Our Threatened Freedom

Is There a New Definition for Delinquency

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 4-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 004

Dictation Name: Vol. A – Part 04 – Is There a New Definition for Delinquency

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Is there a new definition for delinquency? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

Earlier this year I was a witness in a trial in a Midwestern state. On trial was some children of Mennonite families, from the old order of Mennonites. They were on trial as juvenile delinquents, although none of them had committed a single criminal offense. Their only crime was attendance at a Mennonite school. The school refused to submit to state controls, which they rightly believed were humanistic and alien to their faith. As a result, the children were in court as juvenile delinquents. Their so called crime was truancy.

The defense attorney asked for a dismissal of the charges, on the grounds that the state law did not define truancy as absence from a state school, or state controlled, or state approved school, but simply as truancy from school. Clearly the children had not been truant from the Mennonite school. All the same, the motion for dismissal was denied and the trial proceeded.

This was not an isolated case. Other like trials has taken place in other states.

Some judges have stated that the child belongs to the state, not to the parents. Step by step, the state is claiming more and more powers over the family and over children. The significant fact about all these trials, it is the children who are among the very best in the community, who are on trial. Moreover, the state puts more effort into trying to convict these children, then it sometimes does with criminals and real delinquents.

The various states seem to consider it a more serious offense to stay out of a state school, than to endanger life and property. The state’s power structure is affected every time a child leaves a state school for a Christian school, and this is the real offense.

Again and again various trials have shown that Christian schools provide at least as good education, and in virtually every case, far better schooling than do the public schools. They’ve produced better educated, more moral, and more resourceful graduates. In terms of comparison, the Christian schools clearly excel. Court ordered testings have shown this.

However, there is a serious problem with Christian schools. They do cut the amount of tax funds the state schools can demand. And state bureaucrats hate nothing more than any activity which can limit their demand for taxes.

At far less money, at no cost to the tax payer, the Christian school produces a better education. This is its offense. The state schools cannot stand the competition, and so they strike back. As a result, Christian schools and churches are on trial all over the country, and children are tried as delinquents. Meanwhile, the state schools are producing more and more illiterates, 21 million according to federal statistics, are functional illiterates, and the estimates are that 9 million more will graduate as illiterates before long.

We have probably never had a higher illiteracy rate in this country. Does it make good sense to prosecute the schools which do educate, and to take to juvenile courts children who are law abiding, and are guilty of nothing, save going to a Christian school?

State and federal agencies are forcing controls upon us. Will you choose freedom….