I would not preach like I am going to preach tonight if I did not love you. I know a lot of folks tonight will not agree with me, but you never heard a more honest sermon. Now I know our church has dozens of public school teachers.
If we asked for a show of hands tonight, I am sure that we would have 35 to 40 people in this room tonight who teach in the public school. I would not hurt you purposely for the world, but tonight I am going to do one thing–I am going to tear what is going on in our schools apart, let me forewarn you. I am going to try to help you save your kids.
The truth is, parents do not know what is going on. I am going to be very frank tonight. No punches barred tonight. If I have superintendents of schools and principals and teachers calling me by the thousands tomorrow, it does not matter. I am going to try to save your kids if it makes the whole town mad. Tonight I am going to spend myself to save your kids. I am going to risk your devotion, your love, your fellowship, maybe your friendship, but I am going to do it because, with all my heart I want to save your kids.
A lady said to me yesterday, “I went over here to a middle school to work in the lunchroom at the lunch hour. Pastor, it never dawned on me the condition of that place. I never realized before what is happening in our schools.”
Parents, you really do not know what is going on. No, you do not. I have in my hand a teenage questionnaire. By the say, one of the reasons I am starting off slow tonight, I do not know what time it is and could not care less. You just forget your clock and your hopes of getting to bed at all tonight, because this is one night when I am going to stand before you and plead for your children.
There are people in this room tonight who care more about your dog than you do your kids. You care more about driving a Cadillac car, or new car. A lot of you ought to sell your car and ride a bicycle if you have to, to get your kids in a decent school. I plead with you tonight for your kids. I hold before me a copy of a survey that our high school students took this morning. Two hundred thirty of our students took this survey, and here are the questions:
1. Have you ever heard one of your school teachers use vulgar language in class?
2. Have you ever heard a school teacher take the name of the Lord in vain in class?
3. Do you ever hear students cursing aloud in class?
4. Have you ever been approached by someone who wanted to sell or give you marijuana or any other narcotic?
5. Have any of your school friends used narcotics?
6. Have you ever used drugs?
7. Have you ever given away or sold drugs yourself?
8. Do you know of any teacher who uses drugs?
9. Have you ever been taught evolution?
10. Do any of your teachers wear mini-skirts?
11. Do any of your teachers wear pant dresses?
12. Do any of your school friends drink?
13. Have you ever taken a drink or any alcoholic beverage, such as beer, wine, etc.?
14. Has there ever been in your school any disturbances, such as revolts, riots, student disorders, boycotts, etc.?
15. Have you ever heard the American way of life, the establishment, and capitalism criticized by a teacher?
16. Have you ever worn slacks to school?
17. Have you ever worn shorts to school?
18. Have you ever been taught that premarital sex is all right?
19. Have you been asked to read such books as, Of Mice and Men, Soul On Ice, The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, or any other book that includes cursing?
20. Have you read any of these books?
Now this questionnaire was handed to each of our high school students this morning. Before you leave tonight, I am going to give you what your kids said this morning, plus a lot of other things along with it. I will give you through the message tonight, the result of this survey.
The average parent in this room does not have any idea what is going on when your child goes to school. How many of you, if you saw your child’s teacher walking down the street, would recognize him or her? Raise your hand, please. You see, you are living under the illusion that it is like us when you were a kid. Brother, it is not near like it was when you were a kid. Not near like it was. Now, you do not care enough to even know. How many of you have ever read at least one book that was required reading for your child at school? Would you lift your hand, please? You just do not much care, do you?
You see, you do not know what is going on, and like the ostrich, you do not want to know what is going on because you do not want to get in a fight, or spend some of your money to save your child. You want to keep on riding high, living it up, enjoying life without facing the fact that we have got a battle on our hands, and that battle is not just to save the country, it is to save your children.
If we so not rise up and do something, everything decent that we know about our way of life is about to crumble. I am sick and tired of a bunch of sex, demonized, demented people standing behind the school, behind the cloak of scholarship, and destroying those whom we call our own children. I am tired of it! I have ceased, a long time ago, to keep my mouth shut about it. Not only that, but since you will not check yourself on what is going on tonight, I am going to open the door to the public schools for you and invite you in.
I challenge anybody to disprove what I say tonight. There is not one way any person can disprove what I am going to give you in this sermon tonight. You say, “Preacher, you are a rabble-rouser.” You better know I am, but I am not near as big a rabble-rouser as these people trying to destroy the minds of our children, destroy the patriotism, decency, honor, character and chastity of our boys and girls. I am going to do some rabble-rousing, but that is not all I am going to do. I am going to do some school-building, too, and I am going to give our kids a choice in so doing.
Satan is after your child like he has never been after anybody’s child in the history of this world. Satan has pointed every gun in his arsenal at the soul and body and life of your child, and he is doing it, basically, through the schoolroom.
You see, people do not like to hear what I am going to say tonight, because we have some things that we have deified. We have some institutions that we do not like to see anybody attack. We have deified the schoolroom and the public school until we think they can say no evil, speak no evil, and while we have built a canopy of protection over them they are destroying and stealing our boys and girls. Now the truth is, ant this is the sad thing, you ought to be pleading with me for your children instead of me pleading with you. Isn’t that something? I stand up here and take a chance on making you mad, pleading with you to save your child. The truth is, you ought to be on your knees, saying, “Brother Hyles, please do something for us so we can save our children.”
I could have parents stand up all over this house tonight as living testimony to what I am going to say. I could have parents parade across this platform by the dozens, they are here now, to stand up here in bodies and lives and dreams that are broken and say, “My boy or my girl was ruined by a university or a high school or a teacher.”
Your kids may go to the Devil and your kids may not go to a Christian school and they may not turn out right, but I will tell you one thing, it is not going to be because Brother Hyles did not warn you and do the best he could to help you. If anybody gets mad at me tonight, it is because you just do not understand. I love you and I love your children, and I love you so much I am going to do my best to beat some sense in your head.
I am weary of this kind of talk, “Well, everything will be out in the world when they get older. Why shelter and protect them now?” If that is the case, when your kid is born, why don’t you kick him out in the street and say, “Ride a bicycle.”
You know that old dog will not hunt, never did shoo a bird or coon, never did. The truth is, there is always a time of preparation before you go out to fight. The man who is drafted in the Army goes and prepares with other soldiers before he goes to battle. The child must be undergirded with truth, character, strength, honor, discipline and right before we send him out to a godless world.
I am going to give you tonight several things the Devil is doing to attack your child:
1. Revolution.
The first part of the hippie program is to kill your parents. I mean that quite seriously, because until you are prepared to kill your parents, you are not really prepared to change the country. “Our parents are our first oppressors.” Who said that? Jerry Rubin, one of the notorious Chicago Seven. Where did he say it? On the campus of Kent State University. It was said on the Kent State University campus, “You must be prepared to kill your parents because they are your first oppressors.” This was said only one week before the rioting which resulted in the deaths of four students.
Our socialist-minded professors and teachers, with their leftist-slanted textbooks, have dedicated themselves to changing the American way of life through the indoctrinating of the minds of students. There came, in 1932, a booklet by George Counts, entitled, Dare the School Build a New Social Order. In 1933 Dr. Harold Rugg wrote a book entitled, The Great Technology, in which he declared that through the schools of the world, we shall dissimulate a concept of government. Now that is far back as 1932. The Socialist, the communist and the Leftist dedicated themselves to bringing about a new social order in America. What tool would they use? The schools! They said they would use the schools. That is almost forty years ago.
Louis Budenz, former editor of “The Daily Worker”, who defected from communism in 1945, mentioned the early days of this communist effort in his 1954 book, The Techniques of Communism. In part he wrote, “As early as 1924, in lecture delivered at the Sperlite University in Moscow, Stalin specified cultural and educational organizations as valuable allies of the communist battle for world dictatorship. It was in 1933, however, that extensive infiltration began in the schools and colleges of this country encouraged by American recognition of Soviet Russia.” By the way, one of the greatest mistakes we ever made in our nation was recognizing Soviet Russia in the first place.
During the years of this extensive effort to use our educational system to help change the American way of thinking, a key propaganda gimmick used to keep Communist, Socialist, and other undesirables on teaching staffs was under the cry of “academic freedom.” I am so sick of academic freedom I could croak. Academic freedom! You find me a nation where the Communists are in charge, and then you let them talk about academic freedom. They suddenly hush their talk about academic freedom once they are in charge of the academic program.
On our colleges and universities, and yes, on our high school campuses, there is coming a great parade of Leftists and Communists and Black Panthers and SDS crowd, and people dedicated to revolution, with their sandals and their blue jeans and their long, hippie-like hair.
God pity you people who call yourselves Christians and wear your long hair, beard and sideburns like a bunch of heathens. God, clean you up! Go to the barber shop tomorrow morning, and I am not kidding. It is time God’s people looked like God’s people. Good night, let folks know you are saved! There are about a dozen of you fellows here tonight who look like you belong to a Communist-front organization. You say, “I do not.” Then look like you do not. You say, “I do not like that kind of preaching.” You can always lump anything you do not like here.
So they dedicated themselves to destroying our nation. In his testimony before the House Subcommittee on Appropriations on February 23, 1968, J. Edgar Hoover, and by the way, thank God that there has been a J Edgar Hoover in America, I hope he lives forever. J. Edgar Hoover made the following remarks in relation to the reason why Communists are so anxious to get their speakers on college campuses. “The basic purpose…behind the speaking campaign which has been pursued with vigor since the early 1960’s, is to gain recognition for, and acceptance of, the Communist Party USA as a legitimate political party on the American scene. The party considers that college campuses offer an excellent opportunity to reach the youth who will be leaders of tomorrow…”
In the May 26, 1970, issue of The Daily World, which said that the academic senate of the University of California adopted by a vote of 209 to 5, a resolution expressing outrage at the University of California regents for attempts to fire Angela Davis, a philosophy teacher and a member of the Communist Party. Now UCLA voted 209 to 5 that they were outraged at the firing of Angela Davis. Earlier, in defending her right to pollute the minds of college students, Angela Davis claimed that her teaching was not indoctrination. However, she said, “I cannot and I will not keep my political ideas out of the classroom, and only some form of Communism will solve our human problems.” (The San Francisco Examiner, October 9, 1969)
During the summer of 1969, freshmen preparing to enter the University of Maryland were furnished a booklet regarding orientation and registration which listed three steps to be taken. The fist one was to fill out four enclosed cards, the second one was to send a check for $13,00 to the University. The third called for the new freshmen to read at least one of a list of books which included: The autobiography of Malcolm X, Black Power, The Politics of Liberation in America, by Stokley Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Concerning Civil Disobedience, by Abe Fortas, The Other American, by Michael Harrington, a long-time Socialist leader in the United States, and books containing a leftist slant. (Human Events, July 19, 1969) That was required reading for those being admitted to the university, but that is not all.
In a report to the National Committee of Communist Party on April 26, 1959, Hymen Lumer, National Educational Director of the party at that time, told fellow conspirators that success was not possible unless they could “win a solid base among the youth.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is, our country is being destroyed by our young people. It is being destroyed by our young people because we have driven our boys and girls up to a beautiful building, let them off in the morning time, let them walk through some doors through which we have seldom ever walked, to be taught by people we do not know, from books we have not read, about subjects we do not agree with, but we do not want to find out what is going on. Behind those doors we hold sacred, where you let your child out Monday morning, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, all Hell is breaking loose, and our country is being destroyed while we deify that building where it is all going on.
Say what you want to say, this is what is happening since the Communists decided forty years ago to ruin America, and they decided to do it through our schools. And they are doing it. But you say, “Brother Hyles, it is the colleges where they are doing it.” That is what you think. And if it is the colleges that they are corrupting, where do you think the high schools and elementary schools get their teachers?
The October 10, 1969 issue of Time Magazine observed, “It has become a truism that each new class of college freshmen is more radical, more tuned in, turned on and dropped out than the last….”
The Tulsa Tribune on December 27, 1968, contained an interview with six graduates of Harlan High School, attending six different colleges and they reported, “None of the six were willing to reject the radical SDS or the Black Students Union flatly, but all said their causes and actions must be judged individually on their merits.”
The Communists published, in February 8, 1969, issue of The Daily World an article that was headlined, “Battleground Report from the Nation’s Colleges”.
Now what success are they having in our area? You say, “Preacher, that is UCLA, that is the University of California. That is New York City.” Hold it. I have in my hand a survey taken this morning. One of the questions on that survey is to see how they are doing with their revolution, how they are affecting our own children. One of the questions on that survey was this: Question 15. “Have you ever heard the American way of life, the establishment and capitalism criticized by a teacher in your school?” Of 230 students, over 150 of them said they had heart America condemned from the classroom. That means that over 63% of our young people here in this room, our Sunday school kids, are having to sit in classrooms where some teacher stands up and tries to destroy the American way of life. That is treason!
You can go ahead and send your kids there if you want to, and let some Communist teach them. You say,”Brother Hyles, I do not believe that.” Listen it is about time you admit the fact that we have Communists all through our school systems. Here is the tragic thing: It would be a bit different if the school system was not compulsory, but our kids have to go to school. The law says they have to sit and listen to somebody trying to destroy capitalism, the establishment, and the American way of life. If there is such a teacher here tonight, your Hell will not be too hot for your.
The amazing thing is somebody preaching like I am preaching is called a bigot, but your Stokley Carmichaels and your Jesse Jacksons and your Left-wingers can get up and holler, scream and rabble-rouse all they want to, and that is “academic freedom.” You let a right-winger or conservative stand up and speak what he believes, and he is a rabble-rouser. We need some old-fashioned, Hell-fire and damnation rabble-rousers. America is being destroyed, burning while we fiddle, and your own child is at stake.
What else is being launched at your child?
2. Books.
Here are some samples of profanity. Now I am sorry, I am not going to use these words, but I am going to spell some bad words. I may as well just come out and tell you what your kids are reading. You have not checked on it, you have no idea, so I am going to have to tell you. I have got to invite you. I am going to open a few of the books. New Worlds Ahead is used for the seventh grade. The seventh grade uses this: “The Stray Kitten”, by Richard Wright, Page 54. “Kill that d-a-m-n thing.” That is seventh grade. Page 55: “I had my first triumph over my father. I had made him believe that I had taken his words literally; he could not punish me without risking his authority. I was happy because I had at last found a way to throw my criticism of him into his face.” That is a quote from a seventh-grade book.
Another story in the book called “The Blue Serge Suit”, Page 414, says, “D-a-m-n asthma.” Page 416, “That d-a-m-n asthma is getting worse.” “I’ll be d-a-m-n-e-d if I see what you are getting at.” That is seventh grade reading!
A ninth grade book, Voices in Literature (1). “Shoe Shine”, by Jerome Weidman, Page 21: “My God!” Page 23:”D-A-M-N it.” Page 23 again: “D-a-m-n it! My God!” The Long Night”, by Lowell Blanton, Page 84: “Well, d-a-m-n it, man.” Page 209: “D-a-m-n-e-d-e-s-t thing.” Page 235 questions parental authority. “The Sissy from Anaconda”, Page 352: The d-a-m-n-e-d-e-s-t rattle snake.” “Hell.” That is ninth-grade reading. Not only is that not good English, that is not even cultural. That is not even refined. That is not even scholarly–that is heathen-like.
You parents who won’t send your sons and daughters to our school, you say “I am afraid that the Hammond Baptist High School will not be properly accredited.” We are a little above this kind of accreditation. We are too scholarly for this kind of garbage. We are too cultural for this kind of talk. Not only has it pricked our religious and spiritual convictions, it pricks our cultures.
We are just getting started. Say you will not read this. I have got to read it to you and for you. It is called Themes in Literature, the tenth grade. “The Colt” by Willis Stegner, Page 127: “G-o-d-d-a-m-n you. G-o-d-d-a-m-n your wild hearts.”
Now before you start criticizing me and say that our kids are not having to read suff like this, I have got the poll this morning I am going to read you in a minute. Before some of you school teachers say, “I teach school and that is not going on.” You just go to one school, teacher. I have the poll–I am going to give you the goods in one minute, so do not shut your ears yet. I am trying to help you and help your kids.
Tenth grade: In “The Mateo Falcon”, by Merimee, the father kills his own son. In Western Literature: Themes and writers, “The Out Station”, by W. Somerset Maugham, page 83: “Go to Hell, you d-a-m-n fool. You D-a-m-n-e-d snob, by God.” And 15 counts of profanity in this one story on Page 83, and also a murder.
Voices in literature III, an article “On the Sidewalk Bleeding”, by Evan Hunter, page 105-111, a gang member is stabbed. The whole story tells how he lays on the sidewalk and bleeds to death.
In the book Of Mice and Men, that has been required reading in numbers of schools in this area, by John Steinbeck, page 24: “He is sure a Hell of a good worker. He is a G-o-d-d-a-m-n good worker.” My Bible says you are not to take the name of our Lord God in vain. And I will tell you another thing, too. I got fed up with my boy and girl having to sit in a classroom and listen to a bunch of dirty-minded people stand up and use God’s name in vain. Not one time in the life of my children anymore are they going to sit and hear anybody curse my God! You do not have to let your children do that either. Of Mice and Men, by the way, Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize winner. The Devil is proud of him. Page 48, “Them G-o-d-d-a-m-n turnips, give it to me.” Page 56, If that crazy b-a-s-t-a-r-d is foolin’ around too much, just kick him out, Slim.” Page 83: “In many times.” Page 94: “This here G-o-d-d-a-m-n son of a ______(female dog) wasn’t nothin’ to George.”
Soul On Ice, By Elridge Cleaver, here is another book that is suggested reading, page 159: “I’d jump over ten nigger________(female dogs) just to get one white woman.”
Now you just sit there and swell up like a toadstool, but brother, I am trying to help your kids, and I am doing it at the risk of a lot of folks getting mad. Listen, if I lose half the deacon board and two-thirds of the members, there is one thing I am going to do: Try to save your kids for Jesus’s sake before I have to take off. I am not mad at anybody, but the Devil, and I am weary of this crowd of left-wingers that are taking over our schools and ruining our kids. I am weary of these sex perverts, these people of loose morals, these Sweden-oriented teachers, and if you are not one of those, I am not talking about you, but there are thousands of them, and it is getting worse and worse all the time. This kind of garbage is what they are requiring and asking our kids to read. Now I have not even started yet, really. I wish I had time to do the whole thing. Let us go further.
Soul On Ice, Page 160: “I will not be free until the day I can have a white woman in my bed, and a white man minds his own business.” Page 170, I cannot even read this, “During _______, and at the moment of her_______, the black woman in the first throes of her_________.” I cannot even read it! It tells about a black woman and a white man, the entire story.
Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, published by Viking Press, Page 27, and this book is considered suggested reading. Page 27: “You ain’t too d-a-m-n holy to take a drink, are you?” “And I hear she’s a s-o-n of a ______(female dog).” That is the Grapes of Wrath. You thought that was a good book, didn’t you? You are not checking, are you? Well now you know. You ought to say, “My child is not going to be subjected to stuff like this anymore.”
“Well”, you say, “Brother Hyles, that is not here.” Oh? Well, maybe I have the goods on you. I asked this question of our teenagers this morning when the poll was taken. Two hundred thirty of them were asked this question: Have you been asked to read such books such as, Of Mice and Men, Soul On Ice, The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, or any other book that includes cursing? Thirty-five percent of our young people said they had been asked to do so, and 51 of our Sunday school children have read one of these books that I quoted from awhile ago.
You did not know that did you? Fifty-one of First Baptist kids! Here is one of the sad things: Seventy-eight of our kids said they had been asked to read such literature, and 51 did, which means two out of three of our best kids did not have the courage to say no. Do you know why they did not? Because they have, in many cases, moms and dads who would not back them up all the way to the hilt. There are teenagers in this room tonight who come to me weeping because they want to do what is right, but their parents want them to be “accepted” in the public high school or junior high school.
What else is the Devil launching at your child?
3. Narcotics.
I was on an airplane the other day and there was a little newspaper beside me, and I picked it up. The astounding news in the “Midnight” May 24, 1971, issue is a result of a study by Illinois attorney, Lionel Baker, which he carried out for the juvenile court system in Illinois. Questionnaires were given to 7,000 youthful drug offenders during the past year, and the young people were asked who first introduced them to drugs. Four out of ten said a school teacher! Think of it—kids on dope, offenders, and 40% said, “A school teacher first introduced me to dope.” God pity that kind of heathen teaching.
He interviewed over 100 students from various high schools who have been charged with drug abuse and found that 37 had first been “turned on” by their teachers, verifying his original findings. “One girl told me that she knew some of her friends used drugs, but she refused the drugs. Then she attended a party where several young teachers, recent college graduates, were chaperoning, and the teachers passed around several marijuana cigarettes. When she saw her teachers smoking, she thought, ‘Why not?’ Now she’s a regular user,” said Baker.
“In many cases the student has heard his or her teacher talk favorably about drugs in class,” said Baker. “The teacher will make a funny comment about the last time he or she was high. Several students said they had often smelled marijuana smoke in the student rest rooms, but one day after school they walked in the teachers’ lounge and smelled Marijuana. They told me, ‘If it is all right for the teachers, it must be all right for us.'”
Another 10,000 teachers from 28 states were surveyed, and it was found that over 50% of them had used drugs, and that 24% had used drugs regularly. Now that is 8,000 teachers from 28 states. Over half of them used drugs. Over one out of four use them regularly. I think it is because these young teachers got used to sneaking drug trips from when they were college students, and not they are working and have apartments, so they can use drugs openly at their dinners, get-togethers and parties. Drugs are a part of their life.
Baker goes on. “Naturally, when students get together with their teachers for after-school work, at school dances, etc., they see many of their teachers indulging in their favorite past-time, which is smoking dope. Students who would never have dreamed of touching marijuana or other narcotics, even if they knew some students used it, have picked it up easily, many times to prove to their teacher they are hip. We even interviewed students who were scared to death of LSD, but they used it because their teachers told them all about their trips. Of course, in every case, we talked with students who had been caught using drugs while their teachers went free, since no one ever suspected them of being the real culprits.”
Lionel Baker points out that as the average age of teachers drops, the rate of drug use among them climbs. Many young people who were part of the drug generation of the mid and late 1960’s are not teachers, so it is logical that much information about drug use will be passed down to the next generation by today’s young teachers.
Here is a sad thing. The educators said, “We cannot fire the teachers who use drugs because we would have only half of our teachers left. And we cannot tell the kids to stay home–I guess we will just have to live with it.” No we will not!
You say, “Preacher, I am glad our students do not do it.” You want some statistics about that from this morning? All right. Now hold on to your hat. This is our group of Hammond First Baptist kids. “Have you ever been approached by someone who wanted to sell you marijuana or any other narcotic in school?” Over 20% of our children said somebody had approached them at school trying to sell them or give them marijuana or narcotics.
Next question, now this will scald you! “Have any of your school friends used narcotics?” Over 50% of our high school young people this morning run with somebody who uses narcotics.
You take the Hammond Baptist High School kids out of this, and you reckon any of our kids that do not go to a Christian school have a crowd completely free of narcotics?
That is not all. “Have you ever used drugs?” Twenty-seven of our children said “Yes.” Right over there in our Sunday school this morning! Twenty-seven out of 230, or 10% of our boys and girls have used drugs. There are parents in this room tonight who are a little peeved at me right now, but I know your child has smoked marijuana. I will not tell you. Do not come to me and ask me, because I will not tell you. If you do not have enough faith in me to believe me, or to put some trust and confidence in somebody who sees what is going on and who is trying to help your kids, don’t you come! I am not going to tattle on your kids! I am trying to help the, and that is more than you are trying to do in many cases.
Practically every parent in this church, since I have been pastor of this church, who has defended their child saying, “I trust my child. My child would not lie.” In practically every case I know, the child has lied. That kind of parent rears a child that plays around. “Well I trust my child.” You better know where your child is every moment of every day. You had better see to it your child is in the right crowd all the time. There is not a child in this building, my kids included, who could not be lured into some of this garbage if they were at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong crowd.
I am not through with that, now hang on to your seats. “Have you ever sold any drugs?” We had ten pushers in our high school departments this morning! I could call five names here tonight. In many cases they are from homes that would not defend what I am saying right now. I could call five names in this building, right now, who have been caught pushing marijuana! I know who they are.
That is not all. “Do any of your teachers use drugs, or do you know any teachers in your school that use drugs?” Twenty percent of our children this morning said they had teachers that they know are on drugs.
Folks, it is time you took your head out of the sand. It is time you stopped and realized that the Devil is trying to get your child, and you are his best advocate. I am not trying to build a school. Good night, I have enough to build, but I am trying to help your kids. Our Hammond Baptist High School is not out there because Jack Hyles wants to run any thing. It is out there because I want these kids to turn out to be decent people. That is not all. Narcotics, yes. Revolution, yes. Dirty books, yes, but there is something else the Devil is shooting at your child.
What else is the Devil launching at your child?
4. Sex.
Coming into our schools are books, slides and filmstrips are not how babies are made. Now this is for our little children, little children in school. “How Babies Are Made” shows chickens and dogs in the act. It shows Mom and Dad in bed. It is climaxed with a few pictures of a nude mother giving birth to a baby who was conceived several pages earlier. That is being taught in our schools to little children. A coloring book of animals “in the act” is also available for the kiddies, as is a teacher’s guide which explains how babies are made. It “hopes to create an atmosphere of honesty and freedom of discussion concerning matters of reproduction, and to promote understanding and correct usage of the names of body parts.” This is for little children.
The teacher’s guide lists the following questions which are typical of those asked during a presentation of the story, “How Babies Are Made.” “When people lie down and face each other, does the woman become pregnant?” I cannot even read the rest of it, and I can’t believe they print this for little children.
Sexology Magazine, which by the way, twenty, fifteen, ten years ago was a dirty, lewd magazine, sold between the covers of Life, Time and Newsweek, now has been elevated into a so-called “respectable” magazine that is sold on top of the counter. The crowd that sells Sexology Magazine, the editor of Sexology Magazine, is on the Cooperating Board of SIECUS. Mary Calderone is the head of the SIECUS group that is spreading sex education in our schools, and is a cooperating member of the Board of Sexology Magazine. I have a copy in my office–I sent somebody down to buy a copy; I would not go myself.
There are all kinds of dirty articles such as “Can a Woman and a Beast Enjoy Each Other?” Now listen to this: Sexology Magazine fills an urgent need in its awareness of people and because of this qualification, it is being slightly revised with a different cover and title for use in the high schools. SIECUS, and is this sex education crowd, helps promote and organize seminars and special training courses for teachers in sex education.
During 1967, at least 16 summer institutes for teachers were held across the country. In 1968 it more than doubled, and the ultimate purpose is “to meet youngsters with frankness and honesty.” They begin with dramatic visual aids such as Little Brother Doll at $17.00 each, and a lovely set of slides called, “How Babies Are Made.” This set of colored slides, largely designed by Dr. Mary S. Calderone, Executive Director of SIECUS, presents an animalistic viewpoint of sex, which is shocking and completely inappropriate for children THREE TO EIGHT YEARS OF AGE.
You say, “Brother Hyles, when my kid gets old enough to go to junior high school, I am going to put him in a Christian School.” Let me tell you something. You had better get him in a Christian school when he gets four years old, and keep him there until he graduates. This is three to eight years old. “The slides, which are cleverly, realistically executed in paper sculpture, depict animals and human beings in the act of the physical relationship.” I am using words that are not as blunt as the ones used here.
“While children watch the slides, the teacher reads the narrative, which describes the action in adult, medically-accurate terms.” Children three through eight! “Children must discover their sexuality (Get this!) No later than KINDERGARTEN. We must give them the whole story as quickly as possible. By the age of ten at the latest, both boys and girls should have mastered the factual aspects of reproduction.”
They are suggesting, and at many cities it is going on now, that traveling sexologists carry their wares in large canvas bags from school to school. They display their formerly taboo materials in unemotional succession to the sex-liberated students.
I cannot even read these words. Homosexuality. Self-gratification. (There is another word for that!) Abortion. Pre-marital relationships, in films such as “The Game”, which depicts “a boy’s feelings after*****with a pure girl.” These are but a sampling of what students are exposed to. “The Game” purports to warn thirteen and fourteen year old girls of the game of love and its many traps. They also learn about sex deviation, illegitimacy and venereal diseases at thirteen and fourteen.
If your child is in Palo Alto, California, he may well have the opportunity of bathing a little boy. If she is in kindergarten in Evanston, Illinois, she is exposed to the full details of the birth process. Perhaps she would listen to the heartbeat of a baby inside a visiting expectant mother.
In the Chicago area, a few blocks away for example, parents of only 16 our of 3,200 students refused to consent to this. They were called, by the Saturday Evening Post, “Fundamentalists from the Appalachian hills.” Brother I would be proud to be called that. At this point, the ten-year old students are given a detailed description of human sexual relationships. This is followed with the step-by-step film showing the growth of a baby inside the mother, a woman in labor, and the baby’s birth. Would all the children ten years old stand up, please? Look, folks, this is the crowd they want to teach this stuff to. Thank you, kids, you may be seated.
Well, you say, “Brother Hyles, how about our kids?” I am glad you brought that up. Here is the question we asked this morning: “Have you ever been taught that premarital sex is right?” Now wait a minute, I did not say taught this stuff, I said have your teachers ever taught you that premarital sex is right? Of our Sunday school kids this morning, 48% said, “Yes!” You are an idiot if you are going to let your kid keep going to that kind of garbage. Kids idolize teachers, and you know that is the truth. Half of our kids have been taught in the classroom that premarital sex is all right, and you wonder why some of them are turning out so heathen?
I went through the questionnaires one at a time and wept! I thought, if this is true about our kids, I just wonder what kind of shape the Methodists, Episcopalians, most Baptists and all the others are in! I scream, holler and kick about stuff like this all the time. If our kids are in this kind of shape, how about the others? I will tell you about the others. They have swallowed this garbage about loose sex and loose love, narcotic living and free love. They have swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and our country is about to go under unless we have a moral revolution. We have had it.
What else is the devil shooting at your child?
5. Profane living.
Do not get restless, we are here for awhile yet. You wait until I get on the sensitivity training. That is the worst–I am saving the worst for last.
Profane living. “Have you ever heard one of your school teachers use vulgar language in class?” Eighty-seven percent said, “Yes.” “Have you ever heard a school teacher take the name of the Lord God in vain in class?” Ninety-three percent said, “Yes.”
Now hang on to your seats. “Do any of your school friends drink?” Eighty-five percent said, “Yes.” “Have you ever taken a drink?” Of the 230 high school students that filled out this form this morning in our high school departments, 69 of them said “Yes.” That is nearly a third of them! First Baptist kids–they are seated over here tonight. Yeah, yours, the ones you trust. The ones you say, “It could not happen to my child. If he is going to have to go out in the world, let him go now.” Yeah, yours. Can you think of that? Sixty-nine teenagers, not even in junior high, high schoolers only, 69 out of 230, our own kids! They have already taken a drink of beer or whiskey. I wonder what it is like down at the liberal church. One hundred percent? I wonder why they did it? Because of the wrong crowd! Eighty-five percent were in a crowd that did, 33% went ahead and took it themselves.
What else is Satan doing to get your child?
6. Sensitivity training.
Now listen carefully! John Guernsey, education writer for the Portland Oregonian, recently witnessed a group of school administrators having their first experience playing sensitivity games. Now I want you to listen to this–this is the ultimate in beastly living. This sensitivity training junk, by the say, it is not foreign to this area, either. John Guernsey said, “About 50 of the top Portland school district wheels, both men and women, recently took part in a sensitivity session, conducted by a University of Portland psychologist. Not wishing to go all out, they removed only their shoes. In another exercise, the school administrators formed a circle, and then took turns standing in the center letting themselves fall backward. Someone was not paying close enough attention, and one participant landed on the floor. The school officials’ sensitivity session also called for everyone to close his eyes, wander about in bare feet with arms outstretched and try to identify when their hands touched someone.” Faculty.
You say “That is in Oregon.” It also happened at Morton High School. Did you hear what I said? It happened at Morton High School! I would dare you tonight! How many will vouch for that? There you are, dozens of hands are up. It happened at Morton High School. Teachers from the Hammond school system men and women, closed their eyes, blind-folded themselves took off their shoes and felt each other, and tried to identify by feeling each other who they were. That is heathenism! It is going on all over this nation tonight.
Sensitivity training is sex education encouraging students to express all points of vies freely. They use four-letter words, they get together and say, “Okay, express yourself.” And if anybody wants to use a dirty, four-letter word, he just screams it out. And do you know what they say? “That is expressing yourself. Removing all the guilt feeling, removing all the inhibitions.”
In 1946, Dr. Leland Bradford, and executive of the National Education Association and a number of social psychologists worked with pioneer behavioral scientist Kurt Lewin in researching how science could change man’s behavior. They surveyed the work of numbers of behaviorists and sought out new methods of re-educating human behavior and social relationships. A technique was developed which they called “sensitivity training” and Dr. Bradford and his associates then decided to open shop in a large, rambling Victorian estate in Bethel, Maine.
Another view of man held by sensitivity theorists is that an individual is actually many persons. He is continually faced with deciding what he is. Now follow me, here is what happens. Here is an example of what sensitivity training is. They have some nude marathons lasting twenty to forty-eight hours. Some of these are in California under the direction of a psychotherapist, Paul Bindrim. Bindrim maintains that man’s clothes are both a safeguard for his privacy and a self-imposed constraint to keep people out whom he fears.
You do not realize this, but nudity is coming to your child’s schoolroom. There is a high school in Gary that has already had a play with a nude man acting.
For example, marathons are held in which no words are spoken, only nonsense noises. In addition, gestures are permitted, as well as looks, stances, caresses, and slapping each other. Finally, they collapse on the floor in a giant tangle of sublimely relaxed bodies. Sometimes people emerge from these sensitivity encounters virtually shouting, “I am changed! I am changed!”
What is it? It is a group of people getting together. Up in Evanston, Illinois, for example, they have had some real awful experiences with the children. For example, take a crowd about the size of the choir and say, “Take off your shoes, clothes. Blind-fold yourself. Walk around feeling each other. If you want to say a dirty, four-letter word, scream it. And whenever you can, identify somebody by feeling him, then you holler his name. Then you fall back and hope somebody catches you. Walk around blind-folded, then collapse in a big quagmire of human flesh. Feel your way around, feel everybody’s body while you are blind-folded.” That is so-called scholarship.
It is coming to America. Now get this: The sensitivity-oriented worship services are demonstrated at the World Council of Churches. But you want to know “Why are you against the World Council?” I do not have enough time tonight to tell you why. If you belong to a church that belongs to a denomination that belongs to the National Council of Churches, God pity your soul when you face your maker. It is a leftist, Communist-oriented, pacifist, lewd kind of immoral union to destroy everything that is decent about Christianity in America, unless we expose it and fight it.
I was on the Moody Institute station one time, and they said, “You cannot mention the National Council of Churches.” I said, “I cannot preach then.” Nobody tells me what I cannot mention anywhere. It is time the Moody Institute station hollered against the National Council of Churches. It is time that all the Christian stations did. You say, “You are fighting Moody.” No, I am not. I am fighting the dirty, leftist crowd that is trying to destroy Christianity.
At the World Council of Churches, in August, 1968, at Uppsala, Sweden, Mr. McGaw of WBSI at LaJolla, California, said, “We find ourselves a put-put church in a go-go world.” So they had a touch-and-tell service. The service opened with everyone holding hands in a circle during silent prayer. Physical contact supposedly stimulates prayer. (I say, it stimulates the need of it!) The worshipers stand in the center of the circle, one at a time, and close their eyes. (This is church, now.) The person then falls backward, and is passed from one member of the group to another.
Huh? Suppose Brother Fisk just falls over into Bob Billings, and Billings throws him down on the altar. Billings hands Fisk to me. I hand him to John Colsten. John Colsten hands him to Wally Beebe. We just pass him around. Boy, that sounds like a real high. Elijah would love that, wouldn’t he?
One of the preachers had a predominantly black congregation, the other was white. Part of the section was non-verbal, and they danced and hugged each other. Most of the participants said they had a good time. I can imagine.
Let us go further. Some of the liberal churches are making every effort to have this sensitivity training, as demonstrated by the World Council of Churches film, “Another Pilgrim.” In the final scene of this film, the preacher stands before his congregation nude. Listen carefully, because some of you are supporting this garbage. Nude! Why? To demonstrate complete honesty to his flock. That is a church?
This however, has been a feeble gesture when compared with the primitive nude orgy recently staged by the Living Theatre at a suburban Madison, Wisconsin, Unitarian church. United Press International Report points out the new directions the Church is taking. Orgiastic nudity and sensitivity training have moved up to the godless temple, which now frantically seeks something or someone to worship. The newspaper account tells us that seven members of the audience stripped naked at a church in Wisconsin. There was swearing, spitting, arguing and a flesh pile. The general scene made Dante’s Inferno look like a temperance union meeting. The pastor said he allowed the performance simply on terms of civil liberties.
You see what you get in the guise of freedom? The mixed cast, in loin cloths, and halters, was upstaged at one point when five men and two women, members of the audience, disrobed down to the altogether. That is up on the platform in the church. A naked man and woman leaped over a wall in the back of the church in the arms of the audience. “I love them.”, a girl said when asked why she was naked. A couple from the audience and two cast members spit at each other. (If I had been there, I would spit at the whole bunch.) There were no arrests.
Isn’t that strange? If one of the fellows on this platform walked down the street in his underwear tonight, he would be put in jail. These folks got naked at church and under the guise of worship, there were no arrests.
The effect of these college seminars on sex and sensitivity training has been nationwide in scope. A random survey reveals that in Washington, for example, the Stat Superintendent of Public Instruction last year recommended in-service sensitivity training for all teachers. ARE YOU LISTENING? The government recommends this kind of training for ALL teachers! That includes YOUR CHILD’S PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER.
You say, “Brother Hyles, you should not mention all this in public.” I would not have to if YOU would look into it. The Ford Foundation has sponsored sensitivity sessions. As we survey the American school system, we find that even in Hawaii, a sensitivity training program has been in effect for administrators and faculty, according to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, December 20, 1968. Also, teachers in a Chicago suburban high school (Hey, that is near home!) Have volunteered to undergo sensitivity training during after-school hours. The superintendent hopes the sessions for teachers will open an expanding program, which will eventually qualify teachers to offer sensitivity training to students.
It is on the way, folks. A case in point was the experience of teenagers in Evanston, Illinois, involved in a sensitivity session. According to the Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, January 22, 1969, several high school seniors took part. In students’ homes, Thomas Klien, a 27 year-old high school teacher, had them crawl around on the floor, wrapped in blankets, and identify each other by touch. One girl had hysteria and later engaged in a shouting match with her mother. One boy reportedly found himself wandering along Dodge Avenue in Evanston, several blocks from his home at 3 o’clock in the morning. He had no recollection of getting out of bed and leaving home.
Of course, nudity is the main thing. At a Michigan university recently, a traveling drama company performed a play in which the actors stripped naked for 15 minutes after the play got underway. A lot of your children have teachers that graduated from there. For 20 minutes they were nude at the end of the play. It is interesting to note that the enticed billing proclaimed that the actors would kiss and fondle each other from head to toe. That is culture?
LISTEN TO ME! If every deacon in this church walks out on me, and if every member of this church gets mad and quits, or this church rises up tonight and says “Don’t you preach what you are preaching or we will fire you,” you can have your church and I will be on my way. I am going to fight this dastardly attempt by the Devil and his crowd to wreck our children and destroy our boys and girls. Brother, don’t you think this is a one-time-only sermon; you will be getting it right along.
Now, what can you do?
1. Get in a good church.
You say, “I will pray about it.” You do not have to pray about that; just get in a good church. You say, “I will do what the Lord leads.” He is leading you out of that liberal church now. Get in a good church. You say, “Where is a good one?” Well, see me after the service and I will recommend one to you.
If this kind of preaching, and I do it constantly,–if this kind of preaching and pleading and begging and counseling and trying to help our kids–if this turns out the answers we got on that questionnaire this morning, you know as well as I do, you do not have a chance in this heathen society, unless you get your child under this kind of preaching.
Now students, hear me. God pity your lack of courage not to read these dirty books. You stand for right! If you have to be a Daniel, be one! Don’t you participate in this garbage; don’t you participate in the high school dances (which, by the way, is just the early stage of sensitivity training), and don’t you take that drink of liquor, and don’t you take that narcotic, and DO GET OUT OF THE CROWD THAT DOES! Get in a good church!
You say, “When my children get to be teenagers, I am going to get in a church like this.” You had better get them here when they are in the nursery. This morning I was walking down the alley after I preached. I saw a girl and a boy walking down the alley. I did not know who they were, but the girl’s legs were long and her coat was about four inches above her knee, and that was her coat! I do not know what her dress was like. Thank God she had on a coat! I said to myself, “I guess you cannot win them all. It is embarrassing, but I am glad she came. She needs the preaching.” Then she turned around; she was a deacon’s daughter!
2. Get your child in all the activities of the church.
All of them! When the doors open, get him here. Get Junior in the choir. “But he is thirteen; his voice is changing.” Okay, let him get up and sing sourly. That is how I sing all the time. Get him in the choir. You say, “He cannot sing.” Then let him hum. If he cannot hum, just let him move his mouth and pray nothing will come out. But you say, “Brother Hyles, Junior will not go.” Oh, brother. What in the world kind of parent are you? I dare my boy not to go when I say go. He is seventeen years old now and thinks he might be able to whip his dad, but I have some holds he does not know about. I will wring his neck if he does not obey me.
That is like that fellow that called back to the General. “I have captured a prisoner.” The General said, “Good, bring him back.” He answered, “He sill not come.” “Then come back yourself.” “The prisoner will not let me.”
Get your child in the activities. Every time I stand up here and read the announcements concerning an activity at 6:30 or 7:00 on Friday night, you go home and say, “We are going.” You say, “What if they balk?” You say “We are going balking.” You say, “How can you assure that?” When they are five and six years old and there is an Easter egg hunt at the church, make them go. See that they do not miss, so they will build their lives around the church.
It’s the same old story, ladies and gentlemen. The kids go wrong because of two words: wrong crowd. Same old story, except the wrong crowd is more wrong than it used to be. You know what the wrong crowd used to be? It was the guy that smoked grapevine behind the barn. You ignorant city folks to not know what grapevine is. Has anybody ever smoked grapevine? Sure, some of you have. I want you to hit the altar tonight. Somebody asked a new Christian, “did the Lord cure your smoking?” He said “No, one cigarette did that.”
I can recall when a kid took one regular old cigarette. Boy, you were in the wrong crowd! I can recall when a kid did not behave in school. If he just got a bad grade in conduct, the mother said, “You cannot play with him after school anymore.” Nowadays if a kid smokes marijuana and takes LSD, we just say, “Well, it is a free country.” Get them in the church activities.
3. Get your child in the Christian school.
I mean it folks. Do I have to get on my knees and talk to you? Do I have to beg you? I know, I sit in my office. I know what happens.
I am going to say this if it harelips every dog in this county. I am going to make somebody mad, but I am going to say it. I am going to take a chance on making all of you mad tonight to save your kids. When our kids come home from college, they do not have to tell me which ones are coming home from state universities. I can spot them. Now if that be treason, make the most of it. I am trying to help you. I have tried the best I could to keep your kids from going to those state colleges. I have preached and preached and screamed and pleaded and begged and hollered and cried and made folks mad and chased folks off, trying to keep your kids from going there. I am doing it again tonight.
Get your kids in the Christian school. We have here, on this platform, a man who has to take second place to no principal when it comes to scholarship and education. None at all. We have a faculty at our school that does not have to bow to anybody’s faculty.
Ladies and gentlemen, your children do not have to go to the Devil anymore. Furthermore, we are opening a college in September of 1972. That means not that a child can start at our schools when he is four years of age and stay there for 16 years. They do not have to go to the Devil.
But you say, “Brother Hyles, I cannot afford it.” Then afford it. “Well, I just have too many bills.” Then sell your car. “I cannot do it this year.” Do not say cannot. If your child were burning in a house tonight and they said, “There is only one chance for the child to live,” you would not know the words, “I cannot.” It would be better for some of those kids in the nursery to burn up than for you to say, “I cannot send them to a Christian school.”
Somebody says, “I grew up in this church and I did not go to Christian school.” You are one of the reasons we feel bad. That kind of arrogant spirit is the very thing I am talking about. Send your kids to the Christian school. “Brother Hyles, I cannot afford it.” Eat beans for breakfast, mashed potatoes for lunch, and fried potato peelings for supper and potato soup the next day. We used to go down to the store and ask for a bone for the dog. After you have eaten the bone, then eat the dog. Seriously, get your kid in a Christian school.
You say, “I do not make enough money.” Get your kid in a Christian school. You say, “I cannot afford it.” Get your kid in a Christian school. You say, “Brother Hyles, I just do not see my way through.” Get your kid in a Christian school. “I cannot.” Yes, you can. Get your kid in a Christian school.
4. Give.
It is going to take a lot of money for us to do what we are going to do. I mean some of you ought to give some property. You say, “Brother Hyles, what would you do with it?” We may start a school on it. Or we may trade it for some property where we can start a school. Somebody who owns fifty acres ought to just give ten acres to the church, just give it. You say, “Brother Hyles, it is a long way off.” You ought to just give it anyway. Give it to the church. How we will use it, I do not know, but we will use it. Just give it to the church. Somebody ought to give enough land for a school in some neighborhood, and when the time comes, we will develop it and have a school there. Give.
Somebody ought to give a thousand or ten thousand dollars. Listen, it is the best money you have ever spent, investing in this kind of money for our children. Also, you ought to put First Baptist Church in your Will. I do not mean nest month, I mean this week. I mean now. Go down to your lawyer and say, “Put First Baptist Church in my Will so when I die, I will still be helping to carry on the program of First Baptist Church and what it is trying to do.
The thing that every person ought to do is tithe. I am calling on every member of this church to give ten percent of his income from now on. Everyone–every child, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every couple–everybody! We cannot rise up and build and do what God wants us to do, unless we give. We have to do it! It is time we called a national emergency on the Devil. Let us save our children.
Of course, many of you have closed minds. You do not want to be confused with the facts; your mind is made up. You are too scholarly. Your mind is closed. If you could have interviewed the kids in our school before they went to school here, and if you knew them now, you would be a believer.
Kids, be honest now. How many of you kids here at Hammond Baptist High school were pretty backslidden a year ago? Maybe you did not want to go to this school, or maybe you were on the verge of not being what you ought to be, you were a little troublemaker. How many of you kids will be honest about it and say a year ago that was your situation? God has blessed you and changed you. Would you be honest about it? It will take a lot of courage, but you will help a lot of people. Would you lift your hands please kids? Yes, thank you, young people.
A girl came to my office and sneered and said, “I do not want to go to that old religious school.” The mother said, “You are going!” She went. She came to my office a few days ago with culture and refinement, sitting properly and gracefully with a skirt long enough, she said, “Brother Hyles, I thank God for having gone to Hammond Baptist High School. I just wish I were not a senior. I do not want to leave.”
If you knew what I know, you would heed what I am preaching tonight. I do not have a thing to gain! Really! The truth is, we do not need too many students, do we? We have many already, but we will make a place for them. I am getting in trouble, Dr. Billings has already closed some of the grades. We will make a place for them. If you want your child to get a Christian education, I assure you we will see to it that he does. Now, if he does not keep the rules, he may get kicked out, but we will see he gets a chance. Let us save our kids from sensitivity training, sex education, indecent morals, dirty books, and revolution!
I will close with this. “Have you ever heard one of your school teachers use vulgar language in class?” Eighty-seven percent of our kids said, “Yes.” “Have you ever been approached by some-one who wanted to sell or give you marijuana?” Fifty-four of our kids said “Yes.” “Have any of your school friends used narcotics?” Fifty percent, 115, said “Yes.” “Have you ever used drugs?” Twenty-seven said, “Yes.” “Have you ever given, sold or peddled drugs?” Ten teenagers said, “Yes.” “Do you know of any teacher who uses drugs?” Twenty percent said, “Yes.” “Have you been taught evolution?” Nearly all said, “Yes.”
“Do any of your teachers wear mini-skirts?” Nearly all said, “Yes.” By the way, one student said “Yes, but he looks terrible in it.” By the way, that kind of spirit ought to be cured too, I think the statement is cheap. As cute as any other statement that smart alecks make on tests like this.
“Do any of your teachers wear pant-dresses?” Many, many said, “Yes.” “Do any of your friends drink?” Eighty-five said, “Yes.” “Have you ever taken a drink of any alcoholic beverage?” Sixty-nine said, “Yes.” “Have there been in your school any disturbances such as revolts, riots, etc.?” Seventy-one percent said, “Yes.” “Have you ever heard the American way of life, the establishment, and capitalism criticized by a teacher?” Sixty-three percent said, “Yes.” “Have you ever worn slacks to school?” Dozens of the girls said, “Yes.” “Have you ever worn shorts to school?” Dozens said, “Yes.”
“Have you ever been taught that pre-marital sex is all right?” Almost one-half of our young people said, “Yes.” “Have you been asked to read such books as Of Mice and Men, Soul On Ice, The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, or any other book that includes cursing?” Seventy-eight of our high schoolers said, “Yes.” “Have you read any of these books?” Fifty-one of our young people said, “Yes.”
They are your kids! I have tried for years, and I’ll keep on trying to help them. I am not against anything or anyone except wrong, but I am against wrong wherever it is! I know what I’m called. I hear what gangs of boys say when they drive by the church and see me getting into my car. I know what is said on the radio, the newscasts, and the call-in programs. I am a fanatic. They said that I am a bigot (Do you know what the word “bigot” is? Bigot is a word used by bigots to describe decent people.) Yes, I know! I was walking in a shopping center the other day, and three boys spit at me. I get the phone calls. I get the letters. I’m a fool, but I’m glad to be one if I can help save your kids! We have dedicated ourselves to try to do it! Won’t you let us?
Let us pray.