Evil Ideas
There are two specific parts to good discernment. Evil ideas reflect a spirit that is identifiable. Everything in our world represents either light or darkness. Every conversation we have and every idea we experience has elements of light or darkness. Every parent should pray for discernment of the ideas allowed in your house or the influence of ideas to which your children are subjected. We should treat ideas just as seriously as we treat food, medicine or anything in our lives. We have often heard that ideas have consequences.

A good example is a present book that is very big in libraries and public schools across America. It is entitled, The Giver, and is authored by Lois Lowry. This book has just won the Newberry Prize for children's books. Berit Kjos wrote a preview of this book so I will let her describe it.

"The book told about a special community where every child felt safe, ate plenty of food, took pills to stop any pain, and lived in a family no larger than four. Overpopulation was no problem since new babies were limited to fifty a year. Born to professional 'birth mothers' instead of real mothers, the newborns were placed in Nurturing Centers where older children helped care for them during volunteer hours. To keep people comfortable and free from stress, handicapped babies and low-weight twins were 'released' (murdered) to go to a mystical Elsewhere.'"

"Stunned, Laura stared at her teacher. Would they really kill a baby if it didn't weigh enough? The horrible image of the tiny infant, murdered and thrown down a chute like a piece of garbage made her sick. Her thoughts raced on. How could the kind Nurturer kill it! What if it had been her! She was just as tiny when she was born..."

The Giver fits into the flood of classroom literature that force children to think the unthinkable and reconsider the values they learned at home. It also models many of the pitfalls and imagined perfections of the utopian school-centered community being implemented by today's national and international change agents:

• "State surveillance and control of health, wealth, attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior.
• "State controlled child care, health care, training of parents, vocational guidance and work assignment.
• "Mandatory 'voluntary' service.
• "Personal privileges conditioned on compliance."
  (Excerpted from Brave New Schools by Berit Kjos.)

This book is full of ideas, very dangerous and extremely dark. Those who defend this kind of literacy garbage would laugh at any possibly bad consequences. One reason is that they live in a dark world of ideas to begin with and this kind of material is the real world to them. More importantly is that these people are "change agents" and they have an agenda. If you do not learn to discern ideas and not just look at the vehicle (drama, book, television program), then all I say will be empty. The ideas behind the drama, etc. is what is most important.

When you prepare yourself to understand ideas that are questionable, it will enable you to make great and fairly quick decisions on right and wrong in your home. Almost everything coming down from the secular education, entertainment, or the news world is based on some secular or profane idea.

For instance, look for a moment at the entertainment idea in Barney, the purple dinosaur. He is fuzzy, warm, and a lot of fun to many children. But what about the ideas that filter out of his programs. First, the entire scheme is based on transcendental imagination. Having been on at least five hundred secular stations discussing Barney, the biggest rebuttal I get is, "Don't you believe in the imagination?" Of course, I do. But there is a lot of difference between real imagination and transcendental imagination.

Barney teaches children that they have transcendental powers to make their world what they want it to be. Over and over, circumstances, people, inanimate objects are transformed by these little ditties of song and dance. Look a little deeper and you will find a form of psychology called transformational psychology. It is clearly connected with witchcraft ideas and has always been rejected by Bible-believing Christians.

The Lion King is full of ideas. Almost every scene in this Disney production is an idea out of voodooism: from reincarnation to astral travel, communication with the dead (necromancy) and, finally, the constant presence of Rifkin, the witchdoctor. He uses a magic potion and clearly leads the animals in pagan worship. Just as serious is the music of a noted homosexual that brings this unclean spirit right into the home.

If you learn to discern ideas and their presence, you will be empowered to make great discernment in what can destroy the peace of your home. Every unclean idea, when allowed in a child or even an adult mind has an effect. Your mind is a sacred chamber where your life's character is formed and programmed Everything you do is first programmed by the mind. Treat it as the sacred gift from God that it represents.

Evil Actions
Most of us have less trouble discerning action. Violence and immorality are two of the most destructive powers in those things directed toward children. A quick trip to a modern comic bookstore will give you an excellent education. It is almost as though funny things do not sell any longer. It must be violent, sexy, and demonic. While it should not take much discernment to know the damage this kind of material can cause, parents do not seem to pay attention.

Parents must understand that play, entertainment, or any interactive video, etc. can teach habits and undesirable actions. Here is a couple of statements concerning videos and this interactive play for children and youth.

"I believe, seriously, that video games are going to deal Christian mythology its greatest blow. Most of today's popular video games are based on the quest mythologies [a search for a great treasure or for an ultimate truth] of many different times and many different sources. The guys who are writing Nintendo's Kid Icarus and other games are already into classical mythology

"...They'll want to influence the course of events with a control pad in their hands and, in fact, will have learned that they can within 30 different ideologic systems by the time they're ten years old. This will create a big problem for long-held belief systems: The games make them seem pretty dull.

"We will see interactive video games that replicate Buddhism's seven stages of enlightenment. You'll be able to experience Dante's trip through the inferno, the six ascending chakras of kundalini yoga. And today's young game designers will become our new priests." (OMNI Magazine, Joyce Thompson.)

These statements speak volumes that should concern parents.

Our present world of children and young people have an affinity with the beastly. The use of grotesque creatures as toys and in entertainment has made them desirable to this generation. Most children see very little distinction between something that is ugly and something that is beautiful. When you translate that into the spiritual world, you completely eliminate any difference between the demonic and the heavenly. Children are being programmed to love demonic appearing creatures. It would be easy to believe they are being prepared for the beast of the Antichrist.

Learn To Discern
You must learn to discern. There will not always be someone to say this or that is evil. Your children depend on you to show them the difference. I am yet to see a biblical home that began exercising discernment when the children were small that have any real trouble with children accepting the parent's wisdom. The problem of children and youth in America and the world is a parenting problem. Do not say it was the educational system, the church, or the neighborhood. You can be successful anywhere on this earth if you build on the infallible Word of God. I simply refuse to accept defeat or to allow you to accept defeat.