There are a lot of people proclaiming public schools as harmful - bastions of evil, intent on ruining innocent minds and brainwashing hearts. Some of it can seem like just plain noise, but how much of it is true? What is truly going on in public schools? Is there actually anything going on, or are people just crying wolf? During the Village Church of Barrington’s seminar “Parenting in a Godless Culture: Educating Parents and Grandparents,” church elder David Cartwright answers this question by tracing the history of public schools.

Any parent knows that trying to raise children is difficult. Especially if you are trying to raise your kids in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in a post-Christian society, such as our own. Everywhere you turn it seems like the world is trying to destroy any semblance of innocence in the hearts and minds of the youngest in society. How is a parent supposed to compete when the world is so dark?

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) recently introduced H.R. 128, also known as the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2023, to the U.S. House of Representatives. This proposal would restrict the federal funds Planned Parenthood receives for abortion (except in cases of rape or incest or danger to the woman’s life) for one year to redirect $235 million toward community health centers. Currently, 40 representatives have cosponsored the bill.

As of early January 2023, Danco Laboratories, the U.S. manufacturer of the abortion pill, announced that the FDA has made changes to its guidelines surrounding the abortion pill. These changes allow pharmacies, from large chains like CVS or Walgreens to small, locally owned businesses, to dispense the pill to anyone with a prescription.

Social media is dangerous. It’s easy to lose your real life to a virtual one. One school district in Seattle, Washington has decided it’s had enough of students suffering from the designed dangers of social media. In a 91 page complaint filed against the parent companies of the social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, Seattle Public Schools asserts that these companies have specifically curated their social media sites to be addicting to youth by “exploit[ing] the neurophysiology of the brain’s reward systems...”

The Bible says to “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6).” Put two and two together, and it just makes sense that the devil will go after children. They’re impressionable - what you teach them will remain their whole lives - and they are less able to protect or defend themselves than adults. It’s why public schools try to keep secret the woke indoctrination they’re teaching children, or why Disney’s agenda is often found in movies aimed at young kids.

God created us male and female (Genesis 1:27). He told us that marriage is between a man and a woman (Mark 10:6-7). People are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We are to take dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28), and worship the Creator over the creature (Romans 1:25). Operating the way God created the world to work results in a happy, healthy fruitful society.

Thanksgiving, especially in recent years, is a neglected holiday. Sandwiched  between Halloween and Christmas, and overshadowed by Black Friday, people know Thanksgiving is there, but many don’t put much thought into it until they have to start planning family, food and travel. In recent years, Halloween has become a more culturally celebrated holiday than Thanksgiving. There was even a fun little trend going around social media where you’d show a picture of yourself on Oct. 31 ready for Halloween, and then on Nov. 1 ready for Christmas with Thanksgiving not even an afterthought. There’s just not much societal excitement for Thanksgiving, which is interesting - but it makes sense. Thanksgiving doesn’t fit the ‘cultural narrative’ of self-focus that has been set up.

In this day and age, adoption seems to have fallen off the proverbial table. In a conversation with a struggling young expectant mother, abortion is far more likely to be suggested as an option than adoption. In fact, during arguments for the Dobbs case in June of 2022, those arguing for Roe V. Wade touted abortion as the loving option and adoption as cruel. But is this the case?

When freedom of religion doesn’t exist, you end up with horrible tyrannical governments and systems such as communism or socialism. Abolishing religious freedom is often done to stifle Christianity, because Christians (and the truth of the gospel) are a hindrance to evil tyrants, power-hungry officials, and a populace desiring to live in its flesh.

In our current culture, gender is attacked in pretty much every way possible. Gender and the innate things that go along with being male or female are caricatured, blown up, held to impossible standards, ignored as merely feelings or fancies, and beat down on as toxic or harmful. It creates a mess that harms both individual people and the society in which they live.

Due to the reversal of Roe V. Wade, Planned Parenthood has been forced to close many clinics in states whose lawmakers and governors are upholding the sanctity of life. But sadly, the culture of death has so pervaded our society that many women in more pro-life states have been traveling to pro-abortion states (like Illinois) to kill their babies.

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently rented billboards in several pro-life states and slathered them with pro-abortion messages inviting pregnant women to get their abortions in California. One billboard in particular, however, stood out, because Newsom ended his pro-abortion message with the words of Jesus in Mark 12:31: “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

I know I’m not the only one who has noticed the uptick in crime lately. Anyone paying attention has seen frequent and numerous examples cited in the news or on social media. Yet the Democrat lawmakers who remain in control...