Posted on 12/24/2007 6:18:30 AM PST by wintertime
When high school freshman Dawn Sherman learned that Illinois had a new law requiring public schools to provide a moment of silence each day for "reflection and student prayer," she was outraged.
Not because the law meant lost learning time in her honors math class -- which would be 15 seconds shorter -- but because "it was clear that we're supposed to sit and pray, or sit and watch other people pray," said Dawn, who is an atheist.
Along with her father, Rob, the Buffalo Grove High student has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law, which some Illinois school boards have raced to embrace and others have defied.
"I don't go to school to talk to God," she said. "I'm in school to learn."
The debate reflects a long-standing national fight over school prayer. The Supreme Court in 1962 ruled that official sponsorship or endorsement of prayer in schools is a violation of the 1st Amendment. Over time, state lawmakers found they were allowed to require moments of silence as long as students were not forced or encouraged to pray.
But there were limits: In the mid-1980s, an Alabama mandatory "moment of silence" law was found unconstitutional by the high court because "there was a clear legislative record that they were trying to advocate getting prayer back into schools," said Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington.
(snip)
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia also require such moments of quiet in the classroom. In more than 20 other states, teachers are allowed to decide whether they want such a classroom time-out.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I thank God that my children did not have to go to public schools and that my grandchildren will be home schooled.
Having said that, I always found it interesting when I lived in New England that the majority of public school teachers sent their kids to Catholic/private schools.
I often wonder why someone doesn’t countersue when these idiots from ACLU start their little dance (they use suits to fill their coffers. If I had a child in that school, that’s exactly what I would do. After all, my child has rights too; such as the right not to have to kowtow to an atheist.
I have noticed that the public schools fell all over themselves to provide prayer rooms and dismissing muslim students from class to go to said rooms to pray 5 times a day. Just how do they justify that.
OB
Actually this is perfectly compatable with the First Ammendment. The government can make no rules, either for or against this practice. It is also reasonable to insist that athiest people be taught a measure or tolerance as dictated by the First Ammendement.
It is really very simple. Leave people alone to do what they will in the practice or not practicing religeon. (Athiest can always stroke their cell phone or billfold during that moment of silence.)
I mean a link to actual research - not an editorial.
You’ve had WAY TOO MUCH EGGNOG and it’s barely in the shank of the afternoon!!
“loose” ?? oh my eyes!! oh the HUMANITY OF IT ALL!!
**snicker**
“I don’t go to school to talk to God,” she said. “I’m in school to learn.”
Well, the FIRST thing this twit should learn is that you must respect the wishes of others - otherwise known as having good manners - as opposed to imposing your wishes on everybody else - otherwise known as tyranny or being a spoiled brat.
Tom Lehrer, the only liberal who has EVER gotten it right, once commented: “If you can’t say anything intelligent, the least you can do is shut up”.
It is a catch 22 situation because the federal government is not empowered by the Constitution to involve itself in the Public School System. The federal government’s unconstitutional link to the public schools provides idiot atheists and their equally idiotic liberal supporters to claim 1st amendment violations. The 1st amendment wisely forbids the federal government from establishing a single religion for the nation.
The following are a few of the facts included in his letter:
1)Research by Dr. Brian Ray, founder of NHERI, found that 94% of all homeschooled children retained their faith into adulthood
2) In 2002 the SBC’s Council on Family Life reported that roughly 88% of our children leave the church within 2 years after graduating from high school. It is reported by LifeWay’s Zan Tyler that Josh McDowell Ministries pegs the number who leave at 92%.3
3) The Nehemiah Institute’s worldview testing shows that students in Christian schools reject moral relativism at a rate 500% higher than Christian children attending public schools. The same worldview surveys also show that children receiving a Christian education do better on worldview issues overall than their public school counterparts, with outstanding results typically coming from Christian schools that incorporate worldview materials in their curriculum and homeschooled
4) Barna Research points out that while 86% of teens claim to be Christian and many are involved in church activities, the teens’ professions of Christianity and church attendance are deceiving. When the actual beliefs of our teens were surveyed, Barna research found, for example, that 60% believe salvation can be earned through good works, 53% (including 40% of evangelical teens) believe that Jesus sinned while he was on earth, only 1/3 said they were absolutely committed to Christianity, and only 9% of born again teens believe that there is any such thing as absolute moral truth. Should it be surprising, then, that Barna also finds that, based on survey data, only 4% of teens are actually evangelical Christians? )
5) Based on many years of worldview testing of evangelical teens, the Nehemiah Institute has found that at most only about 15% of evangelical teens attending public schools clearly reject moral relativism and believe that absolute moral truth exists.
6)The results from the largest survey of teen religious attitudes and beliefs, the National Survey of Youth and Religion, have been written up in Soul Searching by the lead researcher, Dr. Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Smith points out that most teens profess whatever religion their parents claim, which, of course, means that the overwhelming majority of teens claim to be Christian. Nevertheless, the research also shows that, whatever they may claim to be, the overwhelming majority of “Christian” teens is absolutely incapable of articulating anything resembling the fundamental tenets of Christianity. According to Dr. Smith: “Many teenagers know abundant details about the lives of favorite musicians and television stars or about what it takes to get into a good college, but most turn out to be not very clear on who Moses and Jesus were.” For example, when asked what God is like, one typical teenager responded: “Um…Good. Powerful.” When asked if there was anything else, she responded: “Tall.” The book uses many examples like these from the study’s teen interviews to illustrate why they concluded that teens are unable to articulate even a simple account of Christianity or whatever else they may profess to believe. In fact, the researchers conclude that the actual “faith” of the vast majority of teens is something that Dr. Smith characterizes as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” This is a creed that conceives of God as something of a “cosmic butler” who exists to get people out of problems and who has, perhaps, one commandment: “Be nice.” The researchers also found that many parents of the teens appear to hold to a similar faith, even though they may profess Christianity. Further, in the appendix to Soul Searching, Dr. Smith points out that his research shows churches and pastors barely register in terms of the forces that shape and influence the beliefs and values of children.
7) In light of the foregoing, perhaps it isn’t surprising that Dr. Thom Rainer has estimated that nearly 50% of the members of SBC churches may not be Christians. Obviously, our multigenerational lack of faithfulness in the education of children has created a multigenerational problem in our churches.
Shag and Nittany,
By law, our government schools can not be Christian, and ALL education is religious in content and consequences. This is axiomatic! If they are not teaching Christianity, then they are teaching some other religion.
If Christian teachers are trying to sneak in a Christian message into the god-less government schools then they are doing the following:
1) They teaching all children ( Christian and non-Christian) that it is OK to break the law.
2) They are teaching all children ( Christian and non-Christian) that Christians are sneaky.
3) They are ( at best) dishing out a very lukewarm form of Christianity. They are teaching the kids that Christians are whimps! If Christ spits lukewarm Christians out of His mouth, should we be surprised that by the time kids graduate from high school too many have nothing but contempt for Christianity.
So...when praying about teaching in government schools, have Christian teachers actually asked God if it is OK to be a whimp, sneaky, and ludewarm about Christ’s message???? They have really asked Him if they should support 15 seconds of **silence** about Christ’s mission??? And, 6 to 7 hours of a religion that it anti-Christian? Really? Well??....OOOOOkaaayy!
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Am I correct that all state constitutions also include First Amendment Rights? If state constitutions also call for compulsory government owned and run schools then their is an internal conflict within the state constitution document. Why? Answer: Because it is impossible for a government school and First Amendment Rights to coexist.
Yes, the states to have the right to establish a state religion, but, surely you would agree, to do this is a human rights violation, and an asault against freedom of conscience.
There is a solution: Privatize universal K-12 education.
That should read: assault
I would surely support a complete withdraw of the federal government from education. It would be an improvement over what we have now.
BUT,,,the real solution is to have complete separation of School and State.
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.
Our First Amendment does not "dictate" tolerance, or appoint government as teachers of tolerance. Where on earth did you pick up such an idea? In you government K-12 school?
You are advocating government mind control. Sorry! Bu, I have a problem with that. We do have a human right to freedom of conscience. Our First Amendment exists to protect our freedom of conscience.
By the way, are you a teacher in a government school?
It is really very simple. Leave people alone to do what they will in the practice or not practicing religeon. (Athiest can always stroke their cell phone or billfold during that moment of silence.) ( GingisK)
The solution: Begin the process of privatizing universal K-12 education. What is needed is complete separation of school and state.
There is no way that a government school can resolve this. The students who are religious have a First Amendment Right to express their religious belief ( both verbally and silently). And BOTH the religious and non-religious have a First Amendment Right NOT to be forced by government to associate with each other.
Government schools always were, are now, and always will be incompatible with First Amendment human rights. They are a freedom of conscience nightmare!
Softballmom, these "attacks" are associated with the daily news articles about the clearly outrageous failings and abuses of too many government schools. You neglected to mention this, and you give Glide625, and the others, the false impression that these so-called attacks were gratuitous and without merit.
So?... What are we to think of government teachers who are responsible for, cooperate with, assist, enable, abet, hide, and are sometimes oblivious to, these horrible government school abuses against children?
"Wicked, sinners, child-abusers, naive, dumb, evil, greedy, stupid,"...etc.,,are far too mild for people associated with the acts reported in the articles posted. If I could think of words that were even stronger, I would use them!
By the way, you know, and I know, that I am likely responsible for a large proportion of the 50 pages that you have accumulated. How kind of you **NOT** to include me in your lengthy ping list.
Finally, as the professional that I know you are, I know that you would never give half the argument to your students. They are, after all, emotionally immature, and unsophisticated in the finer points of debating techniques.
“It would be nice if the vitriol heaped upon Christian school teachers would just stop.”
I’ve never heaped vitriol on Christian school teachers; it’s quite a leap to go from a comment about how dificult it is for Christian kids to remain Christian in a public school setting to heaping vitriol upon Christian school teachers. Actually, it’s impossible.
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Christian teachers need to get out too!
If the Christian teacher is to keep his job, he must go along with a Secular religious curriculum ( text books and policies) that are scrubbed clean of Christ. Well...obviously, this is teaching a false religion. To cooperate with this is to aid and abet a lie. What they are teaching the students is that Christians are weak, will lie, and will prostitute their Christian beliefs for a paycheck.
If a Christian teacher tries to sneak in some Christianity on the sly, then what they are teaching the students is that Christians are sneaky, sly, and wimpy.
Honestly,,,wouldn’t it be better for Christians simply to abandon the government schools? True missionaries for Christ have a MUCH harder job because what the students have learned is contempt for Christianity. ( for good reason)
Sorry! But, I simply can NOT understand why any Christian teacher would stand for being relegated to a 15 second ghetto of **SILENCE**~! ( 15 SECONDS!??...of... SILENCE???)
Yes, I am shouting. Why the deafening silence about this? Where is the outrage? ( Crickets chirping.)
Where is the outrage?
It’s obviously muted; I’m from the same position but..................until we here of the Marxists outright stoning of Christian students and teachers in the schools I don’t think some people will actually “get it”. Part of the problem is that the public schools are just too darned “convenient”; another part of the problem is the Ostrich problem and sadly, many aren’t bright enough to get it.
..................until we here of the Marxists outright stoning of Christian students and teachers in the schools
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It may come to that.
And,,,It was sad. The Columbine murderers targeted Christians.
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