The Children of God

David soon found out you can tangle with the religious system and get away with it for a while, but when, like Jeremiah, you start fighting city hall, the government, and the educational system, they get you real fast.

But that’s what he did when, also like Jeremiah of old, he began to expose the government-enforced religion of America: its compulsory education system.

When David’s son Aaron came to him complaining that he was being taught the atheism of evolution in his biology class at Miami Beach High School, David went to bat for him, going through seven school officials to get his son taken out of the class. In fact, they weren’t even going to do that until he found out that the school was violating Florida state statutes by using a biology textbook that was not on the authorized state textbook list, and he went to the principal and vice-principal of the school and threatened to expose them for what they were doing.

He went home feeling happy and satisfied, as most Christians would, that he had been active and stood up for what he believed and had gotten his son out of that class. But he couldn’t sleep that night. The Lord spoke to his heart, “So now you’re satisfied they can’t poison your boy’s mind anymore, but you don’t care what happens to all the rest of the kids in this town. You let them go to hell and let them eat poison.” He asked the Lord to forgive him and promised to appear before the school board meeting the next morning.

He stayed up that night to read the textbook, wrote a six-page report and letter, and appeared before the board the next morning to tell them that if they didn’t remove this book, he was going to do something about it.

They refused—and he began to do something about it! He got a petition of 10,000 signatures and took it to Washington, D.C., to the Commission on Civil Rights, causing a federal investigation, fines against several of the scientists involved in the federally sponsored textbook, and temporary cessation of funds to the project.

The story of his fight against evolution and his threat to reopen the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” was picked up by radio, television and the newspapers as far away as the London “Daily Mail”. He spoke on radio and television himself, and also before the Evangelical Ministers’ Association of some 70 ministers, pleading with them to stand up for their rights. He told them he had the school system by law and wanted the ministers to go to court in the name of the Evangelical Ministers’ Association as William Jennings Bryan did in the name of the Fundamentalists Association of America, and attack this teaching of evolution in the public schools.

The textbook was commonly known as the B.S.C.S., “Biological Sciences Curriculum Studies”. It was an illegally federally-funded textbook costing the federal government $4.5 million of the taxpayers’ money. No greater amount of money had ever been spent on a textbook in the world’s history.

They had the local school on a violation of a state statute that carried a $10,000 fine, a year in jail, and cancellation of the credentials of every teacher who taught the book. The woman responsible for bringing the book to the Miami schools was so horror-stricken by this terrific onslaught by this one man threatening to engulf her and many others in lawsuits and fines, that she ended up in bed, a complete nervous and mental wreck.

The system wasn’t through with David either! After his seventh board meeting with school officials at which he told them, “That’s it; we’re going to court!”—within one week, five different officials from five different city and county agencies visited his house and condemned it as a public health hazard that would have to be destroyed soon! And within a few weeks, it was torn down to the ground!

But by that time David’s job was almost done. Of those more than 70 ministers of the Evangelical Association, only 19 had somewhat reluctantly felt that they should stand with him; but threatened with the same reprisals, they, too, decided to back out of the fight. And with no support, David and his little family were run out of town again.