The California Department of Education (CDE) agreed last week to remove two religious chants from a state-approved curriculum following a lawsuit filed by the Equal Rights Foundation, individual taxpayers and concerned parents.
The disputed program required students to pray to Aztec gods.
Attorneys with the Thomas More Society announced Thursday that the CDE will issue a public notice to all California school districts, charter schools and county offices of education, and the State Board of Education (SBE), agreeing not to promote use of the chants in California public schools.
CBN News previously reported that the curriculum reportedly features its own “ethnic studies community chant” and recommends teachers lead students in a series of indigenous songs, chants, and affirmations, including the “In Lak Ech Affirmation,” which appeals directly to the Aztec gods.
In addition, the curriculum includes the Ashe Prayer from the Yoruba religion. Yoruba is an ancient spiritual concept that is the root of many pagan religions, including Santeria and Haitian Vodou or Voodoo.
“We filed the lawsuit after we discovered that California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, a resource guide for local school districts, included prayer to Aztec gods – the same deities that were invoked when the Aztecs worshipped with human sacrifices,” said Paul Jonna, partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP and Thomas More Society Special Counsel.
“The Aztec prayers at issue – which seek blessings from and the intercession of these demonic forces – were not being taught as poetry or history,” Jonna said. “Rather, the curriculum instructed students to chant the prayers for emotional nourishment after a ‘lesson that may be emotionally taxing or even when student engagement may appear to be low.’ The idea was to use them as prayers.”
The curriculum, which is rooted in critical race theory and critical pedagogy, claims that these activities can “bring the class together, build unity around ethnic studies principles and values” and “reinvigorate the class following a lesson that may be emotionally taxing.”
The Aztec Prayer, in particular, repeatedly conjures, makes requests to and gives thanks to five deities, such as Tezkatlipoka (god of the Night Sky), Quetzalkoatl (god of the Morning and Evening Star), Huitzilopochtli (God of Sun and War), Xipe Totek (god of Spring) and Hunab Ku (god of the Universe).
According to the Thomas More Society, the prayer has actually been located within classroom instructions in the San Diego Unified School District and Salinas Union High School District.
“We are encouraged by this important, hard-fought victory,” announced Frank Xu, President of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, who joined parents in the lawsuit. “Our state has simply gone too far in attempts to promote fringe ideologies and racial grievance policies, even those that disregard established constitutional principles. Endorsing religious chants in the state curriculum is one glaring example. To improve California public education, we need more people to stand up against preferential treatment programs and racial spoils. At both the state and local levels, we must work together to re-focus on true education.”
Additionally, these chants have a clear significance: a shift away from the Christian God to the establishment of native ‘gods’ in the so-called social justice hierarchy.
“Today is a day of relief,” said Jose Velazquez, one of the parents who filed suit against the state. “To know it took a multi-racial coalition of individuals with different backgrounds and beliefs to move a mountain to challenge the state education apparatus. It is up to courageous parents, citizens and organizations to stand up for what’s right.”
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
City Journal Contributing Editor Christopher F. Rufo penned an article in early 2021 describing what was included in the curriculum.
“Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka—whom the Aztecs traditionally worshipped with human sacrifice and cannibalism—asking him for the power to be ‘warriors’ for ‘social justice,'” he wrote. “Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking ‘healing epistemologies’ and ‘a revolutionary spirit.’ Huitzilopochtli, in particular, is the Aztec deity of war and inspired hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices during Aztec rule. Finally, the chant comes to a climax with a request for ‘liberation, transformation, and decolonization,’ after which students shout ‘Panche beh! Panche beh!’ in pursuit of ultimate ‘critical consciousness.”
Rufo went on to explain that Parents had every right to be concerned, because “under the guise of ‘equity’ and ’empowerment,’ activists within the public education system” developed radical curriculums “in order to transform California schools into factories for left-wing political activism.”
“They have recast the United States as an oppressor nation that must be deconstructed and subverted through politics,” he insisted. The curriculum’s vision statement makes this aim explicit: it presents education not as a means of achieving competency, but as a ‘tool for transformation, social, economic, and political change, and liberation.”
David Fiorazo, host of the radio show and podcast “Stand up for the Truth,” recently explained that “anything goes – with one exception – in our ABC culture: Anything but Christ and the biblical worldview.”
“I would speculate that we cannot reverse this locomotive of immorality. Parents and concerned citizens, please understand they’re recruiting children and have already converted an army of young rebels and social justice activists,” Fiorazo asserted.
In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus warns people against placing stumbling blocks in front of children promoting them to sin:
Matthew 18:6 KJV – “But whoso shall offend [cause to sin/place stumbling block in front of] 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.”
