The Push For School Chaplains Comes To Pennsylvania. Who's Behind It?
From Bucks County Beacon
The push for school chaplains is coming from a Christian proselytizing group and has now come to Pennsylvania courtesy of a rep with ties to the New Apostolic Reformation.
Meet the National School Chaplain Association, the “world’s largest provider of certified school chaplains.” The organization has its roots in the early 1990s, with a group founded by CEO Rocky Malloy.
Malloy has a heck of a story (you can watch a short documentary about it here) that goes from his life as a drug-smuggling pirate to the Contra/Sandinista Civil War to preaching in the jungles of Honduras. He founded a group called Mission Generation and worked in schools of Bolivia, basing their work on the “Seven Principles found in the first chapters of Genesis.” Said a piece covering the couple’s work in 2015, the program “focused on life skills, principles, values and purpose for living — all centered on Jesus’ life and teachings.”
“It’s good to know God can give you a new direction at any time,” Rocky adds.
That time turned out to be 2017, as described in the synopsis of the documentary:
“In keeping with their never-ending, true-life adventure, in 2017, Rocky and Joske fled the Communist government of Bolivia to the US. Today, they are maintaining their work through-out Latin America, while embarking on their greatest challenge to date, bringing The Seven Principals to public schools in America.“
The newly-renamed National School Chaplain Association (still named Mission Generation, Inc. in its IRS non-profit paperwork) was soon active in certifying its own cadre of school chaplains. Headquartered in Norman, Oklahoma, the group has a board of 10 members, including Malloy. Their bios show a background in corporate and finance work, as well as a devotion to their faith. Robert Thatcher, a board member from the commercial real estate world (“the only deal I haven’t done, is yours”) uses language in his bio that some will find familiar:
“In fact, given the dramatic changes occurring throughout society and the education mountain, I’ve come to realize that growing the MG Chaplain program is not just an opportunity, but honestly represents more of a mandate. I believe that Mission Generation and its leadership have a “Spiritual Mantle” that will continue to manifest. Amen!“
That’s recognizable as Seven Mountains/Dominionist language.
NSCA currently shies away from overtly Christian language on its website, noting only that it is “a Christian chaplain ministry.” But look in the Wayback Machine internet archive, and you’ll find them in January of 2023 noting that “suicide, anxiety, and depression have reached epidemic levels in U.S. schools.” Then “Chaplains are the answer,” and under a heading of “God and Country,” they note that chaplain duties include “counsel based on timeless biblical values” and “serve as a source of biblical truth.”
The NSCA website appears relatively young, and some details (30,000 schools in 23 countries) are clearly a reference to the work of Mission Generation. Mission Generation no longer has its own website (missiongeneration.org now redirects you to the NSCA website), but when it did, it was pretty clear about its goals.
An archived version of the Mission Generation website from October 2021 declares “All children deserve to know God’s love: we have a proven strategy to share Jesus with children worldwide.” It proclaims that “spreading the gospel is worth every penny. It takes $25 a month to disciple 250 students.” They state an aim to “influence those in education until the saving grace of Jesus becomes well-known, and students develop a personal relationship with Him.”
Mission Generation appears to have had no goal other than proselytizing for Jesus, but when it turned its attention to the United States, it was time to soft-peddle its aim. Rather than the Christian materials in the classroom approach that had worked for them in places like Bolivia, it was time to take a new name and send “chaplains” into schools to get Jesus in there.
In Texas, NSCA was a major player in the chaplain legislation. When asked if NSCA had worked on the proposal, Rep. Cole Hefner, one of the leaders of the chaplain charge replied, “They provided some input.”