Book Review : The War on Children

By Elizabeth Prata

I have been blessed to have been an educator for many decades. Not continually the whole time, but I’ve spent years teaching children how to read better and to love reading. I am currently a Literacy Interventionist in a public elementary school. I am blessed to teach in this school system, which is well-run, reasonable, and has excellent leaders and teachers.

Since my beginning years in teaching, which was in 1982, the secular culture in America has changed staggeringly. I lived through the cultural revolutions of the 1960s- Second Wave Feminism, Civil Rights, Homosexual Rights, and Politics/War. Phew. It was a lot.

Eventually, the public education spheres begin to absorb these countercultural philosophies and attitudes of the secular world, and generations entering school who were raised after the 1960s increasingly adopted these new norms as normal.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s was sin, of course. Sin entering and rising in a massive wave that leveled up the sin already present in the world.

The 1960s’ cultural revolution was visible. Hippies emerged. Music changed. Clothing was different. Protests took place. You could see it and hear it all over the country.

It feels to me like another revolution is taking place, one that is as massive as the 1960s’, but invisible. I can’t see it visibly happening but I see the results of it.

It’s the War on Children.

As an educator I see children coming to us as young as age 5 and 6 with serious sin issues. It used to be in the old days, one or two 5th or 6th graders might pull some attitude, once in a while. Very few stood firm, not quaking at authority and seemingly unaffected by consequences. They’d crumble and cry pretty quickly. A call to parent(s) yielded response or support.

I’m shocked that nowadays we have so many kindergarteners who merely glance disdainfully at authority, lie, cheat, steal, talk back, and seem not to care about punishment. Parents are absent in fact or in spirit. These youngsters watch horror movies rated R and laugh when someone is killed. They think it’s funny. They have no work ethic. Physical violence is the answer to any issue they have, and increasingly, they have issues with even the most minor of bumps in the road.

Not ALL students of course, but a demoralizing number of children come to us already ruined. Conscience-less. I know, I know, children are sinners. Sinners gonna sin. But what I’m talking about is a shocking absence of any care at all for rules, adults, or authority. And a shocking lack of concern for their own lack of conscience.

The war on children is not a new phenomenon, but it has lately escalated to catastrophic levels.” John MacArthur, The War on Children

I’ve had some struggles adjusting to this new reality. The leveling up of sin and its effect on children has caught me in a gap. My mind totally knows that this will happen. The Bible tells us that in the last days sin will rise, children will be disobedient, times will be brutal, and so on. (2 Timothy 3:1-3). I believe it because God said it.

Today we are not merely contending with the normal, accumulated evil of past generations. We’re also living in a culture that has specifically targeted children for destruction. MacArthur, The War on Children

But when you SEE it played out before your eyes, it takes a while for the heart to catch up to the brain. Knowing is one thing, grieving over it is another. My heart is sad and hasn’t calibrated yet to this new, awful reality.

That’s the gap; the head knows, but the heart can’t take it. It will take a little while for the Word of God to console me and fill that gap.

So, seeking a theological framework to help me process this new reality of ruined children, I got the new book by John MacArthur called The War on Children. I read it over Spring Break.

It was good but heavily aimed at parents. I had a hard time adapting it to my childless/single status. It was also heavy on culture’s wrongs and only a half page epilogue at the end for the hope, which was really what I was looking for. MacArthur gave good and current information on what the media, entertainment, schools etc are doing to children, but strangely absent was discussing video games’ part in the war on children.

For example, Kindergarteners were discussing this game, Five Nights at Freddy’s–

The Five Nights at Freddy’s series consists of horror-themed video games in which the player is usually a night-time employee at a location connected with Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a fictional children’s restaurant…the homicidal evil animatronics wander the restaurant at night, and the guard (who is the player) is instructed to watch over them. The homicidal animatronics mistake humans for animatronic endoskeletons, whom they will force inside character suits, killing them in the process. In the later game editions it is retroactively established that the animatronics are actually possessed by spirits of children murdered by restaurant cofounder…where a hidden news article explains that the restaurant’s reputation was damaged when blood, mucus, and foul odors began to leak from the animatronics’ eyes and mouths. With help from Michael, Henry sets fire to the restaurant, destroying every animatronic inside and freeing all the children’s souls. Inventor and founder William, meanwhile, is trapped and repeatedly tormented in eternal damnation by the spirit of Cassidy, one of the children he murdered. Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Explicit murders, trapped souls of children, torment and eternal damnation… this game is rated for ages 12+ which is still too young, but 6 years olds know all about it and even “play” it.

Of course any MacArthur book is worthwhile, ultimately. It did teach me of how important children are in God’s economy and how they are one of the foundations to the building blocks of this world. Children are KEY!

This culture is weaponized to destroy children. J. MacArthur

My Takeaways from the Book:

-Just HOW MUCH children are at risk.
-Children are extremely important to God. Of course we know this, but reading the book the way MacArthur lays it out, drove the point home in a new way.
-Prompted me to be ever more patient, kind, and loving with the children in my care at school.

The War on Children is available on Amazon and also Grace Books, among other book sale outlets.