The Dumbing Down Of America Series

The Dumbing Down of America

Deut 6:1-7

Introduction

As we have seen over the last couple of weeks, America is in trouble

We see that we have become a people that call evil good and good evil

We have seen that America is being overwhelmed with the growing number of homosexuals…being taught early in life…touted as normal

Romans 1 showed us the state of America today especially in vs. 32 “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

But the question has to be asked “how did we get to where we are today?”

Well that’s what we will explore today as we look at “The Dumbing Down of America”

Read Deut 6:1-7 / Pray

1. A Tug of War in the Classroom

I can honestly say that it doesn’t seem like an education today is the same as it was many years ago

I want to show you a sampling of a test that we giving to students in 1895 in Kansas (Slide)

Grammer: 1. Give the nine rules of the use of Capital Letters

2. Define Case, Illustrate each Case

3. Name the parts of Speech and define those that have no

Modifications

Arithmetic: 1. Name and define the fundamental rules of arithmetic

2. A Wagon box is 2ft deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft wide. How

many bushels of wheat will it hold?

3. Find a bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10%

U.S. History: 1. Give the epochs into which U.S. history is divided

2. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War

3. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the

rebellion

How many of you could pass that test?

Well what about today? Here are a few samples of some answers turned in by high-school students across the country

• A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle

• A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals

• Zanzibar is noted for its monkeys. The British governor lives there

• Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands

• The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British Empire is on the east and the sun sets on the west, as every educated person knows

I hope some of you are not saying…”And what’s wrong with these?”

Today in our secularist education in America we have a world-and-life view that was not prevalent in this country 50 – 100 years go

What view is that? A world-and-life WITHOUT GOD

When God is simply removed…He does not have to be denied…He just has to be ignored

And so they learn about a world in which God has been banished from life

In 1983 the prize winning essay “The Humanist” published by John Dunphy proclaimed “The battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom…between the rotting corpse of Christianity…and the new faith of humanism”

The educational elite have systematically excluded God from our public schools

Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer and cannibal, said in an interview “Evolution in the classroom undermined my faith that human life had any value, and when I accepted that view, it totally devalued my opinion of my fellow man…and since it taught me that there was no God to be accountable to, it gave me permission to do as I pleased.”

We have forgotten that children will simply live out what they have learned.

Garbage in…garbage out.

What about freedom of expressing your faith in the school?

2. Prejudice Against Christians

Christians everywhere are feeling the pinch of this prejudism…especially in the schools

Here are just a few examples of what’s happened in our school systems around the nation

• A public school bus driver in New York was fired for witnessing to a student when he answered the student’s questions about religion and gave him a bible

• A student in Utah was told to cover his bible when he brings it to school

• Christian students in Missouri have been told they may not pray over their meals or pass out gospel tracts in school

• The state of Washington forbids public university students from student teaching in private religious classrooms

And it will only get worse if Christians continue to allow this to happen without taking a stand

Jesus said in John 15:20, “…they persecuted me, they will also persecute you…”

What are the academic results of the dumbing down of America?

3. Academic Downfall

A recent study found that 4 out of 10 elementary grade students cannot write an organized paragraph using basic grammar and spelling