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By Joe Renfro, Ed.D
We have been observing demonstration, riots, in our land that is really attacks against the Judeo-Christian culture on which our nation was founded
It has been observed that:
Judaism can be thought of as being simultaneously a religion, a nationality and a culture.
Throughout the middle-ages and into the 20th century, most of the European world agreed that Jews constituted a distinct nation. This concept of nation does not require that a nation have either a territory nor a government, but rather, it identifies, as a nation any distinct group of people with a common language and culture. Only in the 19th century did it become common to assume that each nation should have its own distinct government; this is the political philosophy of nationalism. So long as Jews lived in their ghettos, they were allowed to collect their own taxes, run their own courts, and otherwise behave as citizens of a landless and distinctly second-class Jewish nation.
Of course, Judaism is a religion, and it is this religion that forms the central element of the Jewish culture that binds Jews together as a nation. It is the religion that defines foods as being kosher and non-kosher, and this underlies Jewish cuisine. It is the religion that sets the calendar of Jewish feast and fast days, and it is the religion that has preserved the Hebrew language.
Is Judaism an ethnicity? In short, not any more. Although Judaism arose out of a single ethnicity in the Middle East, there have always been conversions into and out of the religion. Thus, there are those who may have been ethnically part of the original group who are no longer part of Judaism, and those of other ethnic groups who have converted into Judaism.
If you are referring to a nation in the sense of race, Judaism is not a nation. People are free to convert into Judaism; once converted, they are considered the same as if they were born Jewish. This is not true for a race. (“Judaism,”- Jewish Virtual Library)
But the Jews are not opposed to freedom of religion either in the Jewish nationalism or the Jewish religion.
Rudyard Kipling who received the Nobel Prize in 1907, the first Englishman to receive that prize, believed very much in spreading justice, adherence to the law, and the Christian enlightenment in faraway lands. His slogan for learning was: “I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew: Their names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN and HOW, and WHERE, and WHO.” But sad to say, honesty is often presented from the left as a slanted half-truth or not truth at all, but it has become the motivation of demonstrations to spread their cause all over our nation, and much of this relates to the educational establishment, since often our schools are educating for revolution rather than really seeking a revolution in education.
On March 11, 2024, The United States Military Academy at West Point abruptly removed the “Duty, Honor, Country” motto from its mission statement. The motto, which was first used in 1898, will be replaced with the anodyne phrase, “Army Values.” This seemingly innocuous action epitomizes the current state of this nation as the ruling and governmental elites have forsaken duty, honor, and country. Army values really says, “Nothing”.
The motto of West Point, “Duty, Honor, Country,” was immortalized by General Douglas MacArthur in a 1962 address to the Corps of Cadets in what is often considered to be among the greatest speeches of the 20th century. Of Duty, Honor, Country, he said:
The code which these words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.
A nation without honor and an attendant fealty to duty is a nation without a future. Today the United States finds itself in a quagmire of ever-increasing self-doubt and foreboding. Chief among the factors that have brought America to this point has been the abandonment of an intuitive knowledge of what is right, just, and true as it relates to the duty imposed by conscience very much part of our Judeo-Christian values. Honor, as well as what was our traditional values is being discarded and replaced by duplicity, avarice, self-aggrandizement, cowardice, and an unbridled lust for power and notoriety.
Demonstrations are opening up for all leftist causes by students from the elementary schooling through the colleges, many of the very much against the principles once held dear in this land. It is very evident that our educational focus is often more concerned with educating for revolution instead promoting the rule of law. Look at the laws about our national boundary is being totally ignored.
The goal is to educate often more for seeking to change our culture to what they esteem desirable (the mythical classless society) rather than to see schooling really get caught up in a revolution of real learning, which was once grounded in our Judo-Christian world view and ethics.
Motivation is a vital ingredient in learning! But to have the demonstrations to be associated with educational institutions with them motivating, promoting, or at least allowing them to appear educational gives a note of truth to them, as it would seem to many that if the school supports it, it is good. The Bible well says in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” But our nation has increasingly ignored this.
The thinking categorized by much of our media as hate speech, that holding up the traditional values that made our land great is condemned, whereas the thinking from the left is applauded as absolute truth. The great sins that the left has cried about as being characteristic of the right are things which they call sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. We even had a Presidential candidate who once put all of us with so-called conservative vantage points as being a “basket of deplorables”.
Our schools and public education in America are often more concerned with destroying these artificial stereotypes of what they call bigotry, sexism, racism, etc. that often might have a degree of substance to them, but are themselves stereotypes and thus are most prejudicial, something they profess to be very much against! Proverbs 55:21 speaks well to this, as it says: “The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.”
Author Scott Greer back in November of 2016 wrote about the childish behavior of this demonstrating, as the students supposedly “lash out at their enemies, then boast of their victimhood,” calling themselves victims, when really, they themselves are the aggressors. Greer said that: “Around the country, students are indulging in mass protests, sometimes violent, and outbursts of emotional hysteria, partially in response to encouragement by their professors.” This is not education, but this is a way of using education as a tool for revolution.
Think of all the flood gates of chaos that floods our land, especially in the sanctuary cities, where they projected and motivated open borders for our land, with the root wish to change our culture from the Judeo-Christian world-view to that of globalism.
Many of the leftist protests have turned violent, with cars set on fire, store windows smashed and flags burned. It can be argued that this leftist protesting is really very much associated with our educational system that in their curriculums and activities seek to promote the politically correct thinking of the left, which is very much in conflict with the traditional Christian values that were one part of schooling.
Revolution is in the air for many! And that which many are seeking revolution is often very revolting-things that in the long run will be harmful to our land. Yes, much of our schools are stressing often the educating for revolution, which itself is very stressful. Maybe if the focus was more on a revolution in education, keyed to the gospel of Christ, the academic achievement, actual learning, in respect to the WHATS, the WHYS, the HOWS, the WHERES, the WHENS, and the WHOS instead of promoting learning to spawn revolution we would see real progress, The WHAT is to learn in the contest of the Judeo-Christian morality. We should seek to fulfill the WHYS with the call to “Glorify God and enjoy him forever. The HOW is realize true discipline which is basic in the Judeo-Christian stress on responsibility. True learning as not a right be indoctrinated by the state, but to explore all in the freedom that comes from Christ, consistent with God’s messages of freedom as revealed from the Old Testament on. The WHEN is an encompassing pattern, as the Bible says, “Now is accepted time, now is the day of salvation.
The Leftist attack from the vast majority of our educators has been exploding all about us in this land and many voters have become inured to these tactics as they have been conditioned over the past fifty years by an unprincipled educational establishment, swimming in greed, self-absorption, and mindless fealty to socialist ideology, to believe that a monolithic and infallible government is the source of rights, wealth, and salvation.
Adding to this educational indoctrination, the amoral entertainment industry, whose primary concern is an unfettered lifestyle, has, in league with the Progressive thinking, slowly but surely has convinced a near majority of the people that there are no moral absolutes, know moral codes except that classified as being progressive, as word that sounds good, but actually very bad.
The legacy media, also concerned with an unfettered lifestyle but more importantly with access to the politically powerful, has chosen sides and become an extension of the state propaganda machinery as pawns in the hands of the Progressive thinking. Many in the media have discarded any semblance of honor at the doorway of cronyism as they tenaciously safeguard their standard of living.
If things don’t change the effect of lowering our standards to accommodate all, the academic decline is going to be in the colleges on down—especially as forces are seeking to offer free education at least for the first two years of college regardless of the students’ academic skills. Think of the price! The WHATS, the WHYS, the HOWS, the WHERES, the WHENS, and the WHOS of learning need to be stressed, instead of promoting socio-political and economic revolutionary directives in the name of education. In Christ there is the perception of truth and the discipline of commitment. Much of the contemporary American public education is concerned with educating for liberal attitudes, while often in this process true learning is being neglected.
The thinking which once was dominant in American schooling was the quest to realize learning as Christo-centric or at least not anti-religious. Let me ask, “Where is the therapy for the more conservative students, who are insulted by liberals by being called “racists,” “sexists,” or “homophobes.” One of the Biblical commands is to “love your neighbor as yourselves,” and this takes care of sexism, racism, or homophobia much better than all the leftist social indoctrination.
The key to a true revolution in education can to be found in understanding the “WHAT,” the “WHY,” the “HOW,” the “WHERE,” the “WHEN,” and the “WHO” as they come together in Christ who said, he is “the way, the truth, and the life,” as taught in John 14:6. Here can be a revolution in learning much different from the education to revolution that his increasingly becoming part of American schooling!
There are some encourage signs in nation, however, in that many from the “basket of deplorables” are beginning to take a stand. Some states and schools are punishing the radicals who have sought to turn education as a field-day for revolution. We are seeing many starting to wake up, I hope, and standing up this global conflict that is using education as one of their main weapons on the Jews, which really is an attack on Christianity, as our roots spring from Judiasm!
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