RC Sproul’s Shocking Question That Stunned a Public School Principal

John: All right, folks, my name is John Roshimeza. Welcome to the Counterrevolution Podcast. Today, I would like to talk about... A very important, I believe, subject for our day. ⁓ This has to do with relativism and pluralism and the whole idea of ⁓ multicultural kind of ⁓ waters that we're swimming in today, which is also sometimes known as ⁓ moral relativism. But of course, my chosen subject primarily is education, ⁓ because my hope ⁓ is to help churches and Christians and parents. ⁓ reclaim education as a ministry of the local church. This is the counter-revolution. That's what it's about. ⁓ and it is what it is. And I found a video a while ago from R.C. Sproul. And this was a video from a long time ago. R.C. Sproul is still young, probably in his 30s. ⁓ And he was teaching on pluralism and relativism. And so he was basically pointing out the impact on the culture, the secular culture around us and the church. ⁓ His goal is to show, basically to expose how once the universal truths were lost or abandoned, ⁓ You know. We are left with nothing. A lot of the things that the people around us are asking for, they don't really have any objective ground to stand on. And that is very important for us to understand as we talk about education. Because education increasingly is presented as a right that everyone deserves, whether they have the money to educate their children or not, whether they can ⁓ educate their children themselves or not, a child, whether he or she has a parent. The understanding now, even from the UN, is that every child has a right, a right to be educated. So education is no longer a privilege. It's a right. But that's a subject for another day. Today, we're going to listen to a portion of a video that I would highly recommend. Again, it's from RCS Pro. It's on the Lagunaire Ministry YouTube. And it's exploring pluralism and relativism. The title of the video is Pluralism and Relativism. A Christian worldview with RSS Pro. So let's hear this portion of the video and you'll see why I've chosen this portion of the video. And then I'll respond to it as I go. But I want to illustrate this in more concrete ⁓ ways. And my favorite illustration for how this works out goes back to when our... So real quick, he has already explained things. By now he has showed us how at some point things shifted to ⁓ the Winyon... evolution, right? Evolution which began in science and then was applied to life, to just regular everything, to sociology, to, you know, everything, history, right? So much so that ⁓ even Marxism borrowed heavily from evolution, Darwinian theory of evolution. And then so he goes on to point out ⁓ that then things shifted to relativism, which was originally a physics thing, right, in the hard sciences that was translated to social sciences and society and culture. which is where we get the idea of relativism. It is a very good video. I learned so much from this one particular video. It's only 30 minutes long. But here now, as he said, he's going to show you an illustration in a kind of how this is applied in real life. Listen up. Our daughter. entered kindergarten for the first time at a very progressive school in Boston. Very sophisticated curriculum. And I was aware of the fact that when we turned her over to the public school system, at that moment there was a sense in which we were no longer the dominant or the primary influence of the shaping of her mind and of her ideas because now she was going to be sitting under somebody else's tutelage for six or seven hours a day. And that's a traumatic thing for those. Just imagine. Look how long ago this is, R.S. Sproul is saying this, and he's admitting to this. Okay? He's admitting then to what he was doing and the fact that he knew what he was doing, putting his child in this public school system. But today, there's a lot of people who don't even realize that's what they're doing. There are pastors who put their kids in guns who don't even realize what they're doing in their mind. You know, this is not even ⁓ a factor in their thinking. But anyway, that's besides the point. This is not what this video is about. Let's go. Those who are concerned about the development of the mind of the child. And so I wanted to monitor very closely the education that she was getting and she would come home after the first couple of days of kindergarten and say, what did you do today in school? And she said, well, we played with this puzzle and we played with that puzzle and we worked with modeling clay and so on. And I thought, well, that doesn't seem too dangerous. I wasn't too alarmed. And after about six weeks, we got a notice in the mail that there would be an open house for parents where the principal of the school would explain. carefully the curriculum for the children. And Vesta and I went to that open house, and I'll never forget it, because the principal of the school was a very congenial and articulate man. who wanted to put our fears at rest. said, I know you parents are feeling the loss of your role in education with your children. said, I want you to put the rest. We want you to understand that everything that is done in this school is done with a very carefully thought out purpose in mind. And then he proceeded to unveil the curriculum. in a way that absolutely knocked me over. said, at nine o'clock, from nine o'clock till nine seventeen every morning, the children play with these puzzles. And he held up the puzzles. And he said, I know that when the kids come home from school you say, what did you do today honey? And the child said, well we played in puzzles and you think that all they're doing is just sitting around here having a good time and we're just sophisticated babysitters. He but I want you to understand that these puzzles were designed by a team of experts from Harvard, surgeons, and they were designed in such a way as to develop the motor muscles of the last two fingers of the left hand. And I thought, wow. And then they said that from 917 to 932 they involved themselves in this particular activity, and this activity was put together by a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin and so on. And they went through the whole curriculum and the point that he was making. was that every single dimension of that curriculum had a specific purpose. Nothing was left to chance. Okay, again, the good stuff is yet to come. But just imagine how ⁓ easy it is to I never thought about that until I watched this video and I watched this video recently while I already talk about this stuff and I had never stopped to think Well, how do they make the curriculum? What goes into it? Who makes the curriculum? What are they thinking? What's their goal? Who's their God? What's their purpose? And how come we don't get a vote in this? How come nobody ever says, hey, ⁓ parents, here's a survey. Who are these neurosurgeons? Right? That's the point. That's why. We need to rethink education because you have given up so much ground that you don't even realize you've given up. Listen up. And they were designed in such a way as to develop the motor muscles of the last two fingers of the left hand. And I thought, wow. And then he said from 917 to 932 they involved themselves in this particular activity, and this activity was put together by a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin and so on. And they went through the whole curriculum, and the point that he was making was that every single dimension of that curriculum had a specific purpose. Nothing was left to chance. or to arbitrary action. And after he went through the whole curriculum, we were overwhelmed. He then smiled and said, are there any questions? And when he asked that question, are there any questions? The response of the audience was spontaneous laughter. I mean, they laughed. They're like, who's going to ask any questions about this? we can't believe it. And there was spontaneous applause for the principle. I'm sitting in the back room, I raised my hand. Before he says that, I just want to point out that The likely reason that a lot of the people in that room did not ask, have any questions, even though they may have been Christians, very likely, is that they did not understand. they don't have a kind of philosophical inquiring mind to understand that what this guy just said about education. is so deep and so important and the fact that education is such a act. That. Our goal is not to raise up future workers and people that will be chasing the American dream. That's not what education is ultimately should be for. But those people were satisfied with the advertisement and that's probably why the principal did it. to show them, you're worried that your kid will come out of here and go to Harvard? But I promise you, what we're doing here, your kid will end up in Harvard. Your kid will end up with that good job that you want them to end up with, and that good American life that you want them to. So that becomes the end of education. So a lot of the parents in that room are like, ⁓ so we're paying good money for this. It seems our money is going to pay off. But then comes the troublemaker in the room who's going to raise his hand and disrupt the entire thing. Listen up. have a question. What's that? I said, you've carefully explained that every item on this curriculum has a definite and specific purpose attached to it, and I'm impressed by that. I but my question is, what is the overarching purpose of the curriculum? You only have so many hours in a day. There are only so many possible individual purposes that you can implement in the curriculum. And so you have to make decisions about that. So you must have some overarching blueprint that is governing the selection of the individual particular purposes that you have here in the curriculum. And I said, what I'd like to know is what is that overall purpose? Or to put it another way, what kind of a child are you trying to produce? and instantly he turned red, white. And I have to give him credit for his honesty at this point. He looked at me and he said, I don't know. I don't know. And I said, well, I very much appreciate your honesty, but your answer terrifies me. And you know why? And I would say my thinking is probably the reason the guy didn't know is because nobody's ever asked him that question. Nobody's ever. asked him what is education ultimately for? Because remember, When you're in that classroom, you don't really know what's going to happen with those kids. All you can hope for is that some of those kids succeed in life. And if that's your aim, It's all broken up. But if you have an overarching purpose, It's not even up to you at that point. And you know it. And you understand your role. And that changes even how you go about emphasizing these things that you emphasize. The priorities change. the classroom size change, the curriculum methodology, a chosen philosophy of education, it all changes. But only if you know, right? An atheistic system can only go so far. A secular humanist system that rejects God and the transcendent. can only go so far. A new age system that is confused. about the ultimate reality can only go so far. So this is what Dr. Sproul was saying all these years ago. And he never stopped, by the way. ⁓ He has always, one of my famous things I've shared about him is where he talks about neutrality in education. Right? Neutrality in education. Again, here's what Dr. Sproul has said many years later about neutrality in education. There is no such thing as an objective approach to education. There is no such thing as a neutral life and worldview. If your education is in a coherent understanding of the reality of God and the significance of that for all spheres of creation and all spheres of knowledge and all spheres of human enterprise, that is undoubtedly going to give you one picture, one set of values, one basic way of approaching life, then if you would try to examine that created sphere without reference to the significance of God to that sphere. Do you see that? There can't be neutrality. If I try to give an educational position whereby children are instructed in terms of a basic life and worldview without respect to God, then they are in fact being inculcated with a secular ism, a kind of human ism, which has a religious commitment ultimately, a religious commitment that is anti- the Christian faith because it's manifestly impossible to approach education without certain ultimate presuppositions as to the relationship of the world and God. Now, just to be clear, this is Dr. Sproul. Later on, I believe. This Dr. Sproul will not send his kid to the government school, no matter how good or how prestigious it bills itself to be. That Dr. Spro that we saw earlier, while very astute, he was probably hoping for an educational neutrality. Okay. And when he asked the guy that question, the ultimate overall purpose, the guy cannot answer because in his mind education is neutral. I can't tell you an overarching purpose because that would be my worldview. And I'm supposed to be operating in a vacuum. where there is no ⁓ overarching worldview. But Dr. Sproul found him in a vulnerable position because the guy was trying to explain the different purposes for every different aspects of the curriculum. without realizing well, you have to have an overarching purpose. And this Dr. Sproul would probably go back and tell him, you may not realize it, but you do have an overarching purpose. You just haven't thought about it. Here's another thing. The average Christian still operates under the assumption that there is at least a possibility for neutralite. Right? And then we can come home and inculcate the worldview aspects of education. But as you can see from what Dr. Sproul was saying, and by the way, Every curriculum that your child is exposed to in the schoolhouse has been scrutinized in a similar fashion. It's designed by people whose purpose you don't know. And of course, some of it we've outlined here of how the elites want a kind of citizen. who can do a certain kind of things, who does not pose a threat to them. Right? ⁓ Obviously... We know that, but what specifically is the guy creating your social and emotional learning curriculum in your schoolhouse? That think tank that the curriculum comes out of or that publishing house, what are they thinking? What is their purpose? We've already talked about the Mahmoud V. Taylor case in which the school the school district, the ⁓ board, school board, was choosing the books using a some repertoire, I forgot the name of it. A critical repertoire of some sort. Picking the books. by first determining whether it was going to challenge heteronormativity, whether it was going to challenge the white powers, the supremacy and all this. But that's on the school board level. And that's the kind of books they're going to use in one area. Now imagine every area that your school is exposed to. Even how the school classrooms are designed, even the kind of art that they put in the classrooms. the colors, look, people don't realize this. Again, we live in a bubble. We haven't been told what actually goes on behind closed doors. But even these social media algorithms are all designed to do something to us. It's time to wake up. It's time to do something different. We are the people of God. We should not be enslaved willingly. We should not set our children up to be enslaved. willingly. Education is more important than you realize. And this is the message I wanted to communicate in this particular message. Education, the education of your children, your children getting on that school bus is a lot more important than you first realized. Education is a sacred, sacred, sacred process. Obviously, what Dr. Sproul said, is proof positive that the secular humanists value education. And if they value education, it's not for the glory of God. God can use it, of course. God brings about his ends through whoever. But under no circumstance does that mean that we should blindly hand our children over to unbelievers to educate. If anything, we should raise up strong Christians who can go back one day and right this wrong of a system. But those kids cannot be children of the system. If you think people that were raised by the system will be able to defeat it, you have another thing coming. because the system trends, is designed to trend them and to weaken their defenses, to trend them to become loyal to the system. That's why the average person will fight you to the death when you come up against the government school system. It's because most of us were raised to be loyal to it. We were raised to love it. This is part of our culture. A lot of our great memories are there. A lot of our firsts are there. The system raised us. Yeah, we went home every day and over the summer, but our lives revolved around the system for many years, for the formative years of our lives. And so. You become loyal to the system. Yeah, you might be able to afford not to put your kids there, but you can attack the system. Right? You think the system is too important. It's a good, it's a force for good in society. After all, it's the main employer anywhere in the country. But we need to get up out of that. The sooner the better. The system is crashing already. And, you know, a lot of times people get worried about teachers that went and got teaching careers or people that are gifted with teaching. Don't you worry. In fact, it's probably better if the system shuts down. Because. Then a private sector will rise up in its place. in a private sector will probably pay you better, probably treat you well. But the other thing about a private sector is if you're an entrepreneur, you can start your own thing. In the day where you don't even have to be physically in the classroom, well, where you can design your own class, schedule it how you want. Right? But for me, I am here to point out to Christians primarily that what you take for granted, you shouldn't. Hopefully, if you put your kids in the government school, and even if you put your kids in Christian school, you need to be there like Dr. Sproul with your mind. Be ready to ask the questions that no one else is asking. Of course, me, I would say take them out. Do everything you can. to take them out. I advise any up and coming couple, young Christians with small children, we have small children, all this is five. Do not plan your life around the government school system. When I go places, people ask me, ⁓ so what school district, or you know, whatever, you know. I tell them, I don't really care. I think we have a good school district by worldly standards, but I don't move anywhere based on a school district. Because I do not intend on using the district. At least not in the traditional way. Maybe for sports, but even then. I do not intend on using the government school system, period. Again, I don't have money. All this is fine. We're still trying to figure out how we're going to do this. We're going to do something. It's just not going to be government school. Not if I'm alive. It's just not going to happen. I have to be. ⁓ Well, anyway, it's not going to happen. And it's not going to happen because I have a conviction based on this stuff. Right? I do not want unbelievers having this seat. This is a very important seat. This is very important privilege that I want someone, spirit-filled, doing this. spirit-filled, accountable to a local church in charge of the schoolhouse, in charge of the curriculum. It's not going to be perfect, obviously. But at least... they won't deny the most important thing, the overarching purpose. that will make sure of it. Now of course I would like to home school. That's what I recommend highly. I recommend that churches begin to promote home education, aggressively invest in it, start libraries, build extra space for co-ops in your communities. This is what has to happen. If we are to hand a strong church to our children, this is what we have to do. The era of the enemy educating our children is over and done. That, my friends, is the counterrevolution. Peace out.