Over forty years ago a cousin who was teaching in Cleveland, Ohio, at the time remarked about how unruly the high school students there had become. Her chief complaint? The boys refused to wear belts with their pants.

The recent rash of school murders reminds us once again how far we have slipped as a civilized nation in the past few decades. Hardly a school semester passes today, it seems, without another incident of tragic proportions on a high school or middle school campus somewhere in America.

A friend of a friend resigned his teaching position a few years ago, saying, “I am tired of working in a system where the teacher is afraid of the principal, the principal is afraid of the superintendent, the superintendent is afraid of the school board, the school board is afraid of the parents, the parents are afraid of the kids, and the kids aren’t afraid of anybody!”

Therein lies the problem, I believe. The kids aren’t afraid of anybody. Too many young people in America today grow up in homes where they are not taught to respect any authority. There is a hierarchy of respect that God intended for all of us to learn when we are young. It starts with a respect for Him. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” the Bible says (Proverbs 9:10). Building on this respect for God, children learn to respect the authority of their parents, governmental officials, and even their local school leaders.

The truth is that God is such a minor player in most American homes today that children grow up never knowing or understanding the importance of respecting authority. The end result is the murder and mayhem of Columbine, Pearl (MS), and Lancaster County (PA).

Moms and Dads, don’t blame the school system. Today’s public school teacher has a job that is ten times harder than their predecessors of a generation ago. They are doing the best they can with what you and I are giving them. In all honesty, the “product” teachers have to work with today is an inferior one. The new millenium’s average child is rootless and thus often ruthless. Until we begin to take God seriously again in the American home, I am afraid we can expect such carnage to continue.

-----Phil LeMaster