Ms. Wintertime: First off, thank you for providing me with something that approaches evidence. Most of what I read is based on information for people who want to feel good about themselves, and very little else, with the possible exception of the gentleman from UNC.
I am still questioning exactly WHAT religion, if any, is taught in MY SCHOOL. We have a government required Moment of Silence, DAILY, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
So, I want to know how I am teaching my children to break the law and the sneakiness of Christendom.
Also, the girl in the original post you made really needs to get a clue. Our moment of silence is for reflection on the anticipated activities of the day, period. There is NOTHING about any prayer to God, Allah, Buddah, Mohammed, Frank, Zeus, Jupiter and any other deity. It is simply a moment of silence. I, however, pray, but that is me as a Christian.
This atheist girl should get a life, or be dropped into Baghdad and have bullets whizzing over her head and find out really fast about faith.
Merry Christmas!:)
You ask, " WHAT religion, if any, is taught in MY ( government) SCHOOL." The following in bold and italics are the words of Dr. Bruce Shortt in his letter to the Southern Baptists Convention:
All Public Schools, By Law, Are Anti-Christian
First, it is important to distinguish between individuals and institutions. There is still a sizable remnant of Christian adults employed by the public schools. Many of them pray for their students and a few, though they risk being disciplined or fired, furtively try to witness. But this certainly does not mean that institutionally any public school system is, as some try to argue, “sympathetic to Christianity.” In fact, expressing nontrivial institutional “sympathy” for Christianity, let alone teaching from a Christian worldview, is absolutely prohibited by a complex web of court rulings, legislation, and regulations that apply to every single school and every single school employee subject to the laws of the United States. This is the hostile institutional environment in which Christian adults in the schools are forced to work. And, unfortunately, when you put good people in a bad system, the system almost always wins, which is the reason the public school system continues to deteriorate.
I disagree with Bruce Shortt that Christian teachers are "forced" to work in, support, abet, assist, and enable this god-less indoctrination. No one is holding a gun to their heads to do this. Instead of being missionaries for Christ, I am afraid they are models of a different kind. They are teaching students that they will withhold the truth for a pay check. I would call this moral prostitution. This is what they are teaching both the Christian and non-Christian students in their classes.
If Christian teachers are "furtively" trying to teach about Christ the students will learn several lessons:
1) Christians are sneaky.
2) What is "furtively" taught will definitely be lukewarm. If Christ spits lukewarm Christianity out of His mouth, why are we surprised that students would do the same?
3)Christian teachers are whimps! They are too scared to say what they mean boldly and plainly.
“Sympathy”, or the lack of sympathy, however, is simply not the relevant standard for judging whether a school is a suitable place to train up a Christian child. Christ tells us clearly that “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.” For forty years and more, every public school has been legally prohibited from being for Christ. Unless one chooses to disregard Christ’s teaching, the only conclusion that can honestly be reached is that the entire public school system, by law, is against Christ. As will be seen, this is further confirmed when we look at the evidence of whether the public schools are “gathering” with Christ or “scattering.”
So...Shag,,,Here is your answer: Your school is teaching anti-Christianity.
There Is No Neutrality in Education
Often Christians attempt to argue it doesn’t matter that the public school system is not for Christ – that education is somehow religiously “neutral.” Education, however, is never neutral.
There is no such thing as a religiously neutral education.
Any Christian who believes that government schools operate on religiously neutral principles is simply deceived. There is no such thing as metaphysical or religious neutrality. If an institution rejects the Bible’s teaching about the nature of God, Man and the universe, then it necessarily accepts, implicitly or explicitly, some other worldview, whether it be the materialist metaphysics of secular humanism, the cosmic humanism of the New Age religions, or something else. Government schools are no exception.
Shag,,,you will need to tell me. What type of anti-Christianity is your government school teaching? Marxism? Atheism? Agnosticism? Secular Humanism? Cosmic Humanism? New Ageism? Earth Worship? Paganism? Or some combination?
On a practical level, the net result of nearly sixty years of Supreme Court rulings on the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution has not been to create a level playing field for different beliefs, but simply to take all vestiges of Christianity out of government schools. Today, secular humanism, postmodernism, New Age mysticism, and other forms of paganism pervade government schools at all levels. The teachers’ unions, such as the NEA, are openly hostile to Biblical Christianity and its values, and the curricula of schools of education and teachers’ colleges, from which the overwhelming majority of teachers are drawn, are suffused with a mélange of postmodern and other nonchristian worldviews. Not surprisingly, textbook publishers accommodate the education establishment’s worldview by providing textbooks that conform to the prevailing anti-Christian perspective of the education establishment.
There are some government school defenders who insist that their children's textbooks and curriculum are completely unaffected by our Secular Humanist Colleges of Education and the atheistic NEA. ( yeah right!) (sigh!)
Yet,,,Day after day, so-called Christian teachers will hand out these textbooks and knowing it is part of an anti-Christian curriculum. ( But,,,hey!,,,they prayed about it!)
Christians are Falling Short of the Mark in Education
One of the things I find fascinating when talking to many Christians is their inability to reason Biblically when it comes to the subject of education. Let's begin with the term "sin". As you are well aware, in both the Old Testament and the New the word translated as "sin" comes from a term that means to "miss the mark" - as when someone is given a target to aim at and misses it. In context, then, "sin" is failing to meet a standard that God has set for us.
Well....I find it fascinating that Christian teachers can teach classes day after day using lesson plans, and text books that "miss the mark". What do they do every day? Do they kneel before God every day and ask, "Please help me to miss the mark will my students today?" Hm?,,,And the Holy Spirit tells them, "Yes! Miss the mark!" (Ooookay!) ( sigh!?)
While there is a great deal that could be said on Biblical standards for education, let's stick to the basics. First, Christ tells us that we can't claim to be neutral with respect to him: we are either for Him or against Him; we either gather with Him or scatter abroad [Matthew 12:30]. Education is no exception; God’s instructions are plainly stated. For example, in Ephesians 6:4 we are instructed to raise up our children in the training and instruction of the Lord. Similar instruction is given in Proverbs 22:6. Consider also, for example, Jeremiah 10:2.1
If education can't be neutral, then a true Christian teacher can't be either. He has a choice: Be false to his faith, or not. If chooses to be true his faith, he will be fired because he will be breaking the law.
This brings us to the next question. Are a few hours a week of church and “youth groups” sufficient? God’s answer is quite clearly "no". As Deuteronomy 6:6-7 tells us, this training should be going on all of the time. Why? Because, as Proverbs 23:7 points out: "For as a man thinks, so he is..." Our education, in other words, determines more than any other single factor how we think. Christ makes this point forcefully in Luke 6:40: "A student is not greater than his teacher, and when he is fully trained, he will be like his teacher."
I think a moment of silence is an insult to the Christian faith. I think a few "furtive" and sneaky references is an insult to the Christian faith. It is as ineffective as aiming a garden hose at a raging forest fire. It is worse than that! Why? Answer: Because the Christian teacher is showing his students that Christians are whimps, weak, and sneaky.
As adults when these former government students do meet a true Christian missionary I feel sorry for the missionary. He has a tough job. Not only does the true missionary have to teach about Christ, he has to convice this former government schooled adult that not all Christians are weak, lukewarm, sneaks like his Christian government teachers.
Thus, when we give our children over to a public school system that is legally prohibited from being for Christ, we have made an anti-Christian institution our child's teacher. That is missing the mark. But it is not merely a personal failing; it is also a failing that is likely to cause children to stumble as well. All of us who are parents would do well to contemplate both Psalm 127:3 and Matthew 18:6 from time to time. Even worse, if we, as the body of Christ, fail to make educational provision for the less fortunate among us, Christian or otherwise, we are falling far short of the mark.
It is time for Christian teachers to STOP failing to miss the mark.
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The solution, shag377, is complete separation of School and State.