Before I write this post, I want to announce that the manuscript for my potential next book has been sent to Tom Oord for his consideration as a book to be published through SacraSage Press. So far, Tom thinks the manuscript looks pretty good.
Ok, here we go. I grew up in Texas, and I spent half of my life there. In my opinion, Texas has become very difficult in regards to its politics. It makes me quite sad as I have fond memories of growing up in that state. Of course, Texas was a member of the Confederate States of America at one time, so it has been problematic for some time.
Picture of the Texas Hill Country — one of the prettiest places in the nation
One of the current issues in Texas is people who are trying to get more religion into public schools.
Having kids read the Bible in class. Putting up the Ten Commandments in school.
Now, some school districts are allowing children to miss school time to take a bus to private religious instruction.
The article (above) comes from the San Antonio Express News.
I live in Utah, and we have a long history of children being able to leave public school and attend Latter-Day Saint (LDS) seminary buildings. Weirdly, these buildings are typically built right next door to public schools. Children can just walk across the parking lot and attend private religious education. Just like Texas, I find this Utah idea pretty awful.
Readers of my blog will know that I am a Christian. I am a Protestant, Trinitarian-believing Christian if that makes any difference to the reader.
I am Christian, and I absolutely DISAGREE that children should be allowed to leave class or school to attend private religious education.
There is nothing in the Gospels to support such a stupid idea. If anything, Jesus would tell people to get out into the world and care for others (Matthew 25:40). Jesus would not tell Christians to isolate themselves from other people.
I have many reasons to state this:
What religion? In other words, what religions are wanting to have children leave their school education time? At least in the USA, I am pretty sure this issue is mostly coming from Christians. But what type of Christian? In the Texas situation, do parents think that the theology that their children will hear in some private setting during public school will match their own belief system? For example, what if Catholic parents think this is a good idea, and they send their child to some Evangelical religious education that they are not aware of. I am a parent, and I can recall other parents who fell for this trap when my kids were young. Protestant. Catholic. Orthodox. LDS. There are so many permutations here where parents may be exposing their children to ideas they do not ascribe to. Talk about seeing the forest for the trees.
What Bible? If children are going off campus to learn about their faith, what Bible will be used? Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians have different books in their Bibles. LDS folks have a “Joseph Smith Translation” of the Bible although they also use the King James Version. All of these different versions can contain different ideas.
Who can leave? So, can Jewish children go to Synagogue and miss class? Can Muslim children go to Mosque and miss class? Can Hindu children go to their local temple and miss class? Can atheist children go to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and miss class? Something tell me that political leaders had not even begun to think about this issue.
Your children always will be exposed to the secular world. Oh, and as a Christian, I think the secular world can be quite fine most of the time. I work at public university. It is mostly pretty awesome. All humans have their good traits and bad traits — religious or not. What are these parents scared of? Also, if their children need to leave public school to attend private religious teachings, then how poorly are they being taught in their regular church setting? How poorly are these parents teaching their own children about their religious beliefs?
Education is important. Stay in school. Don’t leave class.
Taxpayer money: Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for empty classrooms, electricity, and the precious time of school teachers just so that some children with anxious parents can leave class to go to listen to religious teachings. When my children were young, my spouse and I had them in private school. We moved them to public school in junior high and high school for many reasons. One of the big reasons was that the private school they attended (Evangelical, sadly) taught really dumb anti-evolutionary ideas (readers know that I am religious and also have no problems with biological evolution). However, when my children were in private school, I never complained about paying taxes for public school. We were privileged enough to put our kids in private school for a while. I paid taxes to help those children who needed a hand up in life to learn in public school. By the way, my two children had a FANTASTIC public school experiences.
No, this never happened.
Pilot study? Despite the fact that I imagine these school districts will be sued, can someone actually do a pilot study here? One could control for income, grades, zip codes, etc, and then look at outcomes long term. Are these children more likely to graduate? Are these children more likely to go to college? Are these children more likely to get into legal trouble? Someone might say that we should study if these children are more likely to be “saved.” Really?!?! I don’t know how you objectively quantify “saved.” My Christian belief system is that Jesus loves everyone — regardless of their belief system. I’m a big believer in grace. Romans 8:38-39 and Hebrews 11:13 suggest that it a probably better to hang out with everyone — no matter their background. In the end, I think no one would dare do a true objective, well controlled pilot study. I bet the results would show there is no difference in outcomes of these children except for less education noted in the children who leave class.
No, your kids are not being persecuted for their faith. If they attend class and learn history, they will learn how lucky / blessed they are to be able to worship in the United States in comparison to many other countries.
Getting kids out of public education in order to attend church-like teaching is simply a risk factor for development of Christian nationalism, which is not Christian. Christian nationalism is a heresy.
Those of us who consider ourselves Christian and are against Christian nationalism need to continue to speak out. Speaking out for everyone and not for the select few is where God exists.
**By the way, secular folks can be just as idiotic at times when they push politics into basic education. A GREAT editorial is here.
Image generated by Google Gemini
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