Category Archives: Marxists

What Lies Beneath, Part Two: Education, Families, and Our Future

For decades, leaders from all political parties have stressed the importance of strengthening families and addressing the crises of fatherlessness, poverty, and loss of hope. We must continue work in these areas, bringing people of all cultures and social domains together for the good of future generations. We have also seen huge steps forward for minorities and women in all sectors of the economy and society, though there is still much work ahead so all can flourish.

Events in recent years are undermining all the progress we have made and render the aforementioned concerns hollow at best. Gender extremists, representing a miniscule percentage of the population, but fueled by big pharma and social media, are now demanding that young children be indoctrinated and sexualized by educators that reject the biological family, affirm Marxist ideology, and believe that anything goes when it comes to sexual experimentation and identity. The apotheosis of this civilization-destroying ideology is the recent lawsuit filed by the Attorney General in California against the Chino School District.

District officials, in keeping with trends in other states and several European nations, wanted parents informed about their childrens’ decisions to alter their names, gender identity, and personal pronouns. Please note that these leaders were NOT rejecting toleration or kindness, and even exposure to what I think are ideas best left to the family. They just wanted to keep parents in the loop!  The reason for the lawsuit is concern for the “welfare of marginalized students” who need “safe spaces” for their “expression.” Right now, parents must approve of any medications for their kids and sign permission slips and waivers for a variety of activities…EXCEPT when it comes to abortion services and gender identity! Of course, any child subject to violence must be protected.

What lies beneath these actions are complete disdain for the biological family, recruitment of vulnerable children into a future of medical dependency, and a public school system more concerned with radical ideology that with the essential education for the complex world of the 21st century. This is more than protecting a few vulnerable kids in need of psychological help so they become comfortable in their bodies. This is a demonic agenda that makes the exception the rule, and the state the arbiter of truth.

Recently in another state, the government would not allow parents to remove their children from exposure to gender and sexuality indoctrination, declaring that exposure to pornographic materials and alternative lifestyles were important and could be corrected at home. Such inanity must be opposed with compassion and conviction.

We can do better. Thoughtfulness demands that we debate these issues with civility, and return final authority to the families, not the state. Every person of any identity or worldview deserves kindness, but toleration is not celebration and primary formation of character rests at home. 

Certainties for 2023, Part 2

As we look ahead to a new year, there are often feelings of hope and trepidation, a sense of a fresh start battling with nascent fatalism that wonders if life can change. The good news is that while we cannot control all the decisions of others or the events around us, we can prayerfully make wise decisions. Here are four more certainties for the coming year.

Fourthly, apocalyptic climate change propaganda will continue, along with reasoned pushbacks that call for environmental sanity that does not impoverish the working classes around the world. Global prosperity will always include a carbon footprint, and only elites sheltered from economic realities are promoting draconian policies. Thoughtful women and men will call for both/and approaches that sustain economies while developing amazing new technologies.

A fifth certitude is that many women and men will question traditional religious values and “deconstruct” their faith, while millions more find the freedom of the gospel. This paradox is reflected in the New Testament as the writers expect global evangelization and great apostasy, with awakenings matched by persecution. Serious Christians and healthy local churches will be places of intellectual, spiritual, and social refuge for women and men searching for meaning and truth. God hears the prayers and records the tears of millions crying out for an awakening.

Sixth, the gender chaos of the LGBTQIA+ movements will continue, but thoughtful men and women will offer nuanced responses to this anarchy, and its deliberate recruitment of vulnerable children and adolescents. Underneath the social trends is the deconstructionism of post-modern and Marxist ideologues that desire the end of the biological family and the remaking of human persons as transhuman group members, rather than male and female individuals with freedom. The good news is that reasonable people are seeing through the nonsense and offering ways forward that allow adults liberty while shielding children from nefarious agendas.

Finally, the new year offers an invitation from God to all: will we find our identity, peace, and rest through faith in Christ, or will we pursue our own idols and finish another year in frustration? Five questions that can help us as we aim for a flourishing life: 1) Will we live in humble reverence before God or make self-fulfillment our chief aim? 2) Will we allow the Lord to heal and bring hope, or will we wallow in fatalism? 3) Will we relate to others with love and wisdom, or see people only as a means to an end? 4) Will we discover and articulate a life mission that honors God and serves others, or live for momentary pleasures? And 5) Will we offer each day of work as an act of worship, or merely trudge along and live for Friday night? For more on these dimensions of life, go to www.discipleshipdynamics.com and discover the abundant life Christ has designed for each of us.

Please join me in welcoming the challenges and opportunities ahead. We are not alone. Our Lord is with us, and there are millions of faithful and thoughtful sisters and brothers praying for and with us.

Unspoken Absolutes: What Lies Beneath All the Outrage

About 1,960 years ago, The Gospel of Matthew was penned, offering collections of the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth. Central to all the teachings presented are the Beatitudes found in Chapter 5. They constitute foundational dispositions and disciplines for followers of Jesus the Christ. One of these pithy and profound sayings is found in Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The “blessed” (happy, to be congratulated, under divine favor) actively pursue peace (concord, harmony, end of conflict, enemies becoming friends).

This peacemaking includes personal conflicts, peace among contentious groups, warring nations, and rival powers. Jesus was building on the Wisdom traditions of Israel calling the faithful to, “seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14) and the Apostle Paul would highlight both the individual and relational facets of peace with God and among humankind (Romans 5:1; Galatians 5:22; Colossians 3:16). Jesus’s words have inspired intercultural and interracial harmony, as well as reconciliation movements throughout history. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1950s and 1960s, and President Nelson Mandela in the 1990s are examples of peacemakers bringing justice and calm to intense struggles.

In our contentious public square, peacemaking is needed more than ever. The agitation propaganda, apocalyptic hyperbole, outright anger, and egregious personal insults are not fostering concord and harmony! Why is it so hard for people of conscience to ignore the reactive emotionalism and forge principled compromises and offer proximate justice? The answers are complex, but we can unearth the unspoken absolutes that create the conditions of contention. Underneath all the “be a good person” and “we ae all one” and “be kind” sayings are pillars of post-modern anarchy and subjectivism that make consensus hard. Here are a few of these new “absolutes”

  • Knowledge is not objective, but subjective. Pursuing the truth of a matter is now replaced by “my truth.” Even the words, “fact(s)” and “objectivity” are considered oppressive and racist.
  • The human person is now a malleable creation of the autonomous self, not an identity to cultivate and refine as a human being who is male or female. Gender anarchy is a deliberate subversion of the divine image and everyone is now their own god, manufacturing new narratives of victimhood and pseudo-liberation. Of course, anyone affirming the commonsense view that all humankind is one race (with many ethnicities, of course) with binary female and male characteristics is ignorant at best and evil at worst.

These crises of knowledge (epistemology) and human identity (anthropology) make peacemaking quite challenging. Part of peaceful relations is living civilly with our deepest differences, desiring for all freedom of conscience and opportunity to flourish. But the purveyors of the aforementioned axioms purposefully cultivate conflict so they can rage against the machine forever, instead of offering principles and pathways for a preferred future.  There are two more unspoken absolutes that govern this grievance culture:

  • Morality is subjective and traditional religions are the enemy of human freedom. Marxist ideology aims for a “new person” free from economic and spiritual history with the state in control of every detail of life. One set of absolutes is now replaced with “liberation” through class struggle…and history tells us this is disastrous!
  • History must be shaped to promote political agendas, regardless of the tapestry of narratives and the beauty and brokenness of humankind in all cultures and all eras. “Presentism” is the fashionable ideology of making today’s wokeism the lens by which all people at all times are evaluated.

Is there a way forward? Yes! Peacemaking requires values and virtues shared by diverse groups. People of conscience and common sense must affirm that pursuing the truth is noble and possible. We must allow science to speak loudly about the DNA of human identity, without imposing cultural idols. We must affirm that there are moral standards we can agree on. And we must learn all historical narratives and allow them to inform our decisions. I pray we will find the courage and wisdom for peacemaking rooted in enduring principles.

Real Questions, Thoughtful Answers, Part 2: Parental Engagement in Education

A thoughtful friend who is a keen observer of public issues, wrote to me the other day and asked, “Charlie, what just happened in Virginia? Many of my friends are calling it a racist backlash. Other are saying the parents are finally being heard. What do you think?”

As always, the issues of any election are complex and people do not fit into tidy cultural and/or ideological boxes assigned by the pundits. This election does demonstrate that a sentence or two can change history! If Governor McAuliffe had invited frustrated parents to a roundtable discussion and expressed empathy, he might have won the election. Instead, he casually opined that the parents should not tell the school board or teachers what to teach. This was not well-received by many in his own party (even if it was exploited by the other side beyond McAuliffe’s intent).

The conflicts of Virginia are found across the nation as parents are deeply agitated about the content and overall quality of the education their children are receiving. This was amplified by the effects of COVID and parental exposure to heretofore unknown topics. The school boards and administrators of many schools are proving themselves unwilling to listen deeply and engage in dialogue, resorting to narrow rules for feedback and even obscuring controversial content, as well as budget allocations. Parents feel condescended to, belittled, and libeled. Disagreeing with some facets of how racial issues are presented is not racism; however, that is the conclusion of some commentators and teachers’ union leaders. Concerns about sex education and the age-appropriate materials is met with derision by educators, some of whom see no problem with telling students to keep secrets from their families.

A bit of historical and social perspective helps as we aim for a better way forward. Three issues are converging in these conflicts: 1) The public schools are challenged with bringing education and support services to children coming from very difficult homes: 2) Professionals take offense at non-experts telling them what to do; 3) We have a deep cultural divide over the scope of education, from broad, ideological agendas to more narrow subject foci.

In defense of most schools and teachers, education can be challenging, especially in under-resourced communities. Kids come to school with emotional and physical needs that make learning hard on a good day. One kindergarten teacher I spoke with summarized her day this way: “I have 20 students. Only a few have two-parent households and come to school with clean bodies and clothes and ready to learn. I think I taught about 8-10 and kept the others from hurting themselves and others.” Social service case workers affirm this picture as they try to help families and manage the consequences of abuse, addiction, divorce and single-parent homes. Before we berate educators, it is right to pause and realize that we must renew the importance of parents serving their children and creating the conditions for flourishing.

Issues 2 and 3 are part of a century-long tension between parental authority and the responsibility and the influence of experts. While issue #1 unveils the brokenness of many families, educators have long been as the forefront of questioning family authority and influence and desiring that the state be the primary leader in nurturing children. A few years ago, a news commentator, responding to similar parental concerns, blurted out, “Your children do not belong to you…they belong to the collect…I mean the community!” She meant to say, “collective” in good Marxist fashion, but caught herself and said “community.” While we all affirm that community is vital, parents are the vital foundation and any diminishment of their influence (except for abuse) is overreach by the state.

What is the way forward? First, children must be welcome as gifts from God and parents must embrace the unselfishness and sacrifice of nurturing them to maturity. Parents are the first teachers. Issues of faith, morality, and key values rests primarily in the home, secondarily in the faith community, and only thirdly with public institutions. Parents must be heard and their children must not be subject to indoctrination or information beyond their years.

Second, the educational establishment must narrow its focus to education, especially the important knowledge and skills for functioning in a competitive world. Except for enforcing common values of civility, diligence, and mutual respect, teachers must teach their subjects well, properly exposing students to many historical narratives and cultural expressions, while ensuring that basic liberal arts and sciences are central. It is time for a school year to increase in days, not decrease. The USA is way behind much of the developed world in the amount and quality of schooling that our K-12 children receive.

Third, all curricular and co-curricular content must be public and subject to scrutiny. NO secrets, full transparency, and open debate must be the norm. Teachers are trained to help children that might be abusive victims, and we do need a safety net for these situations. It is time to end the secrecy, especially about religion, sexuality, and politics. These realms belong to the family first, then the local community agencies, and then, informationally, to the educational establishment.

Fourth, the educational landscape must be a free market, with public, charter, private, and homeschooling networks cooperating and competing. Right now, more than a million underserved families are waiting for places in charter and private schools because of the poor quality of their local schools. Yes, we need more resources for the poorer neighborhoods – and much more accountability for how they are managed! Costs per pupil are not the only indicator of success.

We can have civil debate and explore better ways for education. Courage, humility, and a willingness to share influence and power are the keys to a better future for our children.

Totalitarians Unite: August 22-23, 1939 and 2021: Will Democracies Capitulate or Find Courage?

The triumph of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a devastating blow to US prestige and the cause of pluralistic liberty everywhere. Afghan history reveals a region that is a collection of tribes and utterly unconquerable by outside forces. From Alexander the Great three centuries before Christ, to a variety of empires, this inhospitable and divided land will not subject herself to colonialism, communism, or western democratization.

US/Allied policy for nearly two decades has wavered between simply rooting out terrorist dens and trying to instill some cohesive and democratic regimes. The former would have been a wise policy, with a strong Allied base and less occupying influence. All this is now water under the bridge. What is instructive are the implications of this current moment for the future of freedom and the historical connections that should inform the responses of nations and peoples that love liberty.

The Taliban are presently supported by a variety of jihadist networks, Islamic states, and totalitarian regimes such as China. Even though China is persecuting Islamic groups in its own nation, she has vested economic interests in ousting western nations and being in position to mine the resources of Afghanistan. What we have is a pragmatic alliance of two totalitarian systems that equally hate the USA and her allies.

The 1939 Connection

On August 22-23, 1939, the world was stunned as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact and trade agreement. These mortal enemies suddenly were friends. Communist parties around the world were told overnight not to disparage Germany. Of course, for both Hitler and Stalin, this was a marriage of momentary convenience, until each had sufficient forces to oppose the other. The secret protocols of the agreement divided Poland between the two empires, gave the Soviets free reign in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, with Germany also willing to let the USSR wage war against the stubborn Finnish nation. Hitler was given freedom for his eventual invasions of the West.

The significance of the moment for today must be clearly seen, with no illusions: jihadists are happy to unite with other groups that desire the demise of democratic and pluralistic nations. Each totalitarian group thinks they will eventually triumph, while the immediate impact is harm to liberty. Hitler and Stalin hated the democracies and they united for their dictatorial ends. The various forces of jihadism are willing to work with Marxists to undermine the West.

Here are the signs of 1939 in 2022:

  • The irrational hatred and delegitimizing of the State of Israel and the enormous rise in antisemitism around the world. Jewish heritage and a democratic Israel stand in the way of the “long march of Marxism” (Os Guinness) and Jihadist goals, just as both Hitler and Stalin saw the Jews as the impediment to their utopias. 
  • Among many Marxists in the West, there is an unwillingness to criticize the Islamist oppression of minorities and women while projecting Nazi and Taliban identities on conservative political parties in Western democracies. This includes castigating any African-American or Hispanic-Latino conservatives, and refusing to listen to serious empirical and historical arguments that do not fit “the narrative.”
  • Utter disregard for the suffering of Cubans and Venezuelans while keeping an open border with Mexico reflects the political strategies of those aiming for a one-party state in the USA.
  • The refusal of the current administration to see global situations clearly and work in concert with democratic allies.
  • Fueling greater divides among cultural and economic groups.

Our response to this serious moment must not be ideological polarization or personal insults, but affirmation of core principles that cultivate the character and community ethos needed for a more loving and just world. In next week’s essay, I will propose new ways forward that refuse to look to political leaders as messiahs and empowers caring people for participation in community flourishing.

We can learn from history and forge a fresh future without the subversions of totalitarian ideologies and regimes. The choice is ours: fear or faith, capitulation or courage.