HIDDEN
MESSAGES
IN PUBLIC SCHOOL
CLASSROOMS:
AN INTERVIEW WITH SUNNY BARRETT
By Dr. Josh Mulvihill
IN
2015, an encounter with an atheist teacher opened
Sunny Barrett’s eyes to the worldview messages
being taught in public school classrooms. Today, Sunny is
diligently working to help her daughters develop a biblical
worldview. She is the mother of two public school daughters
who are eight and eleven years old. Dr. Josh Mulvihill spoke
with Sunny about why worldview matters, what messages
children are being taught in public school classrooms, and
how parents can train their public school children to devel-
op a biblical worldview.
WHY DOES WORLDVIEW MATTER FOR
PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, AND PASTORS?
Children spend most of their day in school. Worldview
touches everything they learn. As a result, we need to know
what is going on in the classroom and around us in culture.
We can’t put our head in the sand while our kids are being
fed false ideology.
My children are dealing with big, complex issues at
school. For example, one teacher handed out an abridged
version of the code of Hammurabi with 35 laws and said,
“You know this came before the Ten Commandments.” The
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teacher alluded to this fact to make my daughter question
her beliefs. The teacher also inferred that the Mosaic Law
was not special since every civilization in history had similar
laws. This was a tactic to discredit Christianity by making it
appear that the Mosaic Law copied the Hammurabi code of
law. My daughter and I discussed that parallel laws against
similar issues in society did not prove plagiarism, as the
teacher was inferring. I needed to teach Old Testament
covenants. We reviewed how the Law of Moses was rooted
in the worship of one God. Mosaic Law was given to reveal
sin and point to man’s need of a Savior. None of this was
recognized in Hammurabi’s laws or any other law out there,
and there was no provision for forgiveness.
This type of experience happens on a weekly basis. Some-
times they aren’t this obvious. It gives me the opportunity
to have conversations with my daughters. It can be over-
whelming, but I give it to the Lord. I pray the armor of God
over them, for spiritual discernment to be in the girls and
the favor to be upon the teachers. We can’t be there to see or
hear everything, so we pray that God brings false ideology
to our kids’ attention.