satanist. If he doesn’t become a Satanist, he is liable to get involved with... with drugs and become a drug addict. And if he manages to escape all of that, then he is liable to get hit over the head, you know. So you are really... the parent is really playing Russian roulette with that child’s life by putting a child in that kind of demonic, satanic atmosphere.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, first step, then, is to take our children out of the public schools and put them into Christian schools or have home schooling.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Then what?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, then, then... once you remove the children you have also got to remove your... your support, your ... your financial support. You see, the Christian... the Humanists only want two things from the Christians of America. They want their children and their money. And most Christians are giving them both. Well, who do you think is going to win this war if Christians keep giving the enemy everything they want? If Christians are going to win this they are going to have to take their children back. They are going to have to educate their children themselves in good Christian schools or in home schools. And then they are going to have to withdraw their financial support.

Now how are they going to do this? Well, they have got to go to court en masse in a... in a huge class action suit and simply claim that it is unconstitutional and unfair to force Christians to pay for Atheist education in the public schools.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes and I have heard some very fine legal minds say this, that if Christians would start malpractice suits...

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... against the public schools in different parts of the country, especially if they would finance a parent who has seen a disaster in its own home, they would lose a number of cases, but they would sooner or later get a judge whose own family situation had been one of disaster because of the public schools or, perhaps his grandchildren.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And he would give a favorable verdict. And the public reaction would be so overwhelmingly favorable it would be hard to overturn such a decision.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes, because there are millions of parents who have seen their children ruined by the public schools.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] There are millions of parents themselves who have been ruined and would like nothing better than to get back at the system that has either crippled them intellectually or, you know, made them into total non entities when it comes to learning. But I believe that it is very important for Christians to begin questioning the right of the state to force Christians to pay for Atheist education, because that is what the public schools are. They are Atheist schools.

Now, Rush, I have no objection to Atheists educating their own children as Atheists, provided they create their own schools and pay for them themselves.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] But why should Christians be forced to pay for the education of Atheists?

[ Rushdoony ] Exactly.

[ Blumenfeld ] And... and why should Atheists be the privileged special group in America eligible for public funding? What makes them so special that only they are eligible for full public funding and all of the property in America is taxed to support their education?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Christians have to fight on these issues if they expect to have any future.

[ Blumenfeld ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] If not, we are going to end up in our own gulags as slave labor, worked to death in a few years.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right. And I tell Christians that, yes, we will have to suffer some inconveniences. Yes, taking children out of public schools may be inconvenient. But the founding fathers went through some inconvenience to give us this country. And that if we want to preserve these freedoms we are going to have to go through some inconvenience ourselves, that freedom is not free.

The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. And the Declaration further tells us that the purpose of government is to secure these rights. And yet we see government denying these rights to parents, to Christians, Christian being stripped of their unalienable rights and they are not doing anything about it. They are giving up these rights. We only have people... if we are to thank anyone it is people like reverent Sullivan in Nebraska who was willing to stand up and go to jail to defend the unalienable rights of ... of... of Americans to practice their religious freedom, exercise their religious freedom and, of course, for... and on the part of home schooling parents who have also gone to jail to defend the parents’ unalienable right to teach their children at home without interference from the state.

[ Rushdoony ] One of the common excuses used to say why children should not be put into Christian schools is for parents to say, “Well, it is all right for you to say, but I can’t afford it.”

But the simple fact is that a very high percentage of the parents who have their children in Christian schools are those who have the right to say I can’t afford it, but who still do it.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Too many people who live in nice comfortable neighborhoods feel that because the neighborhood is nice and because the home is a nice home, my children are going to be nice children, which is an illusion. And parents who live in neighborhoods where there is a greater tendency to problems where they are more rougher elements all around them, are more likely to feel, “I cannot afford not to put my children in a Christian school.”

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, the... the price is so high for neglecting one’s child’s education. As a matter of fact, when I was confronted by such a question recently when a mother got up and told me that she put her child in the public school and that she was very happy with the public school and that her child was a light was a ... was a witness. And but I told her. Is said, “But you are talking all of these enormous risks with your child.”

And she said, “Well, she is... she is strong enough.” She believes that she is a good enough Christian to be able to withstand it.

But then I also said, “But, you know, your child is not getting the best education you can give her.”

Well, she couldn’t contest that, because the public school was giving the child an inferior education. I said, “You are simply using your child as a sacrificial animal.”

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You are sacrificing your child to the state for some cause. As a Christian parent, your duty should be to give your child the best education you can. That is your duty as a parent. It is not to turn your child into a missionary, you see. A child in the early years of life is not a trained missionary, does not know the Bible that well, cannot withstand all the satanic wiles in the schools, you see. And then also those years that the child is spending in that public school are years that will be gone.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You can’t replace those years. If something happens to that child, if that child becomes... gets involved in sex or drugs or .... or.... as... as you pointed out with that other mother who...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...phoned you years later and complained, sobbed about what had happened to her daughter. But there are an... too many Christian parents, who, I think, use that as an excuse.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Because they don’t want to be bothered with the... with the inconvenience of having to find a Christian school or having to spend money on a Christian school or having to educate the child at home. So they say, “Well, I am putting my child in the school to be a light.”

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... to be a witness. But if that child... if that parent is really concerned about giving that child the best education that the parent can give her, give that child, that parent would not put that child in the public school.

[ Rushdoony ] I think that is hypocrisy. I think it is taking the Lord’s name in vain to say the child is going to the school to be a witness. I think the Lord is going not judge all such people. He would judge them less severely if they said, “I don’t feel my child is worth sacrificing for, so I am going to sacrifice my child so my lifestyle is not changed.”

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. But I... that, to my mind, is the thing we have got to work on. You know, I am... what... what... what disappoints me most is the lack of interest on the part of so many Christian ministers.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... in getting their children, the children in their congregations into Christian schools.

[ Rushdoony ] Or their own children in many cases.

[ Blumenfeld ] Or their own children, right, because so many of these ministers are more interested in respectability and being on the good side of the local school board and being on speaking terms with the superintendent.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...rather than caring for the souls of these children who are exposed to all of these horrible satanic influences in the public schools. And there will be casualties. There is no doubt about it. There are casualties every day, suicides and drug addiction and Satanism and pregnancies and assaults. I can’t understand... I cannot understand why parents will not open their eyes and make the change, because we have got to do it soon, Rush.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] We don’t have all that... that time. You know, and there are millions of children, Christian children in public schools who are being lost to Christianity.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know, they get into the rock music scene, too. That is a strong influence.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] That whole modern culture which is seducing the young in this country. Never have the young been under such intensive bombardment by satanic forces as they are in this country at this time. In every possible way, you know, wherever you look, in whatever direction, what they read , what they see on television, what they hear in the music, it is... it is coming at them from all sides. And if we don't give these youngsters the armor of God, they are not going to be able to survive in this period. And for parents to believe that those children can ... are... you know, are invulnerable, I mean that is like believing that infants are invulnerable to disease.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, the sad fact is not only are the youth exposed to rock, but rock is coming into the church, so-called Christian rock. And it is being sung in the ... from the choir.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] You actually hear now and then about a rock mass.

[ Blumenfeld ] Oh, yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Or a rock service. I spoke a few years ago at a church which was ... I will never be asked back, but it was a very large church with a plant that was equal to a small college campus. And I don’t mean too small a college, a fair sized one. They had a number of choirs. They had one man in charge of all of the music work in the church, an overall music director. Very brilliant, very intelligent man, but as wrong headed as I have ever seen, because he told me that his belief was that the only kind of music that should be played or sung or used in a church or anyplace was throwaway music. That was his term, music that was so hip, so up to the moment that it would capture the mood of the youth who were listening to the latest on television or radio, music, which six months now... down the line would be out of date, because it would be throwaway music, music of the moment in order to speak to the youth.

And I tried to get through with this point to him, but speaking to them in terms of what is of the moment is not what it is all about. It is speaking from the Lord.

[ Blumenfeld ] With eternal truths.

[ Rushdoony ] With eternal truths.

[ Blumenfeld ] You see, because we all seek that immovable center, you see? God, Jesus Christ, the immovable center, the truth. And you can speak to children with words. You don’t have to use that silly music. They can understand language. And that is how you get to them, not through some, you know, the beat.

[ Rushdoony ] Language includes in a respect... in one respect, music.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] It is a form of communication. When we listen things are communicated to us. And when you combine words and song, it is a powerful...

[ Blumenfeld ] Sure.

[ Rushdoony ] ...means of communication.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. Of course, you know, you don’t find that the schools any longer teach or... or classical music.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Blumenfeld ] I remember when I was in the third grade in New York City we listened to classical music. It was music appreciation.

[ Rushdoony ] I had that course also.

[ Blumenfeld ] And that is when I learned to love classical music. And yet today the... the youngsters are denied access to classical music. They don’t hear it. Their ears don’t even know what it sounds like, you know. And the great liturgical music of the past.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] The Bach cantatas and the {?} all these tremendously great works of... of religious music that have been written in the past have simply not heard today, not listened to. And if the schools don’t expose these youngsters to the... to the culture, their own culture, when are they going to get it? I mean, what is the purpose of a school if not to pass on the beauty, the culture of the past generation, the riches, the values of the past generations to the future generations?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] But we are... our schools are cutting of the present generation from the past. They have destroyed the past. They don't give the youngsters access to the past. As a matter of fact, what they try to do is make it impossible for them even to retrace their steps back to the past.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] Because they don’t know how to do it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, when Jean Mark Berteau, our Chalcedon man in Switzerland was here not too many weeks ago he said that progressive education is now becoming common place in Europe. It is abandoning dates so that in history you learn no dates because it is only the flow the feeling And you are given a totally present oriented view of the past. You go back and you look at things in terms of that is how bad it was then and see how wonderful we are now. We have all these things. But, of course, it is bad now, because we don’t have what we need which is to clear the ground of the rubbish of the present.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes, it is... it is... it is... it is a hideous and... and... and horribly destructive process. But, you know, when you add it all up and you use the direction that the world is going in you cannot help but believe that this is... this is all satanically inspired and that it is... it is... its long range goal is to lead human beings to hell. It is to lead the entire human race to hell. And what better way to do it than, of course, to control all of your education system, to get hold of the youth.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ...before they can even learn that there is an alternative. And that is the crime of our century is to have done this to American youth.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] That our... at public expense, at the tax payer’s expense. In fact, that... that... there is... the... the schools have a lien on every person’s property in the United States. They have undermined the integrity of private property which, of course, is also part of the Marxian plan.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] ... the abolition of private property. And the schools have also managed to do that by simply making it impossible for a person to keep his property if he doesn't pay his... his taxes by making us all renter and not owners.

[ Rushdoony ] Most of the money in your property tax goes for education and welfare.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes. And so we... we have reached the point now where the American people have got to do something about it. And the only solution I see, Rush, is the abandonment of the public schools in America and the return to educational freedom. And I think the American people are now ready for it, because as... as you know the... the Christian school movement is growing leaps and bounds and the home education movement is the fastest growing educational phenomenon in the United States.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] And what it is creating is strong, wonderful families that will become the microcosm of the future. You see, as this world falls apart, the only people who are going to survive are these strong families, these strong Christian families that are in tact and have a ... a code of behavior and have the armor of God so that they can get into that... so they can make their way safely though this horrible period that we are going to pass through. Those who don’t have the armor of God are going to fall by the wayside. They are going to be destroyed, you see?

So that is why I encourage home schooling, because it creates such strong marvelous families, families that are... have direct relationship with God and know where they are going and can ... can survive in the stormy days ahead. And we will just have to see what happens. We can’t predict what is going to happen, but we know that we are headed for a very rocky seas. And if anyone things that the public schools can reform themselves, you couldn’t be more deluded.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] But they... they can’t reform themselves academically, because they have no intention of changing the way they teach reading. They are not going to reform themselves spiritually. In fact, they are intensifying their hatred of Christianity and they are removing every vestige of Christianity from the schools. They are not going to reform anything morally. They can’t even deal with the drub problem or the sex problem and they certainly cannot handle the violence in the schools. And so anyone who thinks that public education is going to reform itself is simply deluding themselves. The only solution if... if one is really thinking of the welfare of the children is to remove the children and then to remove our financial support from that whole system and let it fall of its own weight.

[ Rushdoony ] Thank you, Sam. We have about two minutes left. Is there something you would like to say by way of conclusion in that time?

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, I simply want Christians to realize that they have got to make tough decisions in the days ahead. It is not going to be easy. Protecting freedom has never been easy. This great inheritance that we have came to us as a result of great sacrifice on the part of the founding fathers. They were willing to die to give us what we have today. And all I am asking parents to do is take their kids out of the public schools.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know, that is... much less of a sacrifice and to go to court...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] We are still free enough to do that.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Blumenfeld ] You know. So the... so the... the story isn’t over yet. The last chapter hasn’t been written. I hope that Christians of American will write that last chapter.

[ Rushdoony ] A very large percentage of the founding fathers, men who signed the Declaration of Independence and others after them, lost everything.

[ Blumenfeld ] That is right.

[ Rushdoony ] They paid a price. But nobody wants to pay a price now. They want it handed to them.

[ Blumenfeld ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] That has to change.

Well, Sam, it has been a delight, as always to chat with you. And we very much appreciate what you are doing. We are proud to have you as one of us. And we thank you for the time you have taken to share these things with those who hear our Easy Chairs.

[ Blumenfeld ] Well, thank you, Rush, very much.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.