IndoctriNation the Movie

by Al Benson Jr.

Just a day or so ago I read an article on the Internet about how a public school principal in Oklahoma, of all places, is harassing a Christian group at the school he presides over. The write of the article noted: "This demonstrates how afraid schools are of anything to do with Christianity" and the writer wondered how Muslim or Hindu groups would have been treated under similar circumstances. They would have been treated a lot better than the Christians were. No doubt of that whatever. One thing I disagree with him about--the public schools are not "afraid" of anything to do with Christianity--they are openly anti-Christian, and their blatantly anti-Christian bias becomes more apparent to those who have eyes to see and have not buried their heads in the sand.

One night recently I watched the movie "IndoctriNation." I was impressed and think every family who has kids in a government (public) school should sit and watch this documentary. This points to what many of us have been saying for decades now--the public school system is anti-Christ, always has been, and makes no bones about it anymore. Christians need to sit and watch this movie, as too many of them have their kids in public schools and then the wonder why the kids leave the church when they graduate from high school. Most of them never figure it out, never even have a clue. This movie would be a real shocker for them. It might even awaken some of them from their bemused complacency.

Over all the years that my wife and I had our kids in Christian schools or home schooled them our chief opposition came from Christians who thought our kids would be much better off in some "good" public school somewhere--one that had a good sports program and a good band program. In one church in Indiana we attended the pastor even came and tried to talk us into putting our kids in the local public school. After I had given him all the reasons we could never do that he went home disappointed. I would dearly love for him to see "IndoctriNation." After I watched this movie, which is about 90 minutes in length, I thanked God we had been able to keep our kids out of the public brain laundries (schools) in the various areas we lived in. Our kids got a Christian education. It wasn't perfect because my wife and I are only sinners redeemed by the blood of Christ, and we made mistakes along the way. But when I look at what the public schools are and have been doing to kids, I am, again, thankful to the Lord that we didn't sell our kids' souls for the sake of a good band program!

The movie started off cataloging the problems people see in public schools today to some extent and it traveled in this vein for about twenty minutes. I thought, watching this part of it, that this is stuff most folks are somewhat aware of, and I hoped it would go a little deeper than this. It did not disappoint me.

Colin Gunn, the man who did the interviewing in the movie took his home schooled family all across the country in one of those infamous "little yellow prisons" (a school bus)as he talked with and interviewed people nationwide, school teachers, former school teachers, authors, parents, etc. There were several people in the film I know personally--Karl Priest, the head of Exodus Mandate in West Virginia, and Randy Murray, a former public school teacher in North Carolina. Both Karl and Randy have been teachers in the public system and after their experiences both have written books exposing the public school system for what it really is.

One necessary thing this film did was to expose the beginnings of the public school system as we now have it--Unitarian/socialist beginnings. Sam Blumenfeld, who has also written a couple books exposing the anti-Christ nature of public schools at their beginning was in the film and he did a masterful job pointing this out. Most Christian folks don't want to think that the public schools they so quickly entrust their kids to were founded by Christ-denying socialists like Robert Owen or men like Horace Mann, a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity and who wanted public schools so the state could control them and thereby denigrate the influence Christian schools had on society. Sam went into all this. This kind of information is where the rubber meets the road, and most Christians are just not willing to take the ride. Easier to leave the kids in public school and just pray for revival there--only when it doesn't come, who do you blame?

Billy Graham's son, Franklin, stood up for the public schools. Why am I not surprised? He said he wanted to see "trained Christian witnesses" among the kids there so we "could take our schools back." Rev. Graham should know better. Those schools were never, never "ours" to begin with. From day one they were the creation of Unitarians and socialists and had Rev. Graham done even superficial homework he should have known that. Bruce Shortt of the Southern Baptist Convention countered Rev. Graham's naive approach by urging parents to get their kids out of public schools, as did Presbyterian pastor R. C. Sproul.

There was one telling point in the movie that took place in a school board meeting in West Virginia, where, thanks be to God, there are still simmering remnants of the textbook protest of the mid-1970s. It showed an angry parent at a school board meeting protesting the obscene nature of a book his 11th grade daughter was required to read. As he went to read passages from the book he was informed by one of the school board members that he "couldn't read that here" because it was a rather vulgar passage. Interesting that what is required reading for an 11th grader in West Virginia is too obscene to be read out loud at a school board meeting. Does that begin to give you some vague clue as to what these schools are doing to your kids???

One attractive young Christian public school teacher was asked to resign because she had mentioned Jesus to her fifth grade class--and she was asked to resign that very day, and was escorted by the principal out the back way so the kids wouldn't see her leave--but leave she did--she had mentioned that unmentionable name, Jesus. That name is taboo in public schools unless used as part of a cuss word.

And then there was the classic shot of an official for a teachers' union giving a speech in which he very plainly stated that the agenda of his union had nothing to do with educating children--it was all about money and power. He was right.

There was so much solid ground covered in "IndoctriNation" that I cannot cover all of it in this article. You need to see the movie. It belongs in every church library in the country.

When I was first asked to consider writing a review for the movie I wanted to know where folks could get it. I was told that it is available at
http://www.indoctrinationmovie.com/about-indoctrination and also at
http://www.americanvision.com/indoctrination/ Hopefully this will give you some place to start. I found information about it just from doing a Google search on the Internet. Please, get this movie, watch it, and pass it along to folks in your church, especially if their kids are in public schools. They need to see this, even if they'd rather not