From “The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Dangerous Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy” by Matthew Boedy
The reason for Kirk’s animus is on display each semester as he conducts his tours of college campuses, inviting those who disagree with him to the front, only to be “schooled,” “burned,” or “owned” on video and then used as recurring content on Turning Point’s social media platforms. I have sat in the crowd for two of those events, astonished as I watched students cheer when Kirk mocked the education they are getting.
It was on clear display in August 2021 when as a new resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, Kirk stood maskless at a lectern a few feet away from the city’s school board, He was there to chastise them over their Covid mask-mandate policy. In shorts fit for the gym, sneakers, and a T-shirt emblazoned with three large red letters that spelled USA on the front, the 6-foot 4-inch unkempt Kirk angrily told the board members (all masked) that his new town, which leans conservative, felt more like the liberal bastion of San Francisco due to “all of you and your self-righteous measures that you’re [taking] to abuse the children of this wonderful state.”
Citing statistics as he read from prepared notes on his phone about the impact of the “Chinese coronavirus” on children and claiming the district’s mask mandate went against the “will of the taxpayers,” Kirk pinched his pointer finger at the members to emphasize his disgust. On its YouTube page, Turning Point described the scene this way: “Charlie goes off.” Kirk ended his more than three-minute barrage with a civic threat: “Your time is soon up. The people of this state and this school district are rising up…You have awoken a sleeping giant. I hope you enjoy your masked short-term future while it still lasts.”
Kirk’s threat is not empty. It is the energy behind Turning Point’s sweeping plan to destroy public education, following models and tactics used in the past by other groups pushing their shared desire for a more patriotic, religious education. But what separates Turning Point from other groups is how it has taken on the animus of its founder to such a degree that its efforts to conquer the mountain of education are not aimed at persuasion but punishment. And the punishment is part of the pedagogy. It is supposed to teach like the rod on the child, as the often-quoted proverb says. Unlike previous attacks on education from supporters of the seven mountains mandate, the plan isn’t to build a parallel education system where conservative White families can flee the evils of integration and evolution. Turning Point isn’t merely interested in expanding Christian schools, recruiting more parents to enroll their children, or for churches to start new schools. Its goal is also to punish public education as a system for curriculum choices that go against God. In a nation whose children and public schools continue to diversify, that might sound like empty rhetoric, anger from a group dedicated to a lost cause. But the seven mountains mandate was never about majority rule. Rather, the vision is for a righteous minority to gain power. In education, this minority will be school board members and principals who are linked to well-funded churches across the nation overseeing a curriculum transformation. This advancing truth will “teach ‘em” in more than one way.