Ignorant Intellectuals, No. 4

RV50-01

Ignorant Intellectuals

Most Christians are completely oblivious to the fact that, in the final days in which we live (in the age of grace), the battleground is the human mind. The battleground for the human mind is approached in two major directions. One is the educational system of a society, and what it does to the minds of the children, and thus to those who become its adult population. And the second one is, as those minds are affected by the Word of God, the teaching of Bible doctrine.

So, that sort of gives us a clue to the two primary directions in which any local church ministry in these final hours of the age of grace should be seeking to invest itself. One: in Christian education, from the lowest level on up. Secondly, in making doctrine available to people in expository form, and on a widespread scale.

John Dewey

So, truth was relative with John Dewey, and man was an animal who could be conditioned like a dog can be conditioned to salivate when you put a piece of food in front of him, or you start opening a can of dog food. You condition him to a certain reaction. Dewey said, "So too, this is the way human beings should be taught. They should be trained in this way, and they can be led into a totally different kind of society." Dewey, in all sincerity, viewed such a society as being the ideal society under which human beings should exist – the system of socialism. That system, of course, has been gradually incorporated in the American scene as the result of Dewey's influence.

Dewey's Educational Principles

1. Individuality

   First, was the expression and cultivation of individuality. Translated, that means "doing your own thing."

2. Free Activity

   Secondly, there was free activity. Translated, that means that a child studies what interests him – not some structured curriculum.

3. Experience

   Point number three was learning through experience. Translated, that means not learning through researching books or going through memory drills under the direction of a teacher.

4. Principal number four of John Dewey's system was acquiring skills as a means of attaining ends which have direct appeal. Translated, that means not learning the three R's for the merit of the three R's themselves, but only learning what you can use.

5. Instant Gratification

   Number five was making the most of opportunities of the present life. Translated, that means demand for "instant gratification" – not looking forward to a future heaven.

The article says, "I choose to begin with the dehumanized public school, for in my opinion, it is most in evidence today. The most important characteristic the dehumanized schools have in common today is a preoccupation with maintaining order. This preoccupation demands that students working in close quarters in the standard classroom operate in almost complete silence, with little, if any, talking with friends allowed. It demands that, at lunchtime, in even closer quarters, that 100 to 200 students eat in silence, or perhaps communicate with one another in voices that are only whispers. It demands that students be subjected to petty rules and regulations covering almost every minute of a student's existence in school.

"For instance, very often students are required to ask permission to go to the bathroom, or to sharpen a pencil, or to throw away a piece of paper. Often, students are required to walk in straight lines as they proceed from their classroom to another area. Sometimes when lines have not been straight, students are required to write 20 times or more, 'I must learn to walk in a straight line.'

"One of the most important controls in a dehumanized school is the clock. School is a place where things often happen, not because a student wants them to, but because it is time for them to occur. Often, when students are excited about something, it is ignored or suppressed if it is not in the lesson plan or the textbook for that period.

"Another dominant feature of this type of school is the fact that students are expected to learn what the school decides they should learn. Students simply must sit still and listen to material being presented that may have very little real value to them at that moment. There is little opportunity for students to assume responsibility for their own learning. They rarely have the opportunity to discover what learning is all about.

"One of the most frightening aspects of the dehumanized school is the emphasis on grades, which does nothing but put detrimental labels on students. The threat and resulting punishment of a lower grade is frequently used as a lever for maintaining control. Because of this, many students are really labeled as failures. By the time many children are nine, ten, or eleven years old, they are convinced they are failures: 'I'm not only a failure in school: I'm a failure, period.'

"All of the above aspects of the dehumanized school point to one overriding characteristic – the one which to me is the most damaging to students: lack of trust. The school is saying to its students, 'We must establish and enforce all these things because we do not believe that you are capable of regulating your own behavior. We do not trust you.'"

Everything that you've heard thus far in this article is what we refer to as the traditional school. Now, here is the school that the Dewey progressive education concept envisions:

"The humanized school is not so obvious today, although there are some in existence. Recent educational research and literature clearly indicates that humanization of our schools is critically important. What is a humanized school? The value and worth of students is the top consideration. No longer are students considered part of a group which must be rigidly controlled. Each student is considered as a vital, responsible, contributing member of the group. Rules and regulations are determined by the students as they grow and learn to operate within a group. Students are trusted to act responsibly. The school program is daily concerned about providing opportunities that will help students develop responsibility and self-discipline.

"A very important aspect of the humanized school is the belief and practice that the student is the principal agent in his own education. He learns through his doing, and no one else's. In the words of an old Chinese proverb, 'I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.' The student absolutely can be trusted to make choices which are meaningful to him. These choices may be in the form of play, regardless of the age of the student. Play is one of the principal ways the youngster learns. These individual choices result in lasting learning and understanding for those involved.

"Failure is not a part of the humanized school. Each youngster is praised for his successes at whatever level it may be. The simple statement, 'Success breeds success, and failure breeds failure' is applied in every instance. To this end, grades are not important, and often are not given. Close communication with parents, either through progress reports, or conferences, or both is the method of reporting.

"Schools can become humanized. I so strongly believe that we, as teachers, and we, as parents, need to take a close look at our conceptions of what constitutes education. Until we do that, we will be continuing the worst kind of education for our children in the worst kind of school: dehumanized."

So, this article reveals the consequences of the progressive education ideas. We're going to look a little bit at what some of these very high sounding, and in some degree, very seemingly justifiable concepts, actually have led to in practice. We have been at this now in this country since the early part of the 20th century. The consequences are more and more in evidence. Part of the problem that we have in this part of the country is that the Bible still has some anchor point of appreciation and some anchor point of authority, so people somehow feel that this sort of thing cannot be taking place in the public school system of a city like Irving.

I was interested, after our introductory study on John Dewey, to have called to my attention that the public school system in the city of Irving has adopted a book in the first grade which dignifies for children the practice of homosexuality and of drug usage as an experience to expand themselves. This is for first-graders – those little 6-year-olds who are just learning to read. The stories are described in a very subtle way that, unless you have some discernment, you would not catch what is happening.

However, you must remember the conditioning process. Remember that "conditioning" is the key word of the John Dewey system. They condition the animal from what is called middle-class values (that is, biblical frame of reference values that his parents have) to what is called the progressive values of progressive education, meaning the progressive values of secular humanism. The idea is to subtly take a child, which you can do very, very easily, and begin conditioning him to think in a certain direction, even without his realizing that this is what's happening to him. Children who study this first-grade reader will be conditioned subconsciously with the concept that homosexuality is not really all that bad, and that for some people, it produces a very satisfying and very useful and helpful lifestyle. They will be conditioned with the concept that the use of drugs is an exciting experience, and they won't even realize that this is what has been conveyed to them – that drugs themselves are not the discussion, but the code words are there. Remember the code words that we talked about in the previous session. The code words are clearly right there.

When the teachers who are going to be teaching in this grade saw this book, several of them were up in arms. One of them went to the principal and said, "Read this, and tell me what comes through to you." It hit him immediately what these stories were conveying. She said, "I object to using this book." He said, "Well, let me take it, and examine it, and think it through." And when he came back to her sometime later, he said, "I don't think our teachers will have any trouble with this." What had probably come to him was the realization that his job was on the line, because this textbook here in this school system has been placed there by the superintendent of schools and by the administration. They've made it clear that this book is to be adopted, and it is to be used. They further have the understanding that the textbook is not to go home. Parents are not to get their hands on this book to read it. It is to be left at school, because there are some discerning parents out there who are going to read this story, and they're going to catch the same concept.

One person in an administrative position has already been dismissed for creating waves relative to the consequences of the insidious incorporation of secular humanistic concepts in the education system of this city. And one teacher said, "I may lose my job, but I'm going to raise a protest about this. I'm going to make a complaint about this." Another source may raise a legal suit. That will be very interesting, because then the book will have to come out to public notice and a public discussion, because the city of Irving likes to pride itself as being a very Christian-oriented school system. It likes to pride itself on the fact that it has all those old values incorporated in its teaching curriculum. Its board members love to pride themselves on the fact that they are not tainted by the Dewey concepts.

Well, it's rather interesting that right here, it is the administration putting the muscle on teachers who happen themselves to be older. The young girls who are coming in, they've got the same contamination from their teacher training programs in the schools they have gone to through the progressive education and the humanist concepts, but the older teachers, who have got some biblical smarts, resistance this, and in conscience, it disturbs them to be using materials like this. So, it may be interesting to see where it goes. But in any case, you may be aware of the fact that this is something right close to home.

Now, it is a basic principle of progressive education that parents are disruptive elements to the educational process. It is not uncommon for students in class to be told not to go home and discuss certain things with their parents, because they won't understand. The implication is that the parents are old-fashioned and backward. This is, in part, what creates the idea that there is a great gap between parents and children – that the parents have not caught up to their children, and they're not as informed as their children. It is a basic concept of Dewey's system that parents are to be neutralized. Part of the way of doing this is to try to incorporate children in school at an earlier and earlier age.

Progressive Education

Progressive education meant creating a welfare state which rules in place of God. It meant creating a heaven on earth, a worker's paradise through science, and through the concept of the goodness of man. It meant rejecting concepts of the sin nature as being inherent in the child which must be curbed. The progressive educationist dies when you suggest that the will of a child must be broken. Of course, this is the whole first step of any educational process – to break the will of the child. There's a great difference between breaking his rebellious sin nature will and breaking his spirit – a great difference. But the will of the child must be broken. Parents need to learn this, and, of course, people in school need to learn this. Those of us who are in the business of education, and who get some of these wayward youngsters in our school, know very well why the will has to be broken. It gives us a big handful when we get one when his parents have not done the job that God has placed responsibility on them to perform.

The Dewey concept of progressive education meant no immutable divine laws of conduct; no inalienable human rights; and, no purpose for human life. Dewey's philosophy attacked the concept of education as imparting various truths and skills to the pupil by a qualified teacher in a controlled classroom with rules of conduct. All of that came through in the article that I just read to you. They rejected the idea that the reason a child goes to school is to learn how to read; to learn how to write; to learn how to do arithmetic; to learn about his national heritage; and, to learn qualities of personal discipline and application of himself to achievement. This was strongly attacked in the Dewey system. Dewey was what is called an "instrumentalist," who manipulated academic content and classroom methodology to achieve certain humanist behavior patterns instead of knowledge and skills. Dewey said to his teachers, at Columbia Teacher's College in New York, that it is not important what the children learn. The thing that is important are their attitudes and their viewpoints.

Now, certainly mental attitudes are very important, and Satan had this man right on the beam. The mind is where it's all at. The Bible is very clear about that: "As a man thinks, so is he." So, the apostle Paul says that you program your whole life and your expressions on the basis of what you think. So, Paul says, "Think on those things that are pure; those things that are lovely; those things are of good report; and, so on." He emphasized that in Philippians – that these are the things that you should think about. Don't be thinking about the pornographic materials. Don't be reading through pornographic materials. Whatever you process into the mind is what is going to be processed back out in your actions.

So, Dewey understood this principle indeed. So, he endeavored to influence a child's feelings and emotions rather than teach him factual knowledge. That is the whole name of the game in progressive education. That is the product that we have today in our society today. You won't really know how to talk to people if you don't understand this. This man is the key man. Feelings were the things. Emotions were the things – not content.

It is interesting that this is a satanic concept, and the devil uses this in variant forms. What else in the religious world of the charismatics does the devil promote except that very precise idea? It says that the content of the Bible (doctrine) is not important. It's how you feel, and how you love. That's what it's all about. I have heard Pat Boone stand up (the great Charismatic with all of his influence as a public entertainer) and say, "We learn to love. We learn to feel for each other. After all, that's what the Christian life is all about, isn't it?" And I wanted to shout back, "No, it isn't, and you don't have it either. You don't have the love. You don't have divine feelings. That's not what it's all about. It's all about Bible doctrine in the mind." That's where the Bible places the key deciding factor – the mentality of the soul.

American parents today are appalled at the academic incompetence of their children. But they don't know why it's happening. Why are my children unable to read? Why can't they do number work? Why are they so academically incompetent? Well, this is the reason for it – because of this system. This contributes to the goals of progressive education, because academic incompetents are more dependent on government to take care of them. So, they're easily controlled and corralled into the world that Satan has planned. People who can handle their own business do not look for sources outside of themselves to help them to make it.

The Open-Ended Discussion

On the basis of the group's own uninformed opinion; their ignorance of biblical principles; their lack of mature perspective; and, their lack of guidance from a leader, the group reaches what they call "a solution" for some relevant problem. This solution, that has evolved out of their mutual ignorance, is now viewed as the answer, and because it evolved out of their mutual ignorance of this group discussion, they have an emotional attachment toward it. And Dewey grasped the fact that this was the technique by which you could create peer pressure on those who are part of a group, and that, with some subtlety, the teacher could move the discussion toward the concepts that contributed to a socialist oriented society. Often the solution is the helpless attitude that there is no answer to the problem. So, there is nothing to direct one's conduct. Of course, that's part of the purpose of the technique – to leave you up in the air. The open-ended discussion wants to leave you with the idea that there are a lot of different answers, and that for some things, there are no answers. So, you cannot say, "This is what is right to do, and you're not doing that. That's wrong what you're doing." So, they cannot have these buttoning down absolutes. Of course, the idea is to undermine the Bible. That's what the devil has to get rid of, because the Bible teaches that A is A, and that A is not non-A. That's the concept of Scripture.

So, the solution often is the helplessness of no solution. The group is emotionally attached to its non-answer from its own ignorant conclusions, and it becomes alienated from those so-called middle-class values (those biblical values) of the parents. The result of all this is that a kid goes home with the impression that his group has come up with some very incisive conclusions, and he discovers that those conclusions are in conflict with what his parents think. That is because when you let the sin nature run rampant, the sin nature is going to come up with human viewpoint. If his parents are biblically oriented people, they will be in opposition to what he brings home.

So, the child will look at his parents as those who are not in the know because he got his information from the group. Now, that's a powerful base. Our gang; our discussion group; and, our intellectual sophomore class has discussed this matter, and we have come up with these great deep insights and conclusions. And everybody knows how intellectual a sophomore class is at the local high school. They have the wisdom of the group, and they are designed to promote and to perpetuate what is the so-called generation gap, or the communication gap. That's where that comes from. The communication and generation gap is because the open-ended discussion has come to a conclusion apart from biblical principles and guided maturity, and from content matter. So, what is the kid going to come up with? He's going to come up with what he knows. He's going to conclude that what his group does – that's the answer to it. So, the consequence is that he finds himself alienated from his parents, which is exactly what Dewey was out to do.

For this reason, students are told not to discuss these issues with their parents, because they're told that their parents would not understand these problems currently. What they mean is: "If you go home, and your parents find out that we're letting you think these things, and that we're moving you in the direction of thinking these things, the parents will get up in arms, and they'll do something about it." They want these children to become so emotionally attached to humanist concepts that their parents will not be able to budge them off of it. Their parents are often portrayed as being hypocrites; materialists; and, just lacking in good sense. Their children, however, are none of these things. Isn't that amazing? The children are not materialists, even though their hands are always out for somebody to take care of and provide for them. Their parents are not materialists, even though they're trying to deceive their parents about what they think and what they believe. Their children have all the good sense in the world, even though they don't know how to blow their noses and hit the handkerchief yet.

It is amazing what insights and capacities that can come from such a discussion group. The thing that's amazing is, that in Christianity, we follow the same Dewey concept. Have you ever been in a Sunday school class where the leader reads the Scripture and then he says, "Brother John, what do you think about this?" Sometimes they call them "saints." They like to use the word "saint." They know that word, so they like to say, "Saint Scott, what do you think about this?" And Saint Scott will tell about his opinions on this Scripture, and what it means. Then they'll look over here at Mr. Rouch, and they'll say, "Saint Bernard, what do you think about this?" And he'll share his insights on this matter. Then they'll go over to somebody else, and pretty soon they have all this accumulation of mutual ignorance. And that's the Sunday school class. Nobody is coming through and teaching, and saying, "Here's the truth, because here's is what the Word of God teaches, and here's what God says." So, we have confusion within the group. We have confusion within our youth, and alienation from their parents. Christian organizations slavishly succumb to this technique of the open-ended discussion.

Several years ago, we had a seminary student who worked in this church. It's been a long time since I've had to remove a seminary student from a position of influence and teaching, and show him the exit of the closest door. ... This bird was smart. He was intelligent. But he was caught up in the idea that he was very sophisticated. He was a sophisticated intellectual, and he thought it was just so advanced to use the open-ended discussion technique with the senior high teen group that he was teaching. He would follow this precise technique of progressive education. We were on a campout one time, and he was leading the group. I happened to come by, and I heard him leading the discussion, and he was introducing the discussion with the concepts of asking such questions as, he said, "Is there a God?" He did not ask, "What evidence is there for the existence of God?" He asked, "Is there a God?" Then he said, "Is the Bible really true?" He did not ask, "Why can we see that the Bible has been a divinely produced book?"

He would ask questions like, "Are certain things really wrong?" That was a good one that night: "Are things really wrong?" He would try to draw from kids the things that they would normally get from their parents that certain things are wrong. There are certain things that are illicit. He would bring those things out, and he would say, "Are those things really wrong?" It's all seemingly very innocent. His defense was that he was trying to get the children emotionally attached to their own convictions.

So, they were carrying on these discussions, and pretty soon, I'm beginning to get complaints from parents who began listening to their teens at home, because the teens were coming home with the results of these discussions here at Berean Church, and the discussions were open-ended. This man told me how he prided himself on not ever reaching a conclusion. He was old Hegel in disguise: there was nothing absolute. It was the old Kant idea. He was trying to show these kids that, in order to be sophisticated and intelligent in our day, you must not be able to button the thing down and say, "This is so, and this is not so." He would say, "Is evolution really false?" Then they would start discussing it, and pretty soon the kids in the group began wondering. He was sophisticated, and he had some information, and he would hit him with some things, and they'd say, "I wonder: maybe there is something to evolution." The parents discovered what was happening under this pseudo progressive education technique. Christian education loves to scrape up the manure of the methodology of the progressive education system, and convey the human viewpoint mentality of Satan encased in that.

We have another example of that in our youth work in the girls work here at Berean Church: Pioneer Girls. Pioneer Girls is a national organization that has taken a very interesting history. Almost 30 years ago, when we began with Pioneer Girls, this was an organization that was very solidly centered on biblical principles. It had a program that was centered upon achievements. You received rewards in terms of badges and recognitions for your achievements as you went through the achievement program. The achievement program had considerable content. You did learn things, and you learned them in relationship to what the Bible taught. You learned many academic things. You learned many skills, and you learned a lot of fun things in camping and so on, and all of them were related to the young person's life in terms of the Word of God. This is the program that many of you knew as you grew up, and there was a goal right at the top that was the top rank of the Wing Guide that you could achieve. This goal was a thing that young people looked forward to. The younger girls looked forward to the day when they'd be at that church banquet, and they'd be there enjoying receiving the Wing Guide recognition.

Suddenly, the literature began to change. Pioneer girls decided that they were getting some guff from churches, because churches were getting disoriented. The program was now oriented to the to the Dewey concept of getting the leaders to simply be discussing with the girls without demanding any specific conclusions, and without arriving at anything definitive. Gradually, on the Explorer Girls level, for example (the high school girls), we discovered that the program came out in a new light and a new form. The leaders were told, first of all, that the girls were to run the club. The girls were to get together. Leaders were no longer to pick who was going to be the chief pilot in the club, which was comparable to the sergeant in the boys club. The adult leaders made the decision that this was the boy or this was the girl who would most effectively serve in that position. Also, the girls were to elect their own officers. That meant that the girls could meet together in the washroom at the local high school and decide who was going to be put forward, and whom they did not like and they were going to squelch. When they gathered in the meetings, they sat together in the meetings, and they decided (they talked over) what they were going to do. The adult leaders were told not to interject themselves. They were to simply sit there. They were sort of moderators, and the girls were to come up with the program of activities that they would engage in.

At the same time, we noticed that there was no deep emphasis on the achievement program. It became less important. They were not saying any longer to girls, "Go on, achieve this rank. Go on through the Pilgrim Club, and go on through the Colonist Club. Get these various ranks; get your badges; go on up through the Explorer rank; go right on up to the Wing Guide; reach the top; and, reach the epitome. Gradually, the program was undermined. This technique was seen as a great advancement, and they were going to be relevant to the teenage girls.

What they were saying, of course, was exactly what Dewey was saying: These girls, with their own immaturity, could sit down and make a decision as to who would be the best person to pick for the officer ranks in their club in terms of leadership and influence. Furthermore, they would be qualified to sit down and make a decision on how, effectively, and in a valuable way, to spend their time in a club meeting. Supposedly, these girls would know how to do it, and they didn't need any guidance.

Well, where in the world have we ever found that the Word of God ever indicates to us that man, on his own initiative, and in his own ignorance, comes to divine viewpoint truth, except from the guidance of God and agents of the Lord? There is no other way that people learn divine viewpoint truth except through the guidance and the agents of the Lord. Pioneer girls are obsessed with meeting the desires of spiritually disoriented preachers and churches so that they now have descended to a new level: again fulfilling the same concept of Dewey's progressive education. They did not realize that this is what they had fallen into.

Another factor that we discovered in the program was that they began asking girls how they felt about things. So, the girls' program was no longer focused on achievements. The achievements program was just shredded into an ineffective operation, and it was very clear that that wasn't important. Why? Because the girls in our clubs don't want to do achievements. Where does the Word of God ever say: "You set it up to what people want, rather than what people need?"

Well, suddenly our leaders were saying, "Hey, in these lessons, the girls are supposed to say, 'How do you feel about this? How do you feel about that?' There was supposedly great personal introspection dredging up within themselves. 'Is there anybody in this club that you don't like? How do you feel about that person? Do you think your mother loves you? Do you have any troubles with your father at home? How do you feel about this?'" These are little kids in grade school. They never thought about these issues at all. They never thought about having any kind of problems like this. Here, suddenly, they're being struck with all of these analyses and all these introspections. It was the same kind of thing that Dewey was doing in order to create emotional concepts and attitudes such that we're going to anchor the children to a human frame of reference, instead of giving the children content that anchored them to the mind of Christ.

Well, the degeneracy in Pioneer Girls has not reached an end, because about a year ago they announced that now they were going to have their own boys' work. So, now they have Pioneer Boys and Pioneer Girls. They are very proud of this. I suspect that part of this is because you have a women's group who is the board that conducts this work. For a while, Pioneer Girls work came to such a disreputable state that they were incorporated with Christian Service Brigade, and the board of men were now supervising the girls' work with a lady leader who headed up the work. That was the scriptural order, just as it is in a local church. The Pioneer Girls' work got stabilized, and began going in a proper biblical direction. Once they pulled them out from under the board of men, and put them back under these women, then they began to come apart and go toward the emotional orientation again.

Well, now they have this group where they are going co-ed. Why? Because this is what the kids want. The boys and girls want to be together. They're pushing it down all the way into the lower clubs. I just read one of their reports, not so long ago, where a man was telling how he was now a Pioneer Girl club leader. And one of the things that just made him feel so good was that the ladies accepted him. He just felt right at home. ... This was their national publication, telling the marvels of how they now have men who are guides; they have boys and girls mixed in this same club; and, that this is a wonderful thing that they have advanced forward in their organization.

These poor sad ladies (who bear such influence in so many churches) do not realize that they have set up a situation which is the major cause of homosexuality and lesbianism. Young people are growing up without a clear model to distinguish between male and female. That is the basic cause of homosexuality: a boy growing up where he does not have a clear male image in his father; or, a girl growing up where she does not have a clear female image of her mother. These ladies are putting together an organization that is going to lay the basic foundation for the homosexual and lesbian outrage in our day.

The time has come for a divine viewpoint oriented group to raise a million dollars and to begin a new girls program for local churches which are still oriented to the Word of God, and who are concerned with giving people what God says they need, and not what the kids say they want. What the kids say they want is what they've gotten from their open discussions in the public classroom context and influence; what the kids want, they get from their disoriented peers; and, what the kids want, they have no frame of reference for knowing, in terms of the long-range effects upon their lives. I think that this would be a good prayer request: that the Lord would provide the money for someone to put together a good Pioneer Girls program, so that the materials would no longer focus on these subjective feelings, and questions designed to dredge up your emotions: "What don't you like about your parents? Whom do you prefer – your father or your mother? What bugs are you at home?" Can you imagine what a good discussion that makes in a Pioneer Girls meeting, now that they have the boys there also? "What is your deepest problem? What do you worry about the most?" I'm just giving you all the questions that I've copied off here. "How do your friends feel about you, and you about them? How do you feel about being told that something is wrong to do?"

These are problems that the kids never dreamed that they had. This is invasion of their privacy, and creation of guilt feelings within them. The mind that is filled with Bible doctrine, and responds with positive volition to that, controls the emotions. The divine viewpoint actions bring stability and happiness and success into the life of a person. The mind is where it's at. And the mind of a child filled with God's viewpoint is a mind which can take care of its own problems, and which does not need a bunch of counselors.

One of the biggest rackets we have in Christian circles today are the so-called counselors. Many people say, "When I retire from the ministry, I'm going to be a counselor because there is big money in it; the work is easy; the hours are short; and, all you have to do is sit there looking smart. I'm going to grow a beard. And once in a while, you say some stupid remark, and people pay you vast sums of money for that. And I'd kind of like to do it on the side as it is, with inflation and taxes being what they are." But anyhow, that's what all of this is for.

So, Pioneer Girls is up to the old Dewey type of mentality, and looking for an emotional introspection rather than looking to the rock of the Word of God. So they do what they want to; they don't emphasize the achievement of levels; and, they don't dignify the top rank which has been so keen in our own experience here.

Academic achievement in the Dewey program was to dismiss personal achievement; discipline; and, American heritage. They put all of that aside in favor of developing the mentality for socialism through the open-ended discussion.

Introspection

There's a host of expressions which have evolved that express the goals of progressive education. Let me mention some of them so that they will be clicking your mind, now that you know so much about Dewey and his concepts and all that this produces. When you hear these terms, and when they're used by Christian groups and in Christian literature, a red flag will fly up in your mind. You will know that we have some more Christian suckers who are trying to be sophisticated intellectuals. This is the jargon that has come out of progressive education: learning centers; life adjustment; relevancy (oh, how we love that one in Christian circles – be relevant); non-grading systems; competing against oneself; open classrooms; schools without failure; self-teaching packets; social adjustment; learning at the child's own speed; behavior modification; conditioned responses; self-realization; middle-class values; and, morality.

Now, the consequences of all this is what we're interested in. Where has our society gone as a result of the influence of progressive education, and where have areas of the Christian community gone because they have been caught up with these concepts of progressive education, little realizing that atheist Dewey was creating a system to reorient the children of our country away from the marvels of their American biblical oriented heritage into the animal farm of socialism and communism and of the religion of secular humanism?

This has been pretty bad, but the worst will come next time when we actually take you by the hand and let you step into a situation in terms of what your children are reading; what your children in the secular school system are being indoctrinated to; and, what they're being opened up to. You will see how Satan's swirl of the tribulation is being organized as a result of these very factors.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1977

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