LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

Record numbers flocking to evangelical Christian colleges

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

When Would Jesus Bolt?

Long, but interesting article.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY neadods)

A Book Review: My Fundamentalist Education by Christine Rosen.

This slender memoir (231 pages including the acknowedgements) is the surprisingly sweet story of roughly 10 years in a girl's life in Florida from the mid 70s to the mid 80s. It's a good read, but one for a very limited audience. The title, and the drive behind writing the book, was an attempt to explain what fundamentalist beliefs are and how they shape the children raised in them. This is not, however, an angry expose by a breakaway; Rosen is quite matter-of-fact, humorous and even a little nostalgic as she describes what she thought and felt as she was taught to list the Dispensations, "Walk Thru The Bible," and pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and the Bible, while admitting that she has long since fallen away from that life.

Religious tension runs as an undercurrent throughout the book. Rosen wavers between wanting despearately to be a missionary to rejecting several core teachings, especially when she realized that girls were punished for independence and spirit. Rosen's father and stepmother weren't particularly religious; like many parents, they sent their daughters to the school because it was the best and safest one they could afford, not specifically because it provided religious indoctrination. (Indeed, that indoctrination finally alarms them to the point of withdrawing the girls from Keswick and ending the book.) Rosen tries her underaged best to Save her immediate family, but she is also unprepared to deal with, much less understand, what her birth mother is going through during her brief visitations and custody weekends. The reader will figure out long before the child narrator that "Biomom" is manic-depressive and self-medicating with increasingly hardcore Pentacostal and evangelist churches.

The book is divided into thematic chapters told in chronological order. "Sword of the Spirit" talks about how important the Bible was as the fundamental textbook (while pointing out the desirability of the tabbed Bibles - they gave you an edge in the daily verse-search competitions.) "Here Comes the Son" was about learning about Revelations, and the terror of wondering each time she heard a loud car horn, thinking she was about to be swept away from life before she'd lived it. My favorite chapter was "Heresies" which was about the tension between her interest in evolutionary biology and the creationist teachings she was surrounded with in school, and includes this great paragraph:

I found I didn't like the science I learned at school as much as I had liked it at the science center, where we had learned that part of the appeal of scientific research was the opportunity to do great things in the world with it, like cure diseases and win Nobel Prizes. At school, science was simply another reminder of God's power and of the wonder of His creation. We learned about it so that we could learn more about God, not so that we could use it to do exciting things.

I love that paragraph because I think it sums up the current religio/science situation so nicely.

There are no deep answers here nor major religious insights, but there is a pleasant story and a little bit of understanding of the child's eye view of religion.

x-posted to personal journal

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY silvaerina_tael)

Found this this morning in one of the communitties I'm a part of.

http://community.livejournal.com/asatruar/350974.html?#cutid1

Thought you all might find it amusing.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kiji_kat)

School distances itself from Brokeback actress.

“Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution. We would not approve of her movies and TV shows (including the teen drama “Dawson's Creek”). We'd not like to be tied to 'Brokeback Mountain.'

“I hope we offered her something in life. But she made the kinds of choices of which we wouldn't approve. 'Brokeback Mountain' basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God.”

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

Va. Schools Win Christian Poster Dispute

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kiji_kat)

The Toms River, NJ, school board took a stand against bigotry by refusing to fire a transgendered teacher at the request of a fundamentalist parent.

You can thank the board for their efforts and decision here: trboe@trschools.com

x-posted to kiji_kat

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

From Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

'Opt-out' idea irks professors
Arizona measure would let students skip work they found offensive

( Article behind the cut )

If this passes, degrees from Arizona universities will be good for exactly one thing.

Emergency toilet paper.

Found on the journal of mstical1.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

ABA Awards Provisional Accreditation to Christian Law School

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

A group of parents in the Katy Independent School District obtained a restraining order Monday preventing the district from interfering today with pupils handing out valentines with religious themes.

But Katy spokeswoman Kris Taylor said the district has no rules forbidding a child from handing out a religious valentine to another student.

"This restraining order is telling us not to do things we don't do anyway," Taylor said Monday.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jaded_journeys)

Their Own Version of a Big Bang

From the article:

Evangelist Ken Ham smiled at the 2,300 elementary students packed into pews, their faces rapt. With dinosaur puppets and silly cartoons, he was training them to reject much of geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology as a sinister tangle of lies.

"Boys and girls," Ham said. If a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, "you put your hand up and you say, 'Excuse me, were you there?' Can you remember that?"

The children roared their assent.

"Sometimes people will answer, 'No, but you weren't there either,' " Ham told them. "Then you say, 'No, I wasn't, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.' " He waved his Bible in the air.

"Who's the only one who's always been there?" Ham asked.

"God!" the boys and girls shouted.

"Who's the only one who knows everything?"

"God!"

"So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?"

The children answered with a thundering: "God!"

A former high-school biology teacher, Ham travels the nation training children as young as 5 to challenge science orthodoxy. He doesn't engage in the political and legal fights that have erupted over the teaching of evolution. His strategy is more subtle: He aims to give people who trust the biblical account of creation the confidence to defend their views — aggressively. [Emphasis Mine]

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY enkinhou)

...anyone here know anything about Messiah College?

All I know is that the college is based in Pennsylvania, and it was founded in 1972 by the Brethren in Christ Church. (The timing of the founding sets off a red flag for me...)

Conservative? Indications I've seen point towards "yes" (though I could be wrong). However, though Dominionist churches tend to be ultra-conservative, conservative does not a Dominionist make...

...which is why I come to you people...

( From the 'Core Values of Brethren in Christ Church Page'... )

They also list the Apostle's Creed as well as their own Confession of Faith in the college's Statement of Faith page.

However, one thing that causes me less worry is that in their page about Anabaptism (one of the three tradition that the church purportedly follows), they cite the tradition's adherence to Separation of Church and State and how the government should not be in the business of endorsing any religion.

My Googling has yielded me no association between these people and Dominionism in general.

Your thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

BENNETT, Colo. - Some parents in this prairie town are angry with an elementary school music teacher for showing pupils a video about the opera "Faust," whose title character sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being young again.

"Any adult with common sense would not think that video was appropriate for a young person to see. I'm not sure it's appropriate for a high school student," Robby Warner said after two of her children saw the video.

Another parent, Casey Goodwin, said, "I think it glorifies Satan in some way."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

As was noted here a few days ago, Newsweek recently published a story on Liberty University's debate team. A commenter over in the World Magazine Blog pointed out that the claim that Liberty has the number one debate team, while technically true, is misleading. This post at ScienceBlogs goes into some detail. Among other things,

Liberty attended 9 tournaments in the fall. Michigan State, a genuine national power (national champions in 2004, currently #8 in the varsity rankings), attended 7. But they were only at the same tournament three times. Liberty avoided the Kentucky and Harvard tournaments, where they would have faced all of the top teams in the nation, and instead attended smaller tournaments at Kings College, Army and Richmond. So they accumulate lots of points that don't mean a whole lot and boost their rankings.

What happens when Liberty faces the top teams? Not so good. At the Georgia State University tournament, for example, their two teams went 3-5 and 4-4 (Michigan State won the tournament). In the 2005 NDT championships, Liberty didn't even make the top 32 teams to make the elimination rounds. They also didn't break the top 32 in 2004. Or 2003. Or 2002. In fact, they've only made the elimination rounds of the NDT once since 1997, with a 5-3 record, where they were promptly eliminated by USC. So this isn't exactly a debate powerhouse we're talking about, despite the Newsweek story's exaggerated claims.

jade_woulf

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

Christian groups oppose bill to establish Bible course

Now, why on Earth would they do something like that - after all, wouldn't having a course (elective) in school about The Bible be a good thing?

Could it possibly be due to the following minor little detail?: "...the bill also specifies a specific textbook to be used in the course, which he said would violate the state process for selecting textbooks."

Nyahh...couldn't be that. You know, them not being able to control the course content and all...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY exotic_princess)

Article here, from USAToday

Exerpt:

The civil rights lawsuit filed by Calvary Chapel alleges that the 10-campus University of California is trampling the freedom of "a religious school to be religious." UC rejected the content of courses such as "Christianity's Influence in American History" and "Christianity and Morality in American Literature."

In court documents, UC says the free-speech clause of the First Amendment gives it the right to set admission standards. "What we're looking for is this: Is the course academic in nature, or is it there to promote a specific religious lifestyle?" UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina says.

The university rejected some class credits because Calvary Chapel relies on textbooks from leading Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Book. A biology book from Bob Jones University presents creationism and intelligent design alongside evolution. The introduction says, "The people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second."

UC says such books would be acceptable as supplementary reading but not as the main textbook.


Your thoughts?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This excellent article from "In These Times" talks about what "character education" really is:

Although legally and fiscally independent, the CTI is for all intents and purposes a "secular" front group for Gothard's IBLP. In the last decade, the CTI has quietly gained entry into hundreds of elementary, middle and high schools, state and city offices, corporations, police departments and jails.

Though he never uses the term, Gothard's ideology fits into the framework of the burgeoning "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, which aims to rebuild society according to biblical mandates. Within the Christian Reconstructionist worldview, modern-day chaos is directly attributable to the division of church and state and the consequent degradation of individual character.

For Gothard, the solution is restoring the United States--and then the rest of the world--to something that he calls "The Sevenfold Power of First-Century Churches and Homes."

The concept of obeying God-granted authority runs through virtually all IBLP-published materials. "The key to understanding authority is identifying four areas of God-ordained jurisdiction: parents, government, church leaders, and employers," reads an introductory passage to Basic Life Principles Seminar. "When a decision is to be made, we must ask, 'Whose jurisdiction is this under?' God gives direction, protection, and provision through human authorities. If we rebel against them, we expose ourselves to the destruction of evil principalities. ... This is why 'rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.' "

According to Gothard's interpretation, first century Roman Centurions were admirable figures of authority who followed their orders without question--the prototypes for the kinds of police officers that CTI instructor Ray Nash, the sheriff of Dorchester County, South Carolina, wants to create in his state and elsewhere.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
January 11, 2006
From The New York Times

A group of parents are suing their small California school district to force it to cancel a four-week high school elective on intelligent design, creationism and evolution that it is offering as a philosophy course.

The course at Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec, which serves a rural area north of Los Angeles, was proposed by a special education teacher last month and approved by the board of trustees in an emergency meeting on New Year's Day. The 11 parents are seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the course, which is being held during the session that ends on Feb. 3. ( More sneaky Xian bullshit )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brenisue)

From http://www.agapepress.org :

( cut for length )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY fannyfae)

I will defer to the moderator and if this post is not approriate here, I will remove it.

At any rate, it would seem rabid fundamentalism is trying to take up root in countries where we might not expect it, too. I recieve the Hindu Press International on a daily basis. Here is a story from one of the latest. For those who do not know, Hindus wear the Bindi on their foreheads as a mark of their faith. Both men and women wear them, depending on sect, but it is most common for married women in India to wear them.

( Hindu Teacher Ordered To Remove Bindi At Christian School )