Posted on 05/08/2005 8:05:33 AM PDT by rface
ODESSA, Texas - (KRT) - This hardscrabble town of 90,000 on the West Texas oil patch famous for its obsession with high school football is becoming the new ground zero in a culture war.
The Ector County Independent School District unanimously approved an elective course in biblical literacy in April, an action underscoring the marked increase of such "Bible study" classes nationally. Constitutional scholars are concerned that these classes constitute a subtle erosion of what they see as the traditional and necessary wall of separation between church and state.
More than 300 school districts in 35 states use course material offered by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, said its president, Elizabeth Ridenour.
The North Carolina-based organization offers courses in biblical study in public schools as part of its commitment to restore religious and civil liberties in the nation. The council's board of directors and advisers draws heavily on such religious conservatives as evangelist Ben Kinchloe of television's "The 700 Club" and David Barton, a prominent conservative author and speaker on church-state separation.
"The world is watching to see if we will be motivated to impact our culture, to deal with the moral crises in our society, and reclaim our families and children," Ridenour wrote in a welcoming message on the organization's Web site.
Odessa school officials say they are walking a narrow path to ensure the proposed course meets educational and constitutional requirements.
"This will be an academic elective on biblical literacy, not a devotional," said Odessa Superintendent Wendell Sollis. "We have no intention of proselytizing. ... You really have to educate people about what you can and can't do."
But assurances that the course will be voluntary and non-devotional have done little to allay the fears of non-Christians and religious moderates that the class may evolve into the covert preaching of God's word.
"There's an awful lot of people in this town convinced that they're going to get Jesus taught in the classroom, a tool for evangelism. And that concerns people like me," said David Newman, an English professor at Odessa College who opposes the new Bible course. He is Jewish.
"If they want to teach the biblical influences on culture and art, why not make it a traditional humanities course that examines all the influences on Western culture?" he asked. "If I see this thing becoming more of an advocacy course, I can assure you there will certainly be legal action taken."
While relations between Odessa's 150 Christian churches and its non-Christian minority are good, Newman said his 12-year-old daughter has been subjected to some anti-Jewish statements from classmates.
"They'll ask her why 'your people' killed Jesus. Or if she knows that Jesus is her savior," Newman said. "I don't think it's hate. It's just kids being kids. But I worry what will happen if a pronounced Christian viewpoint is taught in the class."
Alfred Brophy, a University of Alabama law professor who teaches American legal history, said Odessa may reflect a new battleground for religious conservatives who complain God has been taken out of the nation's public schools.
"This is ground zero in the next culture war," Brophy said. "They're introducing a religious curriculum into the schoolhouse, but it's subtle. It's the camel's nose poking under the tent."
John Waggoner began organizing a petition drive in Odessa this year to develop a high school Bible course. He said he was not prepared for the results. By April, his group had obtained more than 6,000 signatures.
Waggoner said he and two friends began the drive out of a grass-roots interest in bringing legal Bible study to the classroom. Once they went public, they were supported by a cross-section of the community. "We just tapped into something people are very passionate about," he said.
"I don't mean to be flippant, but when people ask why we want a Bible course in the schools, I ask, 'Why not?'" Waggoner said. "The Bible is such a foundation of all that we have in this country, it just makes sense to educate our children about it."
But Waggoner is aware of the opposition to the class.
"Sure, we understand their concerns. We know these are good people who just disagree with what we're doing. I just think they're wrong," he said. "This will be the most heavily moderated course in the school's history. There will be no proselytizing. We don't want to subject this school district to a constitutional conflict.
Though no course curriculum has been picked, Waggoner said his group favors the curriculum designed by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.
"We invited the council's lawyer to speak to the school board on the constitutionality of the issue, and we know the council's curriculum has already been approved in Texas," he said. "Our hope is that ... we'll continue to have a seat at the table as the board picks a curriculum."
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh told his radio listeners he'd stand with Odessa schools against the American Civil Liberties Union - even though the ACLU hasn't joined the fray. School officials have been swamped with interview requests and hundreds of phone calls and e-mails - some accusing them of violating the Constitution and others thanking them for putting the Bible back in the classroom.
The district last offered a Bible class in 1979.
Roughly 80 percent of the schools using the national council's Bible course are small or rural districts, according to Ridenour, the group's president.
"It's not just gone into the Bible Belt states. It's gone into Alaska, Pennsylvania, California," Ridenour said. "We've already had over 170,000 students take the course nationwide. It's never been legally challenged."
Ridenour stressed that the curriculum is designed to help students understand the Bible in the context of its influence on culture and the arts. She emphasized it is not a course in Bible devotion.
"You wouldn't learn this in Sunday school class," she said. "How in the world could you understand what's going on in the Middle East today without introducing the Bible and understanding the background? How can they understand Michelangelo's Moses or Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper without knowing about the figures that inspired those works of art?"
Ridenour said supporters of non-Christian faiths could approach a school board and go through the same process as the council.
"Now the Quran has not had the influence on our society, of course, that the Bible has and our founding fathers didn't base things on the Quran," she said. "But it's a free country if anyone would like to approach the school board."
Judith Schaeffer, deputy legal director of the People for the American Way Foundation, said her group plans to monitor the case to see if the curriculum Odessa adopts is constitutional.
"We have no problem with the board's vote the other night," she said. "It puts it on our radar screen in the sense that we hope they will do this the right way."
Schaeffer said her organization is aware that the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is "running around the country trying to get school boards to adopt their material for these courses."
Ridenour said her organization does not solicit school districts to carry their curriculum. "If people in the district, if it's on their hearts to do this, they'll call us."
The curriculum has not been challenged in court.
Schaeffer said another potential problem for school districts is finding instructors that are "academically competent" to teach what is often a lightning-rod topic.
"You really shouldn't be teaching the Bible in public schools," she said, "unless you have teachers who are qualified to do so."
Earlier this year, schools in Michigan decided not to use the council's Bible curriculum.
In January, the school board in Frankenmuth, Mich., ended a yearlong debate by turning down the council curriculum as "not academically rigorous enough." Frankenmuth Superintendent Michael Murphy told board members, "It goes beyond talking about religion and becomes faith-based."
K.K. Brannies, assistant superintendent of the Brady Independent School District in Texas, said her district has offered the council curriculum since the late 1990s as an elective and has had no complaints.
She is surprised that the course is offered in 49 districts in Texas and that more are considering it because the opportunity to offer electives is dwindling as course requirements increase.
However, she said she does not see the course "as something that will really continue heavily just because of the fact there are so few opportunities for any elective classes," Brannies said. "When we get to the new science requirements, the chances of us having to do away with it are probably good at some point just because kids won't have room for as many electives in their schedule."
Kathy Miller, President of the Texas Freedom Network, a statewide nonprofit group formed to protect religious freedom and individual liberties, said there is no inherent problem with studying religion in school.
She cautioned, however, that schools may unintentionally end up promoting a particular religion in the classroom and violate the principles of religious freedom.
"I think the danger here is that this Bible class could turn a public school classroom into a Sunday school classroom," Miller said. "Many school boards have rejected the curriculum because they feared the controversy around it, because they feared that it did possibly put them in an untenable position."
The test of a Bible literacy course in Odessa, however, lies with the kids.
Angie, 17, a senior at Permian High School, won't benefit from the proposed Bible course. But she would take it if she could. "I don't think it would hurt anyone to study about God's word," she said.
Across the parking lot, Ray, a junior, is noncommittal. "It's OK, I guess. But there's already a lot we have to get done for graduation; there's not much room for electives. It's like we'd have to choose between football, more science or the Bible."
Their last names were not used because neither student would give a contact number for their parents.
Nearby, Patricia Clark waited outside Permian High to pick up her daughter, Natasha, 16. Clark supports the idea of a Bible class.
"It'll be a good thing, something positive," Clark said. "I'm glad to see it happen."
Her daughter has another view.
"She hasn't said she'd be interested in taking it," Clark said. "We've talked about it, and she just rolls her eyes."
I would have no problem if there were a scholarly study of Bhagavad Gita study, or Talmud study, or get-naked-and-worship-the-trees study (Wicca).....one hard part would be getting enough student interest -- and another hard part would be having a scholarly study of the get-naked-and-worship-the-trees course.
"and another hard part would be having a scholarly study of the get-naked-and-worship-the-trees course."
That's the lab portion of the course.
Whatever happened to communities controlling the curriculum?
It is no coincidence Islamist pagans hate Israel, Jews, Christians and Western Civilization. The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law; something both the Neo-Pagan Left and the pagan Islamist thugs cannot abide and wish to destroy.
Alouette, note Dashwood's #18. I was wondering why a Monterrey CA newspaper was writing about an Odessa, Texas elective high school course.
But Dashwood, Alouette, let's be honest because if we aren't, we do no good. The one thing that hurts the most is that so many members of organizations like the ACLU and People For The American Way are Jewish, and it is those organizations that have spearheaded the legal attacks on American Christianity.
It's ironic, because if tens of millions of Americans ceased to be Christians, there would be no safety for anyone. And evangelical Christians are the by far the largest number of Israeli supporters in the U.S. Oy vey!
I think public school children should have a basic understanding of the Bible and its contents, because of its historical importance and as an important work of literature that has greatly influenced Western civilization. Proslytizing in the public schools should of course not be allowed. I also think children should be taught some basic points about what all the major religions of humanity teaches. This should be basic knowledge for a cultured and educated citizen.
When I attended the University of Washington in the 1970s, I took a course called the "History of Christianity." It was taught by Professor Treadgold, the then Chariman of the History Department.
At our first class session, he announced that this was a course on the HISTORY of Christianity and that, other than for a session or two at the beginning of the course on the theology of the faith (necessary so that you would understand the basis for events that followed), it would concentrate on the religion as a historical pheonomena.
He invited those who had wanted something else to come down to the front and get their withdrawal cards signed. About half a dozen students did.
We then spent the remainder of the term examining Christianity as implemented through the centuries, warts and all. Other than Professsor Treadgold's annoying habit of putting up quotations in various languages (Latin, Greek, French, German, and Chinese) on the overhead projector and providing no translation, it was some of the best instruction I have ever received.
If this curricula follows the same path as my college course, it would greatly benefit Christians and non-Christians to know more about the faith as a historical influence. The same, of course, can be said for other major religions as well.
They are people whose ancestors were Jewish several generations ago, but who have entirely ceased to practice scripture-based Judaism.
These same alleged "Jews" also raise a great wailing and gnashing of teeth if a Chabad Jew treads on their turf bearing a menorah, mezuzah or other artifact of scriptural Judaism.
They worship that Golden Calf as they did in the time of Moses. Malakhim Raoth.
See these:
http://www.arutzsheva.com/article.php3?id=1760
http://www.bu.edu/arion/paglia_cults00.htm
Consider this from Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, in 1668:
Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth.Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.
[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.
[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Palestine (Israel), and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.
The Bible, if taken literally, is a Zionist doctrine...
Both Yahweh and Yeshua are Zionists without exception or compromise...
Would one of the advocates for the Separation of Church and State position please show me where the "line" is drawn.
The Old Testament certainly is and Jesus reached out almost exclusively to his fellow Jews. But even during His lifetime he did minister to at least two Gentiles because they asked Him. After His death, Gentiles could become the grafted in branches. Not the root, not the trunk, but grafted in branches. Therefore, all Christians should have a proper appreciation of Judaism.
They are Malakhim Raoth...
And God's covenent with Abraham still holds, and those lands still belong to the descendents of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob and one day they will have it all. And that Temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt in God's good time.
Morality and all of its associated concepts are from the belief some higher power defines what is correct in human behavior. Today, morals are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
There are three ways people are influenced according to the school of behavioral psychology - - visual (sight), auditory (sound), kinesthetic (emotion). The kinesthetic or ‘feeling’ is also olfactory and tactile sense, just like Pavlov’s salivating dogs (conditioned responses).
Considering that 90% of people tend to be more influenced by the visual, television has become a new religion. It is analogous to Plato’s cave allegory and the pagan Oracle of Delphi. The visual media as a propaganda tool helps create visual phantasms or fantastical images in the brain.
Was Freudian psychoanalytic theory of sexual stages in psychological development more accurate than accredited? The Michael Jackson Complex is fixation on mutilation of and deviance with human anatomy in the media. It is a social psychosis catering to the lowest common denominator and generated with Pavlovian behavioral conditioning in popular culture.
Visual images and sound portrayed can be used to anchor emotional and/or conditioned responses desired by those that present them, which is the case of the visual media, actors who create fantastical images in film, and Leftist politicians who pander to ‘symbolism over substance.’
Observe when in public places, at your workplace or in other community activities (i.e., restaurants, retail stores, gas stations, etc.) the pervasive presence of some exposure to music or television. This is because many people are actually terrified of being alone with their own thoughts or at the prospect of it (neuro-linguistic programming).
There is a clear connection between modern neo-paganism and ancient paganism related to Islamic conflict with the Judaic roots of Christendom. A focus on how this is manifested in a modern sense only requires a look at pop-culture icons in entertainment, steroid sports "heroes," and attempts by the Left to use a pseudo-Judaic sense of pagan moralistic idolatry to demonize political opposition. (Attacks on U.S. Senator Rick Santorum for comments on sodomy, and the ostracizing of U.S. Senator Zell Miller within the Democratic Party are cases in point.)
Like the necromancy of the late Senator Paul Wellstone’s funeral rally, or "funerally" (see the Steven Plaut article, The Rise Of Tikkun Olam Paganism, Arutz Sheva: December 27, 2002, http://www.arutzsheva.com/article.php3?id=1760 in reference to the Wellstone brand of Judaism), the use of Martin Luther King Day, or constantly invoking the "spirit of the ‘60’s," the Left attempts to raise spirits of the dead as a totem for worship. This occurred with respect to Diana, Princess of Wales, following her "tragic" death in 1997.
Consider the seemingly coincidental circumstance that Diana is also the name of a pagan Greek goddess, and idolatry. The figurative deification of Princess Diana and the massive outpouring of public grief are a form of civil worship. The heaping of flowers at Kensington Palace as if it were a shrine, melodramatic eulogizing and the political expressions of how the world should comply with her posthumous intent concerning certain issues is a modern use of idolatry. Royalty magazine, in a special edition, had a large drop quote spanning across two pages: "She needed no royal title… to generate her particular brand of magic." The whole magazine is about pet Leftist political causes mixed in with the pictures and soliloquy about her sainthood. A Golden Calf.
This idolatry also partly played into the modern conflict of pagan vs. Judaic concerning her billionaire playboy lover, Dodi Al Fayed. Although many consider Islamic belief to be of Judaic origin, it is pagan. The crescent symbolizing Islam was also used to symbolize the pagan goddesses (Diana, Isis, etc.) and used by modern neo-pagan nut cases as an icon. The use of the bedrock at the Dome of the Rock and the meteorite at the Kaaba as an excuse to label it an Islamic holy site, is idolatry. The three goddesses, daughters of Allah, are also contrary to the idea that Muslim faith is monotheistic.
Saddam Hussein and the Socialist Ba'ath Party are cult figures. This is a great part of the reason the Left is so frantic and upset by Western military activities in the Middle East. Hussein and his two deceased sons were not at all Muslim. They were considered to be secular political figures, when actually they were extensions of ancient pagan Chaldean and Babylonian cults. They had more than just a similitude to the Amalekite Pharaohs of ancient Egypt that arose after the fall of the Eighteenth Dynasty in the Hyksos invasion. There is a historical relationship to the book of Exodus in the Judaic Bible, where Moses figures most prominently, and a relationship to the current conflict in Israel. Saddam funded Palestinian terror. The pagan Roman occupation created the mythically perceived state of "Palestine" to begin with, specifically disenfranchising the Jews. A Golden Calf.
The Amalekites were nomadic plunderers who also plagued the Hebrews during the forty years of wandering the wilderness described in the Judaic Bible. They were also the progenitors of modern day "Palestinians." (Also, consider the ancillary fact that Yasser Arafat was actually an Egyptian by birth.) The occupation of Egypt after the Alexandrian invasion by the Ptolemic Dynasties through the Roman invasion and occupation of Egypt (where the Queen Cleopatra and Marc Antony, subjects of more Shakespearean tragedy, and legend for their affair in the dire displeasure of the Roman Emperor) are all concretely connected to the historical Pagan conflicts with the Judaic (Judaic includes Christians).
As U.S. Senator, and Democrat presidential primary candidate, Joseph Lieberman has pointed out - - if the Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein and his two maniacal sons would still be in power, murdering, raping and plundering. Howard Dean had in effect, run on a platform of having Saddam Hussein as his running mate, and so had that other loser Sen. John Kerry.
As well, the opposition by the Leftists to Western military operations in Afghanistan, something once considered previously a subject of serious inquiry by Left leaning feminist groups because of concern for the treatment of women under the Taliban, has been displaced by the neo-pagan New Age mysticism and the 1960s' psychedelic drug culture permeating the political Left. A great source for lot of opium and hashish coming into the West is and/or was from Afghanistan. A Golden Calf.
Think of the Hashashins, from whom we get the English word ‘assassin.’ Who were they? Wondering bands of robbers stoned on hashish, plundering, raping and murdering their way across the desert. Osama Bin Laden and his groups of thugs are just like them, just in the same way Saddam Hussein and his murderous sons roamed around in Iraq. The Taliban in Afghanistan also fit this model quite neatly. Remember the Luxor, Egypt massacre of Western Tourists by terrorists? Is the recent rash of Islamic beheadings ritual murder? Is Islamic terrorism really a murder cult like the Kali cult of Hindu Thuggees?
Michael Jackson had Nation of Islam thugs as bodyguards escorting him after a court appearance through the throngs of frenzied supporters. Is Jackson their new pharaoh? Nation of Islam is a militant racist cult, that is neither Muslim or based on any traditional religious doctrine. Their leaders, Louis Farrakhan (the numerologist) and Kahlid Abdul Mohammed, are known Jew haters. They also support many illogical and socially subversive Leftist political activities intent on tearing down the structures of Modern Western Civilization and capitalism.
Astrology is another blatant example of primitive pagan idolatry and fantasy with planets of the solar system assigned the names of pagan gods, stars grouped as fantastical images of mythical legend, whereby the fate of a person is purportedly revealed. The astrologers are revered as prophets by psychotic, neurotic adherents in frequent fanatical devotion to any musings these charlatans utter.
Images of distant stars being most often many centuries and millenniums old, are no things corporeal. The actual objects have ceased to exist as perceived and are phantasms, mere ghosts of what once was long ago. (Divination through spirits of the dead is necromancy.)
Attempting divination by optical illusions emanated from long past objects, avoiding your actual self-determined future repeatedly disregarded in favor of musings by a mystical witch doctor is neurotic, idolatrous and fanatical. Astrology is simply an epic lunatic fantasy, and saying so is the ultimate blasphemy for such pagan religionists.
The idea of fate is rooted in the fantasy that some imaginary, ethereal forces determine the course of human events. This is contrary to the ideas that God allows free will to choose or reject Salvation, and that God alone reveals prophecy (a.k.a. Providence). It is also an attempt to counterfeit and replace those ideas, where pantheons of fantasies are the medium of infinitization and not a singular limitless Creator.
The Enemy as represented in the Egyptian Book of the Dead: "Behold, I am Set, the creator of confusion, who creates both the tempest and the storm throughout the length and breadth of the heavens."
Is this the Prince of the Power of the Air, the principality of Beelzebub over phantasms in the kingdom of air and darkness, the kingdom of familiar spirits in astrology? Phantasms, ancient images of stellar events in the vacuous darkness of space?
Astrology arises from the pagan Chaldean cults of Babylon. We now know Babylon as Iraq. The Tigris-Euphrates Valley is the cradle of human civilization and has never known freedom in all of history. Is it coincidence? Is it coincidence the Neo-Pagan, New Age mystery cults of Leftist politics are so animated in their opposition to bringing freedom and the Judaic principles of justice to Iraq? Is it coincidence that many domestic social issues are being driven by cultic Leftist advocacy of unnatural, phantasmagoric perversity? Is it coincidence that they have such a seething hatred of George W. Bush?
They had best learn to fear God instead of government...
That's certainly a comprehensive overview. I think you've just achieved the Unified Field Theory of Judaism.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness
Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness
[1] Besides these sovereign powers, divine and human, of which I have hitherto discoursed, there is mention in Scripture of another power, namely, that of "the rulers of the darkness of this world," [Ephesians, 6. 12] "the kingdom of Satan," [Matthew, 12. 26] and "the principality of Beelzebub over demons," [Ibid., 9. 34] that is to say, over phantasms that appear in the air: for which cause Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air"; [Ephesians, 2. 2] and, because he ruleth in the darkness of this world, "the prince of this world":[John, 16. 11] and in consequence hereunto, they who are under his dominion, in opposition to the faithful, who are the "children of the light," are called the "children of darkness." For seeing Beelzebub is prince of phantasms, inhabitants of his dominion of air and darkness, the children of darkness, and these demons, phantasms, or spirits of illusion, signify allegorically the same thing. This considered, the kingdom of darkness, as it is set forth in these and other places of the Scripture, is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light, both of nature and of the gospel; and so to disprepare them for the kingdom of God to come.
Shakespeare was really good a potraying the pagan vs. Judaic conflict in his plays, especially with Othello...
Does that mean they can't teach any government courses?
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