We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone

For anyone who does not know, these are some of the lyrics from Another Brick in The Wall, Part 2, from The Wall by Pink Floyd.  Pink Floyd is my favorite band of all time.  I haven’t really listened to them since I came into the Kingdom but I still can’t deny that I think this. 

Roger Waters wrote this song as an attack against a specific type of learning. The lyrics rebuke those teachers who use “thought control” and “dark sarcasm” to mold the school children into mindless drones of society. While there seems to be no specific allusion to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, there are certainly parallels between Huxley’s vision of future “education” and the rote learning of Pink’s (Waters fictional character) teachers. Huxley’s novel presents children learning largely through hypnopedia, a process of repeating fundamental lessons to each child as he or she sleeps. Although the specific lessons depend upon the child’s social status, there are certain governing “truths” that are taught which all must abide by.

The outcome is a loss of individuality and the molding of each child into identical cells in the body of society. Though the educational system Waters is speaking out against is not as subliminal as Huxley’s vision, the effects are the same, producing social clones who know the definition of an acre yet who cannot produce an original, imaginative thought throughout the majority of their lives. This is a song about reclaiming stifled individuality; it’s a criticism regarding the types of teachers and systems that ridicule an imaginative child for writing poetry, as in Pink’s case.

So what does all of this have to do with what I am talking about in this thesis on spiritual warfare and how we are to be combat ready?

In this post, I wrote that I believe our adversary uses Academics and the pursuit of knowledge as a weapon against us.  One way that I believe the enemy has corrupted theological education and knowledge is by the division of doctrinal thought to a degree that keeps us from being willing to hear another side, leading to the current state of disunity in the body of Christ concerning a lot of doctrinal issues. 

I read a lot and I read all sides.  I am not afraid to read viewpoints from Pentecostals, Catholics, evangelicals, fundamentalists, Calvinists, Armenians, atheists and even devil worshippers.  I feel a need to know what other believers believe and what non believers are doing.  Without this knowledge, how can I possibly be prepared for an assault?  Can I even recognize an assault?

Shouldn’t all knowledge and the pursuit of it lead to a better understanding of God?  Instead, in most of what I read, I do not necessarily see a pursuit as much as a presentation of what I should believe.  Those who hold to a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty will quickly declare the open theist a heretic.  A lot of tongue talking Pentecostals will not give a cessationists book a second glance.  And just let someone declare misgivings or misunderstanding concerning the trinity. 

We are never going to agree on everything but shouldn’t we be teachable and open?  Shouldn’t we be able to listen with an open heart and mind and be willing to accept that maybe, just maybe, we might be wrong? 

On another site I was in a discussion about free will when someone commented that God’s purposes cannot be thwarted.  (Job 42:2) She meant it in the sense that whatever happens does so because God wants or causes it to happen. When I questioned her about evil, of course she went back to that statement taken from Job and that is where she made her stand.  I realized I was wasting my time after having that one verse thrown, like some kind of grenade, at me numerous times. It may sound harsh but I do not think she has an open mind and will probably never think on her own.  She has been “taught” a certain doctrine and is okay staying right there.  It brings her comfort but I doubt that someone who just lost a loved one from a long drawn out terminal illness, or a child to a disease, or a spouse cut down in a gangland shooting, would find her “grenade” any comfort at all.

The schools and seminary’s seem to be divided along denominational lines and it seems that almost all of those that go to reformed schools stay reformed, fundamentalists stay fundamental, and so on.  Which in any other type of learning would probably be okay. 

But if there is one Holy Spirit who is supposed to guide us into all truth and we all have that Spirit in us, then why are there so many different schools of thought, and why do we have to attach labels to everything?  If we all do not agree, then someone is wrong.  We must be willing to admit that it might just be me and hear someone else out.  And what about those educated, distinguished, esteemed teachers of the truth, (that never seem to bend or give.)?  They need to realize that in the training of the body of Christ there is no room for “thought control” and “dark sarcasm”.  We do not need any more mindless drones in the Kingdom of God.  We need thinkers.  People willing to possibly go outside the normal theological stances and see what exactly we have wrong. 

And we are wrong.  There is just too much evidence of it.  Not only the division of the body but there is the lack of empowerment and influence to even maintain current levels of Kingdom population.    

A final thought on all this takes us back to what I said in the post linked above.  In the Word of God  there are some warnings about knowledge and the pursuit of it.  (Luk 11:52, 1 Cor 8:1, 1 Cor 13:2)  If knowledge is not shared, if it brings about pride, or if it is presented with no love, it is not of God or of any good to Him.  God wants us to seek knowledge and wisdom.  But it is Godly knowledge not worldly that is to be sought.  Any other becomes a deadly weapon to be exploited by the enemy. 

Some of our most intelligent, intellectual theologians have reached a place where they are no longer teachable.  And in their arrogance they do a lot of harm to the body of Christ thru division and debate.  They have become prideful and unloving in their exposition of truth.  The more some learn about God the less they look like Him. 

Our Father asks us to “Come now, let us reason together… Isa 1:18.  I believe this reasoning with God and with each other is a necessary component of our combat readiness training.

Education and knowledge contribute to wisdom, but they are not wisdom.  You won’t get that from seminary.

So I can’t say “We don’t need no education” but I can definitely say “We don’t need no thought control”.

Love you all

Tags: AcademicsBody of Christ, Calvinism, Combat Readiness, Jesus Christ, Kingdom, SpiritualWarfare