Neighborhood Ministries

Some States are beginning to mandate that the Ten Commandments be taught in the public schools and many people are saying it violates the teaching of religion. However, the Ten Commandments are not strictly a product of Judaism and Christianity. Just about every culture has laws that forbid killing, stealing, lying, and others. The difference  between the Ten Commandments and other laws is that the Ten Commandments are given by God. It is generally accepted that those who make the laws can change them. If God made them, no man can change them. Those made by man may be changed by those that make them, or by those called to interpret them. We are seeing the difference in the United States today.  Judges who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law restrict themselves to interpreting the laws passed by Congress and the people while those who believe laws are man-made feel they can ignore the law when it interferes with what they want to do, or they can use it to harass their opponents and overlook it when it affects their friends. In the mid-1900’s, the Ten Commandments were firmly imbedded in our government and judicial system and people generally respected the law. There were those who disobeyed the law and they were usually punished but they made up a small portion of the population. Today, the Ten Commandments is banned from many schools and court rooms and the Constitution and laws passed by Congress and the people are often ignored or twisted to fit the person’s purpose. As a result, we see widespread lawlessness on our streets and in our political arena. Many judges and politicians feel they are above the law and the people follow their leaders.  The police can only do so much.  Laws may prevent killing or stealing, or lying when they are enforced, but they cannot prevent the hatred that produces killing, the greed that produces stealing, or the deceitfulness that prevents lying. Those feelings can only be contained when a person respects his neighbor, their property, and their reputation. It is that respect for man, his possessions, and his reputation that are taught in the Ten Commandments. If a person does not respect his neighbor, he will lie, steal, and even kill if he thinks he can get away with it. I wrote a series of study courses based on the values set down in the Ten Commandments to illustrate the difference between man’s values and the values God set down in the Ten Commandments.

Kids need to be taught to think critically on issues. Many public schools and universities today seek to indoctrinate kids in what is politically correct by telling them their view and demonizing those who hold an opposing view. Liberal teaching is based on emotion based theories not science and need to be exposed with scientific facts. Kids needs to be taught to seek out and evaluate both sides of an issue so they are not led blindly to accept false liberal teaching. I feel that my class on debating in high school was one of the most important classes I took because it taught me to back up my beliefs with facts. I vividly remember a debate I had over the value vs the dangers of smoking. This was in the early 1960’s when smoking was popular, before the dangers of smoking became public. My opponent argued that it helped him relax and made him look “cool”. My research however, produced numerous studies showing close ties of smoking to heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, and a multitude of other diseases which were withheld from the public because of pressure from cigarette manufacturers. He defended the popular socially accepted view based on feelings, but I defended the opposing view based on facts backed by numerous studies. When I taught Sociology in college, they used liberal textbooks based on politically correct theories and not facts and I felt I needed to present the facts so they could learn the truth about relationships, health and financial issues, government, education, and public welfare. I had to go back to books published before 1960 which were written by experts and reviewed by panels of their peers. While teaching, I wrote the lectures to include both sides of the issue and later published what I learned under the two volume  series, “Truly in the World But Not of it”, which is still available from LULU Press.

  There has been an ongoing fight since the voucher program began about whether public funds should go to private schools. The issue hinges on whether the State should support religious schools. Opponents claim religious schools should not get vouchers because the State cannot support religious instruction but if that is the case, they cannot support the public schools either because they teach Humanism which is really a religion because it meets all the criteria for a religion. The fact that most opponents and supporters miss is that it is not supporting the schools as such, it is providing funds for the student to go to the school of their choice. To say they cannot use it for religious schools is to discriminate against Christians. Parents should be free to send their children to the school of their choice. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot bar Christian schools from receiving government funds simply because they are Christian.  Public schools are paid for from public taxes while Christian schools must depend on tuition from students and donations from supporters. Those who send their kids to Christian schools must not only pay taxes to support public schools, but tuition for their children as well. As a result, many church members cannot afford to send their kids to Christian schools so Christian schools cannot compete with the public schools. Vouchers given to parents to take to the school of their choice would level the playing field and enable more church members to send their kids to Christian schools. By giving each student, a voucher for a certain amount, parents can choose the school that is best for their child. If parents want to send their child to a more expensive school, they can pay extra, but many Christian schools actually cost less than public schools. (see “Truly in the World But, Not of it” part B, published by Lulu Press under “Education” for a full discussion of vouchers.)

Parents are increasingly disturbed by the blatant attempt of school officials to confuse and indoctrinate their children with Gay propaganda, through the school curriculum and school clinics provided by Planned Parenthood. Children as young as Kindergarten are being told that they can change their sex, while the schools try to prevent parents and taxpayers from knowing what is being taught and what services are being provided their kids. Children that young don’t realize the difference between a boy thinking he is a girl and a boy actually becoming a girl. Teaching children that your sex may change confuses them and makes them afraid that they might wake up one morning to find they have switched to the opposite sex. The Planned Parenthood clinics are also pushing puberty blockers and corrective surgery to the kids which are paid for with Medicaid funds. Like with abortions, Medicaid is paying for these services with no attempt to bill the parents or their insurance, in violation of Medicaid rules that have strict income guidelines and require that the income of the parents of any minor getting services must be included. Such teaching is reckless and irresponsible, and parents are finally getting fed up with it. One mother became so upset she organized a world-wide sex-ed sit out where parents pulled their kids out of school for a day to warn administrators that if they didn’t change, the parents would pull their kids out permanently. Of course you didn’t hear about that in the liberal media. The time is fast approaching when parents who want well adjusted kids are going to have to pull their kids out of the public schools if the schools don’t change their ways. Ohio is considering a law similar to the Florida law that bans teaching sex related curriculum to grades K through 3 when kids are most impressionable and do not understand what they are being taught. Voters should flood their legislatures with calls, E-mails, and letters to support such legislation and check to see how their representatives vote on such issues. If their representatives support such issues, they should be voted out. Most representatives that support such issues receive hefty campaign funds from Planned Parenthood with funds provided them through taxpayer dollars for services they provide. A clear conflict of interest but one which many parents and taxpayers are not aware.

Planned Parenthood has been developing sex ed curriculum and distributing it to schools funded by the government. They teach how to engage in sex to kindergartners and encourage sexual experimentation with the idea that sex is safe if you use protection. They know that contraceptives are subject to failures and children are not very good at maintaining the discipline needed to maintain consistent protection, so it will result in a high increase in pregnancies.  They also provide school clinics funded by the government to dispense contraceptives and condoms and refer students to their abortion clinics. School personnel often transport young girls to abortion clinics and do not report it to parents.  The clinics do not require identification to verify names or age and caution under age children against telling their age because then the clinic would be required by law to report them to their parents and child protection agencies since it is illegal to have sex with a minor. By reporting them as an adult, Planned Parenthood can then claim that the child is indigent and have the abortion covered by Medicaid since the child doesn’t have any financial resources, in spite of the fact that the child is often covered by their parents insurance, or the parents may have the ability to pay. If it was billed to the parent’s insurance they would find out about the abortion and the clinic doesn’t want the parents to know because they might object to the abortion. The parents would be less likely to be railroaded into an abortion then the child who has very little understanding of the consequences of an abortion. Therefore, the entire process is based on lies and deceit and is paid for through tax dollars. In addition, Planned Parenthood funnels millions of dollars that they receive from Medicaid for sex ed classes, school clinics, and abortions, to support candidates for Congress that will vote them additional funds to corrupt our kids. In other words, taxpayers are funding the corruption of their kids and the killing of millions of babies for the profit of a private company. Since the funds from abortions are being threatened by the repeal of Roe vs Wade, Planned Parenthood has been pushing transgender propaganda through its school curriculum and school clinics.

Covid was a big boost for parents rights. Kids were forced to study at home so parents were able to access what their kids were being taught and many parents were really angry by what they saw. Many parents who are upset with what liberal policies have already been imposed on our public schools, have chosen to send their kids to private schools, if they can afford them, or home school them to avoid the liberal teaching in public schools. However, the teacher’s unions are trying to get the “Common Core Curriculum” established by President Obama to apply to all curriculum, including those used by private schools and home school parents. It would control what you teach your children when you home school them as much as it does when the public schools teach them. You could not opt out. Teaching that life matters, that the family is important, and that Constitutional government is the best government, would not be allowed, even in church based schools and home schools. Government has taken over dictating what is taught in the schools and is way out of hand. It is bad enough when the government controls what is taught in the public schools, but it has no right to control the private schools as well. It is time to return control of our schools to the parents and the voters who pay for them. Contact your State and federal legislators and demand that the government return control of our schools to those who pay for them and contact your friends and neighbors and urge them to do so as well.