The Opium of the Pupils: How a Marxist False Gospel Is Undermining Education

For years, public education systems have been discipling young people to believe a destructive false gospel. This reality helps explain why youth we know and love may seem to be learning less about reading, math, and science than about activism, sexuality, and liberal ideology. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going on and what we can do about it.

Giving Students Extra Marx

Through an approach known as “critical pedagogy,” schools are teaching students to think and act like modern Marxists.1 This approach has been pervading mainstream education, as a 2015 article in the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies reveals:

After several decades of existing on the educational fringe, it is safe to say that critical pedagogy has entered the mainstream in the United States. . . . Academic conferences such as the American Educational Research Association regularly feature hundreds of sessions related to critical pedagogy and there are special interest groups solely devoted to scholarship in the field. Critical pedagogy and its left-centrist derivative social justice is also applied to previously untouched contexts, from teaching math to physical education. Social justice has even been incorporated into business and sustainability degree programs, including the concept of servant leadership.2

In other words, schools are teaching students to view every subject through a Marxist lens. The authors, in fact, expressed concern that schools are still not anti-capitalistic enough, calling for “a Marxian reclamation of critical pedagogy” in response.3 The goal of such teaching is for students to live out a Marxist worldview by becoming activists who will break down the current social order and build a new one. The article positively quotes a book that states this objective openly:

This revolutionary pedagogy takes as its ultimate goal the socialist reconfiguration of capitalist society taking special care to avoid past mistakes, such as any element of Stalinist authoritarianism, prescriptions or attacks on freedom.4

Put differently, the purpose is to raise up modern communists. As the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the USA clarifies, “Socialism is the necessary stage between capitalism and communism.”5 Importantly, the resulting society would not base its laws on God’s Word, as these points from the Party’s vision for the future reveal:

• Abortion services will be available free and on demand. . . .
• All forms of bigotry, discrimination or the promotion of hatred against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and queer people, or against anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, will be eliminated, including in marriage rights, employment, housing, adoption and health care. . . .
• No law or measure will give preference in word or in deed that favors heterosexual relationships, or the nuclear family form, over other relationships.
• There will be a sustained public education campaign promoting the goals of multinational working-class unity and international solidarity, the advancement of women’s rights, the promotion of respect of sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, as well as exposing the evils of racism,6 sexism, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, xenophobia, and bigotry based on ability or national chauvinism. . . . .7

Clearly, biblical views on the family will not be tolerated. So when push comes to shove, faithful Christians who uphold God’s Word as their highest authority will also not be tolerated. Notably, such attacks on a biblical view of the family have long been part of socialist agendas—and of their dark spiritual roots, as this article unpacks.

This is the kind of society today’s schools are building. To see how, let’s look more closely at the worldview that critical pedagogy instills.

What They’re Really Learning

Critical pedagogy teaches students to view the world as a battleground between two warring sides: the oppressors and the oppressed. According to this thinking, for instance, most European settlers are oppressors, and most other people groups are oppressed. Men are oppressors, while women are oppressed. Christians who accept God’s Word on sexuality are oppressors, while people who identify as LGBTQ are oppressed. Humans (especially capitalists) are oppressors, while the environment is oppressed.8

This is not a biblical view, which condemns oppression in terms of sinful actions and attitudes against others.9 Instead, this view tends to prejudge people as guilty of being oppressors based on their group identity, regardless of their behaviors or character.

According to such thinking, oppressors enjoy all the power in society. Institutions that keep society stable—including the church, government, and family—serve as instruments of oppression. The only solution is to break down society through revolution and build a new social order.

To accomplish this, the oppressed need to take away power from the oppressors, committing a type of cultural revolution in the name of “social justice.” Redefining justice goes along with redefining good and evil.10 Virtually anything that disempowers oppressors—potentially even by violence, looting, or vandalism—may be seen as “good.”11 And virtually anything that keeps oppressors in power—including, supposedly, the nuclear family—is seen as “evil.”12

Clearly, these views do not come from God’s Word.

They come, directly or indirectly, from Marxism.

Karl Marx taught that humanity’s problems stem not from sin but from socioeconomic conditions. These conditions created an inherently oppressive society, culminating in a wealthy class exploiting a working class. What did Marx propose as the only solution to redeem humanity from this problem? Revolution. The world’s workers must overthrow their oppressors and create a communist society, where government, religion, family, and private property will eventually disappear.

Ultimately, Marxism is a false gospel, where a false savior redeems us from a false original problem to usher in a false heaven on earth. And false gospels always lead to real consequences.

Marxism: The Opium of the Pupils

We can expect to see more of these consequences as more students reach voting age. Meanwhile, one consequence we’re already observing is the undermining of education.

Effectively, the focus is less on teaching math than on discipling modern Marxists.

Traditionally, education involves teaching skills that will help students think, speak, and function for themselves within stable, free societies. But Marxists don’t want to further stabilize society. They want to revolutionize it. If reading, writing, and math sustain oppressive societies, then schools’ primary purpose should not be to teach these skills (beyond the extent to which they’ll support Marxist-related causes). Instead, the purpose should be to train revolutionary activists.13

As an example of how this mindset plays out in real classrooms, consider the highly funded curriculum known as “Equitable Math.” The curriculum might sound great at first—until a closer look reveals what it really says. It tells teachers to “re-envision” the “purpose of math education,” to “challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist14 views,” and to teach students to “use math as resistance.”15 Effectively, the focus is less on teaching math than on discipling modern Marxists.

Another example comes from a 2023 article that, leaning on Marxist-based educational approaches, calls for using the topic of climate change to transform students into activists. The authors declare, “Educators should develop a critical pedagogy where community change and political activism are the core.”16 Activism is to become the core of education—in the name of climate change.

To the extent that activism has displaced academics, we shouldn’t be surprised to see changes in students’ thinking abilities. (Incidentally, the less students can think for themselves, the better they’ll be at following the community guidelines of the new society. Students may also feel less inclined to think and speak for themselves when they can download their thoughts and words from AI chatbots—many of which appear to have left-wing political biases.17)

These trends point to a grim irony. Where Karl Marx once called religion “the opium of the people,”18 Marxism now looks suspiciously like a mind-numbing opium of the pupils.

What Can We Do?

The antidote to lies is the truth. And the basis for truth is God’s Word. All education is worldview education. So the most important response for Christian parents is to make sure their children are truly learning from a biblical worldview foundation. Beware though: Not all Christian schools and curricula present a biblical worldview. Faith-based schools may merely add Bible verses onto secular programs, like cherries on a poisoned sundae.19

Along with promoting genuinely biblical education, here are a few other ideas for how parents, pastors, and everyday Christians can respond to Marxist training in schools:

• Start by strengthening your own personal foundations to keep and live out a biblical worldview. These include spiritual foundations (a close walk with God fueled by Scripture, worship, and prayer), intellectual foundations (apologetics knowledge and critical thinking skills), and interpersonal foundations (a strong Christian community, including a biblical local church).
• Find opportunities to mentor young people, to help them build these same foundations.
• Learn more about the Marxist worldview students are learning and how it opposes God’s Word, so you can better coach young people to recognize and resist it.
• Teach (and model) the skills young people need to think and speak for themselves. One way is to share biblical critical thinking resources with students from ministries like Answers in Genesis.
• Raise awareness among parents and church leaders, even simply by sharing resources that reveal how a Marxist false gospel is influencing youth.
• Pray for students, educators, and education systems that young people would hear truth instead of lies.
• Share the true gospel, which alone has the power to change hearts in ways that counter genuine oppression and injustices.

Summing Up

Other resources like Modern Marxism provide a much more detailed breakdown of these issues and of how Christians can respond. But this overview offers a glimpse of how thoroughly mainstream education systems have become modern Marxist discipleship centers. These centers displace the focus of education from academics to activism, for the stated goal of ushering in a new social order that will not tolerate faithful Christians. In response, Christians must be at least as intentional about discipling the next generation as modern Marxists are.