'Brainwashed' documentary warns of 'godless' agendas in schools, urges parents to disciple their kids
A senior pastor featured in a new documentary warned that public schools promote a "godless" agenda and called on parents and churches to "wake up" and help today's youth develop a biblical worldview.
The new documentary, "Brainwashed: The Indoctrination of America's Youth," aired on April 14 through Coral Ridge Ministries' "Truth That Transforms" program.
In an interview with The Christian Post, CRM CEO Robert J. Pacienza said the documentary's target audience includes parents, grandparents and "anyone concerned about the next generation."
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Pacienza, the senior pastor at Fort Lauderdale's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, told CP the documentary took about a year to make. He said he was inspired to make the film after seeing various reports about the messages America's youth receive not only through social media and the entertainment industry but also at public schools and college campuses.
According to a report the advocacy group Parents Defending Education released last year, more than 1,000 school districts, representing 18,335 schools with more than 10.7 million students, have policies that permit or advise faculty to withhold information from parents about their child's gender confusion.
Another study released last year found that around 3,600 individuals between the ages of 12 and 18 underwent body-disfiguring gender transition surgeries across the United States between 2016 and 2020.
In addition to raising concerns about what schools are teaching kids about gender, the documentary discusses school curricula centered on social-emotional learning, which some experts featured in the film argued is used to push "left-wing politics" in the classroom.
The documentary notes that while schools promote politics and social justice topics, many students fail at fundamental subjects like reading, writing and math.
"I just thought we needed something that is waking people up to what is happening," Pacienza told CP.
Pacienza said that one of the documentary's goals is to provide parents with "real action steps" in response to what he described as "propaganda" from the progressive left. These steps might include limiting kids' exposure to digital devices and having more conversations with them around the dinner table.
"So it's not just a documentary that exposes the problem, but it also gives Christian parents and Christian grandparents and any Christian in America that cares about the next generation real tools and resources to help them fight against this godless agenda that's targeting the youth in America," Pacienza said.
Senior Fellow for Education Studies at the Christian conservative activist group Family Research Council Meg Kilgannon warned in the documentary that most public schools today are exposing children to ideologies that are "antithetical to a Christian worldview."
Kilgannon cited gender ideology and Critical Race Theory as examples of some of the messages students are hearing at school.
"There are so many things that are facing our children that really, parents need to be aware that the education their children are getting is not the same as the education they got when they were in public school," Kilgannon said.
Leah Klett, an assistant editor for The Christian Post, was also featured in the documentary and said that many kids today are "swayed" by cultural trends, such as the idea they can identify as the opposite sex due to ignorance about the Bible and what it teaches.
According to Pacienza, one reason these problems have flourished is because parents and the church have "lost the vision for the family."
He said family was the first institution in the Bible and that God's design for a "flourishing society is built around healthy families."
"Parents have lost the vision and have abdicated their responsibility to disciple their children and to shepherd their souls," the senior pastor said, urging parents to teach their kids how to be Christians in private and in public.
"I think there are some practical ways in which Christian parents can say, 'No, it really begins with me. It's not just shaking my fist at the culture, shaking a fist at Washington, D.C., and shaking a fist at secularism,'" Pacienza said.
"It's saying, what can I do as a parent to model this for my children and actually practice what we preach and take more ownership of the discipleship and the shepherding of my child?"
Pacienza urges churches to "wake up" and to call out parents "in love" so they realize that they need to be "leading the charge at home."
"I think pastors and churches need to come alongside of parents to make them aware of what's going on in the culture, but also give parents the proper tools and the proper resources to develop their children with a biblical worldview," Pacienza said.
"So that when they graduate from high school, and they leave home, and they go on to these secular college campuses, and they go out into the world, instead of them walking away from the faith, they are standing firm for the faith because they have been grounded and rooted in the firm foundation of God's Word so that they not only know the Scripture, but they know how to apply it to all of life."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
