Enslaved to Everything

Under the Ban

We posted yesterday about the PC madness that now swirls around breast feeding.  Nanny-state is rising up in an attempt to control every part of the human anatomy, except (for the moment) the rear end.  Oh, wait.  Given enough time it will even attempt to control human methane emissions--to prevent the earth from destruction, don't you know.

This madness illustrates a corollary of G. K. Chesterton's bon mot: "When people cease to believe in God they do not believe in nothing; they begin to believe in everything."  The corollary is this: when people cease to submit to God they do not remain at liberty; they become enslaved to everything.  Human rules replace God's rules; and human rules crush.

Here is an apt example: playdough.  "What," we hear you ask?  For generations mothers and early childhood educators have baked playdough out of flour to create a wonderfully malleable, colourful substance to entertain and develop young children.  No longer it seems.  Playdough is coming under the ban.


Playdough, you see, offends Maori.  Therefore it is being banned from pre-schools and schools.  Thou shalt not make or play with playdough--or any other vegetable or food for that matter.  This from Stuff: 

The days of making macaroni necklaces and potato prints at kindergarten are quickly becoming a thing of the past - and playdough may be the next to go.  Many early-learning centres are banning, or at least restricting, the use of food as a play tool because it is deemed culturally insensitive, or "bad tikanga".

Some Maori centres have even stopped using playdough because it is made from edible ingredients.  Last week, Amy Clark, Christchurch-based director of early learning centre website My Child New Zealand, posted on the group's Facebook page an activity using the unwanted end of a celery stick to paint a rose. The post sparked a heated online debate.  "Someone questioned whether it was OK to do that," she said. Clark said there appeared to be a "general consensus" only food unfit for consumption could be used in art, although one mother posted: "I would still go ahead to use my vegetables to paint".

At least the attitude and spirit of liberty still resides in the heart of Amy Clark.  She would still paint with her vegetables.  What a free human being!  

There are two new laws to enslave us here.  One is Maori culture which enslaves people, forbidding them to play with foodstuffs.  This is pretty typical for animist primitivism.  The second law is the law of RESPECT.  Because there are starving poor in the world, all food should be sacred.  Here now the high priestesses speak:

Titoki Black, from the Te Kohanga Reo National Trust said some of their rural and Auckland centres did not use playdough. The trust has several Maori early childhood centres across New Zealand, including in Christchurch. "Because it is made from flour and water, which is used to make bread, Maori are not comfortable about using playdough and having it thrown around, turning it into beads and wearing it around your neck," she said.   "Anything from the land. Clay, leaves, that's what we are encouraging. It's not that all kohanga reo are banning [playdough], it's just that it's Maori practice that you do not play with food."

Christchurch pre-schools The Press spoke to had not banned playdough but were careful about food use. Kimihia Early Learning Centre manager Maureen Holden said they had a policy not to use food as a teaching tool. The centre still allowed the use of playdough but would look at a change if an alternative was available. "You'd be hard pressed to find a pre-school or kindergarten that uses food. Food is for eating," she said. "It's bad tikanga and there's (sic) families out there that are lacking food."

Cherry's Early Learning Centre manager Gill White said they viewed it as disrespectful to play with food when people in the world were starving.  In the past they had used fruit and potatoes for printing and macaroni for pasting and threading, but "the thinking has shifted".

Yes, the thinking has certainly shifted.  From what to where?  From submission to the Living Creator Who gave all of the creation to man as a good gift to enjoy, rule over, and develop; a Creator Who celebrates abundance, Who sets His people free. Our culture has shifted from the glorious liberty of living under the law of God to enslaving ourselves to the creation.  When men no longer live in submission to God, they become enslaved to everything.  Don't do this or that, don't eat, touch, taste, or do anything. 

The Bible says that such things are the doctrines of demons (I Timothy 4: 1--5)  Human beings are creatures.  They will either choose to submit to the Creator or they will be enslaved to Nature.  The yoke of God is easy and light; the yoke of  Nature is demonic.  Touch not.  Taste not. Speak not. Eat not. Men are left chained in the dark gnawing at their own bones.