Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com

Dr. Duke Pesta is the Director of FreedomProject Academy, host of the “Dr. Duke Show” podcast, and a tenured professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. (Full Bio Attached)  The “Dr. Duke Show” covers the crazy stories impacting K-12 classrooms and college campuses across the world.  New episodes are released every Thursday evening. People can subscribe to the “Dr. Duke Show” audio podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play and every other podcast platform.  Visit www.DrDukeShow.com to watch the show and subscribe to our Friday eblast to receive an email with the latest episode every week.  In 2018 the Dr. Duke Show received 20 million downloads.

FreedomProject Academy is a Judeo-Christian K-12 Classical online school that provides live classroom instruction to students across the world.  Our program is free of Common Core and stresses teaching students how to think, not what to think. We enroll students March-July. Request your free information packet at www.fpeusa.org.

Connect with the Dr. Duke Pesta: Parler | Website | Facebook at FreedomProject

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

This podcast is brought to you by our friends at Evangelical Christian Credit Union.

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is episode number 783 this is Monday, June 24th. Today I’m going to air the second part of my interview with Dr. Duke Pesta.

Dr. Duke has an incredible story and amazing insight into what’s happening in the culture today, particularly as it relates to the education of our children, both in elementary school, high school, and also higher learning. You guys are going to get quite an education today.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, well welcome to the show today. I’m excited to have Dr. Duke back with me today. Before I get going with that interview, I want to let you guys know a couple of things that are coming up. First of all, I’m going to be starting and essential oils class—and we do this about twice a year. This is a great time of year to do it. So we’re going to start that on Tuesday the 25th. So it’s going to start tomorrow and we’re calling this—really, it’s an introduction into oils, but it’s more than that because what we want to do is help you use them everyday. So we’re calling it Using Essential Oils In Everyday Life—what we use, why we use it and how we do it safely. So this will start on the 25th of June and go through the 1st of July. Class size is limited, so this time we’re going to be giving preference to people who’ve never joined us and are not familiar with oils and how we use them.

And if you want more information on it, you can go to TheBusyMom.com/oils we’re going to talk about how to use oils with our little people, the importance of support and education, how we can budget for high quality oils, and why it’s good for us to have options to care for our health. Listen, I’ve been using essential oils for 10 years. There are a huge part of how my family takes care of ourselves and all of our people. So I hope you guys will tune into that June 25th through July 1st find out more information today TheBusyMom.com/oils.

All right, we’re going to jump right into part two of my interview with Dr. Duke. Pesta.

I hope you guys are blessed and encouraged.

I firmly believe that the radical left the progressives in this nation, and frankly around the world—they are counting on and depending on our silence, they need our silence. They need us to feel bullied. They need us to be quiet. They need us not to show up and vote. They need us to keep our kids in the schools. And I’ve been telling these parents—you know, Billy Graham said that when one man takes a stand the spines of others or stiffen. And I think that’s a large part of the reason why I do what I do. I’m sure it’s a large part, the reason why you do what you do. But parents need to understand, if you will take a stand and say—I refuse to be bullied by these cultural Marxists any farther then they will actually have an impact in what’s happening around them. Do you think that’s true?

[Dr. Duke] I think it is true and I think it’s also completely consonant with our faith. If as Christians living in the world, we are not witnessing to what is greater than the world, if we are conforming to the world—that seems to me to be the single biggest argument Christ made against the Pharisees and against the sinful of his own age, right? Do not live for the world. Things like transgenderism, radical sexualities, the sexualization of our kids in general. We’re no longer in the schools teaching kids the simple biology of a sperm and egg. We’re teaching them sexual tactics, sexual procedures. We’re teaching them how to engage sexually with all sorts of different kinds of people and genders. This kind of stuff right here is making our kids overtly creatures of this world. And when we pull our kids out, and when we as Christian stand up and say—look, we are called not to live in the world this way. I can’t think of any way you can define our Christianity, I don’t think of any way you can take the gospels and explain them by omitting the fact that if we as Christians don’t stand up against the world, then we can’t be called Christian.

[Heidi] No, that’s exactly right. I want to touch on a couple more things really quickly in the few minutes we have left. First thing is, I have been noticing for the last couple of years now, it started very quietly but now it’s gaining speed, and it’s actually right out there. It is this idea that what you just touched on that we are sexualizing children, and what I’m noticing recently are hints of pedophilia. Someone said to me the other day—oh, that’s not right, they would never do that. Wrong—that’s exactly what’s happening. And it’s, you know, we are going back to the days of the Romans when this was rampant in Roman culture and in Greek ideology. And I’m wondering if you see this happening, this sort of phenomenon happening, and what is that parents need to be aware of to protect their children?

[Dr. Duke] Absolutely. It’s happening. In fact, there’s a major pedophilia organization that has petitioned the LGBTQ community to add the word P for pedophile to the long list of protected alternatives of sexualities. Right? So in other words, pedophiles are already rallying to get themselves to be considered like homosexuals are, gays and lesbians are, now transgenders are. They want to add that to the list. And it’s not just pedophilia. Polyamory, right? Once, as a culture, we decided that marriage is not a unique institution between a man and a woman, primarily for the propagation of children—when we decided that 2,500 year old definition, when we did away with that, it opened a can of worms. Because okay—if two women can marry, and two men can marry, and that’s all legal now—then why can’t three men marry three other men?

And there’s no real logical answer to stop it. We’ve divorced marriage from morality, right? And so that begs the question—if we’ve divorced marriage and sexual relationships from morality and ethics as we’ve done—then why can’t human beings sleep with animals? Beastiality laws across the country are beginning to go away. We mentioned polyamory there’s already HBO is doing TV shows about families, the nontraditional family, right? Three moms married to one husband. You’re right, it’s going back to the Roman days and even before that. And now pedophilia. And there is already a movement in this country to make the argument.

Look, if we’re a sexualized and kids, if we are teaching radical forms of sexual behavior to children as young as late elementary and middle school. And we are doing that comprehensively across this country—we are introducing really adult sexual topics to kids. Then we’ve already sexualized the nine year old, the 11 year old. And if that’s what we’ve done in the public schools, then how can we turn around and say—that that nine year old, an 11 year old, doesn’t have a right to choose to sleep with somebody who’s in their 30’s or 40’s—see how that works? If we’ve decided that children are sexual agents with sexual autonomy in middle school, we then can’t turn around and be upset when your middle schooler has a “consensual” sexual relationship with a 40 year old. That’s the logic of progressivism. From their perspective it makes perfect sense, but as you and I know it is completely immoral. But they’ve divorced morality and sex in the schools. Just like they have divorced science from gender in the schools.

[Heidi] That’s amazing. I know that there are a lot of parents who are listening to this right now and you start to feel overwhelmed. Right? You and I have just talked about really just in a nutshell what’s happening in the culture. And we’ve talked a little bit about cultural Marxism. Can you define—give parents who are listening who maybe never heard of that term before? That maybe have never even heard of Marxism. When we say cultural Marxism, what do we mean?

[Dr. Duke] We mean those founding ideals of what has become broad scale socialism. Back in the mid 19th century, 1855 to 1859, Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital. And Marx, he was not really an economist—his economic ideas have failed. He was a social engineer. And the first thing of socialism you need to know is that it doesn’t believe in God and that religion is the opiate of the people. The argument of the socials, whether they’re talking communists, or Bolsheviks, or fascists, or Nazis—the Nazis too were socialists, the National Socialist German Workers Party. All these fascist movements have one thing had common: they are first and foremost godless. And so socialism as the great Russian writer Dostoyevsky once said—socialism is the question of atheism in the modern world.

All atheist movements, ultimately are socialistic as they’ve played out in modern culture. And so cultural Marxism, social justice, these are just the application socialist principles. There is no god, that the whole world is predicated on capitol—who has and who has not. It’s pure materialism. There is no heaven. There is no hell. There’s no soul. There’s ultimately no justice, then. The state then, in all socialists movements, the state—it assumes the role of religion and God and begins to take on more and more responsibility for the individuals who they govern. The collective takes precedence over individuality. All of these things, cultural Marxism, Social Justice, Liberation Theology—all they are are the application of basic socialist thinking to culture and using government to enforce that socialistic culture. And so social justice education as we see it in the public schools—we started the hour off by talking about this. Your kid is no longer an individual in the public schools. Your kid is part of the collective, which means if he’s really gifted, he’s artificially held down. If he has really poor at school, he is artificially promoted. Because every kid is the same kid. No kid is allowed to do better or worse than any other kid. So the low performing kids, they get socially promoted even though they can’t read and write. The high performing kids who could be doing ninth and 10th grade reading and math in fourth grade, they’re artificially held down because all kids have to be the same kid.

And thinking about the degree to which we’ve chased God from the schools. What kind of a culture is it were to say the Pledge of Allegiance, or to say a little prayer before you eat your lunch at lunchtime—in the public schools can get you in trouble. When teaching third and fourth graders about radical kinds of sexual behavior is considered not only normal but necessary.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And so when parents contact me, which they do often, and they say—well, I’m not that concerned about socialism, I kind of get it. It’s seems like a good idea, right? We want to lift people up and went to help people. You’re saying shout it from the rooftops. That’s actually not what’s going on, right?

[Dr. Duke] What I’m saying is look at history. This is not like socialism is some brand new idea that really shiny people like Alexandria Cortez just decided to invent. No. We have 150 year history of it and it is the most murderous idea in the last 200 years of human civilizations. Anywhere between 120 and 150 million dead in the name of socialist experimentation. Again, I remind you, I mean all those moms and dads who look you in the eye and say—well, maybe socialism isn’t all that bad, or maybe we could adopt part of it. I would just remind you of what you should have learned in your history class. The Nazis. All Americans still have been taught to hate the Nazis. Hate the Nazis. You should. But Nazi stands for National Socialist German Workers Party. Nazi-ism as a form of socialism, Bolshevism, Communism, Marxism, the so called Democratic Socialism that Bernie Sanders is preaching now and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is preaching now—is the same thing. Government has the rights. You don’t. Government decides what you will and won’t get. You don’t earn a paycheck. The government allows you to make money and it will decide how much of it you get to keep, right? The idea that you’re going to have autonomy and individuality.

The antidote to socialism is the constitution—which was created by wise men who understood that the government works for us. We don’t work for the government, right? That the individual liberty and human rights were the premise of what the founding fathers were trying to put together it. Why is this going on in America today? It’s because we’re the last vestige of a society that sees the individual as the founding block of civilization, not the collective. Which is why the Socialists and the Social Marxists and the radical progressives are coming so hard for our institutions. Once we lose our ability to recognize individual liberty, by the way individual liberty—that’s anchored in the Bible, Christ came to say the individuals. I tell my university students this all the time—Christ is the single greatest defender of the individual in all of human history. No one, whether you believe He’s the Son of God or not, no figure in human history dedicated his life lived and died more spectacular way for the rights and the salvation of individuals.

When He heals throughout the four gospels, he never gets 50,000 people together who are sick and stands on a platform and kind of like—I Dream Of Jeannie, right, bobs His head and they’re all healed. He puts His hand on the sick people. He touches the lepers, He puts His fingers in the ear of the dead, He spits on the ground and makes mud to wipe the mud in the eyes of a blind man. This is the individualistic foundation of Western culture. This is the model that the founding fathers used to promote individual liberty. And it is exactly what the progressives are coming for in the name of collectivism and atheism.

[Heidi] That’s exactly right. I am so glad to hear you describe it that way. And speaking of what’s happening and who’s coming for who. Another thing that I want to just touch on very quickly with you, because nobody knows this topic better than you do, is what is happening right now in our colleges and universities. Because oftentimes parents, you know, we get our kids out of high school, right? WTey’re a junior or senior in high school, and we start looking at colleges…and I’ve been saying for a long time now—parents wake up, it matters where you send your kids to college. You can’t just check out and say—well that sounds like a good college. Oh, here I’ll send my kid to this Ivy League school or that amazing school, University of Southern California Berkeley or wherever it is. What is happening on college campuses right now in universities—should parents be concerned about sending their kids off to college?

[Dr. Duke] Goodness. Goodness. Heidi, you’ve given me an hour long question and a couple of minutes. I hope you’ll consider having me back sometime down the road. We’ll just do a whole show on colleges.

[Heidi] I will!

[Dr. Duke] I’ll give you a couple of statements. Number one: the same bug has infected universities. As a matter of fact, before your public schools were taken over by the Social Justice Warriors, the colleges were taken over with it. Let’s not forget—who is it that trains every public school teacher in this country? It is the big public universities, right? So Christian kids go to big public universities. They become education majors where they learn that God has no place in the classroom. They learn Socialists and Marxists values, they learn Collectivism. That’s the problem. So the universities are what turns out the kind of individuals who have taken over our public schools. I’ll say this, the universities are now not operating on the premise of excellence. It used to be the college was a benchmark, right? Only the best and brightest went to college. Only those who have the intellectual gifts and the personal determination to succeed would be able to go. But university’s about 20 years ago, they jettisoned that. They’re no longer primarily places of academic achievement. They are places of social justice inclusion. The purpose of universities now is to let everybody go—whether they want to go or not, to let everybody go, whether they’re qualified to go or not. And it helps that the federal government is handing out the federal student loans, right?

So kids who aren’t qualified to go, will get hundreds of thousands of dollars from the federal government to go anyway. Right? And so your universities are bringing people to campus, knowingly, who can’t do college level work. But rather than having those kids fail out, because that would be socially unjust too—we’re lowering our academic standards as university professors down to the kids that are coming to us. So again, like in the public schools, a college education is no longer an education that is vastly superior to a high school education.

In fact, I really believe that a college education today…most college graduates know exactly what a high school graduate would have learned in 1970. About 40% of my college kids at the University of Wisconsin, about four out of 10 of them in every semester there—hey shouldn’t be there. They either intellectually are not capable of doing the work or their attitudes are so bad that they won’t do the work. And that’s 40%. So, what do we do at the university? We can’t cater to the top 10%. We have to make sure that that lowest 40 doesn’t fail out. If we fail out the lowest 40, that’s 40% of dorm rooms that we don’t make money off of, 40% of meal plans that we don’t sell, 40% of parking passes that we’re not charging these kids for. And so we, like the public schools now, have decided that in the name of justice—everybody should go to college. Whether they qualified or not, we’re going to take them. And once they’re there, we’re going to socially promote them at the expense of those who can really do top level college work.

[Heidi] That is exactly right. It’s terrifying. It really is. In the couple of minutes I have you here, I want to just encourage parents. I want to point them in a right direction. So rather than have them, you know—I don’t want people to leave this show and feel overwhelmed…and just like—I’m gonna throw my hands up in the air and the world’s on fire. I give up. How can you encourage parents? So one of the biggest things I do here is to try and get people off the bench and onto the battlefield. I’ve been telling parents for a long time—Hey, get off the sidelines, get onto the front lines, get out there. I loved what you said: First thing you want to do is focus on our own families. Make sure that we have shored up our own child. So we want to put oxygen on our kid before we put it on the person that’s sitting next to them. Right? And so what are some things that parents can do to make a difference? To get off the sidelines and onto the front lines.

[Dr. Duke] And you’ve got to start there, right? You got to start with your kids, and not just your kids but then your family—your sister’s kids, your brother-in-law’s kids. You know, work on what you can do locally. Faith begins locally—start there. And what I mean by that is—even in a corrupt public school system, you can take some time every evening to correct what’s going wrong. Like I said—to always play defense. Your kid brings home garbage, you spend an hour counteracting the garbage.

What if you were able to take those kids out of the public schools and ideally educate them at home? And then you would be pet playing offence all the time and there would be nothing to defend against. That’s a better solution. And as far as universities go, if you give your kid a real education as opposed to a collective education that they get in the public schools—by the time your kid goes to college, he or she will be able to do higher level work, can gravitate to higher level majors, can pick those teachers who are going to challenge her rather than pander to her.

If we give these kids an education while they’re living in the house with us, that allows them to compete, that allows them to create their own wealth so they don’t have to turn to government for handouts, that allows young kids to feed their own families one day—they’ll be less likely to sign on for the big socialist revolution. So start local, make sure you give your kids the best possible education. That’s very hard to do if you’re keeping them in the public schools. Find a really good Christian school—or better yet educate them at home.

[Heidi] Yea, that’s exactly right. And then do you encourage parents to get involved politically? One of the things that I have noticed, a phenomenon growing up was, you know, my family told me—we were Christians growing up. Right? But there’s two things you don’t talk about at Thanksgiving. We don’t talk about politics and we don’t talk about religion. When you talk to them, are you encouraging them to get out there and vote, understand what’s happening, and let your voice be heard?

[Dr. Duke] Absolutely. I’m not even sure how many Christians have realized how Christianity is being forced to the sidelines without parents having volunteered. A lot of parents, like you said, are walking off the field. We’re not going to engage the culture. We’re going to be a little bastions of salt and light in our local places, but we’re not going to engage the broader culture. We’ve got to recognize that sooner or later, if we allow Christian voices to be shamed, silenced, and marginalized from the greater discourse—then the hatreds just going to get worse. The legislation, outlying aspects of Christianity, the compromising of our churches is going to get worse. You got to speak up and you got to speak out. So the absolutely. Ad that doesn’t mean you have to enter politics. It means you can write your politicians. It doesn’t mean that you have to become a school board member yourself necessarily, but certainly make sure you attend school board meetings to find out what’s going on so they’re not sneaking things through as they often do in the school boards without anybody knowing what they’re putting in.

Most of the sexuality that’s in your kids schools was put in by school board members and school administrators—without anybody having any idea was there. So now moms and dads are being asked to fight things that were never ran past them to begin with, that are already established in the schools, which makes it much harder to get it out then to stop things. Stop bad things from getting into your kids’ schools to begin with. That’s easier to do, but it requires a little effort on your part.

[Heidi] That’s exactly right and like I said earlier, the progressives, the people who are doing this, they’re passing this comprehensive sex education nonsense in the middle of the night—they literally depend on our silence. They depend on us being quiet. They depend on the fact that we won’t show up to school board meetings. They depend on the fact that we won’t vote. And we have got to do a better job at engaging.

I love your heart and I love what you’re doing. I want to take just the last minute that we have here and let listeners know where they can find you. Where’s the best place for listeners of the Heidi St. John Podcast to follow you online since you have a wonderful podcasting audience.

[Dr. Duke] I would say please, please, please consider following the Dr. Duke show. You can find DoctorDukeShow.com. That will give you the homepage, but you can download it anywhere. It’s absolutely free of charge, won’t cost you anything. Please consider downloading it. Once a week for an hour, you’re going to get an hour like this—where we’re taking headlines right from the news. Everything from pre-kindergarten, all the way to graduate school at universities. We’re giving you the top stories and we’re giving you really in depth commentary on what’s going on, who’s behind it, and what we can do to combat it. Look, Abraham Lincoln said—The philosophy of government in one generation is the philosophy of the school house, right? The philosophy of the school house in just one generation—that changes our entire culture in the next generation. There is no bigger issue in this country right now than education. We could all as adults and Christians, we can vote any way we want—but our kids are being trained to vote and thinking exactly the opposite way. So if you want to keep up with going on in education and understand where we are follow that Dr. Duke show and we’ll give you that information—and keep listening to Heidi.

[Heidi And you also have an awesome thing called The Freedom Project Academy. And this is an online school, right? That gives a live classroom instruction. But what you’re really doing is teaching students how to think, not what to think. Where can parents find out how to enroll their kids in the Freedom Project Academy?

[Dr. Duke] FPEUSA.org. We are complete Christian online homeschool. So in other words, we can homeschool your kid in your house for you. We bring live teachers through the computer into your living room with real scheduled class time. Our teachers do the grading of the assignments. We do all the making sure that the assignments are correct. So you can homeschool your kid at home and let our live teachers do it and you can oversee it if you don’t feel like you are right now ready to give your kid a complete homeschool education yourself.

[Heidi]That is awesome. I really love it. I am so grateful that you’ve come on today. Your wisdom is invaluable. Your experience is next to hardly anybody I ever even talk to you because you’ve been in the schools and in universities for so long. Thank you so much for your passion to educate parents about what’s happening in the culture and to help them get off the bench and onto the battlefield. It has been a joy to have you.

[Dr. Duke] Thanks for having me. I hope to talk again sometime.

[Heidi] For more information on Dr. Duke and his amazing podcast, you can visit DoctorDukeShow.com to watch the show and subscribe. I will link back to all things Dr. Duke Pesta in the show notes today.

Thanks for listening to everybody. I really appreciate it and I’ll see you back here and just a couple of days.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com

Dr. Duke Pesta is the Director of FreedomProject Academy, host of the “Dr. Duke Show” podcast, and a tenured professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. (Full Bio Attached)  The “Dr. Duke Show” covers the crazy stories impacting K-12 classrooms and college campuses across the world.  New episodes are released every Thursday evening. People can subscribe to the “Dr. Duke Show” audio podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play and every other podcast platform.  Visit www.DrDukeShow.com to watch the show and subscribe to our Friday eblast to receive an email with the latest episode every week.  In 2018 the Dr. Duke Show received 20 million downloads.

FreedomProject Academy is a Judeo-Christian K-12 Classical online school that provides live classroom instruction to students across the world.  Our program is free of Common Core and stresses teaching students how to think, not what to think. We enroll students March-July. Request your free information packet at www.fpeusa.org.

Connect with the Dr. Duke Pesta: Parler | Website | Facebook at FreedomProject

Don’t Miss These!

TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St John. Welcome to the Heidi St. John podcast. Today is Friday, June 22nd— this is episode number 782. I can’t even believe it. I’m very excited today to introduce you to a new guest to the show. Dr. Duke Pesta is on the show with me today and we’re going to be tearing it up talking about the culture and education. You guys are not gonna want to miss it. We’ve got a jam packed hour for you.

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right everybody, thanks for tuning in today. Lots of stuff coming up on my calendar. I will be speaking for the Slavic Action Summit in Vancouver, Washington on July the 2nd. Doors for that event open at 6:00 PM. My husband and I had been involved for quite some time with the Slavic community and are very excited to see so many of them getting educated about what’s happening politically and culturally and we are going to be encouraging you to just get off the bench and get onto the battlefield. So come on out for a great event on July 2nd in Vancouver, Washington at Slavic Christian Church. That information will be in the show notes today. I will be speaking for AFHE, the Arizona Homeschool Conference, and also for the California Homeschool Conference in Pasadena coming up in the middle of July—and also linking back to those in the show notes.

If you’ve got any questions about those, head on over to the show notes and all that information will be there, including links for registration. All right. Today’s verse from MomStrong International is found in Proverbs 15:1.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1

We’ve been talking about what it means to speak the way that God would want us to speak—boldly and with love, over at MomStrong International all month. And we’re getting ready to start a new one. We are gearing up for a brand new study. So if you’re not joining us for the Scripture Writing Challenge and digging into those Bible studies with us, you can still get into it. It’s not too late. In fact, this is a great time to get started. Head on over to MomStrongInternational.com.

All right, without further ado—I want to go ahead and introduce my guest today. I’m thrilled to have him on the show because I’m a huge fan of Dr. Duke Pesta. I watch his videos. I share them a lot over at The Busy Mom on Facebook. I know many of you have been introduced to him from those videos.

Dr. Duke, in case you’re not familiar with him, he is the director of Freedom Project Academy and host of the Dr. Duke Show Podcast and a tenured professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. The Dr. Duke show covers the crazy stories impacting K to 12 classrooms and college campuses across the world. New episodes are released every Thursday evening and you guys can subscribe to his show, the audio podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and every other podcast platform—just like you do with the Heidi St. John’s show. So I am very encouraged and excited to welcome Dr. Duke to the show. Welcome.

[Dr. Duke] Hey Heidi, thanks for having me.

[Heidi] You are very welcome. Thank you for being here. You’ve become quite a voice for culture, very boldly speaking out about what is especially happening in our school systems today. And I’ve been talking about this at the podcast for several years as well. And I’m very excited today to kind of get your expertise, really, and let my listeners hear your voice about what’s happening in the public schools. And that’s where I’d like to start talking with you today—because I know this is a passion for you and you do a ton of work with the culture trying to educate people. What’s the biggest thing? I mean, we’ve got a lot of directions to take this today, but what’s the biggest thing you see coming at parents right now in the culture?

[Dr. Duke] Well, I think from an educational standpoint, and this is something that bleeds over into Hollywood, it bleeds over into media, it bleeds over into corporate life—is the social justice revolution that has transformed American education over the last 20 years or so. The primary focus of our kids public schools has been less and less about academic achievement, excellence, individual growth—and much more about collectivism, social justice, and progressive politics. So much so, that this is now bled off of the college campuses, bled out of the public school system, into Hollywood. We see the corporations—now you can’t turn on the TV without seeing a TV commercial or an ad from some major company that is not pushing a really progressive agenda. You have transgenderism being represented in these TV ads, mainstreaming all sorts of progressive values. And so the companies, our corporate life has become very woke. Hollywood is very woke. The schools are very woke. And very little of this in the schools has to do with education anymore. It’s about not teaching your kids and preparing them for an education and for life beyond to love their country, to love their God, to love their family. It’s much more about now collectivism, and separating kids from parents, and teaching them a worldview that directly contradicts biblical worldviews.

[Heidi] Yeah. So 15 years ago when we started talking about this stuff, most of the parents that I would talk to we’d say—oh, that’s not happening in my school. We are in a small town in the Midwest. We’re in the Bible belt. That’s not really the case anymore, is it?

[Dr. Duke] No. I will say this—common core over the last 10 years or so, was one of a number of initiatives going back to no child left behind under President Bush. And then Goals 2000 under Clinton and then Common Core under Obama. These were, you know 20/25 years of initiatives that were designed to make education more federally centralized and much less local control. The fact that in some rural districts, you go to you can’t quite see the full force of this yet, is because it starts first in the big city school districts. But it’s already moving to many of the rural schools, and within the next five years—it will be universal. So this idea that some of the worst aspects aren’t necessarily showing up in your kids rural school—that may or may not be true, but it’s coming.

And the second thing I would say is how carefully most moms and dads are paying attention to what’s going on in the kids’ classrooms. Unless kids come home and tell you some of the things, or you ask them specifically—Hey, what’d you learn in history class today? Tell me what you learned about the Founding Fathers. What’d you learn today about biology in your sophomore biology class? Unless you ask them—most kids probably aren’t going to volunteer that information. And I find that when moms and dads, even in rural school districts, take a proactive role and ask their kids specific questions about what they’re learning—nine times out of 10, they’re pretty horrified to find out what’s going on.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I also think they feel overwhelmed. I feel like, you know, I talk about this stuff on the show a lot—what’s been happening and… you know, it’s pride month right now, right? I’ve gotten to where I actually don’t look forward to June anymore. It’s the first month of summer vacation where it is like—wham, wham. I can open Spotify, or iTunes, or walking into Target, which actually never do anymore. And an agenda is being promoted heavily on all these platforms. They’re not even promoting their own products, which is funny to me. They’re promoting a social agenda. They’re promoting an ideology. And when parents see this around them, what happens is they feel overwhelmed and they don’t know what to do. And so they don’t do anything. And one of the reasons why I’m so excited to have you here today speaking to this is because I think you’ve done a great job of helping parents navigate what’s happening and equip them.

So when you talk to a mom and dad and you’ve…let’s say their eyes are being opened for the first time to—wow, my kids aren’t actually learning about the constitution, they’re learning about the fact that they have fifteen genders and I don’t know what to do about that. What kind of help and hope can you offer to a parent who is just now starting to see that this is happening, and they feel overwhelmed, and absolutely incapable…or not incapable—but they don’t know what to do to impact it. What do you say to that parent?

[Dr. Duke] Great question. And one of the reasons we feel so impotent as Christian believers in this culture is that what you just said. Pretty much every aspect of our culture has gone full blown progressive woke, right? So you mentioned Target, you mentioned Spotify, you talked about all the TV commercials, everything that Hollywood is producing. Even from the little kids there is a story that was in the news last week about how My Little Pony, which is a cartoon show geared for preschoolers, is now incorporating a lesbian couple into the cartoon of horses, a couple of horses. So you almost can’t run away from this in terms of what’s happening. And what the broader culture, the broader progressive culture is trying to do, is not only to force an agenda as you said, right? It is also to marginalize people who are traditional minded, Christian, or conservative.

What they’re doing is, by putting this stuff in your face all the time, in every format, what they’re telling you is—that not only do you need to shut up and accept this, but you’re the ones that are outliers.

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Dr. Duke] You’re the one, Christian Conservatives. Yours is the goofy worldview. You’re the bigots. You’re the ones who are intolerant. And that’s why moms and dads don’t want to act because they see it’s coming at them from every walk of life. Media is besieging them with this. They feel impotent. And increasingly we’re becoming more and more ashamed as Christians, as everybody keeps pointing the finger at us and saying—you know what? You’re the problem. And so the first thing I would tell moms and dads is—you’ve got to worry about your family first. Not The culture.

Those social activists was Christian activists that I know who want to take on the culture at the highest level. They get, as you said, they get overwhelmed. It seems like it’s impossible to fix it and it’s too broad. Start from the family up. Make sure your kid is not being subjected to this kind of stuff. And how do you do that? Well, what you can do is obviously monitor at home what they’re watching. Obviously be very careful of what kind of media they’re consuming and that’s something a mom can do, but over and above that—take an hour if you have to leave your kids in the public schools. The bad news is that there are really no safe spaces in the public schools. Even if you think you’ve got good teachers, even at your teachers go to church where you go to church, very often in the public schools the curriculum is out of their hands.

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Dr. Duke] They don’t have a choice of the kind of assignments they teach or how they teach them. So even the best teachers in the public schools aren’t going to be able to give your kids the best they have to offer some. The first thing I would say is if you have to keep your kids in public schools, if you have to keep them in those dangerous spaces, make sure you spend at least an hour every night, Just to go over with them—show me how you did math today. And when they give you this really convoluted, common core way of doing math, sit them down with a pen and paper and just show them how to do it a quicker way. Or when you talk about the Founding Fathers, right? And then you hear that your kids are telling you that the Founding Fathers were all racists, and Thomas Jefferson was horrible, and the writers of the Constitution, George Washington was a terrorist—is the kinda garbage they’re getting in the public schools. Take them to some good websites on the internet and said—okay, that’s one way of looking at it. Here’s another. And so if you’re doing that, I mean you are at least providing an alternative. I’d rather, you know, to be honest with you, rather than have to keep playing defense against my public school education, keep unteaching them or reteaching them what their missing learning in school—I’d rather find a much more comfortable, pro-Christian environment, in which they can get their educations.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And I think some parents, a lot of parents who are listening to this today because it’s June, right? And now’s the time, you know, we’ve just finished the school year and we’re trying to figure out what do we do in the fall. And I’ve been telling parents for a long time I was an accidental homeschooler. I did not ever anticipate homeschooling our kids and we just graduated our fourth from high school and I’m telling you what—if I can do it, the woman who God gave seven kids to and I can’t keep houseplants alive—if I can raise a seven children and homeschool them, anyone can do it. And I feel like for a long time we’ve said exactly what you’re saying—hey, you know, you gotta get in there with your kids and you’re going to have to basically do some deprogramming when they get home from school. But like my sister found out this last year, she’s got a fifth grader, a third grader, and a kindergartner. She was exhausted trying to undo the damage that was happening to our kids every day. And it ended up being easier for her just to pull them out and homeschool them. And I think parents need to know that you have that freedom and that you can do it, right?—because the barn’s on fire. At what point do you say it got to get the horses out?

[Dr. Duke] Excellent point. Let me ask you this rhetorical question, Heidi. I’ve talked to literally hundreds of thousands of parents across the country about this. And I have never once had a homeschool mom who told me she regretted doing it. It was frightening to do it. She wasn’t sure she can handle it. Like I assume you have no regrets, do you?

[Heidi] Oh No. The hardest, best thing we have ever done is homeschool our kids. Absolutely.

[Dr. Duke] And the point is that from a biblical perspective, and from a common sense perspective as well—we parents are the primary educators of our kids. From the moment they’re conceived we play music to them in Utero, we talk to them while they’re still in their mommy’s belly. The moment that kid is born, the first thing we do with our children and the thing that we do more than anything else until they leave the house—is to educate them. How to throw a curveball, how to develop self discipline so you can put the doughnuts aside and eat your broccoli. How to establish for themselves healthy living patterns. I mean, every aspect of being a parent is literally a teaching aspect.

When did we decide as a culture, when did we decide that for eight to ten hours a day, for nine months of the year, we’re going to turn the primary force of education over to strangers who all got their degrees in big universities that are opposed to our worldview, to our faith, to our values, to our morality, to our history? Why did we decide all of a sudden that for eight to ten hours a day, somebody who we don’t even know is better able to teach our kids than we are?

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s exactly right. I love that you’re encouraging these parents—listen don’t take on the establishment first, right? The first thing you do is you pay attention to what’s happening in your own home. Worry about your child before you worry about the culture. And once you find victory in that one area and you realize, like my sister did last year, she was like—oh my goodness, you know I finally took the plunge, finally pulled my kids out of public school and this, even though there was some getting used to it, whatever. She had her kids tested at the end of the year like we are required to do here in Washington state and her kids are testing ahead of grade level!

And what she’s doing basically is putting in two and a half hours a day with them and the school had him for eight and a half hours a day and they were barely at grade level. She takes him out, homeschools for an hour and a half every day, or two hours, and they’re already testing a year ahead. It’s pretty amazing.

[Dr. Duke] Yeah. And our online school is by way of reference. We have an online school called Freedom Project Academy, which helps homeschool moms and dads. And at Freedom Project, when we get kids from the public school, they are invariably two years behind where they should be arcing. The kids who come to us in sixth grade in the public school, we have to start some of them off in fourth grade because that’s where they are. And there’s a reason—this is not an accident by the way, this is not a mishap. This is not an error. This is not a mistake in public school education. It’s part of the plan with what the public schools have done over the last 20 years, and particularly over the last 10 with common core. They’ve decided now that in the name of social justice, it’s not fair for some kids to be smarter than others. It’s not fair that some kids are gifted in math and in third grade can be doing ninth grade math . That’s socially unjust to the progressives.

So what they’ve done is—the common core paradigm it doesn’t try to help the lowest performing kids. It doesn’t try to lift the bottom kids. It artificially holds down the top performing kids. So this idea that your kids are a couple of years behind, that’s exactly what the plan is because in the woke mind of progressives, if they lower the standard—the more kids can meet it, the fairer education is.

[Heidi] Yeah, and that’s exactly what’s happening and parents are frustrated by this. But then if you speak up and you say you’re frustrated—you’re immediately labeled a bigot, you’ve got some sort of a chip on your shoulder, you don’t care about these other kids. I live just outside of Portland, Oregon. It’s the same thing that’s happening here in the Pacific Northwest, and Seattle, and down in San Francisco. We have a massive drug problem here. Massive. I mean, it’s crazy. You go into downtown Portland, you can literally watch people in broad daylight just shooting up—they’re all over the place. But guess what? Guess what the progressives are calling it? It’s a housing crisis. We’ve got a housing crisis because we just don’t care about these people. And society has pushed them down and made it so that they can’t get jobs. And so now they’re out on the streets and they have no other choice but to turn to drugs.

It’s this backwards, upside down thinking, that’s coming from the hard left in this country. And I think it’s leaving a lot of people who’ve grown up here feeling bewildered. Are you seeing the same thing?

[Dr. Duke] Absolutely. Portland was in the news just this week for a school, a Christian Church in Portland. That’s almost an oxymoron these days when you think of Portland and Christian. But there’s a Christian Church in Portland that is actually hosting a summer Antifa camp for little kids. This church, this Christian Church, is allowing an Antifa group to use the facilities to train little middle school kids how to become Antifa social justice warriors—and it cracks me up because there’s actually a little disclaimer where his church says this group is not affiliated with our church. So you’re going to allow it into your church, even if you’re not affiliated with it? A group whose sole mission is to destroy traditional religion, traditional values, and traditional American culture. And it shows you the degree to which even many of our churches have succumb to the Social Justice Gospel. And so that’s a big problem we have and we’ve got to fix it.

You said something very, very right, Heidi, and I want to repeat it. Moms and dads are being bullied into believing whenever there’s a problem—it’s a problem with our system. It’s a problem with our faith or our economic system, free markets, and capitalism. It’s a problem with the way this country was founded and a problem with the constitution. What they never tell, and this is the same paradigm in the public schools—nothing is ever the individual’s fault. The individual bears no responsibility. These drug addicts, like you said, that are all across the great Northwest from San Francisco all the way up—they label it a high housing crisis because they can’t come to grips with the fact that these people who are addicted to opioids, and therefore living on the street, that they did something or they made choices in their lives that put them in that position. It has to be the cultures problem.

And think about the common core. Let me ask your audience this rhetorically—how many moms or dads think their kids are common? Raise your hand. How many moms and dads think their kids are standard? Raise your hand. And no one ever raises their hands. Your kids aren’t common. Your kids are unique. Our children are made as radical individuals in the image of God. And the school system has decided under the atheist premises of secular progressivism that your kids aren’t individuals. We’re not going to teach your kids or educate your kids as little human souls that have discrete talents and abilities. Let kids become what God made them to be. Give kids a chance to really excel. We’re not going to treat them as individuals. We were going to treat them as part of the collective and what we need to do to make sure that the collective is socially just—is again, give them the lowest common denominator education. Let’s educate them at the lowest possible way so that all kids are included and no one’s left out and we’re going to call that justice.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. I grew up in Portland, going to a Christian school there. And until I got into high school, they had the classroom separated. So there was like a fourth grade A and a fourth grade B. And what they did was they tested the kids and the kids who excelled got into the B class and the kids who are just doing the standard stuff, they were in the A class. And nobody was angry about it. Nobody was upset, nobody was angry, nobody was complaining. In fact, the parents, and this is what I see so often happening even in homeschool circles—the parents had not yet, at that point, been conditioned to believe that their kids could do no wrong, right? We still held our kids accountable. If I came home and I failed my math class or I failed my, you know, my times tables that week or whatever—I got to stay after and get better at it.

And now what’s happening is they are [parents] coming to the defense of their children, right? When their children really need accountability and need that personal responsibility, because it’s in the culture everywhere. And I keep telling parents—I dealt with a student not too long ago, in a different scenario, who was being very disrespectful in the classroom. And he brought his phone to the classroom and we said—hey, you can’t have your phone in the classroom. But he brought it anyway because he was doing his schoolwork on his phone. So the instructor took the phone away from the child, right? And then the mother came in and said—give me my child’s phone back. Right? But there was no—why did you take the phone away? We’ve got to do a better job, parents. We’re trying to raise our kids to be independent adults who will take responsibility for their own actions. And I feel like in the culture right now, we’re making excuses like from kindergarten all the way up to a drug addiction outside of the Portland Commerce Building in downtown Portland—where instead of having people take accountability, or make them accountable for their lives, or help them become accountable, we’re making excuses instead.

I want to just skew to a different topic while I’ve got you here because I think this is so important. I get questions every week at the podcast from parents whose kids, mostly there in the public school system, whose kids are coming home and they’re saying—Hey, I think I’m born in the wrong body. This is happening in homeschooling. This is happening everywhere. And I met a woman just last weekend when I was speaking in Denver, and she came and said her child, when he was in sixth grade, was exposed with video. And the video was talking about how if you have these feelings, there’s a really good chance you were born in the wrong body and it’s called transgender. And wouldn’t you know it two weeks after this kid hears it, he goes to his mom and says—Hey, I think I’m maybe transgender. These parents who are trying to do the best for their kids then are bullied really into thinking this, which it’s junk science if we’re honest about it. The science doesn’t back it up at all. This is absolutely social engineering at its height, but so many parents are buying it. I’m wondering, you have a very unique perspective on the transgender movement, sort of how it started and where it’s going. Can you educate parents who are listening to this so they understand the agenda behind the transgender movement?

[Dr. Duke] Yeah. You know all of this progressivism in the schools, what we call social justice education, you have to recognize what it is or you’re going to get lost. The idea of social justice sounds wonderful, right? Who’s against justice and we all want social justice. The great lie of the Social Justice Movement is that if Jesus were alive today, He’d be in Black Lives Matter, He’d be marching with Antifa. Absolute nonsense. You have to recognize that what we call social justice is what we called liberation theology in the 1960s. What we called cultural Marxism in the 1980s. Social justice as it’s being configured and talk to your kids by progressives in schools is nothing more than warmed over socialism. It’s Marx’s dialectic warmed over. And so the idea—why would we introduce to five, six, and seven year olds—the concept of that that you may not be the gender you’re born?

Everybody knows that little kids, five, six, seven, eight year olds, their brains have not developed to the point where they can think abstractly. If you tell a six year old, she’s a princess she’s going to believe it. If you tell a six year old boy right that he’s superman, he’s gonna jump off the steps in his cape thinking he can fly. That’s what little kids are and what the public schools are doing is they are introducing this gender theory, this junk science as you said—they’re introducing it to five, six, seven, eight, nine years olds. What they’re telling them is—that there is no standard gender, that it’s possible for a seven year old to have male characteristics, a male body, male genitalia, male DNA—but think he’s a girl. At which point you must immediately be transitioned over to that.

It is criminal what they’re doing to the kids, but you asked me why. What’s the reason for this? Look, we never, for 2000 years of Western culture, we never taught five-year-olds about heterosexual sexuality. We never taught five, and six, and seven, and eight year olds the mechanics or the physical operations of heterosexual sex. We never did that because we knew that those kids were too young to understand those issues. We’re doing it now to your kids in the service of a much broader ideology. One of the things that this transgenderism is doing, it is getting kids to challenge parental authority, religious authority, local community authority. When these kids go to these public schools and at age seven, or nine, or 11, they’ve been suggested so much in the public schools that their gender is malleable, that maybe they’re not what they think they are. And then not only are the teachers doing that, not only the teachers giving them the option to change their praising those kids who’ve changed.

So who are the kids that get noticed in seventh grade, fifth grade, third grade? Who are the kids that get all the attention and the pats on the head? Who are the kids that are held up as heroes in California? They’re actually having coming out ceremonies for five, and six year olds who are changing their gender in front of their peers in the classroom. What you’re telling these little kids is not only that you might not be the gender you think you are, but if you come out as another gender, you are behaving heroically, you’re a hero. And when you combine that kind of suggestibility with that kind of praise and heroism with little kids—we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that more and more kids are thinking they’re the wrong gender. And the behind all of this, like I said, is to drive a wedge between parental authority over kids and the schools authority over kids.

See, most moms and dads, if they had a seven year old think that he’s a boy or a girl or she’s a boy or a girl, they would talk to the kid, they’d recognize it for a phase if necessary. They might go get a little psychological counseling for the kid. In other words, most moms and dads would recognize that that was not something that was inherently true, but it was either a phase the child was passing through or was something they picked up on TV and they’d watch the kid and let them get over it, hit puberty, and then go on to live their life. That’s what you would do as a parent. What the schools want is to promote is transgenderism as a way of destroying your authority and destroying the religious implications of your authority. The Bible has no truth and we’re going to use transgenderism and our advocacy for homosexual culture as well. We’re going to use that as the ability to tear apart parental control over the kids.

How many cases have you seen, Heidi, across the country where moms and dads who won’t let their kid transition? The mom of the 14 year old, the 16 year old daughter who won’t let that daughter take testosterone. In Ohio, a federal judge just took those kids away from his parents because they wouldn’t let the 14/15 year old transgender go through the process and now is making the parents pay for it while the kid gets the the treatments. And you can see what this does to the family and you can certainly see what it does to the biblical worldview.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And it seems like parents are more and more afraid every day of just saying what it is because they are afraid, and rightfully so, that they’re going to have their kids taken away from them. So if you’ve got a parent who comes to you and they say—Hey, I like to speak out, but I’m afraid my kid’s going to get taken away from me. What do you say to that parent?

[Dr. Duke] Well, I say to that parent, you love your kids. You are trying to raise your kid in a Christian environment. You believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior, and yet you’re more afraid of the school administrators than you are about the fate of your kid’s life? I guess what I would say to them is the fact that you are afraid of what’s going on in your public schools, if you’re afraid as an adult—imagine what that impact is on your little child. And you live in America, you don’t live in China and you don’t live in Germany where it’s federally illegal to homeschool your kids or to a private school, your kids.

If you are terrified as a parent about what they’re being told in the schools and how you don’t dare challenge them for fear of losing those skids to some degree—you’ve already lost those kids. Your fear of what the school or the state can do to you trumps your ability to give your kid what they really need. And this is America. Just pull your kid out. You have to pull your kid out. You are afraid for the right reasons. If your fifth grader, goes to a public school teacher and says—I think I’m transgender and Mommy and daddy won’t help me—you better bet the full force, particularly in a progressive state like Washington, the full force of the state will come down on the side of the teacher, not on your side. The only place your kids are safe are out of that environment.

Homeschool kids, you have a range of options. First of all, in a genuine homeschool environment, that question is never going to enter a fifth graders mind. They’re getting suggested in the schools. No fourth grade, no third grader, no kindergarten kid is intrinsically confused about his biology. They don’t even think at the level of biology boys or boys and girls at girls, they don’t think beyond that. In order for these questions to appear in their heads, they have to be an environment where this is not just being suggested, but reinforced over and over, month after month, great after grade. And the only safe place for that is some place out of the public school.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. I’m wondering if a parent who’s listening to this now and they’re thinking—oh my goodness, this is my kid. Like I’m recognizing this is what’s happening with my child. And that parent is thinking—I’m gonna pull them out. When we encourage parents to pull their kids out of the school system, what we’re saying is—you don’t have to go to the school. A lot of parents think they have to go to the school with a plan, that they have to prove something. And I’m always telling parents—no you don’t. I know the school has been telling you this isn’t true, but actually the truth is those kids belong to you. They’re your responsibility. You don’t even need to give anyone a reason. You can go to the school and say—Hey, thank you so much for everything you guys are done. We’re going to homeschool our kid from here on out. And then find out what your state law requires so that you can make that transition. Because I love, I love what you’re saying and that is—parents need to stop being afraid. And we have been bullied for so long.

If you disagree with the homosexual agenda that’s being pushed in every, almost every major departments. I was just in JC penny the other day and they had a big pride display out there. I was telling my kids the other day at the dinner table it is so astonishing to me that we have named a movement—one of what the Bible says is the seven deadly sins, right? Pride, one of the seven deadly sins. And we’re going to put that deadly sin, on tee shirts. And we’re gonna put it on the front of our buildings, and light up downtown Portland in the colors of the rainbow.

We’re in trouble. And parents, you got to know who you are in Christ. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. It’s time to take your kid back. Do you feel like parents are feeling more empowered lately by voices like yours as you get out in front of this movement and say—Hey, this is what it really is.

[Dr. Duke] I think people like us, Heid, and we both started the same way. You did not start as a national activists. You started as a local mom. I did not start as a national activist. I started as a professor in a university who saw what was going on with my students. So it begins local, right? And so I think we’re resources, but I think the culture is becoming so radical, so fast—that frightened parents are looking for voices. And so I do think that the fear that parents are feeling is experiential fear and worry. They know there are big problems and so voices like ours, I think sometimes help guide them.

But you mentioned pride a moment ago. Quick comment about that. Pride is not just one of the seven deadly sins. It is the chief of the seven deadly sins. I mean, you think about Christ, you could argue that the primary focus of His ministry was in many ways humility—the opposite of pride. Here is the God who made the universe who enters it not as a conqueror, a king, but as a slave, right? As an impoverished child. And this is the God who made the universe, who walked among us, and yet with forbore His own power to suffer and die humbly for us. Pride is a big problem. And so it’s a bigger thing than that, to this idea of pride—pride week—it is a titanic example of sinful pride that we, in government schools for kids too young to even think clearly, are telling children that the biological realities of male and female are all faults. That nature is somehow wrong. That your DNA—forget religion and the Bible for a second. We’re telling these kids anti-scientific things. So proud are we to socially engineer away gender as we understood it, that we’re lying to these kids not just about faith but about science, about biology, about DNA.

There’s a great story in the news today, about…Lauren Chen has it over at the blaze. It’s about a young student—he raised his hand in class and told the teacher there are two genders and for that he was banished from the classroom. That is a titanic incidence of pride. The left keeps telling us Christians, we are the anti-science people, right? We’re the rubes who don’t understand how the naturalistic universe functions. And yet when it comes to promoting a radically anti-scientific agenda, right? Two little kids who haven’t scientifically developed to the point they can even understand it. They have absolutely no shame in the public schools.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s exactly right. And parents can turn the tide. And I think they need to understand how powerful they are. I keep telling parents—listen—and I love to hear your opinion on this. But I firmly believe that the radical left, the progressives in this nation, and frankly around the world—they are counting on and depending on our silence. They need our silence. They need as to feel bullied. They need us to be quiet. They need us not to show up and vote. They need us to keep our kids in the schools.

And I’ve been telling these parents—listen, you know, Billy Graham said: when one man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened. And I think that’s a large part of the reason why I do what I do. I’m sure it’s a large part—the reason why you do what you do. But parents need to understand, if you will take a stand and say—I refuse to be bullied by these cultural Marxists any farther, then they will actually have an impact on what’s happening around them.

COME BACK ON MONDAY FOR PART TWO—YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS IT!

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Steve and his wife Sandra have been married since 1979. They have been blessed with four sons, three lovely daughters-in-law, and five special grandchildren. Their fourth son John has Downs Syndrome and lives with them in Lititz, PA.  Steve graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the creator of Math-U-See and the founder of Building Faith Families.

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This podcast was brought to you by our friends at Melt: Massage for Couples.

Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you guys joined me at my little corner of the Internet. Today is Friday, June 14th. This is episode number 779 and it is meet my friend Friday—and you guys know how much I love having people on the show who are going to encourage you and bless you. Today is no different. My friend Steve Demme is on the show with me today. It’s been quite awhile since he’s been here and I will introduce him in a minute, but we’re going to take on fatherhood today. Fatherhood is so important and it’s under attack in the culture right now. Steve knows a lot about fatherhood. He’s been married to his wife since 1979 and they have four sons, three daughters in law and five amazing grandkids. So we’re going to talk all things fatherhood and culture today.

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so I want to say thanks to everybody who’s come out to join me at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference. I will be there today and tomorrow—so if you’re in the Denver area, come on out. You can find information—just go ahead and search for The Rocky Mountain Homeschool conference. On Tuesday, July 2nd, I will be speaking at the NW Slavic Action Summit at Smirna Christian Church. I will link back to that in the show notes today. Then from the 11th through the 13th I’ll be in Pasadena for the CHEA convention and then in Phoenix, July 19th and 20th for AFHE. This is a very busy season for me and I appreciate everybody who’s coming out and saying hello. Also, want to say a big shout out to our sponsor over at MELT. You guys remember me talking about this last week. This is an awesome opportunity. Father’s Day is this Sunday, and so there’s still time for you guys to get free access to that Melt Couples Massage Course that we’ve talked about on this show a whole lot of times now.

You can get the masterclass for 30 days for FREE when you hop on over to purchase their Almond Oil from Amazon. And honestly guys, I looked it up just to kind of see what are people saying. They have 557 customer reviews at four and a half stars. This is great stuff. It’s a purchase price of $18.95—totally worth it. Makes a great, great, great Father’s Day Gift. Your husband will thank you for it. So check it out. If you want more information, go to my website TheBusyMom.com/Melt for more information. Hurry up because this offer is going to end as soon as Father’s Day is over.

All right, I’m going to get right to my guest today because I don’t want to miss a minute of time with him. Steve and I have been friends for quite a while, hanging out on the speaking circuit with homeschooling. And he’s, you know—my kids love him and we have all kinds of funny stories that we can share. But Steve has a real heart for families. And one of the things I love talking to him about is his heart for parents in particular and for building strong families. And actually some of you are going—man, that name, it sounds so familiar. That’s because Steve is the creator of MathUSee and the founder of Building Faith Families. And so, I’m excited to let him talk to you about the projects he’s working on now, and we’re going to chat about fatherhood. Hey Steve, welcome to the podcast.

[Steve] Thanks Heidi, is lovely to be here with you and all your listeners. Thanks for having me.

[Heidi] Yeah, I’m glad that you’re here. It’s been a while. It’s really been too long. I apologize.

[Steve] This is the old journey. Start with a single step.

[Heidi] That’s exactly right. You have been out on the circuit speaking this season as well. And you also just finished writing a book, right? Finishing a book project.

[Steve] I did.

[Heidi] Right on.

[Steve] I wrote a Christian approach to personal finance with a 15 or 16 year old student in my head as I was writing. I don’t know if you do that when you write, but I’m writing to somebody—and I’m writing to a young person. And so it’s Personal Finance from a Christian Perspective, tons of Scripture, lots of math applications. In the first book I wrote on this topic was in 2008, some of the units were outdated. And so this was supposed to be the revision year. And as I started to do it, I ended up rewriting the whole program, rerecording it and filming it in front of live students and online students. And it’s awesome.

[Heidi] that is awesome

[Steve] So it’s at the printer right now and it’ll be out in a couple of weeks.

[Heidi] I am excited. So you have been doing this now for quite awhile, you know, ministering to families and you started out with MathUSee. Which anybody who’s been homeschooling for more than 10 minutes knows what that is. But you’ve got so much more on your heart than math, and so much more than personal finance. You really have a heart to see families be grounded and be strong. Where does that come from?

[Steve] It started when I was in seminary and I was wanting to find a vision for education. I had a class on Christian schools and I did something radical. I got out my Young’s concordance and I looked up every Word in the Bible I had thought had anything to do with education, teach, teacher, teaching, instructing, instruction. And I ended up writing a paper on the millennial view of education. And the idea was—what will education look like if there’s a millennium? And I just based on Scripture, mostly Deuteronomy and Proverbs, but throughout the Word of God, I said—parents should be the primary educators of their children and the curriculum should be based on God’s Word. That’s not a radical thought today, but it was 40 years ago. And then the second thing that happened, my wife and I were invited to a homeschool conference back in, I think it was 1982—one of the first homeschool conferences. And we started seeing families who had already been homeschooling and we loved the fruit.

We saw moms and dads whose best friends were still their teenagers. We saw young men that would look you in the eye and give you a firm handshake and young ladies that could have an intelligent conversation. And it just resonated with our heart. And the second thing was though—at that point I’d already been a youth group leader, and run summer camps, and I had been a high school teacher—to see that kind of family harmony and that heart connection between generations, was something I hadn’t seen in any other sphere that much. And once you’re involved in youth work for a while, you start realizing that the most important influence in a child’s life is not the youth leader. It’s a mom and a dad.

And so I started redirecting my energy—instead of working with young people, working with parents. And in particular, I think dads are a key part of the family. And I think that’s why it says at the end of Malachi—God is going to turn the hearts of the fathers to their home and going to turn the hearts of the children to their dads. And that’s what I see happening in a nutshell. When I travel around, I speak at men’s conferences, I speak at homeschool conferences, I speak at a church retreats, and I really believe that that’s what God’s doing in our culture. And I don’t give a rip what the media says. I don’t give a rip with the news paper says—God is turning the hearts of dads towards their home. And I just did a talk in Virginia this past weekend and I had a room filled with men, men standing around the edges on the sides, and in the back. And my talk, it was about how to build up your wife. And these men were taking the time to go listen to some tall, bald guy talk about how to build up their family. And I think that appetite comes from the Spirit of God. And so I am not hope-less. I am hope-filled that God is restoring our country from the heart level and He’s doing it by working in the hearts of men. And I’m really at good courage.

[Heidi] That’s so encouraging. I know it’s encouraging for me because these are the things we talk about on the podcast all the time. I spend a lot of time trying to encourage the hearts of women, and mothers in particular, toward their children and toward their husband. And I agree with you. We have also seen incredible things happening out on the road and as you and I both have. We are crisscrossing the country, we’ve kind of been like ships in the night. Like this season—I haven’t seen you at all. But I’m so encouraged by what you’re doing.

Talk to the dad right now, who feels like he has…like he’s missed an opportunity. So I get letters like all the time, there’s a dad who’s listening to this right now and he’s got—maybe his youngest is eight, but he’s got a 15 year old and a 17 year old. And he feels like he missed an opportunity to speak into the life of his kids. And now he’s just kind of putting his hands up in the air and going—why bother? Talk to that man, to that dad for just a minute.

[Steve] All right, so here’s the deal. It’s never too late number one. One of my favorite names for God is redeemer and God just works. And you know, because you read the book I wrote called Crisis to Christ and in 2012, we’d been homeschooling our kids. They’re all in their twenties and thirties now. They’re working for Demme Learning and we decided to have a family business instead of just working for me. I thought this would be really easy because I loved my kids. I thought they can handle more and more of the business, it frees me up to do more speaking and writing. But I didn’t realize—I learned some painful lessons that year, that there’s nobody that can build up my kids like me. And that can hurt him like me. You know, with the authority that God gives men—now again, who can even say that in our culture today without almost getting stoned. But it’s in Scripture, he made the husband the head.

And so that authority though, carries with it tremendous responsibility. And what I found out was, is that I’m homeschooling my kids. I’m trying to protect them, provide for them, give them something better than I didn’t receive growing up. And then to find out that I’m a source of pain in their life and that I’ve wounded them. It was almost more than I could take. But you know what—if I can just put a little parenthesis here, remember Enoch in the Bible. He had lived for decades and then it says he had his son. And it said after his son was born, Enoch walked with God. Something about having a son. It stirs a man. It makes them want to be a better man. It makes him want to leave a lasting impression. It makes him want to encourage his kids. So to that man does even wanting to be a good man—I first of all said, that’s good stuff. You’re on the right track.

So then what happened is I ended up getting therapy. I ended up getting a counselor, ended up going deep and trying to figure out where my own issues came from, taking them to the cross, letting Christ work through me. And then I was back and I was being restored to my sons. And it wasn’t like, you know, I’d thrown them off a bridge or anything like that. But I’m a dad and dad’s have tremendous influence in the life of the kids. And so I went back to my sons and I said—you know, I know that I’ve asked your forgiveness when I had done something wrong, but you know—I’m your dad. I had no idea I was doing these things. Thank you for pointing out my blind spots and whatever it takes, let’s be reconciled. And it took a couple of years. But you know what? I’m in the best place I’ve ever been with my sons and my wife, but I had to do a lot of dying. Which if I can put this in here—I believe God designed men to die. Because he told him—lay your life down for your wife. Love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave his life for her. And so I don’t know about ladies, I’m not a lady, but I’m a man—and I had to do a lot of dying in 2012 and I continue to make dying a good thing. I embrace it now in a different way instead of kicking against it, because to what Jesus said—if you lose your life, you find it. And I can’t tell you how good of a place I am and how I didn’t like the dying—but that’s what Jesus did. Jesus laid his life down and it’s because he laid his life down that we’re all alive today. And we’re going to live forever because He laid his life down. And so dying is not a bad thing. And it’s going to your children in humility and repenting, and going deep, and creating a safe place where they can approach you and point out your blind spots, and your frailties and places where perhaps you have blown it. It’s not fun, but it yields really good fruit. And God walked through with me. It wasn’t me on my own as the Holy Spirit that carried me through and help me and was my like comforter at my side. So that’s what happened.

So to that father who’s thinking he missed the opportunity, my kids were all adults—and I think we were within a whisker of them all moving to a different state. And now we all work together in the same business and I see them almost every day. And I had lunch with one of my sons just today, and I’m making plans to meet with my other boys on a regular basis. We’ve been doing this now for the last couple of years.

[Heidi] So good. It’s so important. One of the things that Jay has talked about with me out on the road, the season we’ve been talking… We’re coming up on our 30th anniversary this fall.

[Steve] Congratulations!

[Heidi] Thank you! And we’ve been talking about seven things we’ve been learning, you know, seven things we’ve learned in 30 years. Of course there’s a whole lot more than that. But somebody asked us recently about this issue of submission, you know—what is the role of submission in marriage? And I was so encouraged and blessed to say to hear Jay. He said basically exactly what you said. He said—listen, you know,  we hear a lot about—wives submit your husband’s. We don’t hear very much about—husbands, love your wife like Christ loved the church. What did he do? He laid down His life for her. And Jay said—you know, I have always seen my role in our home is one of God saying: Jay St. John, you are in charge of making sure that your family flourishes, that your children flourish, that your marriage flourishes, that your wife flourishes. And then your children and your wife will respond to that loving leadership. And it was such a beautiful picture. I think of exactly what you’re saying. It’s laying down and the fruit that comes from it is amazing. And I’ve definitely seen it in your life. And I think one of the things that, you know, we talked about earlier was sort of this downplaying of fatherhood in the culture. And I guess I would argue that probably a root cause behind it is the loss of our understanding of what true fatherhood looks like.

And so we are kind of messing that up. Like we keep hearing things like “toxic masculinity”, and boys aren’t allowed to be…. Men are sort of under attack. So one of the questions that’s coming to the podcast is from a mom named Amy. And she’s saying—I don’t know even how to tell my boys how to treat women anymore because the culture’s so backwards and upside down. It’s kind of a full scale war on men. But I think the sniper attacks at fatherhood are very specific in saying that fathers are not allowed to exert leadership in their families. They don’t want  to be distinguished. The culture says we don’t distinguish you from mothers in any way. But God says it’s so much differently. And so when you get asked out on the road, which I know that you do, from parents that come up to you and they’re asking questions about the role of fathers and understanding fatherhood and teaching their boys to be men and really encouraged them to be masculine—because that’s how God made them. How can we, I guess, encourage parents to encourage their boys to become men who will someday become fathers, and then flourish in that role?

[Steve] One of the big lessons I learned in my, Sandy’s and I’s relationship—by the way, we just celebrated 40.

[Heidi] Wow.

[Steve] 10 days ago.

[Heidi] You’re 10 years ahead of me. Congratulations! That’s amazing.

[Steve] You know what though? That was my last newsletter, and I don’t know if you saw it, but I’ll have to send it to you if you haven’t. But we were sitting in dinner, we went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We have—it’s the only the second time we’d been away for a week, just the two of us since we’ve got a special needs child. And we looked across the table and I said—Sandy, you know what’s the best thing that’s called, you know, going on? And she said—this is a celebration of all the work that we have done. You know, when I say work, most of that work is internal. It’s stuff that I had to face. I had to face my weaknesses and my frailties and with God’s help, humble myself, etc. But one of the biggest lessons I learned is—that when God says—wives—just talked about this Saturday—wives submit to your husband. First of all, that little statement there, that letter was addressed to wives. It wasn’t addressed to husbands. It’s not my job to make sure that my wife is submissive or has the right attitude towards me. My job, the letter addressed to me is—lay your life down, love your wife as Christ loved the church.

You don’t read anybody else’s mail. And if Sandy wants to submit to me, great. If he doesn’t—not my department. My department is to focus on Jesus and love like Jesus loves me. Point number two—it’s really hard to be a father until you’ve been a son. And let me see if I can explain that. That verse John 15:9 to me unlocked this whole truth. And Jesus says as the father loved me, that’s how I’ve loved you. And I start thinking about that and I thought—how did the Father loves His Son?

Because if you want to be a good dad…there’s only one perfect father in Scripture, or anywhere else—and it’s the Heavenly Father. And how did He love His Son? And He loved Him and He expressed that love at His baptism in a beautiful way. He said, this is Steve’s translation—this is My Boy. I love Him to pieces, and He’s well pleasing in my site, right this minute. And when you think about it contextually as before Jesus did anything, and this is what a good dad tells his sons—I am so glad you’re my son.

I had a guy tell me the other day at a conference, he says—I tell my son on a regular basis, if there was a mile of 10 year old boys all standing head to head, I pick you every time.

[Heidi] Oh, I love that.

[Steve] That’s the kind of love that the Father was saying when He said—this is My Boy, I would pick Him every time. And then He said—and I love Him to pieces, just the way He is, and He’s well pleasing in My site. And because of what Jesus has done for us, and taken away our sin, and closed a cloaked us in His righteousness—we too, we belong, we’ve been adopted into His family, we are loved with an everlasting love and we’re well pleasing in His sight. And that irrespective of what we do or don’t do it—there is nothing we can do to make God love us more than He does and nothing we can do to make God love us any less.

And so what I’m saying is, for me in my journey, I had to learn how to be a loved son before I could be a loving father. I had to get my eyes up on my heavenly Father in a whole new way and rebuild my relationship with Him because there were flaws in it. And that’s what I discovered in 2012. And being a loved son, which is what Jesus was, prepares me to be a loving dad. And now that I’m receiving those things from my Dad, I’m able to pass them on to my sons, which is—I’m able to love my boys like I have been loved. Which is what Jesus says—now love one another just like I loved you. And I thought—okay, that’s the vision for Godly Fatherhood, is to keep your eyes on the Heavenly Father and just like He loved His Boy, and just like His Boy loved us—that’s how we’re supposed to love our boys.

So I’ll give you some examples. One of the things that we do, my wife carefully picks out a birthday card for each of my boys. Two weeks before their birthday, this card appears on my desk . And I began praying, and I began seeking God for Him to help me to see my sons like He sees them. To see their heart, and their Spirit, and not the external—but the real man. Just like He talked about David, he didn’t look on the outside. He looked on the heart.

And I start making notes and then I prayerfully write a letter to each of my boys on their birthday. And I’ve been doing this now for many, many years. And pretty much though, the essence of it is— I’m so glad you’re my boy. I’d pick you every time. I love you to pieces and you are well pleasing in my sight if you never do anything. I love you right now with all my heart. And think about that. How many people here would love to have a letter from their dad saying those things? And that’s one of the things that I try to communicate to my son’s on a regular basis. I don’t care how old they are. I don’t care if I’m 80 and they’re in their 50’s—I’m going to keep writing them letters. I’m going to keep taking them out to lunch. I’m going to keep loving them. And I want them to know that I am so glad that they’re my boy.

[Heidi] That’s so good

[Seve] But I keep my eyes on my dad. You see, because that’s the whole point. That’s how He loved His Son. So that’s how I want to love my sons. And I can keep going along that line, but that’ll get us a taste.

[Heidi] I love it. Well, and we’ve only got about a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to turn the tables just a little bit because Father’s Day is right around the corner. And we’ve been talking to dads about how they can love their sons in particular, you know, their kids in general—their sons in particular. But let’s talk for just a minute about how the rest of us can really encourage and love on our dad or our husband. What are some practical ways that we can encourage them in the role, this specific role that God has given to them? What comes to your mind, my friend?

[Steve] Well, when I read the commandment to honor your father and your mother, I’m just so focused on being honorable.

[Heidi] Yeah.

[Steve] You know what I mean?

[Heidi] Yeah.

[Steve] That’s scripted to me is a two-edged sword in the sense that I want to have the right attitude towards my parents because each of us has parents and we want to have the right attitude. Whether they’re living or not. We want to honor our parents, but we want to be honorable for our kids. I don’t want to just walk into the room and assume that they have to genuflect and start standing up and giving me honor and all that. Frankly, Father’s days are a little hard for me. Because we’re getting together Sunday as a family, and the whole family’s going to get together. And, sorry, I’m starting to cry on this end.

[Heidi]

[Steve] Yeah. I got some great kids and they’re wonderful. And I don’t know what they’re going to do. But yeah, for a dad, I think probably when it says in John—there’s no greater joy than I have to see that my kids are walking in the truth. And that’s the greatest joy I receive—it’s just watching my sons love their wife, love their kids, love each other. You know, my boys are each others close friends and I love the way that they honor their mom. So it’s a little uncomfortable for me. I would rather…

[Heidi] I know that’s how come I told you I was going to turn the tables on you.

[Steve] Yeah, I didn’t know what to say to that one. But for me—we’ve learned each other’s love languages in our family. Which one of my sons is quality time, which one is touch, which one is gifts. Me—I’m words of affirmation. So cards means something to me, and words mean something to me. And I remember, I do remember what kids say and they go deep so.

[Heidi] Well and you’re good at that. You’re good at words of affirmation. I know Saylor just misses you. We were looking at pictures the other day and she was like—where’s the big tall man and everything. Last time you saw Saylor, she was sitting on your shoulders.

[Steve] Yeah. That poor peanut, we were doing shoulder rides. And then she broke her arm in a hundred places or whatever.

[Heidi] I know it. What in the world I am telling you what—I can’t get away from the trouble, if you know what I’m saying. Well, I love you, my friend. I’m just so thankful for your heart, for families in your heart to encourage fathers  in particular to be the men that God would have them be because of how loved they are. And I think that message of how loved we are needs to be out there more often. So I appreciate it.

I’m going to link back to you in the show notes today. So everyone’s like—how do I find this guy? I’ll link back to all things Steve Demme in the show notes today. But Steve, what is it that you want people, listeners— to leave them with? Where can they find you? How would you have them search you out?

[Steve] Well, I have my own podcast. Which I’m only at number 203. I just 201 I think I interviewed Joni Eareckson Tada. So listening to the podcast would be one avenue. The second one would be—I have a newsletter, which goes out once a month. And then I have a whole bunch of free resources on my website. But if I could say one last zinger here—the reason dads are under attack is because the Devil is not stupid and he knows that they’re the key.

[Heidi] Yes.

[Steve] And that’s why we’re under attack We are. So spiritual warfare comes into play here. I mean, this morning I was out on my prayer walk and things weren’t just….I wasn’t connecting. Right? And you know what I sensed? I just sensed opposition. And so I did a lot of—I bound the strong man in Jesus’ name. I applied the blood of Christ. I resisted the Devil, not only for myself, but for my family. And you know what? It broke. So one of the things that I do, and I’m on my prayer walk, I might not be able to write letters that are editorial, and I might be PC policed to death and all that kind of stuff—but they can’t stop me from praying. 

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Steve] I can pray my heart out, and I can bind the strong man and I can pray any way that the Spirit of God directs me. And whether I even have a voice or not, I can pray in my Spirit. And that’s one of the things that we need to do as men. And the second thing men need to do is they need to have other men in their life. I saw a quote the other day—isolation is the Kryptonite of men. And once we get separated from good godly fellowship, then we get picked off pretty easily. So we need to be cogent and fighting the good fight and the Holy Spirit will help us to do it. But we also need brothers to link arms with and that’s one of the things that I’m doing a lot of—is just connecting men with other men when I speak.

[Heidi] Well, you’re doing a fantastic job. You are really do fit that title of ambassador and it really is a privilege for me to call you my friend. Thank you so much Steve for taking the time to come and bless our people.

[Steve] Back at ya Heidi.

[Heidi] Thank you so much. If you you guys who want more information about Steve Demme and his ministry to families. I will link back to Steve’s information in the show notes today.

Want to just remind you, you can get ahold of me anytime. You can write to us at a Heidi St. John c/o Firmly Planted Family 11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682. Make sure you hop on over to MomStrong International. We’re going to be coming up next week talking about peace in an age of anxiety. I know you guys are going to be encouraged. Jump into the study right now so that you can catch up with us. You can do that at MomStrongInternational.com have a great day everybody, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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