Seeking Truth in Today's Troubled World

The recent divide between the leaders of America’s two largest teachers’ unions over the Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor is as revealing as it is unsurprising. One laments the Court’s decision as a betrayal of professional expertise, while the other somewhat unexpectedly acknowledges the rightful place of parents in the educational process. And therein lies the real issue: Who is ultimately responsible for the moral and spiritual formation of children – state sanctioned experts or their own families? 

Let us begin with what should be plain to any clear-thinking citizen: children do not belong to the state, nor to the system, nor even to the credentialed class that presumes to rule over them from behind desks and union podiums. Children are entrusted by God to parents. As it is written in Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way…” The Word places the responsibility of moral instruction squarely on the shoulders of the parent, not the bureaucrat. 

Those who are scandalized by the idea that parents should have a say in whether their children are exposed to lessons on sexuality and gender identity forget a deeper truth: education is never neutral. Every lesson, every book, every omission, and every emphasis forms the soul. If that is so, and indeed it is, then it is no small matter to sideline the parent and sanctify the teacher. The claim that trained professionals ought to have the final say because of their “expertise” smacks of intellectual arrogance more than child centered wisdom. 

The “expert” in his ivory tower often regards children not as unique souls but as abstract units in a larger societal project. His task is not to raise a virtuous human being but to condition a future citizen who will reflect the values of the system he serves. And too often, that system is no longer content with teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic but now seeks to instruct in matters that rightly belong to the home and the house of worship. 

Some will cry that this is censorship. But we must ask, whose speech is being censored? When parents are told they may not remove their children from content that violates their deeply held convictions, it is not the educators who are being silenced—it is the family. And what is a child’s heart worth, if not guarded from ideas introduced prematurely, or without the wisdom and context of faith? 

It is not a denial of a child’s dignity to shield him from mature themes; rather, it is an affirmation that his innocence is worth preserving. Proverbs 22:6 instructs us: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” But how can a parent train up a child if the very system into which that child is placed treats parental authority as a nuisance, or worse, an obstacle to progress? 

To say that educational professionals always know best is not only false—it is dangerous. The 20th century was filled with regimes that insisted experts knew better than mothers and fathers. The results were not enlightenment, but indoctrination. 

Let us be clear: the classroom should be a place of learning, not of ideological grooming. If a school seeks to serve the community, then it must respect the conscience of the family. And if we truly believe in partnership between home and school, as one union leader stated, then let us treat parents not as saboteurs of learning, but as stewards of their child’s soul. 

The Supreme Court, in upholding a parent’s right to withdraw their child from certain instruction, did not fail students. On the contrary, it reminded a forgetful society of something ancient and true: that “children are a heritage from the Lord” (Psalm 127:3) not raw material to be shaped by the latest cultural trend, but precious lives entrusted first to mother and father. 

In this, the Court has done what the prophets of modernity refuse to do: honor the divine order of the family. Let us not be ashamed to call this common sense. Let us rather wonder at how rare common sense has become among those most eager to instruct our children. 

In Christ’s service,

JFH