MOVING THE ANCIENT BOUNDARIES

“Arise, cry aloud in the night at the beginning of the night watches; Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord; Lift up your hands to Him for the life of your little ones . . . ” Lamentations 2:19

During my teen years Mother recited again and again, “I don’t build fences to keep you in. I build fences to keep the bad stuff out”.

But it sure felt like I was being detained. Until I grew  up and had children of my own.

God sets boundaries for His kids too. Not to hold us captive but to keep us safe. He’s not the Cosmic Killjoy. He’s the Great Protector.

My kids were third and sixth graders in the late ’70’s. Their school in Longwood, Florida, became the battleground and my first exposure to the guerrilla warfare waged against them from the confines of the classroom.

We were busy working, earning a living to put food on the table, a roof over our heads, and clothes on these children who grew like weeds in my garden.

Little comments began to slip from their mouths, to which we responded, “They’re just kids”. Then one afternoon our third grader retorted, “My teacher says I don’t have to mind you. You’re old. I don’t have to do what you say. I can do what I feel like doing.”

Now what teacher in their right mind would tell that to a child? So we instructed our daughter, “You’re not listening. Your teacher wouldn’t say that. You need to sit down, be quiet, and listen.”

But then other parents began to voice concerns when their kiddos came home with the same rhetoric. Gradually we realized their teacher really taught these lies and the kids were acting on their newfound enlightment.

A gang of kids is annoying, but a gang of irate moms–well, you don’t want to go there. We organized, divided, and mounted a siege from every angle. We discovered the guidance counselor held classes with every kid, in all grades, each week. The Seminole County School Board and Wekiva Elementary allowed this counselor to use a book not approved by the State of Florida Text Book Committee, nor was the book  on the list  from which they could choose for approval.

We tracked the elusive publication to another school and borrowed it. A meeting was called, inviting all interested parents with kids at our elementary school. Charlie Reese, a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel Star, met with us and we previewed the book DoSo the Dolphin which was being taught at the elementary school. The book being used at the middle school level was Total Affective Behavior.

The essence of DoSo the Dolphin taught it was all right to do anything you wanted to do, if  you had a good reason for doing it. One example used in the book was “Little Johnny told a lie. But Little Johnny had a very good reason for telling this lie. What would you do if you were Little Johnny?”  The text and the teachers encouraged the children not to go to their parents for answers, but to come to the group, their “Magic Circle” where they would be understood and accepted.

This book was used in grades 1 through 5. And by the way, the kids were not allowed to bring school books home nor did they have homework. And parents were not allowed in the classroom–ever.

The middle school kids were exposed to survival games–where they were taught to make life and death decisions based on a person’s worth to society. This teaching became known as Situation Ethics, i.e. The situation you’re in determines the ethics you use.

The question remains: Is God’s Word truth? Is there absolute truth? Satan asked Eve in the garden, Did God really say that? And the blurring continues as it has since that day.

Fast forward to 2011. Is it any wonder we find ourselves dealing with high school shootings, drug gangs in schools, teen pregnancies, abortions, alarming STD rates, wrecked homes and an overcrowded prison system? And that just scratches the surface of the muck. We have raised a generation of adults who were taught in public schools “if it feels good–do it”. How can we expect them to have a moral or spiritual compass?

This brain-washed generation is raising children of their own with few, if any, boundaries. This begs the question: Where do we go from here? As parents and grandparents, what is our responsibility before God, to our children, and to this failing society?

In the coming blogs let’s discuss some of the boundaries God set in place. Let’s talk about why He constructed the fence and why His rebellious kids catapult over those restraints and find themselves in a place they thought would bring freedom and joy only to find destruction.

Jumping the fence has brought tragedy to many young lives, crumbling families, and the decline of a morally and spiritually sound society.

Were you a student in the classroom during this deceptive teaching or do you know people who were? What effect did it have? I invite you to join the conversation.

NEXT: How does this violate one of God’s boundaries?