Joel Hilliker from the Philadelphia Church of God has an article up on the PCG website titled: "Twenty Years to Civilization"
Hilliker relates how he went to volunteer at his daughter's school and discusses how awful it was at times. Those nasty, heathen, satan-inspired children of the world really got to him.
After whining that all of the teachers were women and he and the other dads were the only positive male influence the kids had, he said this:
“When it comes to rearing children, every society is only 20 years away from barbarism,” Dr. Albert Siegel once wrote. “Twenty years is all we have to accomplish the task of civilizing the infants who are born into our midst each year. These savages know nothing of our language, our culture, our religion, our values, our customs of interpersonal relations. … The barbarian must be tamed if civilization is to survive.”
It’s a bit dramatic—but in a sense painfully true. Calling children savages certainly reflects reality far better than treating them like natural-born saints, sages and savants. Our Satan-inspired human nature represents a savage within each of us that must be civilized. Children have it in spades—unless we are diligent in confronting it. That’s why Proverbs 29:15 says, “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”
Where this reality truly smacked me in the face was on the playground at my daughter’s school. I spent three recesses outside—with first graders, then second graders, then fifth graders. Each successive mob was worse behaved. The fifth graders, having lived more years without being properly civilized, were genuine specimens of savagery. Everywhere I turned, I saw carnality on parade: name-calling, accusing, cursing, screaming, boasting, pushing, sulking, cheating.
I realized that most of these same kids had just been inside under the authority of effective, qualified teachers who had managed to keep a lid on this ugliness through productive, focused work. The level of human nature suddenly on display correlated precisely with the lack of government in their lives at that moment.
Having to admit the teachers were fairly good at keeping the kids under control in the classroom, he then makes this comment:
I realized that most of these same kids had just been inside under the authority of effective, qualified teachers who had managed to keep a lid on this ugliness through productive, focused work. The level of human nature suddenly on display correlated precisely with the lack of government in their lives at that moment.
Good old government. Where would the COG be without dragging out submission to proper government into the mix? COG government is the biggest failure in the COG today. Absolutely none of them follow the demands that their church government places upon them. If they did, they would not have apostatized and started hundreds of splinter groups.
After musing about his own kids being little savages, and how without proper attention and discipline they would be real savages like students in all of the worldly colleges today. He ends with this:
The task of civilizing the infants born into our midst is crucial—and great. Twenty years is all we have.
