The following may seem unrelated to my other theologically-centered articles, and I struggled with whether to post it or not. One disclaimer is this is a hypothesis. It speaks about things that are difficult to impossible to measure, therefore we may never know whether it is true of not. Nevertheless, the article is related to the others in a very important way: how should the church interface with the culture in which it lives? I want to confront an aspect of modern-day culture that directly and indirectly affects the church. Although some may disagree, I believe it is the church’s place to address the culture in which it lives at the boundaries where culture infiltrates and interfaces with it.
Cultural infiltration occurs when the culture of the world entices church members through things like media, technology, and tradition. This is what most consider when they think of the world corrupting the church. Cultural interface, on the other hand, deals with areas where church members have to interface with the world during the normal course of life, for example, work and education. At work, one person might have a typical experience while another might become a workaholic and be obsessed with rising to the top. With education, which could be your own education or the education of your children, one may be taught worldly ideologies—subjects beyond the ordinary science, math, language, and history—that go against moral and Biblical principles and counter to reality.
This article will address the culture of the education system with which our children must interface. My hypothesis follows.
The indoctrination of our children and young people into Postmodern Cultural-Marxist worldviews has devastating side effects on their mental health. These include depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gender dysphoria, an aversion to having children of their own, and, at the extreme side of the spectrum, suicidal ideations, and death-by-cop suicide. In addition, the earlier this indoctrination starts and the more the ideology differs from a Biblical worldview, the more severe and prolific the disorders that manifest. Needless to say, it also produces atheistic, godless and even god-hating adults.
2 Timothy 3:1 says, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” It then goes on to describe the manifold ways in which people will devolve. Paul is likely talking not only about his current generation but also future ones. He may be prophesying about the society at end of the world, but no generation can predict if their generation is the last. The passage speaks mostly about individuals and limits the spread to “gullible women”, and says the corrupt individuals will be easy to spot (“their folly will be clear to everyone”). As we will see, world-ending types of individuals are actually worse than this passage describes. Verse 2 talks about selfish people, and verse 6 says they will take advantage adult women who should know better. What about adults who use their station in life to take advantage of innocent children?
Through Israel and the Old Covenant, God proved beyond any reasonable doubt that mankind was not created with the capability of knowing good and evil, nor were we capable of doing good and not doing evil if it was defined in laws. Those laws from God would not have been necessary had Adam and Eve not eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, the original design of mankind was to be free—not free to do whatever they wanted, but having a freedom that allows them to make their own decisions to be either humble or self-righteous, productive or parasitic, selfless or narcissistic. Laws are by nature too constrained and have little or no exceptions. It is impossible to codify all that is evil or wrong in all situations and contexts. In addition, good and evil are moving targets as new philosophies and technologies become available. Laws only define forbidden actions; knowing why something is wrong is not necessary. Freedom allows individuals to learn the essence of what makes some action or choice good or evil.
The New Covenant says in 1Cor 10:23-24:
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
Therefore is it necessary for civilization to develop a culture which incentivizes beneficial and constructive behaviors and instills in their young foundational morals and skills.
However, mankind continues to have a strong affinity to laws, and authorities and governments can only enforce ubiquitous morality through tyranny. Furthermore, there is a fine line between educating and programming the young. Our desire for safety exceeds our desire for freedom, especially in the young, and this causes people to readily give up their freedom in exchange for security.
What’s the difference between programming versus education? Programming involves an ideology—a framework of man-made ideas that necessarily differs in ways from reality and the nature of things. The more dissonant an ideology is the earlier programming must start and/or the more heavy-handed and one-sided it must be. Education, on the other hand, teaches people how to think for themselves. It is general-purpose, foundational knowledge that seeks to define and expose reality. As education progresses, it reveals the nuanced, complex nature of reality.
All societies have some level of programming: say the pledge of allegiance, be an obedient citizen, believe in this type of god, etc. Reality is not simply the corporeal, tangible world; it extends to transcendent truths like justice, peace and love.
When a generation is educated in their early lives but then programmed in college and graduate school, that programming is weak. It has to be weak otherwise it would have been immediately rejected. Individuals are easily deprogrammed by life’s experiences (e.g. paying taxes, having children, buying homes). Nevertheless, some of the programming will stick and be taught to the next generation. A few generations of this and the result is cultural instability and polarization—volatile pressure cooker.
Russian KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov explained how this works and predicted what would happen to the West. Unfortunately his words seemed so far-fetched—like the rantings of a crazy person—that few listened and no action was taken. His forecast did take longer than he predicted. It seems at the current moment there is a bit of panic with the instigators, causing them to rush things and transition to earlier programming.
Shifting the programming progressively earlier, however, has exponential effects:
• The ideology can be increasingly dissonant with reality and deprogramming becomes increasingly difficult or impossible; however, adverse psychological effects become more frequent, thus decreasing the yield. (The failures, though, are typically not opponents to the ideology, but instead are failed individuals.)
• Programming high-school-aged individuals can result in later depression and anxiety.
• Programming middle schoolers produces severe depression and anxiety, nihilism, a rebellious nature, and suicidal ideations with some some committing suicide and occasionally taking others with them. Deprogramming is very difficult, as they are suspicious and defensive against alternative ideas.
• Programming preschoolers and grade schoolers is the earliest time that indoctrination can be employed. It produces toxic individuals: they reject even evolutionary behaviors such as sexuality and procreation; they are severely nihilistic and unspiritual; they are suicidal and want to take as many as possible down with them; they are angry, ungrateful, lazy, aimless, and without purpose. Most importantly, they’re programming rejects and rebels against deprogramming (hence the term “secular cult”). There is little hope for them.
• All programmed subjects react and relate to the world predominantly via their emotions rather than their rationale. This is a product of the programming, which directs the strong emotions of fear, disgust, anger, and injustice against societal norms and virtues.
• The reason why the programming works is because humans by nature start out impressionable, insecure, and care about what others think of them. This subsides as we grow up, gain experience, and learn who we are; but it makes us susceptible to indoctrination in our formative years.
You might be wondering, was I programmed? Are my kids being programmed? The answer is almost assuredly yes. College-level indoctrination started in the 60’s, high schools in the 90’s, middle schools in the 20-teens, and elementary schools in 2020 (approximately),
Those who utilize systematic cultural reprogramming, so-called cultural revolutionists, are intelligent, disciplined, neurotic, willing to cheat, and most of all, patient. An odd mixture to be sure, but one that is driven by a deep sense of self-righteousness and indignation, however misguided it may be. They believe destruction is acceptable if victory cannot be achieved and that society deserves a dystopian future if their utopian future is rejected.
It’s no wonder the villains of comics and movies behave in similar maniacal ways. Yet, comic villains and cultural revolutionists differ in a very important aspect: comic villains lack the necessary generational patience required to affect their radical ideology. Therefore, an effective revolutionist knows their endeavors may take several generations to come to fruition.
What kinds of ideologies are being taught? While historical revolutions have stuck with one or two things, this current one is using a shotgun approach: bigotry against people of color (Critical Race Theory), gender fluidity, climate alarmism, Covid, transgenders in sports, wealth inequality, white male patriarchy, and likely others. These are related in their focus on identity and are all under the umbrella of Cultural Marxism, which is a regular Marxism repurposed to use cultural differences in place of class. (Try doing a web search on “Cultural Marxism” and you’ll find huge biases calling it a “right-wing conspiracy theory”)
If the current cultural revolution fails (its fate is very much undetermined), it will be because they panicked at the end. They got greedy and turned up the heat too quickly, which alerted their opposition. It’s also possible they sped things up because their opposition became aware.
Will we survive this latest rendition of evil? I think so. Every generation since before medieval times has thought they were the end and that things could not possibly get worse—yet it did. One could argue the advent of modern technology and world-ending types of weaponry make this time different, but that same technology can also been used to reduce scarcity and increase our ability adapt, so it’s not certain.
The New Covenant restored the freedom held shortly by Adam and Eve in the Garden. Furthermore its foundational morals and principles are used by secular governments in the West to become increasingly free (albeit at the cost of the freedoms of the countries that they dispossessed centuries ago). But now, free societies have unsurprisingly proven difficult to control. Slowly but steadily, free societies have added bureaucratic components to their governments that consume more and more of their country’s wealth and freedoms. Judaeo-Christian values alone cannot sustain a country—God must still prevail in the hearts of its citizens for freedom to continue.
Thanks, Randy, for your well-written and thoughtful article. Some examples would help (beyond just naming a goal or target) in which you show a particular advocate doing the programming and how it worked out – like a case study. As an educator I ran into individuals who wanted to promote their worldview and were encouraged by other educators, but perhaps because I might have been considered an outsider I was never aware of any systematic targeting going on; mostly cultural shifts being celebrated in clubs and by teachers being open about their lifestyle. Again, your writing is excellent and I wish your article was longer and more thorough. Thanks!