God Discussion - March 23, 2011
Christian Dominionists Plan to Transform the World During "4/14 Window" by Focusing Prayers on Children
By God Discussion Reporter
A sect of Christian prayer warriors believe that there is a unique window to create a Christly kingdom on earth this coming April by focusing their efforts on children. According to the "4/14 Window Global Initiative" website, this "4-14 Window refers to the demographic group from age four to fourteen years old, which is the most open and receptive to every form of spiritual and developmental input."
Christian Domination of the Seven Mountains.
In its effort to raise up young followers of Christ, the 4/14 Window Global Initiative focuses on the "7 Mountains" ideology associated with what is loosely referred to as "Christian dominionism," a movement by New Apostolic Reformation, dominionist, reconstructionist and other forms of Christianity that believe that seven areas of world culture must be totally dominated and controlled by Christians so that Jesus Christ can return to earth and rule. While the ultimate focus is essentially the same, the exact verbiage of what constitutes the "7 Mountains" differs. The "7 Mountains" advocated by Shirley Dobson's National Day of Prayer Task Force are described as:
- Government,
- Military,
- Media,
- Business,
- Education,
- Church, and
- Family.
In a chilling video essay about the goals of Christian dominionists and their 7 Mountains agenda, journalist Bruce Wilson observed that Mary Glazier, who leads the Wasilla, Alaska prayer group that Sarah Palin joined, advocates "religious cleansing of entire lands" by believers in her movement. She preaches that people will be "displaced" and "toppled" from various institutions and that the Christians will take over. As to each individual's disposition, she claims their fate lies with God but that they will have an opportunity to "switch allegiances" and join the dominionists.
The 4/14 Window Global Initiative believes that today's cultural mountains are not providing children with godly values. In particular, it takes issue with the media complaining in its newsletter that:
Harry Potter is a major media icon that influences children and adolescents through references to sorcery, witchcraft, spiritualist invocations, and the lack of a Christ centered dimension of life.
In turning children to Christ, the 4/14 Window Global Initiative has an intense focus on organizational hierarchy in order to achieve global transformation, decreeing in its draft covenant that,
Each Christian organization shall include in its plans, programs and budget, provisions for capacity building of regional, national and local churches for the equipping and mobilization of children and their families in the 4/14 window for holistic transformation of their respective communities, nations and regions.
Luis Bush, founder of the 4/14 Window Global Initiative, believes that the focus on the young should be a priority, declaring,
It is a plea to open your heart and mind to the idea of reaching and raising up a new generation from within that vast group—a generation that can experience personal transformation and can be mobilized as agents for transformation throughout the world. Our vision and hope is to maximize their transformational impact while they are young, and to mobilize them for continuing impact for the rest of their lives.
Fasting and Intercessory Prayer.
Generals International, a dominionist group run by Cindy and Mike Jacobs, described in a March 22 email alert what their followers should do on the 4/14 Window:
The key demographic for missions in this century is the 4 to 14 Window in the view of a growing number of God’s people around the world because the four to fourteen year old's are known of their responsiveness to the gospel as compared to other ages and because of the formation of their character in during these years and the especially because of the highest priority given to them by Jesus when He walked on this earth.
This is the time to open the 4/14 Window. Participants came from almost 80 nations in September of last year called to catalyze and facilitate the rescuing, reaching, and raising up of a new generation from the 4/14 Window to transform their nations and beyond.
Join the growing global 4/14 Movement to mobilize focused, fervent, united intercessory prayer of God’s people in every region of the world on April 14th for the Raising up of a New Generation from the 4/14 Window to transform the world.
Steps to take:
1. Set the objective of the fast. There would be a two-fold purpose related to the 4/14ers in the church, city, nation, region and world: First, as The Esther Fast we are fasting for protection of the 4/14ers and deliverance from the Evil One (Esther 4:16). Second, we are praying for the Raising up of a New Generation from the 4/14 Window in the local church, city and nation to transform their nations, regions and the world.
2. Set aside the 14th of April for a day of fasting and prayer. If you need to go to work or serve use the open times to seek God on behalf of the 4/14ers of you church, town or city, country, region and world.
Generals also recommends a 3-day "Esther Fast," proclaiming that, "We are following the example of Esther to the challenge by her Uncle Mordecai to call a three-day fast as an essential part of the 4/14 Window Day to Change the World. The story concludes with a transformed world."
Prayer Focus.
The 4/14 Window Global Initiative prayer guide is a 64-page pdf document that describes objectives that all people having a humanitarian worldview can agree with — the elimination of poverty, abuse, neglect, war and violence for the sake of children. However, the prayer guide departs from humanitarian views when it takes issue with other faiths that are perceived to be evil. For instance, the guide states that:
Eastern religions have created a generation in Asia with a vastly different worldview that the traditional Christian one. With no ideas of Creator-God, Sin and Redemption, Asia’s children and youth represent a challenging mission field.
The prayer guide was issued before Japan's earthquake and tsunami. As to Japan, it stated:
They can’t shame their families by financial failure — suicide seems like an honorable way out — and the fatalism of eastern religion offers no hope. Japan’s next generation is in desperate need.
Prayer points:
Hope. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates of any industrialized nation.
Authentic priorities. Recent economic troubles have threatened Japan’s materialist mindset, and youth are pressured to succeed.
Absolute Truth. Most people in Japan claim to be Buddhists or Shintoists, or both. But in fact, their worldview is very secular.
True success. Failure is viewed as shameful to the family … Japan’s children need to know true success is found in relationship with Jesus Christ.
Innovative strategies. That’s what it will take to breach the barriers of social Shintoism and secularism.
Islam and Hinduism (and the belief in reincarnation) are also a focus of the faith-transforming prayers.
Secular values in American education are to be targeted by prayer:
Schools. Public schools have increasingly become platforms for a values-neutral message that impedes education and denigrates Christianity.
Truth … 65% of young people in the United States don’t know which religion is true. They desperately need the love of the Savior.
The prayer guide discusses "post-modernization and secularism:"
Around the world, the next generation has been secularized by globalization — a global youth culture emphasizes relativism, and even young people in rural areas and traditionally “Christian” areas don’t grasp ideas of absolute truth or the importance of a relationship with God.
The ultimate goal of the 4/14 Window Global Initiative is to create child activists:
Christian children who are grounded in a biblical worldview are, themselves, amazingly equipped to reach their own generation.
Prayer points:
Perception. Believers must recognize the power of children as agents of change.
Families. One believing child in a family can lead the entire family to Christ!
Indoctrinating Children.
More young people are turning away from religion. In America, 72% of the Millennials say that they are spiritual, but not religious. The exodus of young people from the churches has prompted groups such as Child Evangelism Fellowship to target children at public parks, apartment complex common grounds, and schools. This group, like many others, has a huge international outreach program that focuses on children.
While helping children who are the victims of war, poverty, sex trafficking and abuse is a goal of these Christian outreaches, not everyone appreciates the proselytizing and indoctrination that takes place. They believe that teaching science and practical, factual knowledge that will enable children to grow up to be self reliant is a more humane approach to children's education. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins views religious indoctrination of children, with its threats of eternal damnation in hell, as a form of child abuse.
Speaking at Oxford University in 1997, Dr. Nicholas Humphrey asked his Amnesty International audience, "What shall we tell the children?" He noted,
Should we be campaigning for the rights of human beings to be protected from verbal oppression and manipulation? Do we need "word laws", just as all civilised societies have gun laws, licensing who should be allowed to use them in what circumstances? Should there be Geneva protocols establishing what kinds of speech act count as crimes against humanity?
No. The answer, I'm sure, ought in general to be "No, don't even think of it." Freedom of speech is too precious a freedom to be meddled with. And however painful some of its consequences may sometimes be for some people, we should still as a matter of principle resist putting curbs on it. By all means we should try to make up for the harm that other people's words do, but not by censoring the words as such.
And, since I am so sure of this in general, and since I'd expect most of you to be so too, I shall probably shock you when I say it is the purpose of my lecture today to argue in one particular area just the opposite. To argue, in short, in favour of censorship, against freedom of expression, and to do so moreover in an area of life that has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct.
I am talking about moral and religious education. And especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed — even expected — to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong.
Children, I'll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas — no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no god-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.
In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible, or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children's teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.
That's the negative side of what I want to say. But there will be a positive side as well. If children have a right to be protected from false ideas, they have too a right to be succoured by the truth. And we as a society have a duty to provide it. Therefore we should feel as much obliged to pass on to our children the best scientific and philosophical understanding of the natural world — to teach, for example, the truths of evolution and cosmology, or the methods of rational analysis — as we already feel obliged to feed and shelter them.
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Posts
'Bible Answer Man' Hank Hanegraaff Defends Teen Mania Ministries
ReplyDeleteBy Jeff Schapiro | Christian Post Reporter
November 9, 2011
A widely respected Christian researcher and radio host is defending Teen Mania Ministries after an MSNBC documentary portrayed the group as a cult. Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the radio program “Bible Answer Man,” has released his critique of the documentary, which aired on Sunday night. In the critique, he describes the documentary as “a case study in sophistry, sloppy journalism, and sensationalism.”
MSNBC's documentary “Mind Over Mania” is disturbing at first glance. Young people are shown at a Teen Mania Ministries event crawling through mud, eating worms and pushing themselves to their physical and emotional limits. The experts featured in the film suggest the ministry operates like a cult and uses mind control tactics on young people. TMM, however, says the film's claims against the ministry are “outrageous” and inaccurate.
In support of Teen Mania, Hanegraaff first addresses the film's allegations that the ministry brainwashes interns who enroll at its Honor Academy. The film features mind control recovery experts Doug and Wendy Duncan, who use Robert Jay Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China to try to show TMM as a cult. The problem, Hanegraaff says, is their evidence falls short of their accusations, and “many of the arguments proffered against TMM could just as easily be used to establish historic Christianity as a thought reform cult.” He says the model the Duncans used to attempt to prove their point has been “utterly discredited.”
Kelly Schwalbert, a former Honor Academy attendee, wrote in a blog post that she never experienced abuse or mind-control tactics as an intern. “I would not classify myself, while at Teen Mania, as under mind-control,” she wrote. “I was not brainwashed. I knew enough about God and myself to read the Bible and follow the Bible. The leadership I was under did not make me 'conform' to anything.”
Schwalbert later showed sympathy for those who had bad experiences with TMM, but emphasized that “it is not a cult.” Later, Hanegraaff's critique moves on to accuse MSNBC of showing images of interns “gagging” on worms in order to stir up an emotional response, but he says NBC's “Fear Factor” show was popular at the time the video footage was taken. He also said TMM no longer does that particular activity during its camp.
“Mind Over Mania” also never acknowledges that ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of A Lifetime) campers knew how challenging the event would be going into it, and they could have stopped participating at any time. The ESOAL camp has been changed drastically since the shooting of those video clips, Teen Mania founder Ron Luce told The Christian Post, and its name has also been changed to PEARL, an acronym for Physical, Emotional, And Relational Learning.
Kimberly Warne, another blogger who says she spent two years at the Honor Academy, is critical of both TMM's ministry and financial practices. “Over the last couple decades, Ron has grown this organization into a multimillion dollar machine by convincing thousands of young people to pay to work,” wrote Warne. “Sometimes he succeeds in molding these youth into his cookie cutter version of modern Christianity ... Sometimes he breaks them down into depression, faithlessness, and a lost sense of self.” ...
...
MSNBC denies claims that the film inaccurately portrays the ministry and says it has spoken with TMM's founder and president, Luce, about the disagreement.
read the full article at:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/bible-answer-man-hank-hanegraaff-defends-teen-mania-ministries-61230/
MSNBC Responds to Accusations Over Teen Mania Documentary
ReplyDeleteBy Jeff Schapiro | Christian Post Reporter
November 09, 2011
After the president and founder of Teen Mania Ministries sharply criticized MSNBC for airing its "Mind Over Mania" documentary on Sunday, the network issued a response saying his accusations against the network are false, and they have told him so.
TMM president Ron Luce says “Mind Over Mania” casts his ministry in a “very inaccurate and negative light” by not fully explaining video and audio clips of TMM events and by trying to make the ministry out to be a cult.
He is also accusing filmmakers of lying in order to gain access to TMM's Honor Academy interns and ministry leaders for interviews. He says TMM was told by filmmakers his ministry would be just one component of a series on religion in America, but the “mockumentary” didn't at all turn out as he initially thought it would.
In an email to The Christian Post on Tuesday, however, MSNBC disputed his claims, saying, “MSNBC strongly disagrees with Mr. Luce's characterization that what was broadcast in Mind Over Mania was inaccurate. MSNBC did not approach Mr. Luce and his group under false pretenses and we have shared those thoughts with Mr. Luce.”
The Garden Valley, Texas-based TMM is a globally-recognized youth ministry and is the umbrella organization over well-known youth events like Acquire The Fire. The ministry's mission is “to provoke a young generation to passionately pursue Jesus Christ and to take his life-giving message to the ends of the earth.” But Luce says “Mind Over Mania” makes it seem like a cult that uses mind control tactics to manipulate young people.
The documentary features former interns from Teen Mania Ministries who say the group did them more harm than good and may even be a cult.
In response, Teen Mania stated that it “welcomes any question of our motives and our methods in communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ and are dedicated to using feedback to create a better experience for the young people we serve, but MSNBC’s Mind Over Mania segment ultimately takes issue with the fact that many of the Biblical tenets celebrated in Christianity are at odds with our current culture.”
Since the documentary aired Sunday night, individuals have taken to Twitter to express their opinions about TMM and its Honor Academy.
“Happy with the #mindovermania documentary,” Twitter user Shannon Kish posted on her account. “Though they only touched the surface of Teen Mania and its problems.”
Another post by Cassie Hendon said, “Watching an 'expose' on Teen Mania on msnbc. Sorry, not buying that TM is a cult.”
One blogger, who is identified only as “A Friend of Teen Mania” and claims to be an Honor Academy alumni, is trying to rally support for TMM by compiling the testimonies of current and former Honor Academy interns who say the ministry positively impacted their lives.
Though TMM, like any organization, has its faults, the blog's author says, the ministry's leaders have always been willing to discuss any concerns and as such are much more supportive than the documentary portrays them to be.
“I have seen firsthand the efforts made to correct any injustice and I have experienced nothing less than humility from the executive leadership when any alumnus has brought a situation to light,” the blogger wrote. “I, being an alumnus of the Honor Academy and a lifelong partner of the organization can say wholeheartedly that I endorse the motives and character of the staff and executive leadership team.”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/msnbc-responds-to-accusations-over-teen-mania-documentary-61181/
The Religious Right's Plot To Take Control Of Our Public Schools
ReplyDeleteBy Rachel Tabachnick, AlterNet March 6, 2012
The Good News Club: The Stealth Assault on America’s Children by Katherine Stewart uncovers a right-wing conspiracy to infiltrate and destroy the nation’s public school system, using recent Supreme Court decisions as a lever. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s seen public school kids, perhaps their own, targeted for proselytizing by peers, teachers and adult volunteers. And for those who haven’t, it’s a wake-up call.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas once wrote, “Religion is certainly a source of positive values, and we need as many positive values in the school as we can get.” It sounds benign. But what if the particular brand of religion is coercive, and in conflict with the teachings and values of the family of the students being targeted? It doesn’t matter. Because under the law as it stands now, evangelical churches have the right to gather, teach and proselytize in your neighborhood school.
Spiritual Warfare in Your Neighborhood
How did it come to this? If you haven’t personally observed today’s aggressive “spiritual warfare,” it may be difficult to imagine that young children are being taught that their school is a battlefield and they are the warriors who must save their classmates from themselves. With a remarkable amount of grace and restraint, Stewart describes the havoc in communities around the nation as initiatives to evangelize public school students have increased. The effect is always the same: the polarization that results when the Good News Club shows up inevitably disrupts the ability of parents and teachers to work cooperatively as a school community. And the resulting dissension and loss of trust in the schools, says Stewart, is exactly the result the right wing has in mind.
The religious right's big break was a 2001 Supreme Court case, The Good News Club v. Milford Central School, which unleashed a new wave of school evangelization. This decision essentially told schools they could not say no to church groups that wanted to use their facilities for after-school gatherings. Stewart describes “the new legal juggernaut of the Christian Right” —an army of legal advocacy groups, including the Alliance Defense Fund, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Liberty Counsel, and others — that raise hundred of millions of dollars each year for the common goal of injecting stealth evangelism into public schools. They’ve spent the last 10 years figuring out how to use this decision as a wedge to maximize church control over school curricula, personnel and even the physical campus.
The spear point of this effort is the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), which was founded in 1937. For decades, CEF has run Good News Clubs — after-school Bible classes taught by church-trained mothers and pastors’ wives in suburban homes around the country. But the Supreme Court decision made it legal to bring these classes right into the schools; and the volunteers who teach them typically also volunteer as classroom aides, which gives them a mantle of school authority. To a primary-aged child, it looks as though this indoctrination is simply a part of the school curriculum.
Stewart cites CEF figures that claim to have set up Good News Clubs “in 3,410 schools -- up 728 percent since the 2001 Supreme Court decision.” The clubs are sponsored by local churches, which are encouraged to “Adopt a Public School” by CEF and others. And they are aiming to take the program to every public elementary school in the country over the next decade or so.
The court case is still celebrated on the CEF Web site with the words, “God has opened the doors of public schools to the Gospel! CEF is ready and eager to help churches enter the schools, fully equipped to share the Gospel and teach the Bible to school children and extend the biblical influence to families.”
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ReplyDeleteStewart explains how CEF has used this access to teach children to conduct “student-initiated” ideological warfare in school. Public schools are forced to distribute the club’s media and announcements to all students, and to allow tables with media at all kinds of school events. These tables are typically laden with balloons and sweets in order to draw kids in. The coercion extends from the playground to the classroom, so there’s nowhere non-evangelical kids can go to avoid classmates who are insisting — with support from adult aides — that they’re doomed to hell unless they join the club. According to Stewart, it’s hard to overstate the sense of confusion experienced by young Catholic, Mormon, mainstream Protestant, Jewish, and non-theist children when adult authority figures in their school promote a particular sectarian belief, often while actively denigrating and contradicting the worldview they’re being taught at home.
The 4/14 Window
CEF is just one of an array of organizations targeting children in an international evangelizing effort called the “4/14 Window," aimed at children from four to 14 years old. Stewart’s book points out that this infiltration is a well-orchestrated effort conducted by a “small number of influential actors.” With a few exceptions, noted by the author, the organizations involved teach a literal interpretation of the Bible, and “see their efforts in the schools as a part of a plan to bring the nation’s children back to its founding religion and thereby lay the basis for a Christian control of all the important parts of government and society.”
The push to infiltrate social institutions is promoted by a theology called Dominionism, which originated in Christian Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), but is now spreading rapidly across the right wing of the evangelical world. The NAR has simplified the theology into a campaign to gain Christian control over the "seven mountains" of American culture: family, business, media, education, religion, goverment, and the arts. The Good News Club is a leading initiative to achieve domination on the education front.
As a researcher and writer working to defend religious pluralism and secular democracy, I often stress the difference between those with conservative religious beliefs and those who are determined to force those beliefs on the state and everyone else. Stewart also makes the clear distinction between Christian conservatives, the Christian Right, and Christian Nationalists. “All conservatives who are also Christians are not members of the Christian Right,” she writes. “And many supporters of the Christian Right are not Christian Nationalist. However, to a degree that many social conservatives fail to appreciate, it is the Christian Nationalists who are driving the agenda in the public schools.” The people Stewart repeatedly encountered in her research often fell into the latter group, which is the most extreme and dangerous faction of the religious right.
“To take over the world, focus on the youth”
Stewart attended trainings and conferences to learn more about how these activities are being coordinated. She describes a CEF conference keynoted by attorney Matthew Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel and one of the leading forces defending church access to public schools and other publicly funded venues in the name of “religious freedom.” Staver makes it clear that he’s on a war footing. Stewart quotes his keynote address: “If you want to ultimately take over the world, how are you going to do it when you have limited time and limited resources?...The best way to do it, and anyone who studies warfare [knows] you focus on the most strategic part of the human chain link...You focus on youth.”
“Knock down all the doors, all of the barriers, to all of the 65,000-plus elementary schools in the country and take the gospel to this open mission field now! Not later, Now!”
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ReplyDeleteThe battle to evangelize other people’s children is justified by a dualist worldview that sees every aspect of life as part of a cosmic battle between the forces of Jesus and Satan. Staver describes young children as the “strategic link,” in winning the war. Throughout the book, Stewart highlights the single-minded focus of those leading these ministries to children, and their unwavering belief that what they are doing is holy — despite the deep and lasting damage it will do to the children, families, schools, and communities they target. If the upshot of this infiltration is that the community turns its back on the school, that’s considered a bonus.
After all, many CEF teachers and supporters don’t send their kids to public schools anyway. They prefer to send their own kids to Christian academies, or homeschool them — even while they’re devoting many hours each week to infiltrating and undermining their local public schools.
Targeting the Upper Grades
While much of the book is dedicated to Stewart’s extensive tracking of CEF’s work in elementary schools, she also describes other tactics being used to reach middle and high school students as well. These include efforts to alter curriculum in public schools to reflect a Christian Nationalist worldivew, as seen in the recent battles over social studies guidelines in Texas schools. Other avenues include abstinence-only, substance abuse and anti-drunk driving educational programs.
One of the movement's big cash cows is “character” or “moral” education programs, which can include church-written curriculum delivered by church-trained instructors, motivational assembly speakers with a Christianized message, or Christian rock bands -- which the schools pay a hefty sum for. These programs are a commonly used foothold into high schools, one that’s become so common it has been given a nickname: pizza evangelism.
When the School House Becomes a Church
And it’s not enough just to co-opt the social atmosphere and the curriculum. The new Supreme Court rulings have forced schools to hand over their buildings to churches as well. Thousands of churches across the country now take over public school facilities on weekends, usually without paying anything more than a custodial fee to the district for the use of their multi-million dollar campuses. This allows these churches to start new congregations in communities where they wouldn’t otherwise be viable or affordable. Liberal, urban schools are hardly exempt: Stewart describes school-based churches in Seattle and Santa Barbara, and estimates that one-fifth of all New York City schools now harbor churches as well — almost all of them conservative and evangelical.
This trend has some unanticipated consequences that might not occur to the casual observer. The “ex-gay” Exodus International Church set up shop in one of Manhattan’s “most liberal and gay-friendly neighborhoods.“ Another church plant installed a complete communications network — including a satellite dish on the roof — in open defiance of the principal, who had repeatedly denied them permission to do this. And there’s no legal way the principal can throw them out for this.
From Cult Leaders to Theocrats
The church planted across the street from Stewart’s house in Manhattan — the school her daughter attends — was a part of the Every Nation network, formerly called Morning Star. Every Nation is a New Apostolic network of ministries founded by former leaders of Maranatha Campus Ministries, an international ministry disbanded after years of bad press about its authoritarian and cult-like practices. Maranatha's founder, Bob Weiner, later became one of the elite “apostles” in C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles.
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ReplyDeleteWagner was a key player in well-orchestrated efforts to evangelize as much of the world as possible prior to the year 2000. Many current sophisticated initiatives and coordinated efforts to access specific populations around the world are a continuation of that global effort, part of which survived as a movement dubbed by Wagner as the “New Apostolic Reformation.” (Sarah Palin is perhaps the movement’s most famous protege.)
NAR’s mission is to break down denominational divides and unite all of the world’s evangelical churches under the dictatorial authority of their chosen “apostles” and “prophets.” The goal is to take full Christian “dominion” over society in order to bring about Jesus’ return. Although NAR is only a part of the American Christian Dominionist scene, it provides a large and important window into the dualistic and aggressive nature of today’s Christian Nationalism.
A glimpse of NAR’s approach to the indoctrination of children could be seen in the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, nominated for an Academy Award. The movie was widely criticized by evangelical leaders for using scare tactics and focusing on a “fringe” children’s camp. However, the featured leaders in the film, Becky Fischer and Lou Engle, are both part of the same apostolic network (Harvest International Ministries of Che Ahn), and Engle has since become one of the most powerful and politically well-connected leaders in today’s Religious Right. So it’s not an overstatement to say that the people who brought you Jesus Camp are now trying to take over your neighborhood school.
In regards to NAR, there is one minor correction to the book that should be noted. Every Nation is indeed a New Apostolic network, but another church mentioned later in the book as part of NAR is not. Life Challenge Church in Odessa is a United Pentecostal Church and belongs to a Pentecostal denomination. I point this out because Stewart mentions that the women of the church favored long skirts and had very long hair. Typically, NAR leaders do not dress in a particularly conservative manner, and in fact defy common stereotypes of the Religious Right. They usually preach in casual attire, including worn blue jeans, and youth leaders are often heavily tattooed and pierced.
But that quibble aside, Stewart has written a powerful and compelling book that should be read by anyone who doubts the current threat to separation of church and state. She leaves no doubt that the religious right is on a long-term crusade to undermine secular public education — and the cruel irony is that those ideologically opposed to public education are using the very openness and democratic nature of these public facilities to advance their own agendas.
Stewart writes: “Back home, I glance out the window at the bright red door across the street. Henceforth, I realize, I will have to accept that on Sundays my daughter’s public school, the furniture that the PTA contributions helped buy, and my daughter’s smiling photograph will be turned over to a group that is dedicated at its core to destroying public education in America. I remind myself that the school will be ours again on Monday. But the truth is, I don’t really believe in that door anymore.”
Rachel Tabachnick is an independent researcher who writes and speaks about the political and societal impact of the Religious Right. She can be reached at Protectpluralism[at]gmail.com.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154435/the_religious_right%27s_plot_to_take_control_of_our_public_schools
The New Legal Theory That Enables Homophobic Evangelizing in Public Schools
ReplyDeleteBy Katherine Stewart, The Guardian March 29, 2012
Last month, 8,000 public high school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, went home with fliers informing them that no one is “born gay” and offering therapy if they experienced “unwanted same-sex attraction.”
The group behind the flier, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), isn’t the kind one expects to find represented in student backpacks. Peter Sprigg, a board member of PFOX who doubles as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, recently told Chris Matthews that he believes “gay behavior” should be “criminalized.” PFOX president Greg Quinlan told another talk show host that gays and lesbians practice “sexual cannibalism.”
A number of Montgomery County parents, understandably concerned about the unusual flier, filed a letter of complaint with the school district. “Everything in this flier makes it sound like the goal is to be ex-gay,” said Ms. Yount-Merrell, mother of a high-schooler. “It reiterates a societal view that there’s something wrong with you … if you aren’t heterosexual. And teenagers have a hard enough time.”
In response to student questions, Superintendent Joshua Starr agreed that the flyer was “reprehensible and deplorable.” But he then pointed out, correctly, that he had no choice in the matter. A 2006 decision by the fourth circuit court of appeals made it clear that if the district allowed any outside groups to distribute fliers through the school, it could not exclude groups like PFOX.
The situation in Maryland may strike many readers as an anomalous event. One would think that it involves fringe characters, is unlikely to be repeated, and can be easily fixed with a new policy.
But none of that is true. In fact, similar events are taking place with increasing frequency nationwide, and they represent the wave of the future in America’s public schools. Indeed, at this very moment, the New York state assembly is deliberating a bill – already passed by the senate – that will allow New York’s public schools to double as a taxpayer-subsidized marketing channel for extremist groups of every variety.
How did this happen to our schools?
Appropriately enough, it goes back to a lesson we all used to learn in school – but that many people seem to have forgotten. America’s founders understood very well that the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state are two sides of the same coin. Only by keeping government out of the religion business can we ensure that religion may go about its business freely. They also understood that, as a consequence, freedom of religion is different from freedom of speech. Indeed, they guaranteed those two freedoms in two separate and distinct clauses of the first amendment.
Over the past 20 years, legal advocacy groups of the religious right – a collection of entities that now command budgets totaling over $100m per year – have been pushing a new legal theory, one that has taken hold of some parts of the popular imagination and that has even been enshrined in recent judicial rulings. The essence of the theory is that religion isn’t religion, after all; it’s really just speech from a religious viewpoint. Borrowing from the rhetoric of the civil rights movements, the advocates of the new theory cry “discrimination” in the face of every attempt to treat religion as something different from any other kind of speech.
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ReplyDeleteOne implication of this novel theory is firmly embedded in the US supreme court’s 2001 6-3 decision in Milford Central School v The Good News Club. Justice Thomas stated in his majority opinion that to exclude a group from school because it is religious in nature is to discriminate against its religious viewpoint, and therefore to violate its free speech rights. No one challenges the exclusion of partisan political groups using the same thinking – we all recognize that partisan political groups are partisan in nature. But because religion alone is a “viewpoint”, opines Thomas, it is apparently different.
The other important implication is that the establishment clause of the first amendment – the part that is supposed to keep the government out of the religion business – has been diminished, especially in school-related cases.
Until 2006, the Montgomery school district, like almost all school districts in the nation, had a degree of discretion in the materials it sent home with kids. Few people had previously questioned the school’s authority to set aside religious and partisan political material, for example. All of that changed when a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship came to town. The Child Evangelism Fellowship is the sponsoring organization for Good News Clubs, which offer a program of sectarian indoctrination in over 3,400 public elementary schools nationwide.
Backed by the legal advocacy groups of the religious right, the Child Evangelism Fellowship sued the school district and won the right to have its fliers distributed by the schools. The district’s policy on fliers, the majority of the fourth circuit court ruled, was not “viewpoint neutral.”
The Child Evangelism Fellowship, in partnership with the religious advocacy groups, has litigated similar cases in numerous states, and is, at this moment, suing a school district in Arizona on the question of fliers. These efforts are all done in the name of “religious freedom,” and their advocates proudly announce their determination to fight “discrimination.” But, in fact, they undermine religious freedom and promote discrimination.
The fundamental problem with the claim that religion is just another form of speech is that it just isn’t true. Religion is special; and notwithstanding the new legal theory, our legal and constitutional system rightfully continues to recognize it as such. Thanks to the free exercise clause, religious groups are allowed to hire and fire people and select their members without regard to the laws that constrain other employers and groups. They receive significant tax benefits.
More to the point, religious groups are permitted to preach the kinds of doctrines – that homosexuality is an abomination, for example – for which non-religious groups would be excluded from schools and other government institutions. The cumulative effect of the court decisions based on the new legal theory is to force schools and other institutions to provide state-subsidized platforms for the dissemination of religious beliefs.
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ReplyDeleteSo, which religious groups may be expected to take advantage of this opportunity?
Much can be learned from the experience over the past ten years in New York City, after the courts forced schools to become houses of worship on Sundays. Although the new churches represent a variety of faiths, the vast majority are conservative evangelical Christian; a substantial number of these are part of national church-planting movements that happen to preach that same-sex relationships are an abomination.
The Child Evangelism Fellowship is represented at their national conventions by movement leaders who rail against the “homosexual agenda” and promote creationism. One keynote speaker has condemned interfaith marriage, which he referred to as “interracial marriage.” The leaders of the Alliance Defense Fund and the Liberty Counsel – the legal juggernauts that have made the new legal theory possible – have produced books whose titles say it all: The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today, and Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk.
They are perfectly entitled to their religion, of course. They are also, by virtue of recent court decisions, now entitled to promote this religion through America’s public schools.
The lesson we may learn from our experiences over the past decade is that the founding fathers were right, all along, in acknowledging that religion is more than simply a form of speech. They knew what some of our law-makers and policy-makers may have failed to grasp: when government gets mixed up in the religion business, no outcome is pretty.
Katherine Stewart is the author of "The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children" (PublicAffairs). Visit her Web site or follow her on Twitter @kathsstewart.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154755/the_new_legal_theory_that_enables_homophobic_evangelizing_in_public_schools
Iowa high school assembly stirs protest
ReplyDeleteWaterloo Courier March 9, 2012
DUNKERTON, Iowa — Administrators, teachers and students did not get what they expected Thursday during an extended school program. Everyone anticipated the message from Junkyard Prophet, a traveling band based in Minnesota, to be about bullying and making good choices. Instead, junior and senior high students at Dunkerton High School and faculty members said they were assaulted by the group's extreme opinions on homosexuality and images of aborted fetuses.
"They told my daughter, the girls, that they were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren't virgins," said Jennifer Littlefield, a parent upset with the band's performance. Her daughter, Alivia Littlefield, 16, is a junior, and called Littlefield after the event.
"I couldn't even understand her, she was crying so hard," Littlefield said. Littlefield also did not appreciate what she described as gay bashing. "They told these kids that anyone who was gay was going to die at the age of 42," she said. "It just blows me away that no one stopped this."
The assembly began with music, which some students apparently liked well enough. Overall, Superintendent Jim Stanton said, the group offered "a very strong anti-violence, anti-drug, anti-alcohol" message. The band's lyrics offer evidence of some of their religious beliefs, though, like this passage from "Junkyard Rock."
"People be freakin' when we speakin' cuz we burnin it up, The life you livin', when you sinnin' cuz we tearin it up, With the word that hot, From the School of Hard Knocks gonna break the rocks, We ain't stoppin', the convictions poppin' Junkyard in the house and the Holy Ghost droppin'."
"The kids were rocking out," Stanton said. He noted Junkyard Prophet performed at the school years ago prior to his tenure. According to Stanton, staff members at the school at that time and officials from other districts had positive impressions of the group. However, Stanton said, the group apparently changed and misrepresented its total message going into Thursday's appearance.
After performing, the group separated boys, girls and teachers in the building. During the breakout session, the young men learned the group's thoughts on the U.S. Constitution and what one Prophet referred to as its "10 commandments." The leader also showed images of musicians who died because of drug overdoses, including Elvis Presley. Members of the group blasted other performers, like Toby Keith, for their improper influence.
The girls, meanwhile, were told to save themselves for their husbands and assume a submissive role in the household. According to witnesses, the leader in that effort also forced the young ladies to chant a manta of sorts about remaining pure.
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ReplyDeleteThose who walked out or attempted to confront the speakers were shouted down or ridiculed as disrespectful, according to students. Heidi Manahl, Littlefield's sister, also had a student at the assembly. She, too, was appalled by Junkyard Prophet's message and tactics.
"I've never had so many young women come up to me crying because of what was said to them. They were bullied by these people and forced to sit there and told to be quiet," Manahl said.
Stanton spoke to the student body again at day's end, emphasizing the positive aspects of the group's message. But he also told students the presenters shared "an opinion about intolerance that's not in line with the beliefs of the Dunkerton Community Schools." "We promote tolerance for one another," Stanton said. "We will continue to celebrate diversity in our student body."
Littlefield said she appreciates that the administration has accepted responsibility for the assembly, which clearly went awry. "But the damage has been done. You let these people stay in the school for three hours," she added. Manahl is concerned about what comes next. She hopes administrators and teachers reach out to "students who don't fit in." "There are students in that school who are homosexual and they need to be protected," she said.
Littlefield isn't sure where officials go from here. But she is certain some repair work is in order. "Something definitely has to be done to make the situation better," she said. The district is trying to recover the fee paid to Junkyard Prophet, Stanton said. According to other sources, the band typically receives $1,500 per performance.
http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/state-and-regional/iowa-high-school-assembly-stirs-protest/article_d754d1b2-6a25-11e1-b4e1-001871e3ce6c.html
Junkyard Prophet Profits Mightily
ReplyDeleteby: Freedom From Religion Foundation April 3, 2012
In the wake of publicity and complaints, Superintendent Jim Stanton of Dunkerton [Iowa] Community Schools has received a verbal lashing from parents at a school board meeting March 13 about an assembly for junior high and high school students presented by the Christian ministry group You Can Run But You Cannot Hide and its musical group Junkyard Prophet.
Stanton apologized and agreed to make changes to the assembly procedures for the school in Dunkertown, a town of about 800 people. The assembly the week before included images of aborted fetuses and derisive comments about gay people.
FFRF received a copy of the assembly contract in response to a request for records from the school. The contract required the school to pay $2,000 to You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.
The contract says of the ministry, “We have an agenda for truth and not [sic] agenda for opinion.” It says, “We fully warrant our productions to be factual; connective with the students, encouraging to produce an atmosphere of thought and responsibility for the student and the world they live in.”
The group posted two video clips of portions of the assembly. One is here. The other is here.
The contract specifies that boys, girls, and teachers would be separated for a second portion of the program. The contract says, “The boys will be doing a huge exploration of music, dealing with different artists, what they stand for and don’t stand for, their lyrics and more.”
The contract says, “The girls will deal with issues such as the beauty of being a bride, purity, your heart, knowing whom you follow and more.” KCRG reported that the girls' program included a statement that girls would have “mud on their wedding dresses” if they weren’t virgins and that they should assume a submissive role in the household.
The boys were reportedly given the group’s theocratic view of the Constitution during a portion of their program.
“This school assembly is shocking," said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "The anti-gay and religious propaganda was offensive to students, teachers and parents. The school is entitled to a full refund, and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide cannot be allowed into any public school again."
FFRF previously warned other schools to take notice. see:
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2012/04/03/junkyard-prophet-profits-mightily-5
Secret recordings reveal anti-abortion group spreading falsehoods in schools
ReplyDeleteby: British Humanist Association April 3, 2012
Recordings of talks given by the anti-abortion group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) have revealed that the group seriously misinforms parents, pupils and staff about the effects of abortion, and the nature of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE). SPUC school speakers have falsely linked abortion to breast cancer and ‘post-abortion trauma’ (which is not a recognised medical condition). The British Humanist Association (BHA) and Education For Choice (EFC) have called on schools to stop inviting speakers in from organisations whose literature and presentations are riddled with misinformation, and on the government to take immediate steps to prevent such groups having access to children in schools.
Members of local humanist groups attended talks given to parents in Milton Keynes, Wakefield and Bournemouth, and more recently, members of Feminist Action Cambridge (FAC) were able to attend a talk given to secondary pupils in a school. The meetings in Milton Keynes and Cambridge were recorded.
SPUC’s talk to pupils focuses on the supposed harms of abortion. EFC has previously obtained SPUC’s 2008 PowerPoint presentation, which included graphic images of aborted foetuses and misinformation relating to pregnancy, contraception and abortion. The presentation FAC saw last month has been updated, although some of the fictions exposed then are still being repeated now, four years later. Claims presented include:
• The morning after pill ‘can cause an early abortion’ and may be damaging to women’s health and future fertility – but legally and medically, emergency hormonal contraception does not end an established pregnancy and is therefore not the same as abortion. There are no serious or long-term health problems associated with taking emergency contraception.
• Abortion increases a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer – but Cancer Research UK explain that ‘pregnancies that end in an abortion do not increase a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer later in life’.
• Abortion can lead to ‘suicidal tendencies’ ‘depression’ ‘drug and alcohol abuse’ – all symptoms of ‘post abortion trauma’ – ‘Post Abortion Trauma’ is an invented condition and is not recognised by the medical profession. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ report, ‘Induced Abortion and Mental Health’ explains that ‘The rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth’.
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ReplyDeleteYoung people witnessing such presentations are subjected not only to misinformation but a stigmatising and at times distressing portrayal of a safe, legal medical procedure which a third of women in the UK will experience.
Paradoxically, SPUC’s own ‘Safe at School’ campaign opposes what it calls the ‘explicit nature of sex education in schools’, addressing parents across the country about the perceived harms of SRE. SPUC courted controversy last year when it held an event for parents in Tower Hamlets jointly with a number of other groups, including SREIslamic, under its ‘Safe at School’ banner. The meetings attended by local humanists focussed on generating fear amongst parents about the contents of their child’s SRE teaching, and informing them how to withdraw their children from SRE. Parents were also told that the government is considering introducing compulsory sex education (which it is not), and that they should write to their MP in opposition to this.
BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson said: ‘It is deeply disturbing that anti-choice groups are so easily able to enter schools and present these damaging fictions, and that they are fear-mongering with parents, again through the spreading of stories which are untrue. Parents and teachers should be aware of the falsehood of the claims made by SPUC, and the government should be more pro-active in preventing groups that persistently make false claims of this nature from having access to vulnerable children, especially in schools.’
EFC’s Laura Hurley said: ‘Exposing pupils to presentations that misinform them and cause them distress goes against all good educational practice and is an abdication of schools’ pastoral duty of care. It is time that schools took responsibility for providing good quality, evidence-based education about abortion themselves and stopped their reliance on a range of outside agencies whose educational provision does not meet the basic standards which would be required in delivery of any other subject.’
For related articles see:
http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2012/04/03/secret-recordings-reveal-anti-abortion-group-spreading-falsehoods-in-schools/