Posted on 02/24/2010 10:56:49 AM PST by JoeProBono
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.- A North Carolina high school student said she was willing to sacrifice her honor roll grades to avoid writing an essay contrary to her Christian beliefs.
Tieanna Trough, a student at Gray's Creek High School in Fayetteville, said her English class was instructed to write essays on making deals with the devil as part of a curriculum studying Washington Irving's short story "The Devil and Tom Walker," WTVD-TV, Durham/Raleigh, reported Tuesday.
Trough said her faith bars her from writing about deals with the devil.
"I believe you don't write about how to sell your soul to the devil," she said.
The girl's parents said they agreed with their daughter.
"We can't allow God into the classrooms, but yet they are going to allow the devil in the classroom, that's the way I felt," said her mother, Monice McLean. "They were told if they didn't do it they would get a zero."
Trough said teachers have now given her an alternate subject for her essay, how and why money is important. She said the new essay subject is acceptable.
Beaudelaire: “The greatest weapon of the Devil is that people don’t believe in him.” (paraphrase)
Considering the fate of Tom Walker I wouldn’t think it would be hard to write an essay on the folly of dealing with the devil.
Vote Democrat.
The end.
you too huh? Got over that at about 16.
NEA = Lucifer
...and in that same episode, Bart offers to sell his soul to the devil for a Formula 1 car... which I have to admit is somewhat tempting... but...
Yep. I was horrible. I made it a point to include religious subject matter in all my papers in the hopes that a teacher would veto it, and I could scream “Persecution!”. That kind of obnoxiousness doesn’t do you, God, or Christianity any favors, as I finally realized in high school.
She and her parents are being stupid. The assignment has to do with analyzing the moral problems with both making a deal with the devil and the actual problems in making deals with the “devils” (situations, moral conflicts etc) we deal with on a daily basis. She could have written the essay on the religious and moral constraints that make this approach to life immoral and she could have presented it based on her religious beliefs. Get real! Irving’s devil was allegorical and provided moral lessons on how to avoid the pitfalls of immoral choices.
A lot of great literature has been based on this storyline, even the Book of Job is deal with the devil story.
Well, I would disagree on either possibility that exists of "making a deal with the devil" in the instance of Job.
There are two possibilities that could be given, and that's that it's either Job who is making a deal with the Devil -- or -- it's God who is making a deal with the Devil.
And in neither case is that true, by what the Bible says about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and what His character is, and His omniscience, and His power and His ability to know the end from the beginning.
There was no deal made with the devil there.
In fact, God gave Job a "lesson" in that He told Job (in so many words) that if Job thought he was smarter than God Himself about this and what happened, then perhaps Job should be instructing God on how to do things... LOL...
That goes through several chapters at the end of the book of Job.
God rejects entirely any "deal with the Devil" designation here, and makes it clear that God has His ways which are far beyond and above all the thinking that is possible with mankind and that it's by His power, His wisdom, His unlimited knowledge, His unlimited abilities, His being everywhere and nowhere being out of His presence, and His knowing the end from the beginning -- that He is able to do the right thing in all cases.
There is no deal with the Devil here in Job...
Thank God she is a person of color. If a white kid had objected I can guarantee you that kid would have received a “zero” as promised, been labeled a “religious zealot” and thoroughly trounced in the media and in the neighborhood.
Laudatory stance on her part, nonetheless.
Did Job make a deal with the devil — or perhaps did God make a deal with the devil?
She refuses to write about Obama?
I think the exact words from the assignment might be helpful. If she were to examine both sides, why making a deal with the devil could be good and bad, that could be a difficult position to be in. Or if the assignment asked her what type of deal she would be willing to make, etc. I can see protesting that.
Understatement. People that don't like God are not under threat of poor grades. They are instead insisting on never even hearing about God--except in contexts where religious beliefs are mocked and berrated.
This is similar to some college GURs. You tow the progressive line, or your grades suffer.
An open mind to the progressive secularist means never being exposed to any other view, and being rewarded for affirming their own view.
I remember reading this story in School.
It did NOT go against my Christian Principles at all.
It was a wonderful opportunity to share some great insights that was missed by this girl AND her parents, by protesting the assignment.
Instead, they made their Faith look avuncular and silly, like the you-know-whos that worship the moon god.
I agree.
I see a good opportunity here.
Neither God nor Job sold their soul.
Which faith, I wonder? I don't read anywhere that the students were directed to give their work a particular outcome. Couldn't she have written a story in which making a deal with the devil was, I don't know...a bad idea?
Young lady needs to learn to pick her battles.
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