Last month, my son began what was supposed to be an art apprenticeship with a government-funded summer program for inner-city youth. I learned about the program via a flier I found in my mailbox one day last Spring. I get a lot of bogus things in my mailbox, so, when I saw the flier, I immediately suspected that something was afoot. But, my son and I have been back in St. Louis for two years now; and, as he has yet to make any friends, I thought it would be an opportunity for him to at least be in the company of other kids his age. Of course, being the son of a Protestant preacher in Roman Catholic St. Louis, I know that my son will very likely never make any friends—real or otherwise. But, sometimes it is important to keep a semblance of normalcy; so I went through the motions and let him sign up for the apprenticeship. Two months later, in June, he started.

When he came home after his first day, I asked him how it went, and he said that it went well, but that he wished he had spoken more (he is somewhat shy). It was obvious to me, however, that something had happened that he didn’t want to talk about. It didn’t seem to be serious, so I decided to leave it for tomorrow. When he came home the next day, I again asked my son how it went; and again, he said that it went fine; only this time adding that he had made an effort to speak to the other kids there, rather than waiting to be spoken to, and had even given someone his phone number. Now, this may not be a big deal for most kids; but, for me it was huge. As a six-year old, my son was adventurous and gregarious—a natural leader. But, after living in Munich for almost three years without me and being constantly bullied at school and neglected at home, he had become shy and introverted. So since arriving in St. Louis, I had been encouraging him to take advantage of every social interaction from buying groceries to borrowing a book from the library to practice conversing with people, no matter how briefly. He had been making some progress; but with few opportunities, it was slow and hard to gauge.

When this apprenticeship materialized, therefore, though I had serious misgivings, I saw it as an opportunity for my son to hone his burgeoning social skills. I told him he should not expect much from the program, however, as experience had taught me that there would be little if anything, useful that he would gain there. He should therefore seek to make his time there as personally profitable as possible.

When we talked about what had happened that second day, my son tried to look as optimistic as he could, but found it impossible, as the things they did at that apprenticeship were, in his words, ridiculous. One example of a useless exercise he gave was when the teacher/facilitator passed around a piece of paper upon which, he said, each student drew a body part of a person, beginning with the head, until they had a full man. This sounded odd even to me; but, trying to be fair, I told him that perhaps he was not giving the program a fair chance, that it was possible there was a method to the madness.

It was then that he told me what had been bothering him that first day. On that day, he said, there was a particular exercise where, in order that the students could get better acquainted, each student had to introduce himself to the class and share three personal details about himself. But there was a caveat: one of the things had to be a lie. Now, if I were any other parent, in any other city, and on any other planet, I probably would not have had any problem with this exercise. But, as a Protestant evangelist in Roman Catholic St. Louis, I had a huge problem with this exercise. And I’ll tell you why.

Most of us know something about the Ten Commandments; and though we may not know them all, or even where they can be found in the Holy Bible, we know that the Ten Commandments are ten things God commanded us either to do or not to do. Lying is one of the things God told us not to do.

For the record, the Ten Commandments can be found in Chapter 20 of the Second Book of Moses, called Exodus. They are:

1. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
2. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image (statue), or any likeness of any thing (i.e. doll) that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them…”
3. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”
4. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
5. “Honor thy father and thy mother…”
6. “Thou shalt not kill.”
7. “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
8. “Thou shalt not steal.”
9. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
10. “Thou shalt not covet…”

–Exodus 20:3-17.

In case you did not know, to bear false witness is to lie. Some teach that some lies are not as bad as others (the so-called little white lie), but the Bible says “all disobedience is sin.” There is no such thing as a little white lie. A lie is a lie; so, when this facilitator told the students that they should tell three things about themselves, and that one of those things had to be a lie, she was essentially telling the students to lie. And, because lying is a sin, then she was essentially telling the students that it was okay to sin. Though sinning is a crime against the law of God, and not the law of man, you may have noticed that our laws are largely based on the Ten Commandments. Lying in a court of law, for example, is called perjury, which under federal law, is a felony.

The Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because the Law says that a person should honor his mother and father, yet they taught that if a person should tell his parents to consider themselves lucky if he did anything for them, it was okay. By this tradition, Jesus told them, the Pharisees made the law of God “of none effect” (Mark 7:9-13).

When I broke this down for my son, his mouth formed an “o,” and his eyes widened as the light bulb came on. Then his countenance fell, and he seemed to be thinking, “They played me for a fool,” which they did. To make him feel better, I told him that this was nothing new. Children (especially black children) have been programmed for decades by teachers, clerics, coaches, scout leaders, and even parents to not only be violent, but also to be promiscuous, disrespectful, addicts, agnostic, superstitious, and witchy (what parent over fifty didn’t read Hansel & Gretel in school?). Some very evil people have access to our children, and they all have an agenda: the moral deflowering and paganizing of all children–especially black children.

I was going to take my son out of the apprenticeship, but under the circumstances, I wanted the decision to be his. Happily, he did not want to go back, because, he was “not ready” (his words) for such slickery. He made the right decision.

Now, if you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, consider that just about everyone in America and a lot of the world knows that St. Louis, Missouri is one of the most crime-infested cities in America. They know about Ferguson, Missouri, a city that is part of Greater St. Louis, and of the riots that rocked that city as a result of the Michael Brown killing. And they know that an awful lot, if not most, of the crime in St. Louis—including the murder of blacks—is committed by blacks. What they don’t know, however, is why. The answer is simple: blacks in St. Louis have been programmed to commit crime. How? They have been taught from very early that it’s okay to sin. And sin is a crime.

“How do they accomplish this?” you may ask.

In much the same way my son was about to be programmed, I would answer.

“Why?” you may ask. 

Click here, I answer.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Hosea 4:6

Wake up, St. Louis!

Be encouraged and look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.

The Still Man