Inspired by a True Story

Double Whammy

Note: A reader wrote in to question my use of the images on this blog especially, I think, the one that was in this spot because of copyright issues. I suppose I hadn't considered that possibility fully enough. I'll be ginving it more thought in days to come. In the meantime, I've removed the image from this post.

One day last week the Mrs. greeted me with sad news. We'd had a death in the family.

The faithful laptop where most of this blog has been written just gave out in the middle of some task she had assigned it.

We've taken it to the specialists to see if, through the use of their mysterious powers, they can resuscitate the old girl.

As the laptop was out of commision, I turned to our older, but still sturdy, desktop.

Last night, as I worked to copy an audio file at the behest of a local music group, the desktop shuddered and blinked and, after making quite a show of her suffering, crashed.

So I am temporarily computerless. Being sans computer makes blogging a little tougher, so posts might be scattered for the next few days. Hang in there.

By the way, if there are any Mac afficianados in this audience, I've got some questions for you. Drop me a line at deansblog at yahoo.com.

A Final Word on Schooling, I Think

I continue to receive comments arguing that public schools cannot be held more accountable for the bad behavior of children than can parents. I thought it might be helpful if I made another attempt to clarify my position on this.

While I certainly think parents are a major factor in shaping and molding their children, I have resisted saying the problems easily seen in so many public school children’s behavior are exclusively, or even primarily, due to parents for two reasons.

First, as I have already said, public schools are an organ of the state and a conduit for those values and opinions which serve the interests of the state and the secular consumerist culture.

Over most of the last two centuries state and cultural leaders have used the public school system as a method of social engineering to inculcate into most of the population an approved view of every aspect of reality, including parenting.

In this context then, the question of whether schools or parents bear more responsibility for children’s problems is nearly the same as asking, "Who is more influential on kids: parents or the culture and its system of indoctrination which establishes in the minds of many the acceptable model of parenting, that tells people how to parent?”

I do agree that on a micro level the influence of a parent in a child seems supreme, but when we look at the larger picture and see how in our secular consumerist culture much of the influence parents have on their children flows directly from the conditioning they’ve received from our cultural oracles, I think the answer as to who is most influential in a child’s life is obvious.

The second reason I’ve been reluctant to amplify the role of parental responsibility in this area is that doing so often serves as the system's first line of defense.

The public school child is ripped from his home by force of law. He is then subjected to a rigid pattern of training by strangers who have little incentive and ability to give him proper care. He is subjected to abuse by both teachers and peers. He is forced to mold himself to a set of arbitrary restrictions enforced by agents of an indifferent culture. When he rebels and causes problems, representatives of the systems too often then deny their responsibilities by saying, “Hey, it’s the parents’ fault.”  I’m very reluctant to allow this kind of maneuvering.

(Here’s a related question I’d like to hear an answer to: parents have the authority to train and discipline their children, because God has ordained their authority. In other words, parents’ authority is legitimate because it flows from His. By what authority then, does a public school teacher, working in an institution created by the state fiat, discipline a child? From where does that authority flow? Is it merely the coercive power of the state that forces Johnny to sit still and quiet in that uncomfortable chair?)

Finally, I want to say a word to friends and other readers who work in the public education system. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I know many people become teachers because of either a passionate love of their subject or a sincere desire to help children or both.

The presence of good teachers, without a doubt, makes the experience of public school education endurable. What joy there was in my own terrible experience of public education existed because of the kindness of a few decent men and women. I don't want to drive you good ones out. For some kids, you are the only respite they might find as they are forced through the process. Never would I want to strip you from them.

American Public Education and the "Problem" Child

Before the week ends, I wanted to say one more word about American public education, especially about its methods for identifying emotionally troubled kids whose behavior sometimes disrupts the schooling process.

I have worked with these kids. I’ve witnessed or heard first hand reports of kids going berserk in classrooms, wailing, shoving furniture, throwing things. I’ve known kids for whom expression of uncontrolled rage is common.

Others hold it in. Their grief and fury come out in different ways. They don’t do their homework. They won’t sit still. They fill the day with countless minor distractions. These kids are no less “troubled.”

In order to understand how the system views these kids, it’s important to remember that all education is inherently teleological. It must have a purpose in mind toward which to educate. Educators must have a sense of the kind of person they hope the education process will form in order to begin making decisions about how to spend classroom time, what constitutes an acceptable curriculum, etc.

The purpose of contemporary American schooling is to inculcate into kids liberal, secular values, while at the same time preparing them to take their proper places in the industrial-consumerist marketplace. Both the intellectual and time structures of modern public schooling reflect this.

If God exists, then His existence is the central fact, the fact by whose light all other facts are to be studied and processed. God alone makes possible any ultimate coherence of our random bits of knowledge. Yet, public schools act as if the question of God’s existence is irrelevant to the process of education and so imply to their students that a kind of passive atheism is the default position of all educated persons. Appropriating this attitude for themselves leaves them with a gaping hole in their souls that they must seek to fill. Trying to fill this hole will, in years to come, turn them into faithful consumers.

While public students are learning to ignore God, they are also learning to obey bells. When the bell rings, they learn to move unquestioningly from one place to another. They learn that any intellectual passion enflamed in the last hour must be surrendered in this one. They learn that their own interests and convictions must be relinquished for the good of the system. Appropriating these habits for themselves will make them excellent workers in the consumerist-industrial economy.

Once we understand the fundamental purpose of American public schooling we can more easily see how some kids could come to be viewed as “troubled” or, more honestly, simply “trouble”.

Kids who do not settle easily into the system, who do not smoothly adopt the mental and physical habits the system requires, are trouble for the system. Kids whose souls rebel at the constant, subtle nudging toward functional atheism or who are never quite able to force themselves into the “sit still and move when I tell you to” pattern of education are diagnosed as having a whole range of disorders. The typical recourse is medication. When all other methods to coerce conformity fail, the system is more than happy to use drugs to keep a kid in line.

School isn’t the only cultural institution pushing these values. But, it is the primary way kids get labeled as suffering from some emotional or psychological pathology.

Let’s just examine the situation of a kid born into this culture. First, he is born into a culture that has killed 50 million other babies. Just by making it into the world he is a survivor. As soon as he learns about abortion he will know this culture considers his life worthless. He will grow up in a culture that offers his parents no encouragement to keep their marriage vows and quite a bit of encouragement to break them. If his parents divorce and he dares complain about it, he will be told, in some way, to get over it.
At school, he will be taught that if God exists, He is irrelevant to what really matters, which is making enough money to buy new sneakers and video games. Otherwise, he will be told, life is meaningless, the freak result of random natural processes.

These realities only begin to describe the context of despair in which he will receive his education. Given this, the pressing question is not “Why do some kids rage?,” but “Why do so many not?”

For Example....

In our continuing discussion of the purposes and impact of American public education, one reader weighs in with the kind of measured rhetoric and polite discourse public education is famous for.

“Meat” writes:

You're an idiot.

Have you never seen kids at a zoo before?

Your comparison is a group of Mennonite kids?

You need to get the fence up and get back into the compound before the world ruins your day.

And we'll be just as happy you're locking us out.

“Meat” has today provided me one of those rare moments of delight that come about for bloggers when a detractor proves your case.

It appears one topic not covered in “Meat’s” education was irony.

More Thoughts on Modern Schooling

In response to my previous post, some friends have posted objections and questions that deserve responses. Let me try to offer the beginning of answers to their concerns.

Aaron reacted to my description of the barbarous behavior of public school children by writing:

Some public schools I am in actually have well behaved children and on overall effective school, and other schools--mostly inner city and lower socioeconomic schools--appear to have much higher rates of behavior problems. On the other hand, my wife used to teach in inner city Boston in a Hispanic community, and her kids were very respectful overall. So, it seems that my subjective experience has been a child's home experience does provide a foundation of future behaviors and attitudes. Many kids begin school at the age of 5 and 6 already with behavior problems.

First, it’s important to note the terrible behavior I witnessed from the public school children I described in my previous post was not exhibited by “problem kids.” Instead, what I saw were the “normal” kids, the “good” kids.

I think Aaron’s real question is, “Why do some kids come to school with already well-developed emotional problems?” I suspect his questions arise from my assertion in a previous comment thread that schooling is more influential in children’s behavior than are parents.

Explaining my view of the function and purpose of the public school system may help.

From its beginning, the role of compulsory public education has been to mold society. Many of its founders are quite explicit on this point. I again refer you to the work of Gatto on this point. Their goal was to produce a certain kind of person, one who held their secular, industrial values.

Since the late 19th century the American system of public schooling has succeeded in shaping our culture along these lines. Schools are not the only institution encouraging a secular consumerist mindset today, but they are among the most important.

The success of public schooling in shaping mainstream values and, even more deeply, the very categories by which our minds organize reality means that families exist in a context in which these views are pervasive. While I never denied parents are major influences on children, most parents view their parental role in light of contemporary, mainstream, secular consumerist values that the schools advocate.

So, while parents bear responsibility for their children’s behavior, I fail to see how we can hold them fully accountable when many of them are doing exactly what they have been taught to do with their children by our education system and the popular media.

Christie ends her comment with this question:

If you believe that public schools are the root of our value problem...how do we explain some really obnoxious home-schooled children? As we are new home schoolers I can tell you that I have met some families that I just cringe to see coming!

I do not believe public schools are the root of our values problem. The root of our values problem is our culture’s rejection of God in Christ. What the public schools have done is to take the functional atheism of their founders and mainstream it.

The reason some home schoolers are obnoxious is that people are sinful. The issue for me isn’t whether home schooling is better than some other mode of education. The choice is between an education that acknowledges God and one that, as public school education does in a million subtle ways, denies Him.

I have much, much more to say on this topic, but to avoid a thousand-word or more post, I’ll leave off here. I welcome your continued conversation.

What They Don't Teach in Public School

While in Oregon a few weeks ago, the Mrs. and I visited the zoo in Portland.

We happened to show up on what was, to judge by appearances, public elementary school day. The paths were choked with squirming, whining, intractable kids. They screamed non-stop. Everywhere we went they were there, banging on windows, pushing each other, sprinting aimlessly, careening into other patrons. Their peevish behavior nearly ruined our visit.

The “adults” who were with them were hardly better. Mostly they looked on supportively as their charges displayed the barbarous lack of decency that is the mark of so much public education. The typical adult response to these antics was a roll of the eyes followed by an affirming look to ensure the little scamps would never doubt their teachers believed they were thoroughly wonderful.

In one instance I watched a chaperon feed Doritos to a gibbon in violation of the zoo’s explicit rules. A group of admiring boys stood around watching him. As I approached, the man turned and walked away. The boys who stayed behind immediately moved to imitate his behavior, reaching into their lunch bags for snacks. 

They began to try to feed the small ape.

“Don’t do that,” I said, in a none-too-sweet tone of voice.

They looked at me with a mixture of fear and bewilderment, but packed away their chips nonetheless. An adult who expected them to follow the rules must have been the strangest beast they encountered that day.

With this experience fresh in our memories, we couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast we saw when we recently visited a state wildlife park. As we toured the grounds, we were surrounded by a group of traditional Mennonites and their children.

There was no screaming, no shoving, no teasing or feeding the animals, just quiet appreciation of the wonders of creation and obvious enjoyment of what they were seeing.

The schools are not the only ones to blame for the atrocious behavior of the children we saw at the zoo. Many other public institutions pander to the sense of entitlement this culture, and the schools in particular, breeds. Many zoos and museums cater to this attitude. By allowing such abysmal behavior, by encouraging schools to bring masses of children for a day’s entertainment, by attempting to make a visit there amusing, they contribute to the widespread conviction that nature and history exist simply to provide recreation. Children do not learn that nature and history are the context for their lives. Instead, they learn that the world exists to provide them with the thrills they are coached to seek.

Thus, they contribute to the goal of government education in America: to inculcate into young people attitudes and skills they will need to be successful in secular consumerist culture. The terrible reality is nothing promotes success in such a culture like a heartfelt conviction that whatever exists ought to be, and potentially could be, yours. From what I have lately seen of young people, I can only imagine the schools are doing a very fine job.

Christianity and Consumerism, Part III

Here is the third and final part of my essay on consumerism published earlier this week by Infuze magazine.

That Christians fall prey to consumer culture is to be expected, of course, because what makes consumerism so difficult to resist is, in part, its tendency to co-opt all resistance by turning every pocket of opposition into a niche market. As soon as a group prepares to stand against the trend, the market produces books they might like to read, t-shirts they can wear to announce their anti-consumerist position, all manner of souvenirs and baubles they are sure to want. Consumerism triumphs not by silencing resistance but by marketing to it.

In America, this process is nearly complete where evangelicals are concerned. Though evangelicalism has constructed a wildly successful sub-culture, complete with its own music and movies, toys and celebrities, the bulk of evangelicals still share with our broader secular culture the underlying assumptions of consumerism. In the vast majority of cases, evangelicals live as though we share the conviction that the purpose of life is our own happiness and comfort, and the belief that these things are attainable through the consumption of market goods.

Evangelicals’ acceptance of consumerist assumptions tends to play out most obviously in our approach to church attendance and worship. The vast number of churches available to the American Christian resembles a grocery store shelf stocked with 76 kinds of peanut butter. He is left with a bewildering number of options, many of whose differences are so small as to be negligible. The only principle he has for choosing among them is personal taste.

The criterion for choosing a church is often the same. Many evangelicals now attend churches based solely on what appeals to their personal tastes. Other factors like tradition or devotion to doctrinal distinctives play a much smaller part in how we choose which church we attend. Many evangelicals, then, have adopted an attitude toward churches that sees them as variations of a common product, like different brands of blue jeans or coffee, all competing for the business of the religious consumer.

The fallout of this shift in attitude has been tragic. Churches have made enormous efforts to attract business, radically altering their worship services and scrapping traditional rites and rituals when these fail to draw the crowds. The adoption of consumerist attitudes has even worse effects on church life when it comes to the teaching of unpopular doctrine. Any serious affront a church attender encounters in the teaching at one church can be avoided by simply finding another church, another brand, whose teaching fits more comfortably.

The consumer mindset so thoroughly pervades our culture that, as Christians, we find ourselves in a position not unlike many in the surrounding secular culture.  Consumerism ascended in response to the loss of a cultural belief in God, a fixed transcendent point by which we might tell who and what we are. It reigns by rendering impotent the avenue through which our culture’s functional atheism might be confronted:  the Church.

To recover her cultural influence the church must be full of people willing to challenge the assumptions of consumerism. Doing so will entail some difficulty, especially for those most accustomed to them.

Any solution must involve some level of withdrawal from the culture, at least enough to get some critical distance. As Christians, we are accustomed to hearing about the hot-button moral issues plaguing our culture—abortion, homosexuality, etc.—but responding to these in piecemeal fashion is not enough. We must look at the larger cultural context in which we encounter these problems, and that context is consumer culture.

We must turn away from a culture enamored of the meretricious, enchanted by passing fancies and fashions and instead turn ourselves toward what is eternally true, that treasure no thief can steal, nor rust nor moth destroy.

Only when we are willing to do this will we begin to break the hold of consumerism on our hearts. Only then will we be able to lead, rather than follow, the surrounding culture. Only then can we truly bless our neighbors. Only then can we offer a true alternative to the flashing lights of the consumer tyranny. Only then will we know, in the end, the pleasures money cannot buy.

Christianity and Secular Consumerism, Part II

This is part two of longer essay I wrote that was published this week at Infuze.com.  I'm presenting it here bit by bit for further discussion.

Consumer attitudes have grown pervasive over the last many decades at the same time as the push to create in America a thoroughly secular culture has become increasingly virulent. One result of this process of secularization is that many Americans are now left with no transcendent reference point for their morality, their understanding of human life, or even of themselves.

As the forces of secularism have succeeded in driving from the public square any reference to a transcendent meaning or purpose for human life, market forces have been there to offer substitutes. Where once we had to open our hearts to God to experience true life, now we have only to open our wallets to the customer service representative.

Just as Americans began seeking to fill their inward, spiritual need with consumer products, the processes for providing goods and services to consumers were being revolutionized by changes in computer technology, advertising, and transportation. Just at the time when American culture had primed its populace to seek spiritual satisfaction in consumer goods, those goods were becoming cheaper to produce and sell.

The confluence of these national, even global, trends has local repercussions.    Consider your local shopping mall. Among its garish lights and the ceaseless droning pop music, more is happening than we are typically led to believe.

Consumer culture as it manifests itself there does more than provide us with fantastic trinkets and amusements. It communicates to us what are legitimate modes of living, what we ought to expect from life, and what moral convictions are proper.

But, it reaches even deeper into our hearts when it presents us with a set of prepackaged identities. All we have to do is choose, and the smiling salesperson (if you want a grumpy salesperson, there is a store for you too) will show the way to accessorize your very soul. In America, we shop not so much for goods as for selves.

Let’s take a mental tour of the closest shopping mall.

What you see if you look closely enough is not simply stores hawking innocuous wares, but merchants ready to outfit consumers with all-encompassing identities.

Are you the debonair, disheveled college kid? You’ll want to hit Abercrombie and Fitch for gear contrived to convey just the right air of practiced slouchiness. Or, are you graduated, professional, but still young and hip? Banana Republic may be for you.

Or maybe you’re neither of these. Maybe you’re the kid who resents the system, the outsider, the misunderstood one. If so, you’ll want to stop by Hot Topic to peruse the endless new line of products designed to perfectly radiate all your non-conformist angst this season.

Christians aren’t immune to these forces. There’s a store for us too. Maybe just down the road from the mall is your local Christian retailer, fully stocked to augment your Christian identity, to equip you with every necessary thing for the life of true faith. Like Jesus flip-flops. Or keychains. How about some candy with bible verses engraved on each delectable piece?

There’s something for every kind of Christian. For the retro and traditional they’ve got the neckties with cross and dove patterns and Southern gospel CD’s. Are you cool, trendy, and emerging?  Well, then you’ll want this copy of RELEVANT. You can read it while you’re next door getting your eyebrow pierced.

Christianity and Secular Consumerism

Infuze Magazine is scheduled  this morning to post a longer article I wrote about the way secular consumerism affects Christian, particularly evangelical, thinking.  I'll be posting it in bits over the next few days here as well.

In a nation as sprawling and diverse as America, there is one thing any American can be sure of when meeting another. Whether he lives in Sarasota or Seattle, Boston or Butte, the average American is united with his countrymen by one of the few stitches that continue to hold together the fraying fabric of our national life: the ubiquity and homogeneity of the shopping experience. In America, nothing bridges the chasm of our differences like The Gap.

We live in a consumerist culture. It is the sea in which we swim like fish with credit cards. Consumer culture shapes our experiences, our thoughts, and our expectations. It molds our identities. Its siren song beckons us forever toward the rocky shores of convenience and an unbelievably low sale price.

Consumer culture tends to co-opt every bulwark erected against it, and has done so with much of mainstream evangelicalism. Many Christians these days, whether they count themselves liberal or conservative, traditional or emerging, Reformed or Charismatic, draw their identities and understandings of human life more from the assumptions of consumer culture than from the teaching of Scripture. As a result, the church finds itself conformed to the world in ways of which she is only dimly aware.

To understand how this has happened, we must first look at what consumerism is and at some of its effects.
Consumerism is not merely a tendency to buy lots of stuff or even to enjoy shopping and the hunt for a great bargain. It is, instead, a posture of the heart that seeks to fill its spiritual void with consumer goods. What makes us consumerists is not so much how much or how often we buy, but why.

Consumer attitudes have grown pervasive over the last many decades at the same time as the push to create in America a thoroughly secular culture has become increasingly virulent. One result of this process of secularization is that many Americans are now left with no transcendent reference point for their morality, their understanding of human life, or even of themselves.

As the forces of secularism have succeeded in driving from the public square any reference to a transcendent meaning or purpose for human life, market forces have been there to offer substitutes. Where once we had to open our hearts to God to experience true life, now we have only to open our wallets to the customer service representative.

Just as Americans began seeking to fill their inward, spiritual need with consumer products, the processes for providing goods and services to consumers were being revolutionized by changes in computer technology, advertising, and transportation. Just at the time when American culture had primed its populace to seek spiritual satisfaction in consumer goods, those goods were becoming cheaper to produce and sell.

The confluence of these national, even global, trends has local repercussions.Consider your local shopping mall. Among its garish lights and the ceaseless droning pop music, more is happening than we are typically led to believe.

Consumer culture as it manifests itself there does more than provide us with fantastic trinkets and amusements. It communicates to us what are legitimate modes of living, what we ought to expect from life, and what moral convictions are proper.

A Caring and Supportive Group: The Trouble with Christian Education

Here’s my nominee for the worst question asked in church: “What does this mean to you?”

In Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday schools around the country this question captures the spirit of much contemporary Christian education.

The typical scenario involves sitting in chairs arranged in a circle. This is to foster a spirit of community, a sense that we’re all learning from one another here. I’ve grown very suspicious of the circle.

Once everyone is seated and the appropriate introductions made, class usually begins with the leader making the fewest, briefest remarks possible, then someone reads aloud, and discussion time begins.

The problem is that very few people know enough to make remarks that are on target, insightful, or grounded in facts outside their own immediate, often-subjective experience. The result is a “study” that is mostly a time for socializing, sharing anecdotes and passing along half-baked and sometimes dangerous ideas. 

This style of Christian education has become popular because it captures the therapeutic and democratic spirit into which so much of evangelicalism has sunk.  The leader in these situations is there not so much to convey information, as to facilitate discussion and try to make sure everyone feels included and welcomed. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting people to have a positive emotional experience, making this the primary goal of such sessions misses the mark.  When emotional reassurance becomes the goal of Christian education, we end up with churches are full of people who have been through dozens of these kinds of studies who remain ignorant of basic Christian truth and of how such truth is relevant to their decision making in the world.

The adoption of this style also communicates that truth can be arrived at by consensus, that if we all share our experience we’ll somehow leave knowing more than we did when we arrived.  No one wants his doctor trained this way.  We expect that our doctors or engineers will have been trained by people who had more experience and knowledge than they once did. A patient who imagined his physician learned anatomy by sitting in a room with other first year medical students asking one another “Where do you think the spleen is?” would be rightly terrified.

The difference is that most Christians have accepted the notion that the knowledge needed to be a doctor is objective and public and the knowledge needed to be a Christian is subjective and personal.  Therefore, there is little emphasis in many churches on presenting important information, from the content of the Bible to the details of church history, in an organized, systematic, and authoritative way.

The result is confused Christians who lack a comprehensive view of their faith and its implications.  They have little awareness of the historical events and trends that have shaped Christianity and its current expressions. Many do not understand how to begin integrating the principles of the faith into their thinking so that their choices reflect their Christian beliefs.

I suspect people in our churches are hungry for more.  Most people want to know, want to be equipped to handle the world around them, but feel powerless to know where to get the help they need.  Bringing another teaching style into these settings would help. Such a change must, however, start with those already equipped to teach and who are willing to break with the normal way of doing things. Any change in style must come from outside the cozy circle because such change, like the truth that demands it, cannot arise from within it.