When Sauron Educates the Sons of Gondor

The True Cost of Letting the State Own Your Children

This article was originally published by New Saint Andrews College here.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. — The Department of Education, October 17th, 1979.

The dark lord of Middle-earth, Sauron, was tyranny incarnate, his lust for control boundless. He perverted knowledge into chains of dark speech, launched war against peace and prosperity, and corrupted both masculinity and local authority. Distinction was his foe, obliterated in his devotion to androgyny and the cult of enforced equality. Beauty and order were disfigured under his hand, freedom yielded to terror, and dependency crowned his campaign. His singular, insidious goal? To enslave every soul and institution to his counterfeit benevolence, demanding worship for his insatiable lust for dominion.

The modern State’s encroachment into education mirrors Sauron’s grim design. Its devotees call for fathers to abdicate their God-given authority, for beauty to bow to bland uniformity, and for children to be shaped into obedient orc-like servants of the State. Those who yield to this tyranny secure their ruin, but those who resist become beacons of hope piercing the encroaching dark.

The Trump administration’s announcement of its intention to dismantle the Department of Education caused a stir of excitement in certain circles—namely, those who’ve spent decades watching the leviathan gnaw at the foundations of learning. However, among the faithful devotees of Caesar’s faux magnanimity, this news prompted panic akin to a slave trembling before the prospect of freedom. Independence, after all, demands virtues they’ve long since outsourced to bureaucracy: responsibility and discipline.

To cheer the abolition of the Department of Education is to understand that its very existence has been a slow-acting poison. The symptoms—declining literacy rates, the shrill dogmatism of Critical Theory, and a conveyor belt of compliant drones—are merely the outworkings of a deeper infection. The root issue is this: the State has no business meddling in academia. Whenever it does, the result is a moral and intellectual fracture as insidious as it is incremental.

Although the State wields the sword to protect what is good and punish what is evil, it neither defines nor legitimizes the essence of good and evil. It is not the author of morality or ethics; these are determined solely by God.

Modern nations are well-acquainted with Statism—the belief that civil government is an omnipotent arbiter of all aspects of life. Statism is no mere overreach; it is a religious claim. To assert that the State governs all is to declare it a god, omniscient and omnipotent, demanding worship and unquestioning obedience. This idolatry stands in stark opposition to the Christian worldview, which assigns the civil government a humbler role: God’s minister of justice.

When restrained to its ordained purpose, the civil government is a blessing (Romans 13:1-7). It bears the sword to punish evildoers and protect the righteous, providing society with order and restraint against human depravity. Yet even good intentions, when untethered from divine boundaries, breed tyranny. The State oversteps its jurisdiction whenever it claims authority over domains God has entrusted elsewhere. Education, for example, is not the State’s to control. Children do not belong to the civil government; they belong to God, and He has charged parents—not political bureaucrats—with their upbringing.

Although the State wields the sword to protect what is good and punish what is evil, it neither defines nor legitimizes the essence of good and evil. It is not the author of morality or ethics; these are determined solely by God. The State’s role is to uphold righteous laws as a reflection of God’s moral law, not to craft its own definitions. When the State presumes authority beyond the bounds ordained by God, it crosses into tyranny, elevating itself as an unrighteous arbiter of power.

When the State breaches its God-ordained boundaries, it does not merely overstep—it actively engineers societal collapse. The family disintegrates, fathers are supplanted by soulless bureaucrats, and learning devolves into nothing more than a grotesque indoctrination factory, stripped of any commitment to virtue. A godless government inevitably churns out godless citizens, for in such systems, the fear of the Lord is dismissed as a quaint relic rather than upheld as the foundation of all wisdom.

Freedom from statist indoctrination demands more than a new venue—it requires a rejection of the entire system's poisoned foundations.

State education is not neutral. It is an evangelistic effort to catechize children into Statist orthodoxy. The curriculum’s ultimate goal is clear: produce compliant taxpayers who neither think nor question. It aims to manufacture citizens willing to endure absurdly high taxes, accept that they own nothing (and be happy about it), and depend entirely on the government for jobs, education, and sustenance. The product is a society of slaves who worship the State rather than God.

Parents who naively entrust their children to this system should not be surprised when the prodigal sons return home as Romans. What else could they expect when pagan educators shape their children’s worldview? Education rooted in secular humanism inevitably cultivates spiritual impoverishment. Yet many parents are complicit, prioritizing worldly success over godly character, raising children who are eager to climb corporate ladders but unequipped to build the Kingdom of God.

Some parents, recognizing the rot within public education, have wisely withdrawn their children, assuming that a mere change of scenery will cure the ailment. But while they may have spared their offspring from Caesar’s classrooms, they must be vigilant not to smuggle Caesar’s curriculum or his bureaucratic yoke back into their own homes. Freedom from statist indoctrination demands more than a new venue—it requires a rejection of the entire system's poisoned foundations.

Education, like all spheres of life, must adhere to God’s design. The family, led by fathers, is tasked with raising children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. The State wields the sword of justice to punish evildoers, but it lacks the tools to nurture virtue and knowledge. The rod of discipline, employed by fathers, is a far better instrument for shaping hearts and minds. When the State intrudes into this domain, it sows destruction, not wisdom.

Statism thrives on the erosion of the family. By undermining paternal authority, the State positions itself as the ultimate father figure, infantilizing entire generations. Weak, passive men become the norm in societies where the government replaces fathers. These men, stripped of their God-given role, become dependent, fruitless, and easily manipulated.

Statism operates as though God does not exist—or worse, as though He is irrelevant. The totalitarian State, by definition, cannot fear God, for to do so would require acknowledging a higher authority. Consequently, the State presides over education in a godless manner, ensuring that Christian orthodoxy is excluded from the classroom. One would search in vain for a totalitarian regime that taught the doctrines of grace. Statism’s creed is atheistic, and its catechism is secular humanism.

This is why the fruits of State education are so consistently rotten. Without the fear of the Lord, there can be no wisdom, no knowledge, and no true education. What remains is indoctrination: a systematic effort to sever children from their parents, their faith, and their heritage.

For as long as atheism and secularism are accepted and promoted in education, the militant push to corrupt children's minds and practices will persist. The world needs Christian education as the only effective antidote and alternative to the madness.

Education is no mere academic exercise; it is the front line in the battle for the soul of a civilized society. A culture that hands its children over to Statist indoctrination effectively drafts its own obituary. Christians must, therefore, resist the State's encroachment into education with unyielding resolve. The price of Christian education may seem steep, but it pales in comparison to the devastating cost of surrendering to tyranny.

It is the covenantal duty of Christian parents to provide their children with a distinctly Christian education—one that equips them with the virtue to fight off evil and build glorious civilizations.

The honor of God demands that education be reclaimed for His glory. It must become Christian again, rooted in Scripture, guided by godly fathers, and oriented around Christ’s kingdom. To concede this ground to those who love lies is to abandon the next generation to spiritual darkness.

The ultimate hope for education—and for society—is the triumph of light over darkness. In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, those who bent the knee to Sauron in pursuit of self-preservation found themselves swallowed by his darkness. The appeasers hastened their own ruin, the cowards were betrayed by the very shadows they feared, and the apathetic ensured their own undoing with indifference. Yet, it was the resolute—the ones who stood firm, resisted, and spread light—who triumphed. The brilliance of their defiance shattered the gloom, imprisoning the night in an eternal subjugation to dawn.

So it is with tyranny: much darkness is vanquished when the faithful dare to resist.

The abolition of the state presiding over education would be a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. The Church must rise to reclaim its responsibility, families must take ownership of their children’s education, and fathers must wield the rod with love and wisdom. Only then can future generations be equipped to build God’s Kingdom rather than the hollow empires of men.

In the battle for education, there can be no neutrality. The State cannot be trusted to educate the children of God. It is the covenantal duty of Christian parents to provide their children with a distinctly Christian education—one that equips them with the virtue to fight off evil and build glorious civilizations. Our children belong to God. What belongs to God should not be handed over to His enemies.