Why Not Just Separate School and State?

Religion in Schools
The National Free to Speak Campaign
By Chuck Colson|Published Date: July 16, 2009

As her contribution to a school mural, Melissa Yates painted a cross with the words “I believe, do you?” School officials quickly whitewashed her artwork, erasing her expression of faith.

Olivia Turton wanted to sing her favorite song, “Awesome God,” during an after-school talent show. She was denied permission to do so.

Harrison Kravat asked to read the Bible during quiet reading time at school. He was told to take his Bible home.

Elizabeth Johnson proposed to her teacher a book report on the Book of Exodus. Her teacher said “no.”

Each of these students has a story to share—about how their religious freedom was squashed by school officials who were either ignorant of the law or fearful of offending the ACLU.

After legal motions were filed for each of these situations, Melissa re-painted her cross, Olivia sang her song, Elizabeth completed and submitted her book report, and Harrison read his Bible at school during quiet time.

But a lot of time and legal expenses could have been spared if school officials had simply followed the Department of Education’s guidelines on students’ freedom of religious expression.

Kent Comments:

And even more time, legal expenses, and all sorts of other wasted cultural capital could have been spared if the Department of Education were abolished (Reagan said he would do that, but didn’t or couldn’t follow through) and school and state were as carefully separated as church and state.

For all the same reasons that it is counter-productive for the government to own GM, for example, it is also counter-productive for governments to own schools.  Though it is now a long-standing tradition, it is a bad tradition.  It is, if you think about it, the epitome of socialism – government ownership of the means of production.

For one thing, it is completely impossible to separate education from religion.  You cannot explore the physical universe, the human self, and the human experience without using significant religious assumptions or conclusions.  Even the thought that there is no God, or that God is irrelevant to education, is itself a religious position.

The original reason/excuse for government ownership of schools seemed to be that functioning citizens in a republic needed to be educated to some extent.  But once governments own schools, those in power in government will tend to educate students ‘in their own image.’  State-provided education will tend to be, to some extent, an apologetic for current state policies.  How often, for example, do students in government-owned schools seriously explore the problems with governments owning schools?

And thus can you now peruse the curricula of most state-owned schools and find little breeding grounds for environmentalism, multi-culturalism, nanny-statism, agnosticism, and every other current ‘politically correct’ drivel imaginable.  Even those who seriously disagree with all this are forced to pay to have it stuffed into the minds of those sentenced to endure such nonsense from ages 5/6-18.

These are problems all easily solvable by separating school and state, if only we had the courage to do so!

Do Something, You Weenie Republicans!

 

Every evening before going to bed, I brush my teeth – and floss, too!  (Good hygiene, wouldn’t you say?)  Earlier this week I was listening to the Mark Levin radio show while pursuing said good hygiene.

Mark was talking with one of the Republican Senators on the judicial committee who had been questioning the new Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor.  This Senator had asked some good questions, but he repeatedly said to Mark Levin, “I have to be respectful.  She is a federal judge.”

As pertinent as the Senator’s questions for Sotomayor were, I have some questions for this Senator, and all those who take that approach.

Do you not think that, in this Sotomayor person, we are dealing with someone who has absolutely no regard for individual liberty?  Everything she has said indicates that she a lying weasel who will mouth any words to the Senate committee that she thinks will help get her nominated.

Do you remember how the haters of liberty treated Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas?  They defeated Bork and forever tarnished Thomas with tactics that had no relationship to respect.  Go back and listen to the then-more-sober Ted Kennedy’s part of the questioning of those two.

Do you not think that when the very existence of liberty is in danger, as it is right now, it is time to abandon your polite little thoughts about ‘respect’ and do whatever you can to save what’s left of the republic?  It’s as though you Republicans come to the OK Corral with squirt guns while the opposition is armed with Colt .45s.  When asked why, you say, “It wouldn’t be right to use a real gun.  Someone might get hurt.”

We WANT someone to ‘get hurt.’  We want the haters of liberty to be DEFEATED!  (How hard is that to understand, you gutless Republicans?)

Even the few fairly good Republicans these days are WEENIES.  Gentlemen and gentlewomen who have any regard for liberty:  it is time to ‘take off the gloves.’  It is time to ‘get down and get dirty.’  It is time to do whatever is necessary to defeat the enemy, those who would sacrifice liberty to their vision of a collectivist state.

Stop being ‘polite’ –whatever you think that means.  This is no drill!  Do whatever you must to make clear liberty-despising mind behind Sotomayor’s fake, smug little face.  Do it now before it is everlastingly too late.

Pretend to Care for Fun and Profit

Does this sort of thing make you as sick as it does me?

At one grocery store, they want to sell me a cloth bag for $1.99 so I won’t use their paper bags.  I don’t mind that they want to do that, but I do mind that they (very thinly) attempt to disguise their real motives by claiming that this will ‘help the earth.’  No, it won’t.  But it will help the grocery store – and that would be fine if they had the guts to admit it and not hide behind the idiocy of environmentalism.

At another grocery/department store their ever-present-and-babbling TV screens urge me to buy their ‘organic’ products – which happen to be much more pricey than the regular stuff.  I don’t mind the store hocking the organic junk.  But I feel like throwing a piece of fruit at the big screen when it tells me how this will ‘help the environment.’  It will help the store.  I wish they had the guts to admit it, and not hide behind the idiocy of environmentalism.

And the problem goes beyond the simple hypocrisy here.  When companies begin to think they can profit from the stupidity of environmentalism, they suddenly become willing accomplices with the idiot environmentalists to ram their stupid ideas down the throats of the rest of us.

Here is a possible way for a company to ‘cash in’ on the environmental movement in a way that would be both honest and helpful for the general welfare.  Companies could put bounties on the heads of environmentalists.  You bag one and bring it in, and you get cash, store credit, or some other tangible reward.  The higher profile the environmentalist, the bigger the prize.

Yes, yes – I know it is not morally permissible thus to kill.  But couldn’t we just temporarily assume the leftist ethic of the environmentalists, which often assumes the permissibility (and for some, even the desirability – and some have so said) of killing unwanted babies?  Then, just before bagging some unwanted environmentalist, we could simply say, “Sorry, we thought you were a baby!”

I suppose not.  But can’t we dream?

Pushing Me Toward Hate

 

It’s official now, and I will publically admit it:  I am very close to hating the Obama administration.  I think I am about to hate Obama himself.  Why?

Not for the policies, as bad as those are.  They are simply designed to destroy liberty and turn what little is left of a free society into soft fascist state.

What I am about to hate Obama for is what he has done to me, to my mind, to my attitude.  He ran for president as the first (partly) black man to do so.  He allowed his supporters to turn his election into a racial matter.  I have never cared what color a person is.  But the incessant harping about Obama’s mixed race – as stupid as some of that harping is – has made it almost impossible to ignore race.  And that is wrong.

I wanted to evaluate Obama as a person, period.  That has not been permitted.  People keep screaming that I must evaluate Obama as a ‘racial unit’ of some kind.  That is demeaning both to him and to me.  He seems to revel in being demeaned like that.  But I hate the fact that these people are trying to suck me into all this.

True to his disgusting form in this regard, he has appointed someone to the Supreme Court who – everyone insists – must be evaluated, not as a person and a justice, but as a ‘Latina woman.’  I have tried very hard, in a society that sometimes makes it very difficult, NOT to evaluate people in terms of sex and race.  (Note:  not ‘gender’ – words have a gender, humans have a sex.)

But now the fact that this justice-deficient ‘justice’ is a Latina woman is being rammed down my throat.  And I am very close to hating all the people who are doing that, from Obama and his administration to those nit-wits in the United States Senate who are pushing for the confirmation of this – not person – but this ‘Latina woman.’

I am very close to hating all the people who are doing these things, because they and what they are doing is evil, and it is hard not to hate evil, even when it is personified.

I hate that they are trying to make me hate.  May God bring swiftly upon them all the reward they so richly deserve for being purveyors of hate.

Church Gone Awry

This is from:

John Calvin at 500 -- Faithful and Welcoming Luncheon, General Synod Grand Rapids

presented by Charles Hambrick-Stowe

By contrast, the tendency in the UCC since 1957 has been overwhelmingly toward human action, social action, social reform, living your faith in the public arena. Our activism -- our gift -- believing means doing -- most certainly stems from our Calvinist heritage (whether UCC members know this or not). But -- and this, it seems to me, is the spiritual problem of the United Church of Christ -- our commitment to faithful living is no longer rooted in a theology of redemption. In many places and at many organizational levels of the church, the very concept of justification and sanctification are ignored or even rejected as obsolete, meaningless, or hurtful doctrines. Salvation is construed as getting in touch with your true self, perhaps especially your true gendered self, so if there is a theological emphasis at all it is on the doctrine of creation ("God doesn't create junk") and, with regard to Jesus, the doctrine of the Incarnation, God-with-us, validating us just as we are. But . . . the Fall? Atonement? Reconciliation of sinful humanity with the God of holiness? Word that Christ died for our sins? Who in our churches knows what any of this means anymore?

Kent comments:

This is from a group of United Churches of Christ that are attempting a kind of reform movement within that group.  These ‘Faithful and Welcoming Churches’ see their group as an alternative to withdrawal from the UCC.  While they don’t like the direction the UCC has gone, they don’t think becoming an independent congregation is a good idea either because, among other things, they think a denominational structure can help keep churches from going astray!

One has to ask, “How’s that working out for you in the UCC – which by your own admission is so messed up that you have to have this reforming group?!?”  Nevertheless . . .

It is very interesting to get this inside look at some of the things that concern a reform-minded minister of the UCC.  Hambrick-Stowe is here particularly interested in the heritage from John Calvin.  But some of the matters he mentions here transcend Calvinism.  ‘Activism’ can be a good thing IF you know what to be active for.  Too often, ‘activism’ has become a code-word from ‘actively promoting state-enforced socialism.’  This is certainly true of most of the UCC.  I hope this is not the case with these ‘Faithful and Welcoming’ people.

The characterization that in the UCC, “Salvation is construed as getting in touch with your true self, perhaps especially your true gendered self” has become the standard fare in the mainline denominations.  I can sympathize with anyone who found that sort of thing in the group he was affiliated with and wants to do something about it.  And who can be surprised that a man who admires John Calvin wants to reform something!  While I can’t fully agree with the approach of the ‘FWChurches’ (that’s what they call it) people, I also can’t help but wish them well.  Almost every church I have ever known needed some degree of reforming.

But beyond all this, we should make note of something very important.  These matters that Hambrick-Stowe complains about here – serious departures from the Christian faith – are pandemic in much of the UCC.  Some churches, and some ministers, are much further ‘down the tubes’ than others.

It is within the theological/ecclesiastical mess that B. H. Obama found his ‘church home.’  It is where he learned ‘Christianity.’  It is the source of his ‘theology’ such as it is.  There has been a lot of discussion about Obama’s religious background, where the Obama family will attend church while he is president, and so forth.  While that might all be of interest to the media paparazzi, if you want to know what Obama thinks about religion, you need to look at what the very worst parts of the UCC believes.  That is Obama’s spiritual womb.

As this insider reveals, it is not a pretty picture.

Better Than Elections

"Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens."
--George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 17, 1788

Contrast the above with what follows:

Congressmen Who Vote for Government-Run Health Care Agency Should Be Its First Customers
Thursday, July 09, 2009
By Matt Cover

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) introduced a bill Monday that urges members of Congress who vote to create a government-run health insurance agency to give up their own comprehensive health insurance plans to join the new the public option they advocate for others.  The bill, H. Res. 615, says members of Congress who vote for a government-run health care bureau should become the inaugural customers of government-run health-care.

Kent comments:

The fact that anyone would need to propose this kind of legislation is one of many signals of the end of the Republic.  There is now and has been for some time a political class - much to the chagrin of those who love liberty.  Elected officials at the national level have bestowed upon themselves all sorts of perks, many of which do not end when their term of office ends.

My guess is that H.R. 615 will never see a vote in the House.  Far too many who serve in the higher levels of government take the phrase ‘an honor and a privilege’ to mean, “I now deserve special privileges.’  And have them they do.

For some time now I have been convinced that we would be much better off replacing elections with citizen lotteries.  It would work like this:  the names of all those age-qualified for an office, residing in the appropriate location for that office, would be put into a big hopper.  (This could make a fun TV show, by the way.)  When the time came for a given office to be filled, a name would be drawn.  If for some reason that person did not want to serve, another name would be drawn, until a willing person was found.  A person could serve at a given political ‘location’ (House, Senate, etc.) only once.  The person serving would have all reasonable expenses paid out of the public treasury – nothing more.

And that’s how we would fill our various offices.  I think the is a very high likelihood that we would have better government with this system.  It appears to me that the ability to convince people to vote for you in an election is more likely to make you an undesirable office-holder than it is to make you a good office-holder.

Of course, with a citizen lottery in place of elections, we would get some ‘losers’ in office.  But when you ponder the likes of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi (just to name a couple), how likely is it that we would do worse with a lottery?  I would much rather trust political decisions to one of my randomly-chosen neighbors than to the kind of people who run for office, often seeking power and prestige.

People selected in a lottery who agreed to serve would be people who didn’t really want the job, but agreed to do it temporarily.  These are both excellent qualities for office-holders.  When they finished their terms in office, they would be back living under the conditions they were creating.

You might think I am joking about this, but I am not.  There are so many things to recommend this system, and almost none that count against it.  What do you think?

Addicted to Projection?

What follows is from a sermon/article:

8 Ways to Help Your Congregation Fall in Love with the Bible

John D. Barry
Editor-in-Chief, Bible Study Magazine » Logos Bible Software »

3. Forget to Prepare a PowerPoint

Disconnecting from the Bible is easy when you don't have to open one. In our effort to be hip, we can distract people from the Bible with multimedia. When used poorly, PowerPoints can make the sermon feel like a show rather than a learning opportunity. I am not suggesting we stop using multimedia—I believe it is a powerful tool for keeping people's attention and illustrating points. But I do suggest you skip it for a week or two and crack open the Bible at your pulpit instead. The Bible will only be understood as a page turner if we turn its pages.

Imagine that instead of you reading the chosen passage for a week, you asked the congregation to read it aloud or to themselves. It may not work the first week, but people will certainly remember to bring their Bibles the next week. This is multi-sensory preaching—you are not just engaging their eyes and ears; you are engaging their sense of touch. When people physically explore the Bible using multiple senses, they continue to think about it when they leave, and they will probably pick it up again during the week.

Kent Comments:

This whole article is worth reading – this is just a small section.  Notice that this advice comes from a Bible software editor.  So you can’t complain that he is just some anti-technology dude.

This whole matter is related to the musical point I made in an earlier blog entry.  There is a clear and present danger that technology can grow out-of-control in the church assembly and change it into a show.

When everything is projected, as Barry points out, we can end up decreasing the number of senses people use in our church meetings.  He is quite right – there is great value in people thumbing around and through the printed pages of Bibles.

For people new to the church, it is like a guided tour through the scriptures.  On the way to a passage in Isaiah, people will pass other books of the Bible.  They might become curious.  On the way to find the little NT book of James, people might notice Hebrews.  And notice this:  a projected scripture text cannot be in context.  When people turn to a passage in a Bible, the whole context is available if they need to check it.

Some of the same can be said of always projecting words of songs onto a screen.  People never see musical notation at church meetings – just words.  They never see the notation for various parts, and thus there is not much help for harmony singing.  Just viewing the musical notation repeatedly, as happens when we look at traditional church song books, can help people begin to see how musical notation works.  We miss all that with the way most churches now use – perhaps overuse or misuse – projection technology.

I am not opposed to projecting material for sermons, singing, and so forth.  But it seems to have become an unwritten law in many congregations that everything, always, must be projected, in spite of the fact that there are these obvious problems with projection.  That law is stupid, and it ought to be repealed.

If your congregation thinks it just couldn’t live without its projector, perhaps it has a technology addiction problem.  It is one thing to use technology – it is another for technology to use us.