The United States of America is unique. We were not established from an ethnic group, or a tribe, or a religion, or an aristocracy, or a race. Such things do not define us. We were forged from an idea. We were founded as a constitutional republic on the principles of federalism, individual liberty, limited government, and separation of powers.
We are not a kingdom. We are not an autocracy. We are not a democracy. There is no other nation on earth like ours.
There was a time when we were all united in patriotism around sharing such a unique and powerful form of civil government. Sadly, over the last 75 years, patriotism and unity have eroded. They continue to deteriorate rapidly.
The primary reason for this is the loss of the shared values that formed the foundation of the government we created. Stated clearly in our Declaration of Independence is our basic shared value:
“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
This phrase shows that while we are not a theocracy, we were founded on Judeo-Christian biblical principles. We believed in God. And that God gave us rights that no man or government can deny. The first ten amendments to our U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, enumerates some of those rights God gave each one of us. Our government has no say in those rights other than to protect them.
This no longer is our commonly held belief.
One of our presidential candidates did not believe that some speech—speech some consider hate speech or misinformation—should be protected. It should be shut down.
That same candidate believed: the faithful should be forced to accept the redefinition of male and female; the government, not God, has granted the right to bear arms; children belong to the government; experts should make the decisions on all issues—education, health, science, law, everything—not our citizens. Thankfully, that candidate lost, but almost half the country voted for her.
Until about 75 years ago, whatever we believed, most of us feared God. That is not true anymore, either.
We used to agree on right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood, kindness and cruelty. That agreement is gone.
Our national motto is E Pluribus Unum, from many one. That used to be considered our strength. No more. Today almost every sector of our culture—government, law, media, entertainment, education—emphasizes that diversity is our strength, not unity.
The old values we commonly held have evaporated, replaced by values specific to various ethnic groups, identities, religions, languages, races, and interests. Instead of a melting pot, our nation has become fragmented, Balkanized.
This is a disaster.
In our schools, children are taught values inconsistent with our founding values and principles. They are taught lies about the very founding of our country, such as those taught using the discredited narrative of the “1619 Project” or Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States.”
The Ten Commandments, prayer, bible readings, and biblical principles can no longer be taught in schools. Three U.S. Supreme Court rulings led to this result. In Engle v. Vitale (1962), the Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer, even if non-denominational and voluntary, was unconstitutional. The next year, 1963, in Abington School District v. Schempp, bible reading was deemed a violation. And in 1980 the Court ruled in Stone v. Graham that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional.
Instead of the moral teaching provided to children in our schools being based on biblical wisdom, it is now based on the wisdom of individual teachers, or on the curricula developed by a host of secular publishers, or a combination of these. One of the most rapidly expanding curricula is Social Emotional Learning (SEL), a secular morality and religion now being taught in many schools. Kevin Ryan, a professor emeritus of education at Boston University has this to say about it:
“SEL advocates see teaching students their five ‘competencies’ of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making as the effective replacement for schools’ former moral education and character formation. Committed as they are to development of ‘the whole child,’ progressive educators are promoting these skills as a secular replacement for what parents used to instill in children according to their faith, and to cultural and family beliefs and values”
Frequently these values taught are contrary to the values held by the parents. This is one of the reasons there has been an upheaval in our politics in recent years. Online teaching during COVID-19 exposed parents to what children were being taught, and they did not like it.
Since the pandemic, what is being taught has not changed. It has become worse and has become less transparent. It is more difficult for parents to find out what children, their own children, are exposed to. Many Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws, including Illinois’, exempt teachers from being required to provide copies of their lesson plans and course materials. If you want to see what they are being taught, they will not give you a list. You must go to the school. Even if you go in, schools won’t give you a list of the books, websites, articles, videos, and other materials taught. They might let you see them if you go in. Maybe. But they don’t have to.
This election won’t change much about the current activities in our schools. The recent Title IX revisions that redefine sex and allow boys on girls’ teams, locker rooms, and restrooms (and vice versa) will be withdrawn, but the school teachers and administrators will be the same.
Just as examples of some who remain in our schools:
-Leonard Sorrato, an administrator at the University of Oregon, told Donald Trump supporters online that they should kill themselves;
-Annie Dunleavy, a special education teacher at the Chapman School, a K – 6th grade school in Connecticut, threatened in online posts to hurt or kill Trump supporters; and
-Maximiliano Perez, a Moreno Valley, California high school teacher, on the day after the election, made profanity-laden comments about President-elect Trump to his class and characterized him as a “rapist,” a “draft-dodging coward,” a “treasonous scum,” and compared the President-elect to Adolf Hitler.
Throughout the country, in the days after the election, colleges and high school administrators offered counseling and safe spaces for those traumatized by the election’s results.
As for academics, an accumulation of state laws has already institutionalized a structure that skews the teaching content far to the left in many states, even in many red states. Illinois has a Gordian Knot of laws and regulations that already incorporate much of what the revised Title IX regulations require. If a boy thinks he’s a girl, he is and must be treated as such by all teachers and classmates. That’s the same in many states. In the Chicago Public Schools, the 1619 Project is incorporated into the curricula. It is not known how many other school districts use it as that information is not publicly available.
We are deeply divided.
I heard the actor James Woods on a podcast the other day say what he wanted was to Make America America Again. What he meant by that is to return to a time when we were united despite our differences, when we had each other’s back regardless of our party allegiance, when we could express what we believed and debate our positions without fear of being blacklisted or fired from our job, when we could respect and celebrate each other’s faith traditions, when we showed reverence to our flag and honored those who served it.
We need to return to being “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” And we all need to renew our allegiance to the flag representing our nation. One flag.
Don’t you want that? If so, get engaged. Elections are fleeting. Our culture needs a makeover.
What we need is a revival. This requires humility, prayer, and a willingness to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Let us pray that He will revive each of our hearts with Himself, transforming our state and nation as we seek to “do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.” (Micah 6:8)
