Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Critical Race Theory in the Classroom: What You Need to Know [Featuring Dr. Carol Swain]

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

What messages are shaping the beliefs and identities of our children? Dr. Carol Swain shares her testimony and personal experiences in academic institutions. Despite growing up in rural poverty in southern Virginia, she worked diligently and went on to receive her PhD and became a tenured associate professor of politics and public policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Dr. Swain grew up with a firm belief that she could do anything she set her mind to, regardless of her ethnicity or background. "The messages I received as a child were very different from what we tell children today. I grew up believing I lived in the greatest country in the world. I believed that if you work hard, you can make something of yourself," she told Pastor Allen. In this podcast, they reflect on how Marxism, gender identity, and critical race theory are poisoning the minds of students today, and how parents can help their children survive a system that tells them success is determined by the shade of their skin. This episode reminds us that our true identity comes from God, and we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength — no matter what privileges we may lack.__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

During that time when I had that experience in the hospital, I thought I was dying because everything I'd heard was when your life plays in front of you, you die, and I didn't die. But I think I did die in a sense that I don't fear death because I thought I was dying, and I feel like that during that experience that God said, I've called you to be a martyr. And then I don't know, like, I certainly martyed my career. Welcome to culture and Christianity. We believe that our faith has to be lived out and needs to make an impact in our culture. We can't just be Christians in a building for a few minutes on Sunday morning. So that's the goal of this podcast. And I am excited about our guest today.

Dr. Carol Swain, welcome. Well, thank you for having me. I'm going to read a bit of your introduction. It's so lengthy, I couldn't commit it all to memory. If you don't know, Dr. Swain, you're in for a treat. She's an award-winning political scientist, a former professor of political science, and a professor of law at Vanderbilt University, a lifetime member of the James Madison Society. It's an international community of scholars affiliated with the James Madison program in American ideals and institutions at Princeton University. Before joining Vandy Vanderbilt in 1999, Dr. Swain was a tenured associate professor of politics and public policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson's.

School of Public and International Affairs. Interesting to me, in 2018, you were a candidate in the special mayor election in Nashville, where you strove to become the first Republican to serve as a mayor in the city's history. That wasn't my idea. No, but you said yes to the Lord. I did, and it was a great experience. Well, you have invested your life in academia and the education of young people. But you have done it with a faith perspective. And so I want to start this conversation. I'm sure some of the people listening know you very well. And to some, I hope it's a new introduction because they need to know you very well. You came to faith a little later in your journey. Can you just tell us a bit of that story? You told me a bit about your family earlier,

so maybe give us a little bit of that backstory. I can tell you, I came to faith in my 40s, in my mid-40s, but I was always a spiritual person. I was one of 12 children born and raised in rural poverty in southwestern Virginia, spent the early part of my life in a two-room shack. And that shack, it held nine of us at one point. And I missed a lot of school, dropped out of school after the eighth grade, along with all of my siblings. We all dropped out.

We always made it to the eighth grade, dropped out after, the eighth grade. I married at 16, had my first child at 17, and by the time I was 20, I had three small children. And people came into my life. And I struggled with depression and suicide gestures, and I take bottles of pills. But as a child, I knew I was different. And I did not fit in. And I had a crippling shyness that I didn't get rid of until I had my conversion experience. But I always had a sense of urgency. I always felt like there was something I was supposed to do. And my mother said I was not like any of her other children.

But she also said I had ugly ways I would hide behind furniture and peep out at people. And I can remember thinking that my family that they were so strange. And I felt like I had been dropped from out of space. I felt like that I was an alien. I did not fit. And I didn't fit. And then my older sister said, The difference between the two of us, because her IQ was supposed to be genius level.

And no one's told me that I was a genius, but she claimed, and then I can't verify this, but she says that her teacher says she was a genius, but she chose a different path. She said that she looked at our lot and said, well, this is the way it is. You know, this is how we were born, and I could never accept it that. Well, that's a remark. To do that, you have earned multiple degrees in multiple degrees. multiple universities. And it wasn't planned, not by me.

It may not have been planned, but it takes effort and a great deal of ability. So I think you are a snapshot of the best of the American dream. Well, thank you. That we can overcome disadvantages and poverty. There are very few places in the world where that's true. But do you know why, I think, is that the messages I received as a child were very different from what we tell children. I grew up believing I lived in the greatest country in the world. And I was a Virginian.

And I stayed produced presidents. We produced eight presidents. And so I had that pride. And I believed, and the messages I received was that if you work hard, you can make something of yourself. And the civil rights movement was occurring while I was a child. And it was a period of great optimism. Yeah, I think the message of the civil rights movement that we knew in the, the 60s and the 70s, 50s, 60s and 70s is dramatically different today.

Oh, I mean, the message that young people received today is so destructive. And I think about myself, if I heard those messages as a child and believed those messages, but I also can tell you that as a child and young adult, my personality was if someone told me that I couldn't do something, I was going to show them. And so I was never, I didn't believe them. I'm going to show them. But if you actually believe the messages that for me, you're black, you're poor, and then when I was a teen wife and mother, you know, all of these things that I would have had stacked against me,

if I had internalized those messages that I would learn about in graduate school. In fact, I was in graduate school before I learned that I was black and I was poor and I was a woman and I wasn't supposed to have done any of the things that I had accomplished at that point. That's a joke. No, no. I understand. But I struggled in graduate school because my very existence defied the messages that they were given out in the sociology classes and in the various classes that people like me can't make it. And yet I did because I didn't know I was supposed to fail.

Yeah, I don't think the average person or parent understands the degree to which our country. current academic system, particularly higher level education, intends to tear down value systems and reconstruct a Marxist worldview in the hearts of our kids. Right. And I can see now what the professors I clashed with were trying to do. And I remember a political science class where I don't know what I said. But the white female professor that later chose a lesbian lifestyle, she was married. in that class she yielded me, you'll never be able to change the fact that you're a black woman.

And I was shocked, and I guess she was shocked, and she sent us off on a break. But it was like what I heard of her saying was that I was handicapped whether I knew it or not. And that handicap was something, you know, that I was going to find out about. That's unbelievable. You told me a fun story on a break we had a few minutes ago

about your time at Princeton. Yes. And because that's really where your faith changed and your life changed. And it changed your position at Princeton a bit, or at least your relationship to that institution. Can you tell us a bit of that story? Well, first, I can tell you that in my early adult's health, my journey took me many places, the spiritual part of it, Jehovah's Witness. I was interested in Casey, out-of-body experiences, anything that was new, new age. And so that was the spiritual development.

mentioned, but I believed one God many pence, and I was obsessed with getting tenure. And I had to prove that someone from my background could go to Princeton University as a faculty member and get early tenure. That was my goal. And when they hired me, I told them

I would do it in three years. And the people that hired me said they believed I could do it. They told me what I needed to hear. And one of the professors said, the only way you can fail here is if you're on a car accident, you're brains outside your head. Well, I did go up for early tenure. And I was able to get that early tenure, but then I was just totally disillusion. And so I got the tenure. I won three national prizes,

my first book cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in 23 December, I learned that what was the current president of Harvard University had pleasureized that book. But I did not get satisfaction. And that's my long way of telling you the story. When you get tenure at an institution, Ivy League or Tier 1 University, it's like that good housekeeping seal of approval. It means that you're one of them. And so they gave that to me. And you know, I had the awards and I can argue I earned tenure. the old-fashioned way. But then I had the Christian conversion experience because I did not get satisfaction from the prizes and the awards.

And, you know, the emptiness that you have when you don't have God, it's not filled by achievement. And so all the things that I thought it brings satisfaction, it did not bring satisfaction. And so I was still unhappy and I went on this journey. And I ended up having a Christian conversion. experience. And I'm probably a person that can't tell you the moment I got saved because I had a religious experience when I was 13. And I wonder, well, that was when I realized that was a God, was that

when I got saved. But what happened in Princeton was I was in a hospital for a medical condition, and I had the experience of my life playing in front of me, like with a narrator, showing me different points along the way and choices I had made. And during that time, I was very, depressed and unhappy. And I had been reading the Bible and there was a Princeton woman at the Woodrow Wilson School that had been a diplomat. And she had talked of me about Jesus. And I may have said the sinner's prayer with her, but I was not really into it. So I don't know when I got saved. But in that experience, it was like there was a narrator telling me, showing me different points in my life, choices I had made and asked me, what was it going to be? And I believed in reincarnation there. And I believed in

reincarnation then. I heard the narrate of my experience saying, you'll not be born again. And I'm thinking, have I reached the top of my karmic link? I'll not be born again. And so now I understand it as a Christian, but at that hospital, there was a black Pentecostal chaplain. And that was not a community that was diverse. There's no way you get a black Pentecostal chaplain. And my dad had been a Pentecostal. And so he talked with me about Jesus, and I can remember telling him that I was a bad person, that if he talked with me, that he'd be lost. And so any self-respecting black Pentecostal pastor will rebeak that spirit. And so that's what he did. And there was a black cleaning lady, and she threw a book that I have now about Jesus in my hospital bed and said, this is all you need.

And that was like a turning point. and that black Pentecostal pastor arranged for me to get baptized in Trenton in, I think it was in February in a coal metal tub of ice water. You had to love Jesus to do that. Well, you know, something, it was, I went to church for about three months and going to that morning service. And during the morning service, they were well behaved. They were just like the Baptist. But then I went to an evening service, and they were doing that Pentecostal dances and shouting, and it terrified me, and I split. And so it took, and then for a while I was blended New Age, Eastern religions, and Christianity.

But when I went to Yale to get a fifth degree, because I have five degrees, I have one in business, one in criminal justice, two in political science. and then I got the master's in law after I had accepted the job at Vanderbilt. That was when I became a devout believer, and I realized what it meant to follow Jesus, and I got re-baptized. And even there, I attended a church just thinking that I was going to leave some money behind. I had some money. I wanted to give a church. I sat in the back.

I was waiting for the offering, and they did the altar call. and I went forward and I was sobbing and I was just stunned because I had not planned that for the day. And so, and I went back to next week and I ended up at the altar again sobbing. And then the third week, a lady put her hand on my shoulder and she said, the Lord tells me you need a mother. Why are you in New Haven? I would be your mother. And I had always felt like I didn't have a mother.

And I knew at that moment it was God. You know, I have listened to some of your presentations and have known you in the community a bit. And I've always been intrigued because you have this remarkable education and clearly a well-trained intellect. But you also are so willing to embrace spiritual things, the spiritual forces that pull on our lives and the need to be delivered and set free from them and the authority of Christ in doing that. We don't often find those things married together in people with academic achievement. They will embrace spiritual things as you are. God has a sense of humor, doesn't it? He does.

Because he gave me that scripture from Corinthians, 1, 26 through 27, how God takes the lowly things to confine the wise and the weak things to confound the mighty and all of these things so that no flesh might glory in his presence. And so that's one of the scriptures that he gave me, as well as Jeremiah 1-5, before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you and I called you. And the part of that chapter about Jeremiah where he says, you know, to speak and do not look at their faces,

well, I believe that the Lord has called me to speak and not look at their faces. And during that time when I had that, experience in the hospital, I thought I was dying because everything I'd heard was when your life plays in front of you, you die, and I didn't die. But I think I did die in a sense that I don't fear death because I thought I was dying. And I feel like that during that experience that God said, I've called you to be a martyr. And then I don't know, like, I certainly martyed my career. Well, I think you've got a far more valuable career now.

I think the return on this career will be far greater. I know. And so, like, for me, I know that we had this one life to live, and I want my life to can for something. And I want to hear God say, well done, my good and faithful servant, well done. And the thing I learned, too, is, you know, people that want to mock you, they're going to mock you anyway. And so, you know.

Your story reminds me a great deal of the Apostle Paul. You know, he said of himself, he was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. His academic credentials were unimpeachable. He was on the fast track, had achieved so much. And then he met Jesus. Well, I felt like Paul on the road to Damascus, because it just turned me around like 360 degrees. And the Lord took away my shyness.

And up until that point, I would always try to write out what I was going to say if I was going to introduce someone. And when I was teaching, it was torturous because I'd be trying to write out everything. And it's almost like instantly God took away that fear of public speaking. And I could speak without clutching the lectern. And then I could walk out into the audience like Oprah and all of a sudden. And then I decided, or I felt like the Lord said, I've given you a message, you know, bigger than you, and that he was only one I had to please. And I knew that when I was shy, I was so afraid of people laughing at me because of my

funny Southern accent, or I'd make a grammatical mistake, or they would hear my background in my accent. All of those things kept me silent. But when God really impressed my mind that he'd given me a message bigger than me and that I should speak and he was the only one I had to please, I was freed. in a way that that's how I'm able to do the things I have done. And he also delivered me from shyness, not just shyness, from depression, but I have to confess, too, that after I went through turmoil at Vanderbilt,

and during the time I was making my separation, and I took the early retirement, I realized that my identity wasn't in Christ. It was in being a university professor. And so I grieved it and I sort of went back into depression, not suicidal depression, but I felt the loss. It was like, this is the only thing I know how to do. And it took me, you know, two years to sort of reinvent myself or, you know, for God to bring me out in a new form. Well, change is not easy. I know.

I don't think what you describe is a sign of weakness. I think that's a description of transition. And if there's people listening to us going through transitions, it doesn't mean you're weak because you struggle with that. change is hard. But the Lord has written a whole new future for you. And you know something, if that hadn't happened around the, you know, the Islam and Al-Bid, I rode, the factors that led to me leaving academia, I'm reaching, you know, millions of people now.

I would never have been able to reach those people in the classroom and tenure, as you know, at the university, it's a cushy position. No one in their right mind gives up that tenure and walks away. I did. I'm telling you, it's more like Apostle Paul every day. I want to change directions just a bit. I have such compassion on parents that have children in schools these days, public schools, particularly the younger kids.

I think it's such a difficult environment and the economy's difficult. So a lot of homes, both parents are working. Their time is really limited. And I know the ones who have a heart for their kids, they want to help them. Can you coach them a little bit on what to do to help their kids not be indoctrine? in a system that has some weaknesses, but we still have an opportunity for it to educate our children. It's important. I mean, I have to be honest and real that the government schools, and I'm going to call

public schools government schools, because of the National Education Association and the teachers' unions, they have a clear agenda that's Marxist. And it's even more than that. I mean, they expose children to books about suicide ideation, about, um, you know, this, the LGBT agenda of causing little children to question telling them that their birth, their sex was assigned at birth, they may not really be a little boy, a little girl. Can you imagine the confusion for little children? And so if you're in public schools, you're almost certain that your child would be exposed to that.

I think parents can find like-minded parents and band together and push back. But even here in a state like Tennessee where we have conservatives in control, you still have all of this in the school with past legislation banning critical race theory and other ideologies. But it's still there because the teachers, many of them, have vowed to fight it. And there's something else that is terribly, terribly serious, is that I know that teachers who have won awards because they're gifted teachers. They were called into teaching, to be a teacher. They have been handed scripts that education has moved in a way that teachers are supposed to teach out of materials following a script. And so that constrains those teachers. And it means any idiot can follow a script.

And the teachers that are gifted, you know, with math or whatever, and they come up with their own creative ways of teaching, their hands are often tied. And I find myself urging parents, unless, you know, if they can, to homeschool. And it's not necessarily that difficult because they're co-ops and their resources to do that or to send that children to a classical Christian school. And many of those classical Christian schools are affordable. And so I think that those are options. But at the same time, I think that we have to save the public schools. We pay taxes.

We support those schools. those people are supposed to work for us. And so the parents just have to monitor and they have to, you know, make sure that children know because in the schools now, they are encouraging. Some teachers encouraging children to keep secrets from the parents. That's unbelievable. But there are godly people in those public school systems. Yes. Find them, encourage them, support them, cheer for them, affirm them.

I'm of the opinion that we have to take our public schools back. I agree. We can't surrender public education and abandon the children. No, we're paying for the public education. And what they're doing is really messing up kids. It used to be college students only that they mess with their minds. And now it's our children. That's true.

And one of the reasons I got involved with the battle against critical race theory and critical theory is that, you know, friends of mine and just so many stories of little white children, I'm talking about first grader's coming home crying because they had been shown inappropriate material. You don't take a first grader and show them the civil rights movement with the dog sick on the children or on the marchers. But material that maybe if they were in middle school or high school, it's okay to see some of this material. But it was really about white privilege. And they have really shamed a lot of white children, teenagers as well as the younger kids. that if they have two parents who love them,

they should be ashamed of that because that's privilege. You know something, anyone who has parents who love them and they have a mother and dad, they are privileged. We call it a blessing within the church. That is a blessing. It's not something to be ashamed of. There's a lot of wisdom there. What about, you know, I think even the Christian universities

are struggling with this, because they want the approval in the academic system. And the places... They're not struggling. They've just surrendered to it. You said it more plainly than I do. And it's a shame. It's a shame.

And I could name universities in Middle Tennessee. I mean, I could name universities that are close to Vanderbilt where the left has taken over and young people have gone there. Parents, you know, been funding these universities. They send their children there. sometimes the children totally lose their faith. And I've even heard of suicides. I've heard of things that were very dark that took place in those atmospheres, even while the university presidents are getting money, Christian money, and saying that this is a Christian education. It is not a Christian education. And the Marxists, you know, their agenda, the Marxists and the Fabian socialists for people that have studied philosophy, it was all about, infiltration, deception, manipulation. And so they've gone into the higher education now, K through 12,

and they have really basically indoctrinated the children with something that is not life-giving. You know, it's life-killing. Well, they're not educating. It's propaganda. No, it's not educating at all. And, you know, I'm very encouraged by, I speak at home schooling conferences. with the knowledge those young people have, even the little ones, you know, they know the Constitution,

they know the Bible, and many times they have a side job, you know, that they have an egg business or they have an art business. They're doing all kinds of things on the side. They're baking, and they're getting a real education. And I, the classical Christian schools are popping up. And I understand the Southern Baptist, a denomination that I'm part of, they, you know, are struggling. struggling because progressives have infiltrated their convention, but the other part of it is that they are seeing the need and they're encouraging churches to set up schools. And whether those schools will be great depends on the faculty and who runs them. But they realize that the government schools are not the solution. And to your point about public schools, I recently spoke to 400 teachers of public schools that had left teachers,

unions. And they were Christian, and they were people that felt like God had called them to be in the public schools. And I do believe that God calls teachers and some young people. Some young people can be the witness there, and they can survive public schools, and they know right from wrong. And one of the reasons we know how bad it is in public schools is that some of those children have curred materials home to their parents. And so they know, you know, you know, they're listening. They know when they hear something. They know when that teacher does something inappropriate. And so they're snitching. They're not snitching. That's not a positive thing. They are actually giving the parents the information they need to push back. Absolutely. We've been

having a struggle in our community with the school board and the libraries. The library is determined to keep books in those libraries that are obscene. And we've had a few victories lately, but it's a difficult battle. Are they doing the drags story, the drag queen story hour? Well, we did that in our city, and the city responded, fortunately. But they have books in the libraries, the elementary libraries, that are just pornographic. They're obscene. Describing.

Oh, I know. It's awful. But here's the thing is, like, when people, when the parents said you're teaching critical race theory, critical queer theory, you're teaching all these critical theories, the response was, no, not. Those are college level courses. No one is naming these people. Well, the people that are steeped in the critical theories, they have produced all kinds of materials. And even Black Lives Matter has a curriculum. And so they have videos. They have books. They have things that are geared towards politicizing and indoctrinating kids K through 12. And in the public schools, the children are going to be exposed to it. We have to continue to fight back in a conservative state or a red state,

like Tennessee, it shouldn't be the case. It should not be the case. And so, you know, we do have power. We pay taxes to support schools. And there has been a mass exodus of students. And black and Latino parents have sort of been, I think they're having the greatest growth in pulling out of the public schools and moving towards homeschooling.

Well, our listeners know my opinions. But I want to ask yours, the people that are proponents of this stuff in the libraries, say that when we come and say it's not appropriate, that we're in favor of banning books. I think that's a manipulation of language, but you're the expert. But that's what they do. I mean, everything is a manipulation of language.

The meanings of words have been changed. And so, of course, they always accuse people of what they're doing. And those books are there for a purpose. And the purpose is to steal the innocence of our children. and it makes it easier for the pedophiles, the pedophiles, and, you know, the people that are grooming children, because once they get exposed to these things, they get exposed to really pornography through the books and through the guys of learning, then it makes it easier for them to, you know, to be seduced by adults. They have a clear plan of what they're doing.

Well, and it isn't just intellectual. It opens their spirits to those things. Oh, I know. And they become so much more spiritually vulnerable. It's evil. Yeah, and I can tell you, this is kind of off point, but I can tell you that during the time in my journey, when I was reading the New Age and the various kinds of books,

that it opened the door to supernatural, demonic experiences. And one of the things that the Lord did for me after I had my conversion experience, was teach me spiritual warfare. And so I really, I mean, some of it, Derek Prince books about spiritual warfare. But, you know, eventually I went to a pastor that was focused on deliverance and stuff like that because I had opened the door through the things I was reading to the supernatural experiences. And there is a supernatural world. And even as a child, I knew that there was a supernatural world.

And that was one reason I didn't find satisfaction with traditional Christianity was that people were telling me, you know, there's no such thing as this. There's no such thing as that. And I knew better. Amen. Well, Dr. Swain, every time I have an opportunity to talk or listen to you, I want to extend the time. Perhaps you'd come back to Murfersboro and we can pick this up again. I would love to.

There's so many issues and so much at stake. And right now, I'm really grieving for our nation. I feel like, well, for one thing, America, as we've known it, it seems to be like it's over. And, you know, as a Christian, you know, maybe this has to happen. Maybe this has to happen for Jesus to return. But I love America, or not this version of it, the old version of it. And so it grieves me where we are in history. and I feel like a fasting, praying, and having courage,

and that people that are trying to be silent, they're trying to get along and go along, that they're being short-sighted. They're focusing on themselves, but while they're focused on themselves in their comfort, their children and their grandchildren, and, you know, they're not doing anything to make the world better for them if they're just worried about themselves.

In Romans, we're told to overcome evil. And I think the church now for too long has been trying to overlook evil. Right. That's not the same. Because we want to be loved. I'd rather the Lord be pleased with me than be loved by the devil. Right. Well, thank you so much.

You are a treasure. Thank you. I mean, I know you're in Tennessee, so I think you're a treasure to Tennessee, but you're a treasure to the body of Christ into our nation. Thank you for your courage and your boldness. You got something better than tenure. You got an assignment from the king. Thank you.

And to all of you, no matter what the circumstances of your beginning, God has a plan for your life. And if you will say yes to him and do put in the work and make the effort and continue to yield, God will bring a fruitfulness to your life that nobody would believe other than God. Dr. Swain is an example of that. I know I'm an example of that. And I believe you can be an example of that too. Amen.

You know, I've heard it said that Jesus wasn't involved in culture, that he was a theologian. Well, I'm quite certain the devil wants us to believe that. We have to take our faith outside the walls of the church and live it out in the world in which we find ourselves. I've written a new book, Jesus, his followers, and politics. It helps us take our biblical worldview into the culture and be difference makers. Folks, we can't hide in the churches and preach sermons. We've got to make an impact in this world with the good news of Jesus Christ. This book will give you a template, a roadmap for doing just that.

I believe it'll be a blessing to you. So many things that our culture calls political are actually biblical. Let's focus on following God and he'll provide all we need to take his truth to the people around us. Request your copy of Pastor Allen's new book, Jesus, His Followers and Politics. When you donate $25 or more today, just go to Alanjaxon.com or call 800-8805102. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast. and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too.

If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.