Leaven: An influence or addition to an entity that causes a general change within the entity.

In an earlier posting I made the following statement: “As goes the church, so goes the society.” In that a nation follows the lead of its spiritual contingent, any change in that contingent will eventually bring about a change in the society in which it is found. The change is called “leaven.” Leaven can be positive or negative. In the Garden of Eden the spiritual contingent (church) consisted of two people while the leaven was embodied by one spirit. Prior to the introduction of the leaven (Satan–the “serpent”) there had been no change in either the people or the world in which they lived since their creation. However, a change in Adam and Eve’s spiritual condition brought about a like change in the world in which they found themselves. The Lord’s “cause and effect” law has been in effect ever since.

Secular and Biblical history highlight the fact that a change in the spiritual condition of the church invariably brings about a corresponding change in the society in which it is found. The church leaven that infects and destroys both herself and her host nation can be summarized in one word: COMPROMISE. A person compromises when he/she abandons a proven and correct position for the sole purpose of pleasing another. Before applying this increasingly popular trend to the so-called “Christian nation” called the United States of America, let us turn to her educational systems that perfectly reflect her “go along to get along” mentality.

I recently learned that the grades of students in America’s public schools are going “up, up and up” while standardized test scores are “falling.” How can this be? How can students be making increasingly higher grades in the classroom while producing increasingly lower scores on the tests that measure their classroom achievements?

The answer lies in the fact that a few generations ago the nation’s educational institutions began to lower achievement standards in order to enable those who could not or would not produce academically to receive the same grades as those who could and did produce. For thinkers it came as no surprise when average grade levels began to rise. The effort level that would have earned “C’s” or “D’s” in the past were soon earning “A’s” and “B’s” depending on the “Political Correctness” level of the institution. Of late the “go along to get along” disease has begun to infect institutions of higher learning, which comes as no surprise to rational people who have been watching the development of this nation-destroying movement for years. As the following will show, the “no winners or losers” craze is not limited to the public schools.

Today we find university professors openly bragging about lowering individual academic standards in order to elevate individual self-esteem which, we are told, is more important than individual achievement in that it allows the non-achiever to enjoy the same status as the achiever. This push toward “grade redistribution” and “status redistribution” is academia’s answer to the “income redistribution” craze now being pushed by many in political circles.

And yet parents are spending small fortunes to send their children to these diploma mills where professors are paid, not to eliminate ignorance, but to reward it, to create an academic “level playing field” where everyone wins and “participation trophies” are awarded for merely showing up. This ideology is the foundation upon which Communism and Socialism are built. This ideology is the reason why products made in China are not worth their costs.

The United States has embraced the “no losers” ideology with vigor. Because a high self-esteem index is the primary goal, everyone must be a winner. This lunacy has left our academic production in shambles. For example, in a recent international mathematical competition the United States came in behind VIETNAM! As a result of the mediocracy leaven that has infected American education, international spelling and science competitions are routinely won by non-Americans. The national Spelling Bee is routinely won by recent immigrants.

The national dumbing down movement is lauded by approximately half of the nation’s population who want the United States to be just “one among a world of equals.” We are routinely told by liberals that we are not an exceptional nation, and that those of us who yearn for the old days are evil and out of step with the rest of the world. The liberals want us to be merely a minor part of the stew known an the “global community.” Therefore we must be like everyone else so that everyone else will like us. We must not, under any circumstances, stand alone and put forth tried and true principles. WE MUST COMPROMISE IN ORDER TO FIT IN. And where do we find the origin of this mind-set? The same place we find the origin of all national ills–that which calls itself “the church.” L.J.