Romans 1:32. The Poisoned Apple—III. Don't mess with taxes
Even more deadly, though it takes longer to mature, is the bland assumption that responsibility is something that one takes up or leaves behind. The fact that in life in the West we have great latitude in selecting occupation, lifestyle, location, friends, even family, is impressed on us early. Freedom, that almost holy word for the right to be whatever kind of person one wants to be, is a curse of the first order when that freedom is not matched by good judgment. In the scope of heaven, that means inspired judgment, counseled by God’s Holy Spirit.
Responsibility is imposed on us, from above. Regardless of how we choose, freely, unfreely, or something in between, responsibility descends on us, surely and inevitably. The fact that our children grow up facing few if any hardships contributes to the failure to learn this lesson. But the schools and the entire education system are optimized to avoid this subject. “If you don’t like it, change it.” “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” “Arguments from authority are not valid.” These platitudes of pragmatism are key attitudes in the movement that teaches that responsibility is a matter of choice.
God fixes responsibility on us. He is sovereign, but He places contingency before us. We are not free to refuse it, and consequently we are responsible for whatever we do. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, He made it clear that loving your friends was not an extraordinary virtue. He meant us to be conscious of the need and responsibility to love the unlovely neighbor, the neighbor we would not bother to love otherwise, the difficult neighbor, the neighbor who does want love from us. The City has silenced this voice, and it cannot be heard within a modern school today.
The pill that confers immunity to love of neighbor is, from the point of view of the City’s architects, the last pill we will ever need.
“Study hard. Study the curriculum of revision particularly hard. Worship success. Love yourself as you wish others loved you.” That is the message of modern institutional education. Fortunately, there is enough of the traditional educational left in the curriculum at the moment for at least some students to emerge as literate, rational, reasonably competent people, but there is much evidence that the traditional curriculum is shrinking as it is being replaced with the revisionist gospel.
Schools teach what the City wants. The City taxes its slaves for the funds required to achieve exactly what is accomplished in schools.
The schools are not the abject failures that some have bewailed. In terms of the City’s needs, the school systems have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams. They are producing good television watchers, good popular culture consumers, good legalists, good apostates, and dutiful citizens, well adapted to a corrupt and degenerate society.
In America, we have locked in place the mechanism that supports and entrenches the educational establishment so that it will continue in perpetuity. No displacement or reform of this corrupt system is within view, and it is hard to imagine what kind of power would be required to dislodge it from its present, impregnable position. The educational establishment has now become the complicit servant, consciously or otherwise, of the City and its prince, doing his will and serving his purposes.
The City preaches diversity but trains to monopoly. The City preaches tolerance but ostracizes those who do not conform to its tolerance model. The City preaches freedom of religion but actively suppresses religious expression. The City preaches responsibility but educates its people to all the ways and reasons to avoid it. The City preaches intellectual and moral freedom but cuts its people off from the only source of information on how properly to use that freedom.
Sin never had it so good.
Responsibility is imposed on us, from above. Regardless of how we choose, freely, unfreely, or something in between, responsibility descends on us, surely and inevitably. The fact that our children grow up facing few if any hardships contributes to the failure to learn this lesson. But the schools and the entire education system are optimized to avoid this subject. “If you don’t like it, change it.” “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” “Arguments from authority are not valid.” These platitudes of pragmatism are key attitudes in the movement that teaches that responsibility is a matter of choice.
God fixes responsibility on us. He is sovereign, but He places contingency before us. We are not free to refuse it, and consequently we are responsible for whatever we do. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, He made it clear that loving your friends was not an extraordinary virtue. He meant us to be conscious of the need and responsibility to love the unlovely neighbor, the neighbor we would not bother to love otherwise, the difficult neighbor, the neighbor who does want love from us. The City has silenced this voice, and it cannot be heard within a modern school today.
The pill that confers immunity to love of neighbor is, from the point of view of the City’s architects, the last pill we will ever need.
“Study hard. Study the curriculum of revision particularly hard. Worship success. Love yourself as you wish others loved you.” That is the message of modern institutional education. Fortunately, there is enough of the traditional educational left in the curriculum at the moment for at least some students to emerge as literate, rational, reasonably competent people, but there is much evidence that the traditional curriculum is shrinking as it is being replaced with the revisionist gospel.
Schools teach what the City wants. The City taxes its slaves for the funds required to achieve exactly what is accomplished in schools.
The schools are not the abject failures that some have bewailed. In terms of the City’s needs, the school systems have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams. They are producing good television watchers, good popular culture consumers, good legalists, good apostates, and dutiful citizens, well adapted to a corrupt and degenerate society.
In America, we have locked in place the mechanism that supports and entrenches the educational establishment so that it will continue in perpetuity. No displacement or reform of this corrupt system is within view, and it is hard to imagine what kind of power would be required to dislodge it from its present, impregnable position. The educational establishment has now become the complicit servant, consciously or otherwise, of the City and its prince, doing his will and serving his purposes.
The City preaches diversity but trains to monopoly. The City preaches tolerance but ostracizes those who do not conform to its tolerance model. The City preaches freedom of religion but actively suppresses religious expression. The City preaches responsibility but educates its people to all the ways and reasons to avoid it. The City preaches intellectual and moral freedom but cuts its people off from the only source of information on how properly to use that freedom.
Sin never had it so good.
posted by Robert McAnally Adams | 10/15/2005 12:35:00 PM
1 Comments:
Dr. Adams:
The 'City' however is not a monolith. Factions within squabble, and are probably only united when the enemy is the Church.
karl
Post a Comment
<< Home