We have all heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child. Many people quote this as if it is the gospel, and for good reason. The statement congers up enduring thoughts of the neighbor leaning out of the window and telling your child to stop throwing rocks, or the grocery store owner (personally) bringing the kid home to confess to parents that they got caught stealing candy. The village that helped to raise a child was a village that had the child’s best interest in mind. The members of the village knew that when children are trained up healthy (spiritually, mentally, and physically) the result is a healthy (and safe) village.
This idea of the community acting as extended guardians of the children was a social structure that worked when I was a child. It worked because we knew our neighbors, and for the most part our neighbors shared our goals and values. Parents were willing to extend themselves (lend a hand) to households with children that may have been lacking in some moral structure. Families in the village went to church on Sunday. That was expected. It’s what we did. My father, and many others, drove refurbished school buses every Sunday to pick up families and children who did not have the means to get to church otherwise. I still remember riding in the back seat of a car crammed with kids to go to my grandfather's church.
The village structure was a hierarchy beginning with God at the top then family, then community (including shared resources such as grocery stores, libraries, medical facilities), and finally schools (in that order). It was implicit that the shared values of the community and our ethics extended from God and everything else was fed from and guided by those values and ethics. Our God-given ethics were what made the village run smoothly.
The village ethic extended even into the school structure, and rightfully so. Teachers were the hired guardians over the children’s learning and growth. This was a time when teachers could be trusted to discipline children and not abuse them. These teachers were a part of the community where they taught. They attended the same churches as the children they were teaching. Many of them grew up with their parents and grandparents.
Teachers understood that they were hired to be conduits for carrying out the parents’ wishes. There was a roadmap for children that was mapped out by the parents and implemented by the schools. Parents and teachers met on a regular basis to determine what was best for the child. With children spending almost a third of every day with teachers, it was understood by parents that teachers require oversight. Teachers that did not adhere to parents' wishes were promptly reprimanded or fired. Parents ran the school board and Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) were headed by parents. My mother ran the PTA of my elementary school for years.
But let’s face it, the village has changed. God is no longer the source of our ethics and the morals being taught to the children are now being sourced from the bottom up. Teachers, from far away communities are now telling parents what they will do with the children instead of asking. The whole village structure has been turned upside down. God is sitting in an empty building every Sunday. The refurbished school buses that once carried the less fortunate to church are now landfill. The family has been replaced by the government. The community has moved online (literally). The teachers (not all, but many) are political activists (some don't even know they are activists because they were recruited the same way). The roadmap for the child (now owned by government agencies) has been hijacked by people who hate God, hate their own country, and hate humanity. Many (if not most) schools have become recruiting grounds for future political activists.
When there was the original hierarchical structure (God, family, community, and schools), the village could be trusted with your child. But what do you do when the structure has been compromised and the village is hell-bent on destroying your child? Today there needs to be a big neon billboard sign that says, “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILD IS?”, and this sign needs to be posted on the school busses, at the entrance to the school, and outside of every classroom. And, if a parent knows for sure that the child is in the classroom, there is an even bigger question that the parents need to be asking themselves, and that is “DO I KNOW WHERE THE VILLAGE IS TAKING MY CHILD?”.
Children today are being initiated, by their teachers, into a new world where 2 + 2 = 4 is debatable, words have no definitions, good people are criminals, bad people are victims, basic biology is questioned, and the ends justify the means (no matter who must die for those means). The new roadmap leads to a world without meaning, a world where self-gratification trumps any other pursuits. This is a world where self-control is considered self-denial and hard work is considered aggressive behavior. This is a world where equity trumps equality, ownership is authoritarianism, and being willing to earn a wage is considered submitting to slavery.
These teachers envision a world without rules, which is a world without God, a world that is the equivalent of HELL. This is a bizarre chaotic world without boundaries; a world without classifications or hierarchies. This is a world where the animals will have no distinct names and every tree will be called by the singular word "tree" (not an oak tree, or an elm tree) least one is accused of discrimination between trees. This is a nonsense world with nonsense language, where singular objects are addressed as plural, and humans can change to a different species at will. We can already see the signs of it when people are denying the body they were born into and transforming themselves into mythical creatures that were once considered horrors from hell.
Last week I saw a video clip about a community of people who prefer to dress as cats and use cat language rather than talk to each other. Even those that believe in evolution should feel that this is a step backward, or sideways toward insanity and hell. These manifestations of madness (the product of the new village ethic) have a wide spectrum ranging from mildly odd to outright horrendous. The cat people are on the low end of the manifestations of madness. Imagine (if you dare) what is at the high end. These abnormal manifestations are applauded as courageous creativity.
A world where nothing is unique is a world of shifting shapes and fleeting shadows. A world without boundaries is a world that soon ceases to exist. When trees cannot be counted on to bear a certain kind of fruit, humanity is headed toward starvation and extinction. This is the reason Jesus cursed the fig tree that did not bear fruit. a fruitless world is a barren world. Everything in God's creation has a reason and a purpose and to deny that purpose is to deny the creator His Glory.
There is a scripture in the Bible that says,
“If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).
The answer is written in Isaiah 58, and it involves rebuilding the village back to what it was meant to be. The answer is in returning the stewardship of the children back to the parents and the hearts of the parents back to God. When parents become participants in enforcing the structure of the village, the foundations will be restored. The bible says this,
“Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.” (Isaiah 58:12)
If you are a parent reading this, I am begging you to open your eyes and see that the village you trusted is now the village that is killing your kid. Read Isaiah 58 in its entirety. Get up and take your kid to church (or start one yourself if you must). Invite your neighbors too. Talk about God when you are out in your community, at the grocery store, at the mall, at the doctor, and even in your online communities. Fire the teachers that no longer feel they work for you.
TAKE BACK YOUR KID & TAKE BACK YOUR VILLAGE!
#TakeBackYourKidTakeBackYourVillage