LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kiji_kat)

Texas District Adopts Disputed Text on Bible Study
By BARBARA NOVOVITCH
Published: December 22, 2005

ODESSA, Tex., Dec. 21 -Trustees of the Ector County Independent School District here decided, 4 to 2, on Tuesday night that high school students would use a course published by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools for studying the Bible in history and literature.

The council is a religious advocacy group in Greensboro, N.C., and has the backing of the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, two conservative organizations.

( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lihan161051)

War is what's left when everything, even diplomacy, fails and you are left with an enemy whose disagreements with you are so basic and so fundamental that you cannot hope to reason with him. This is important because there is no true winning or losing in a war, there is simply survival and defense of what is most meaningful to you.

And defense is the ultimate goal of any war, preserving what is important against someone's best efforts to destroy it. Even offensive tactics have a defensive goal, or at least they should.

( More.. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about the removal of two sponsors of a Gay/Straight Alliance student club from the school. The back story is Here:

Point in case -- a Palmer High School student brought the ACLU into a fight to create a Gay Straight Alliance (details of which I have previously posted elsewhere). After 2 years and $340,000 in legal fees, the district settled -- not because they felt the suit was right, but because the legal fees were becoming cumbersome. Be that as it may, the GSA was accorded its due status as a club at the school, with the rights and privileges assigned to all school sponsored clubs. You might think that means the issue is closed.

If you think that, however, you think wrong.

Palmer High School is in Colorado Springs, CO, the ground zero of the overt and aggressive dominionist movement. It is also the home of the Global Harvest Ministries, and the always aggressive Focus on the Family, as well as the besieged USAF Academy.

A student at the school wrote:

Yesterday, our two brave and incredible teacher sponsors, Mrs. Lindau and Mr. Schulzki, were interruped in the middle of their own classes by security and were literally escorted out of the building. This caused an enormous eruption throughout the entire school of confusion and anger. Apparently, the district has found Mrs. Lindau and Mr. Schulzki "guilty" of something that they are officially under investigation for and are not allowed on the school's property until the investigation is over, which could be weeks or even months. The faculty is not allowed to release any information as to why our two beloved teachers and sponsors are in so much trouble, but from the sounds of things, if proven guilty, they could be at the risk of being fired. Our principal, Tom Kelly, along with the rest of the faculty, have informed us that it has absolutely nothing to do with the G/SA, but I don't buy that for a second. It is far too coincidental that these two teachers, out of 200 others, would be accused of doing something so awful.

The bottom line: these people will stop at nothing to get their way. If they have a way to circumvent something, they will. If they have money, they'll spend it all to get their way. If they make the rules (as many do, since they have taken over many school boards), they'll use them against you. Mercy, tolerance and compassion are not qualities of dominionists.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY charlayne)

This is another one of those examples we keep running into:



Teacher Forces Girl To Remove Religious Necklace

POSTED: 6:59 am EST December 13, 2005

WFTV.com (Florida), October 13, 2005 (found off www.witchvox.com) WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. -- A Seminole County mother is speaking out after her daughter's teacher forced her to remove a necklace, which is a religious sign.

The necklace is a pentacle, a sign of the Wiccan religion.

Aleigh Garmen said Indian Trails Middle School teacher Mary McNeal told her to remove the necklace because it represents Satan. The girl took it off, but with her mother's permission she was transferred to a new class with a failing grade.

Her mother feels it's no different than someone wearing a cross.

"It's your right to be Christian, just like it's my right to be Wiccan, just like it's my daughter's right to wear a necklace," said the girl's mother, Angi Martin.

Channel 9 tried to talk to the teacher, but she would not comment.

The school district said it should have never happened and gave the teacher a warning.

Copyright 2005 by wftv.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


My only question is why the failing grade?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY marvelouswings)

I was looking through Kansas newspapers for some opinion pieces on Paul Mirecki's stepping down as Chair of the Religious Diversity department, and ran across this opinion piece by Rhonda Chris in the Kansas City Star. Nice to see someone in the media actually tackling the issue.

How the Right Wing Grinches Try to Steal Christmas

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

"It happens sometimes that princes enter into mutual agreements and carry on a war on trumpted-up grounds so as to reduce still more the power of the people and secure their own positions through disaster to their subjects. Wherefore the good Christian prince should hold under suspicion every war, no matter how just." ~Erasmus, "The Education of a Christian Prince"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

University to Teach 'Intelligent Design' as Myth

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- Creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas, but not in the way advocated by opponents of the theory of evolution.

A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies.''

"The KU faculty has had enough,'' said Paul Mirecki, department chairman.

"Creationism is mythology,'' Mirecki said. "Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not.''

The livescience page also has links to a variety of related pages, including their more detailed special report on Evolution & Intelligent Design.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From the New York Times:

University Is Accused of Bias Against Christian Schools
By CAROLYN MARSHALL

Cody Young is an evangelical Christian who attends a religious high school in Southern California. With stellar grades, competitive test scores and an impressive list of extracurricular activities, Mr. Young has mapped a future that includes studying engineering at the University of California and a career in the aerospace industry, his lawyers have said.

But Mr. Young, his teachers and his family fear his beliefs may hurt his chance to attend the university. They say the public university system, which has 10 campuses, discriminates against students from evangelical Christian schools, especially faith-based ones like Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, where Mr. Young is a senior.

Mr. Young, five other Calvary students, the school and the Association of Christian Schools International, which represents 4,000 religious schools, sued the University of California in the summer, accusing it of "viewpoint discrimination" and unfair admission standards that violate the free speech and religious rights of evangelical Christians.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

'The judge ruled that preventing the group from meeting at the school was a violation of its right to free expression. '

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY farklebarkle)

Someone got nice and sarcastic in the Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) Letters to the Editor section today. Kudos to you, Mike Sloothaak.

The story of pi and intelligent design

I wish to congratulate House Speaker Brian Bosma and Indiana Republicans for pushing intelligent design in our state. This is a great act of Christian faith and responsibility.

But Indiana's Christians must challenge our representatives to even greater faith. 1 Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2 makes clear that what the Eastern liberal establishment, the American Civil Liberties Union and activist judges insist on calling "pi" is actually, simply 3. Do our Republicans in Indianapolis have the faith necessary to defy the liberals, embrace biblical truths and legislate that in Indiana "pi" will officially be equal to 3? Our great state will be blessed materially if we embrace that level of faith.

First, many technical calculations would be simplified, so science and engineering firms will flock to Indiana to do business, creating many new jobs. Second, our children will be spared the burden of memorizing a pagan Greek symbol in their mathematical formulas and can focus on other matters more fitting with the Christian values we so cherish.

God made ones, twos and threes, not pi, square roots and "e's." Even the mathematicians themselves doubt their own monstrous creations, or else why would they refer to the latter as irrational numbers?

Intelligent design is only the first step in a long journey to bring timeless biblical truths back to Indiana. Let's pray that a majority of our politicians are up to this task.

Mike Sloothaak
West Lafayette

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jalendavi_lady)

The Georgia Baptist Convention may be about to cut financial ties with Mercer University over a GLBT organization.

( Article from the Christian Index, by the editor himself )

( Info on the GA Baptist Convention meeting currently in session )

( If it wasn't so tragic, the irony would have me laughing--a bit of Georgia Baptist History )

Please excuse me while I find someplace to be quietly sick about this.

EDIT: The student group was disbanded before the Georgia Baptist Convention voted: The Macon Telegraph- "Gay student support group disbands over Baptist controversy"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From Jehova's Fitness

The Fundamentalist Agenda

PINKERTON - As the polls are coming in, it is obvious that pro-gay-rights candidates have won a majority of the seats on the town's school board.

"Well, it's about time," says voter Evelyn Gaylord, "I'm sick and tired of those Fundamentalist Christians and their Agenda." Mrs. Gaylord's sentiments seem to be shared by many of the voters in today's election.

It appears that the firebrand anti-Fundamentalist rhetoric of several of the candidates hit its mark among the voters. A good example of such rhetoric is from a statement issued by incumbent Simeon Kwir, "Thanks to Fundamentalist activists there are already Christian clubs in our schools. Next on their Agenda is school prayer. It's obvious who their target is: our children. The Fundamentalists are recruiting in schools and that has to stop!"( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thornewilder)

First. A multitutde of thanks, to everyone here. Thanks to the thoughtful dialog, thanks to the research, thanks to the links and thanks for the caring.

This one is for dogemperor.
I bugged my husband all weekend to discuss the types of developmental anomolies he sees exhibited in "suspected dominionist" families. (ie the mom who comes into the exam room with her dogeared bible along with 15,000 red bookmarks....)His standard caveats - as any scientist would have - regarding legitimate research controls apply here. We are talking observations only.

In the Cognitive Development Sequence
0-18 months: sensorineural (making sense of the universe purely through sensation)
rather interesting this is the time chosen to start caning, ie "let's teach our children the universe is inately hostile..."

18 months to 5/6 yrs: preoperational thinking (this includes precausal and magical) as the beginning of cause & effect however the percieved cause & effect are frequently inaccurate)Example:Rain is when angels cry.

7+ : Concrete Operational; definite beginning of cause & effect that includes the beginning of recognizing and organizing facts. (memorizing lists, tables, collecting items, sorting...)

13/14 and up: Formal Operational (developing the ability to compare and contrast, project into the future with relative degrees of accuracy)

In the families he suspects of strong dominionist associations he sees a potentially significant penchant for children to stay in the realm of preoperational thinking long beyond the developmental milestones would have suggested they ought to move on. Many times if they are pressed or presented with a challenge to thier thinking ("This idea can't be because Jesus wouldn't want it to be so"), they then revert to sensorineural behavior...ie rocking, staring into space or such.

This suggests a potential effect of dominionist households may be the arrested development of cognitive skills, or inordinate dwelling at a developmental level you ought to have graduated from. Formal operational thought is discouraged.

Does this result in adults without the sustainded ability for consistent mature formal operational thought? (highly manipulatable)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY evil_genius)

Godless America
on This American Life.
Listen

At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a "Biblical world view" in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere, This American Life spends an hour trying to remember why anyone liked the separation of church and state in the first place.

Prologue. Two stories about people who suddenly realize they're the only ones around who value the separation of church and state. Paul Williams, a city councilman in Janesville, Wisconsin wants to make sure a Salvation Army built with public money doesn't proselytize. Soon he's getting attacked in the local press ... and by President Bush. And a Georgia teacher finds that by teaching what she's supposed to teach – evolution - she turns her school against her. (9 minutes)

Act One. The Substance of Things Hoped For ... in Government. We hear a quick rundown of all the ways that Christian conservatives are making headway in advancing their values as public policy, why they think total separation of church and state is not what the founding fathers intended. And why they're wrong. On the Christian side of this argument is Pastor Russell Johnson of the Ohio Restoration Project, which is trying to recruit "patriot pastors" to get involved in state politics, and Bill Carrico, a Virgina legislator who's trying to make sure people can express their Christianity in schools and other public places. And then there are the videos and speeches of David Barton, whose group, Wallbuilders, is trying to teach people that the founding fathers meant for America to be a Christian country. On the other side are Rob Boston, spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Cornell government professor Isaac Kramnick, co-author of The Godless Constitution. (18 minutes)

Act Two. God Said, Huh? Julia Sweeney, a Catholic, tells the story of how her faith began to crack after reading a most alarming book ... called the Bible. Her story is excerpted from her play, "Letting Go of God," which ran in Los Angeles. Her other one-woman monologues are "God Said, "Ha!" and "In the Family Way." (29 minutes)
Song: "When the President Talks to God," Bright Eyes; also "God Bless America," Connie Francis

The ADL has not only confirmed now on their website their condemnation and concern regarding dominionism, but also has written a specific letter to Ha'aretz newspaper clarifying that their concerns are regarding dominionism, not Christianity in general. (Ha'aretz, as you recall, originally broke the story on ADL officially taking a stand against dominionism.)

The ADL is now the second major anti-hate group, and the first Jewish-affiliated anti-hate group, specifically to take a stand regarding the tactics of dominionist organisations; the first group was the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has written an extensive report on dominionist hate speech, is now investigating multiple dominionist groups, and has listed two Christian Reconstructionist groups (as well as the major group spewing nearly all of the pro-"degaying therapy", anti-gay/les/bi/trans spew used by dominionist groups, in particular the AFA, Freedom's Heritage Forum and Repent America) as hate groups equivalent to the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi groups. (In fact, most of the same groups the ADL has listed as being of specific concern are the same groups listed by SPLC as of concern.)

I have been in contact with the ADL giving them some backgrounder info (and also giving them some additional information regarding at least one "Christian Zionist" group associated with dominionist groups that has claimed ADL support, as well as info re the AoG being the *other* major force in targeting Jews for conversion; the latter has been a concern for them for awhile). The ADL will need support from non-dominionist groups in the coming months, as (at least based on the Ha'aretz article comments) dominionists are *already* starting to dead-agent them.

The ADL has given some condemnation of attempts by the Southern Baptist Convention of promotion of "Messianic Jew" (as in "kosher dominionist") groups, but this is the first time they've explicitly come out against dominionism in general.

In another indication of the ADL's new antidominionist stance, they have issued a statement that the "Bible curriculum" promoted by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is unacceptable due to it being essentially a dominionist indoctrionation program. (Texas Freedom Network, a major antidominionist group, has already reported on how the NCBCPS curricula is heavily skewed towards dominionist viewpoints, and a long list including many Biblical scholars and theologians has joined in the condemnation of that particular program. The same curricula was the target of a court challenge in Florida which led to it being removed from the schools in that state.)

The ADL is also a party in filing an amicus curae brief in a court case involving a public school board in Louisiana opening meetings with dominionist prayers and in fact blatantly refusing to allow nonsectarian prayers; the ADL has also recently issued statements criticising promotion of creationism and "intelligent design" in schools as well as statements criticising the USAFA tolerating dominionist abuse of non-dominionist soldiers.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

"It is imperative that we get a Christian influence back into our nation’s schools. This can be done legally and we are compelled to do so."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thornewilder)

Does anyone know anything about this Seminary?
Trinity College of the Bible Theological Seminary

http://www.trinitysem.edu/AboutTrinity/AboutTrinity.html

It is NAPNSC accredited, but it looks like NAPNSC is not highly though of:
http://www.degree.net/guides/non-gaap_listings.html

The National Association for Private Nontraditional Schools and Colleges (formerly the National Association for Schools and Colleges) is a serious effort to establish an accrediting agency specifically concerned with alternative schools and programs. It was established in Grand Junction, Colorado, in the 1970s by a group of educators associated with Western Colorado University, a nontraditional school that has since gone out of business. Although NAPNSC's standards for accreditation have grown more rigorous over the years, their application for recognition has been turned down many times by the US Department of Education, but they plan to keep trying.

Thanks

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nocturnalseraph)

It looks like Kansas is the first to fall. Who will be next?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/11/08/evolution.debate.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY tully_monster)

Maybe we lost Kansas, but for what it's worth, Dover expelled their wingnuts tonight.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Talk To Action talks about the recent push back against the efforts to "Christianize" public schools.