The Power of Southern Women to Restore the Culture of the South

One thing that  many Southerns are not considering strongly enough, is the how we are being robbed of our future, when our children are educated in public schools. When I have suggested that we need to abandon public education, people will often say that their spouses are either principles or teachers in the public schools, and that they think that will make a difference.  I attended a church in Texas where almost every member was, in some way, employed by the public school, from driving a bus or janitor work, to teaching or coaching.  I was homeschooling my own children at the time, and these public school administrators, teachers aids and principles, always made a point of telling me that I was doing great harm by not allowing my children to be “salt and light” to the public schools.  They thought that having many Christians teaching or attending public schools,  somehow made it a Christian institution.

What the Southern ladies need to realize is that anyone working in a public school is on the government payroll, and they are being used to promote the humanistic agenda of the government;  an agenda that strives to rid the country of the  Biblical authority of parents. Once children have been physically, emotionally and spiritually detached from parental authority and teachings, the state can insert its own teachings. The government can do this by taking our children away from us for what I used to call “the twelve year sentence,”  to teach them in their institutions.

Occasionally, someone will tell me that we “just need to get the textbooks changed over to something  that favours the South.”  Ladies, changing the textbooks will not change the system enough to make a difference in the beliefs of your children. Working within that system usually takes such a long time, that by the time you get the school bureaucracy to abandon a textbook, several semesters of your child’s life, or even several years, have been taken up. This is time used to indoctrinate your child in a system that does not favour the Christian teachings of the family.

Case in point: I found in a stack of books from a prominent, so-called conservative Christian college, a psychology textbook called, “Core Values.”  Curious, I looked through it. I was appalled at the many factual errors and anti-biblical teachings in this textbook, and emailed the psychology department of that school.   The collection of emails I saved from that discourse would astonish you. Many of these people were members of the Lord’s church, teaching in that college. They tried to explain to me, as though I were an ignorant mother, that sometimes we have to allow our children to read bad things, to test their faith and see if they can stand up to false teaching.  I saw absolutely nothing in their curriculum that challenged the students to do that. I only saw the test questions, which  were reviews of the chapters of this vile textbook, a textbook which had cost each student over $60.00.   Some of the professors wrote that I just needed to “relax” and not to be so legalistic or judgmental.  They would not answer my questions and they would not admit that so many portions of this book were absolutely vile.

By persistence, my family and I were able to get the textbook removed. However, although we began at the beginning of a term, it was not removed until end of the college year. So, in the meantime, all those students were indoctrinated or spiritually influenced by that textbook.  Some professors told me that it was the student’s job to complain about the books, and not the members of the church, or the parents. My observation was that no young person attended the college with any intention of making waves within the school. They just wanted to pass their courses and get out of there. The college expected students to find error, instead of taking responsibility to teach against error. I went through the textbook and wrote in coloured pen a scripture to refute just about every thing in this book. That way, if it got thrown in the trash and someone picked it up, or if it was re-sold in a student garage sale, someone would be at least equipped to refute its false teachings.

I have cited a personal experience with a prominent Christian college in the South, but Southern mothers should not make the mistake of thinking that grade schools and high schools are any less dangerous to the minds of our children and to the beliefs of the Southerns.  Even if all the courses and books were in favor of your religion and your family customs, there is still the problem that the children are taken away from the care of the parents during the most productive time of the day. I have heard mothers say, “I know it is a bad school, but I just pray for my children, and then teach them what is right when they come home, after school.”  Don’t you know that the school has taken the best part of their minds during the most teachable time of the day?  If you are sending your children to public school, you are getting the left-overs of your children’s lives.

In the story of Mary and Martha, in Luke chapter 10, verse 42,  Jesus said,  “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” The “better part” of your child is the spirit. Parents are commanded to train and teach their own children. It is easy to remember the two most prominent scriptures on that subject, just by noting the number 6:-  Dueteronomy 6:6-8 in the Old Testament, (which we used to call “the Old Bible”) and Ephesians 6: 1-10 in the New Testament.  Both passages give parents the duty and responsibility of teaching their own children.  You simply cannot raise up a generation to understand and value the Christian way of life, if they are somewhere else, in the care of someone else, learning the ways of someone else, during the most alert times of the day.

The question is often asked, “How can we help the South to rise again? Where are our Southern folk, ready to take a stand; ready to guide the South back to the old paths, where the good way is?”  The answer is:  they are in their cribs, talking baby talk, waiting for Southern mothers to teach them the right ways.  That will never be accomplished until we get our children out of the public schools. Even if public schools were to suddenly become “good,” they are not safe places for our children. We need to shelter them and teach them ourselves, so that they will grow in the right direction. Farming them out to someone else will not make a great nation.

Read the following quote from “A Nation at Risk,” published in 1983:

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

Southerners are over-looking the very place in which their problem lies. There is a foreign nation in our midst, a forgotten nation, that is undermining our history, and controlling the outcome of the next generation.  Each year, the public school graduates thousands of new voters, who have been taught a false view of history and a false view of government. They will become the lawyers and the judges, change agents of the government, who make it intolerable for Christians to practice their faith.  The public schools are the enemy within.

In the 1980’s, it was the mothers that revived the idea of teaching your own children at home. It will be the mothers of the South who will change the south, because their power is in the teaching of kindness on their tongues. The kind teaching will result in the restoration of Southern chivalry and hospitality. It will make the young women sweet and pure and the young men strong and noble; qualities that are essential in building strong families. The public schools cannot fill that order.

There is nothing in the Bible that commands us to have our children educated, but there is plenty of scriptural evidence that we must train them and teach them in the right ways. We cannot express constant dismay and frustration at the lack of interest in restoring the South, if we allow the federal government to take our children for 12 years and take Christian adults and use them as change agents in their system. Southern women have the babies and the children. These women have power over the future of the nation, if they only knew it. The problem is, some people just do not see how something as great as changing or restoring a culture can take place by doing something as simple as teaching children. The government certainly understands this, but the home does not!

The government is not  physically dragging  children from their homes,  into the public schools. The federal government has power over us when we voluntarily get up in the morning and take our children to school.If our children do not take up our spiritual battle, we cannot blame the schools, because we committed our children to those institutions from an early age.  We are do-it-your-self-ers. It is astonishing to see how fervently we say “no” to government intervention in industry and business. Schooling our children is a private and personal matter, that the government has no business in. If  the South is to rise again, it will have to admit it has been disarmed. The children, whom the Bible describes as arrows in the hand of a warrior, must be retrieved from the public schools. They are the future. They can be trained and taught to take a stand for the things the South originally stood for.

For more information on the roots and goals of the government schools, go here.

About Lydia McGaughey Sherman

Of Southern heritage, I live in the coastal area of Oregon, in a rural setting. I have been married 40 years to an evangelist, who is also from family in the South. We believe that America cannot be restored, until the family is restored. That can only be done when the parents teach the children to live by the teachings of Christ.
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9 Responses to The Power of Southern Women to Restore the Culture of the South

  1. I will add to this, that parents need not wait for the babies to be taught into adulthood. They can take what they have, whether it be a kindergarten child or a junior high student, and keep them home, to learn the right ways. When I first began, there were no fancy curriculums or homeschool support groups. My husband wanted to get me something that seemed “teacher-ish” and all he could find was a small chalkboard, a globe, and some art paper. WIth books already in the house:A Bible, and a set of books about different countries of the world, a dictionary, and an old McGuffey Reader, plus some art-literature readers, I was able to teach my children. I did not need all of that, either. You can made an entire curriculum from the first verse in Genesis, which will teach children from the beginning, clear through high school.

  2. Look here also for more information on how the psychology industry has a big part in American education http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Sci/sci.med.psychobiology/2008-08/msg00105.html

  3. Lynn Maust says:

    Public schools…the enemy within…such an appropriate title for them. Isn’t this just the most motivating essay with which to forge ahead into your own homeschooling adventure! Yes, change comes through the direction given in the home…and only the home. Lydia is so ‘right on’ here! Take heed..it’s the truth.
    In regards to learning the bad stuff in school books so you can know the good stuff is diametrically opposed to how to recognize good.
    For instance, to detect counterfiet money, one must study REAL money constantly…in order to recognize the fake when you come across it. In the same manner, we study and absorb the GOOD…not the incorrect, stupid and evil..in order to recognize the incorrect, stupid and evil! My desire for the South is that mothers there take Lydia’s Biblical concepts to heart and make them happen…and God will vindiate the South then. Deo Vindice, I think. is the call!
    LCM

  4. Deo Vindice, indeed! I love the analogy to counterfeit money – studying the REAL thing rather than studying the counterfeit. There is a lot of wisdom there that can be applied to life. Thank you for stopping by and commenting. We look forward to hearing from you often.

  5. Lynn Maust says:

    Stephen….thank you so much!
    Lynn

  6. Pingback: The Thinking Housewife › School and the Enemy Within

  7. Conan The Cimmerian>Restore the Culture of the South
    […] SHERMAN urges Southerners to take their children out of public shools.[…]

  8. As if any further confirmation were needed, take a look at this article in the 06/24/2010 issue of the New York Post.

    God is dead? At a top Brooklyn middle school, He is.

    Just when you thought the separation of church and state was more than an option, like paper or plastic, the matter has been settled at MS 51 in Park Slope. And the lesson falls on the side of atheism.

    “RELIGION,” a sheet from English class, handed out to eighth-graders, is provocatively titled. The typewritten paper presents some 20 quotes that can be described as anti-God, coming from philosophers from Kierkegaard to Schopenhauer. Even a “Yiddish proverb.”

    “Religion is a disease, but a noble disease,” reads the first quote, attributed to Heraclitus.

    “Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they will think,” reads one by Schopenhauer.

    Another sheet, titled “GOD,” asks kids to ponder whether religion should be treated as poetry — neither true nor false.

    Angry parents want to know: What the devil does this have to do with middle-school English?

    And, aren’t these kids too young to learn something more appropriate for a grad-school theological course?

    “It’s not only above their level, obviously. It’s inappropriate in a public-school setting,” said Ken Whelan, whose daughter brought home the assignment late last year.

    “We are fighting for the hearts and minds of our children. Against MTV, ‘American Idol’ and anorexia. We don’t need the public-school system to muddy the waters. To plant seeds of doubt.”

    MS 51 is considered an educational oasis, one of the top 10 middle schools to send kids to the city’s specialized high schools. But the fuzzy-headed assignment, given by English teacher Rachel Rear, raised red flags with a Department of Education official, who agreed middle school “is a little young for this.”

    “It’s problematic,” he said. The department had no official comment.

    Rear did not return calls. But Principal Lenore Berner defended the assignment, part of a philosophy unit within the English course.

    “We’re looking at both sides of debates,” Berner said. She added that Whelan had visited the school, along with a nun from his parish, and “we had a really good conversation about it.”

    But Whelan said the teacher “dug in. She was challenging me. She wanted to get into a theological debate.”

    Berner told me that some of the more objectionable material, she “believed,” would be removed from the course. That should comfort no one.

    Once, schools taught kids to read, write and think. Now, educators use personal bias to preach what to think. The list keeps growing.

  9. During our 2nd year of matrimony, my husband and I found ourselves out of college and out of work. Neither of us could get jobs in our arena. Indeed, neither one of us were able to even find full time jobs as the economy was awful and for the first time in my life-time I began hearing people talk about the homeless, food shelters, etc. As we struggled to make ends meet, with not one but 3 part time jobs cleaning offices (we got runs together as we only had one automobile and sped to 3 different locations all night long finishing up around 3 a.m.), I think of a brief period when matters got a bit “tense”. In the thick of all of this, my husband abruptly quietly asked me if I wanted a divorce and that stopped me in my tracks. I gulped and began to cry as he rapidly promised me that wasn’t what he wanted either but it was time for us to make a commitment. For almost 29 years (next month), this has signified that we have NO other option. We are sworn to this and hence we must continually bring our spousal relationship under the protection of the very author of marriage itself, God!

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