UPDATED! Collectivism 133, Part 1: Lucifer, the Son with Morning Wood

Written 1981, Revised 2002

Hello there, and welcome back to Awful Christian Education

Today, I’m excited to introduce the PACEs (Packets of Accelerated Christian Education) by starting my review series on Collectivism, a senior government elective in the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. These are the ‘textbooks’ that make up the ACE curriculum. I’m going to briefly explain how they work, give an overview of “Collectivism,” and then we’ll review the first seven pages of this PACE, which begins building the Satanic conspiracy theory that underpins this curriculum.

PACEs all look like some variation of this:

Exhibit

PACEs take the place of textbooks in the ACE curriculum, with each course made up of either 6 or 12 separate PACEs. Courses like Collectivism are a half semester, and so only have six PACEs, while courses with twelve PACEs are two semesters long. With few exceptions, all the PACEs in a course will be the same number of pages. From 4th to 11th grade the page count ranges from 32 to 59, but in twelfth grade there’s a bit more variation as you’ll see in this Collectivism course.

I know that sounds like a heavy workload for the student, but it isn’t.

The PACEs are formatted very differently than secular textbooks. Public school textbooks are notorious for having dead space within them, often created by some silly picture or other, but the PACEs are on another level. Well over half of the pages in the PACEs are taken up by multiple choice and fill in the blank questions. Further, most PACEs have a handful of pages that are strictly dedicated to vocabulary words that they will often redefine in the limited amount of text that remains available.

Then, every page of text has some amount of space on the outer margin that is dedicated to graphics, pictures, quotes, Scripture verses and, every now and then, information relevant to the topic at hand. Often this cuts into 20% to 30% of every section of text. Further still, almost every PACE contains some number of pages that are dedicated strictly to the ‘in universe’ story that plays out in the comic strips. For example, in the 4th grade Social Studies PACEs, the first 15 out of 39 pages are all about the main characters ‘fellowshipping’ with side characters who were missionaries. Some of the tests in that course ask questions about the fake story.

I recently went down the rabbit hole of trying to determine exactly how much educational text exists in their 7th grade Science course, and the answer is ‘not much!’

Life Science 1075: And Then There Were Two

Each PACE in every grade has 3 check-ups that are evenly dispersed throughout the PACE. Then there’s a self-test, followed by a test. By the time the student is answering questions on a test, they have been asked these very same questions at least three times prior in the exact same way, with occasional changes to the grammar.

The primary critique that has been publicly leveled at ACE through newspapers and academic publications is that the PACEs rely solely on rote recall. Read and regurgitate. This critique is pretty surface level, but it’s true in every possible sense. ACE’s students don’t have opportunities to explore topics in any of the core classes on a deeper level, and it’s the same when the student reaches high school. At no point in Collectivism is the student asked to do a paper on a ‘collectivist’ movement of their choosing. They aren’t asked to give a report on a chapter of Das Kapital, or about Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” By not challenging the student, they’re left feeling like an expert in political theory when, in reality, all this course contains are John Birch Society talking points and the esoteric convictions of the author.¹

In ACE private schools, K-12 students work through PACEs by themselves at desks that look like this:

I can still smell this room.

All students have an American flag and a Christian flag at their desk. The Christian flag is raised when a student has a question for the supervisors and monitors (ACE’s version of teachers, since they don’t need a license to educate with this title). When a student is ready to score their work, they raise their American flag, and the supervisor/monitor calls on them to go to the scoring table, which is the furniture behind the students in the picture above.

At the scoring table, the student checks their answers to the recall questions against a “scoring key.” When they get an answer wrong, they mark it with a red x and then return to their seat, fix the problem, re-raise their flag, return to the desk to confirm they corrected the problem, and then repeat the process as necessary.

If you’re asking, ‘Score your own work? Wouldn’t you just cheat?’

Yes… Every student in every school does to some degree, and every single supervisor either pretends to not know, or is dumb enough to believe the student somehow won’t. It’s quite literally impossible not to. Some of the classic moves include things like filling in answers you know to be wrong so that you can get to the scoring table, memorize the correct answers, and rinse and repeat. Some of us would flip to a few pages ahead in the scoring key and then slooowly make our way back to the page we were suppose to be scoring. The least classy among us would just take a pencil to the scoring table and call it a day.

ACE schools don’t have classes or teachers (for the most part), they have a “supervisor” and maybe a “monitor” or two in each class. In most places that ACE operates, the supervisors don’t need any qualifications to teach, as all of the teaching is done through the PACEs, which were originally written by Donald Howard and his freak friends. Both supervisors and monitors are typically the uneducated parents of a student, though this depends on which state/country the school is located. Some states do require private school teachers have a relevant degree, but enforcement is almost impossible, and rarely applies to the monitors. They get paid pennies to essentially preside over a day-care.

This is only possible because many states in the US don’t have meaningful rules or regulations regarding what a curriculum should and shouldn’t teach. These are Texas regulations for example:

Accreditation: optional

Registration: no requirements

Licensing: no requirements

Approval: no requirements

The Department of Education has a list of each state’s regulations for private schools on this pdf file. The PDF seems to contain more detailed information than the old webpage this used to be on.

Collectivism is a senior government elective. I chose this course to do first because it is genuinely just a stream of Donald Howard’s extremely racist and delusional conscious. I also chose it because it was my favorite course growing up with the ACE curriculum (K-12 baby!). This felt like the real, esoteric good stuff that Fox News wasn’t bold enough to say out loud.

Collectivism concerns utopias, philosophers, secret societies, conspiracy theories, angelic combat, demonic possession, race science, Satanic spirit magic, political movements, and more, all filtered through its author and creator’s white supremacist and Christian Nationalist worldview. It aims to produce confidently incorrect, ultra-nationalist zealots made in the image of Donald. Boiled down, Collectivism is just another of his fascist manifestos, but rewritten as a child’s fill-in-the-blank activity book.

A “collectivist” or “collectivism” is a derogatory term thrown around by John Birch Society freaks and their friends. It’s doublespeak for ‘any group that isn’t strictly far-right and ultra-national.’ The Church, Republicans, Christians, and white supremacists - none of those are considered collectives. They’re many coordinated individuals working together for a common goal, but they’re totally not like a collective. It’s different, bro.

Right-wing nuts use “Collectivist” in the same, undefined way they do “Globalist,” “Humanist,” “Communist,” “Atheist,” or “Gay/trans.” These words just mean ‘something I can’t define, but hate with every fiber of my being.’ This Exhibit greets the student on page 1. For those that haven’t read my previous posts, the tone of this text perfectly matches that of Donald’s manifestos:

Exhibit

THE FALL OF SATAN

Human dissatisfaction

Throughout human history, mankind has repeatedly attempted to create a perfect society. Every would-be social planner, however, has his own unique conception of what constitutes that perfect society. Equally as strong as the utopian’s unquenchable desire to remake the world is his demand that everyone else be forcibly jammed into his narrow Procrustean mold. Never does a man set up a utopia for himself alone, but for a community of beings. To some degree, therefore, all attempts at societal perfectionism involve the collective man and are examples of collectivism.

Collectivism 133, page 1

Those that have been reading my posts probably recognize this Exhibit for the projection that it is. Every accusation against collectivist movements is a confession of the John Birch Society’s and Heritage Foundation’s stated goal to create a White Christian utopia, which I’d describe as somewhat of a “narrow Procrustean mold.”

Of course, he confronts this looming double standard head on with a classic ‘trust me bro, it’s different because God is on our side’:

Exhibit

The failures of utopias

Human governments and social organizations are not in themselves evil. Both kinds of institutions are needed by man and ordained by God.

…any human endeavor instigated without the direct agency of God is fallible and ultimately doomed to failure. The only earthly “utopia” to which we may look with complete expectation of success is the government which will be instituted under the direct and personal Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Collectivism 133, page 2

When Donald claims that the only possible utopia is “the direct and personal Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he isn’t being abstract about a future event that he has no control over. Donald truly believed that establishing America as a Christian nation could trigger the second coming of the Christ. He fancied he and his pals would do a sort of hand-over-the-keys-to-the-city thing with Jesus Himself “at or around the year AD 2000.”

I hate continually teasing this, so here’s a (tiny) taste of the delusions this man was experiencing as he wrote the PACEs. This is pulled from a chapter in World Awakening titled “IN THE LAST DAYS. . .”[sic]

Exhibit

When will this happen?

All the evidence points convincingly to a time at or around the year 2000. As already pointed out, a host of Christian organizations and leaders have this year as their target. In addition, all the “signs” (fulfilled prophecies) also point to A.D. 2000.

World Awakening, page 174

Going back to the rote recall conversation - here’s some questions that follow the paragraph on page 1:

Exhibit

Collectivism 133, page 2

This is meant for 17 and 18 year olds…

Getting back to the text, it’s explicitly clear that Satan is behind every attempt to improve the material conditions of human beings:

Exhibit

The problem lies in the fact that in every instance of abortive utopian activity, prideful homo sapiens has defiantly shaken his fist of clay in the face of Almighty God and blasphemously proclaimed, “I will create the perfect world where You have failed.” The reverberating “I will” echoes and re-echoes across the pages of recorded history as an ever-present indictment of humanity’s inherent sin nature. Man’s evil imagining that he, better than God, could direct the functioning of the world, is not original with him. One greater than man, indeed, the highest of created beings, anticipated every attempt of humans to “do their own thing.”

Collectivism 133, page 2

Saying that Satan is behind every human’s attempt to improve their material conditions in spite of the current social or economic hierarchy is quite the accusation. To make this case, Donald begins by establishing the hierarchies of “created beings”:

Exhibit

The angelic realm

Angels, like the human race, were the specific creation of God; but, unlike men, they neither reproduce nor die. Since their creation, the angels have always been; but there was a time before they were.

The Bible gives us the names of only three of these angelic beings—Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. Michael is specifically referred to as an archangel, and it has been suggested that all three might have been originally given that title and position. It is possible that each of these possible archangels was given charge over one third of the angels of heaven.

Lucifer, the son of the morning

Angels were created stronger and wiser than men, but less so than God. The archangels, Michael and Gabriel, probably possess greater power and glory than the average angels. Chief among all the angels, however, was Lucifer—the highest of all created beings. Even now, only the triune God is stronger than Lucifer. Even the archangel Michael fears to challenge him in his own strength (Jude 9).

Collectivism 133, page 3, 4

If your theory kicks off with a “probably” or an “it’s possible” or “it has been suggested” in just about every other sentence, you need to go back to the drawing board. This uncertainty would deter a good-faith educator from publishing this as academically researched material, but alas, that doesn’t increase a company’s profit margins. So here we are. Couching his work in “it’s possible” is a staple right-wing method of preemptively deflecting criticism. It’s coward shit.

My friend Brad dropped an response in the comments about the PACE’s claim that Jude 9 means ‘the archangel Michael is scared of Lucifer,’ and it’s a bit more informative than mine.

Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

Jude 9

My initial take was that if ‘I shall have no fear’ because ‘the Lord my God is with me,’ than what the fuck does an archangel have to be scared about??

Here, the PACE reduces God’s authority to a matter of legality:

Exhibit

Lucifer had been created perfect, but iniquity was found in him—the sin of pride. God’s perfect creature sinned. Lucifer had no dark desire to commit any foul and licentious acts of gross immorality. His sin was simply wanting to “do his own thing.” The heavenly society could be greatly improved if only he, Lucifer, replaced God as the sovereign ruler…

Lucifer led one third of the angels of Heaven into open revolt against God in an attempt to set up his own “utopia.” Not only did Lucifer sin himself, but he caused another third of the host of God to sin also. Second Peter 2:4 speaks of these “. . . angels that sinned. . .” and Jude 6 tells us about “. . . angels who kept not their first estate. . .” The above quoted Biblical passages record for us the first collectivist revolution against legal authority…

At any event, the stage was set for all future rebellions; and Lucifer (now Satan, “the adversary”) would prove to be the ultimate author of them all.

Collectivism 133, page 6

And not for nothing, but “collectivist,” and “utopia,” appear exactly zero times in the King James Bible, the one used by the curriculum. Also, this bit about how “Lucifer had no dark desire to commit… gross immorality” is another classic right-wing rhetorical trick employed to demonize even the most passive leftists on the grounds that their desire for a better world is Satanic and dangerous, whether they mean for it to be or not.

To drive home the point that any opposition to the status quo is evil, this question appears after the text:

Exhibit

Once he had failed in his attempt to overthrow God, Satan never involved himself in any more rebellions. (True or false?) _______

Collectivism 133, page 7

I’m mean, who else could it be, huh?

To reiterate my point that this course is literally just one of Donald’s manifestos in a faux-educational format, this is from his very first manifesto published in 1976, five years before this PACE:

Is Satan real? You can see his footprints across the pages of history. From the beginning Lucifer mastered the fall of man, deceived Eve in the garden of Eden, tempted man with the vain deceitful religion of humanism…

He’s just the god of this world “doing his thing.”

To Save a Nation, page 136

That’s all I have for today. In Part 2 we’ll learn about the combat effectiveness and one versus one prowess of various celestial beings, and discover that Eve was a dumb dirty slut who must have been secretly lusting after that forbidden fruit. Thank you for reading Awful Christian Education!

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6

1. No, I’m being serious. A venn-diagram of ACE writers and contributors would just be a circle that says “Christian Reconstructionists,” “John Birch Society Freaks,” and “members of the Heritage Foundation.”