The people who brought you "Jesus Camp" are moving into your neighborhood school

[CaseAgainstFaith]

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.

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.

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.”

Stewart 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.

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.
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http://www.alternet.org/visions/154435/the_religious_right%27s_plot_to_take_control_of_our_public_schools/?page=entire

Son of a bitch. I guess sooner or later they would try to use any and all loopholes available to get what they want. 

[SpaceProg]

Teach by example, not by force or prodding.  You catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. 

...Of course, you catch more flies with bullshit than you can with honey.

[Witchyjoshy]

Teach by example, not by force or prodding.  You catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. 

...Of course, you catch more flies with bullshit than you can with honey.

Actually, I've heard that flies are more attracted to vinegar than honey.  I don't have anything to back this up, but there you go.

Either way, RAGE.

[Auri-El]

rage is right.
One, what does it matter what sect a person is? Christian is Christian. Don't go trying to convert everyone to one particular sect. The reason there are multiple sects is because PEOPLE LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS.
Two, forcing kids to listen to this crap is only going to make them NOT want to be Christian.
Three, it's up to the parents to decide what religion, if any, the kids are going to practice. Not the school, not the teacher, not the other kids, and not some propaganda machine trying to turn education into indoctrination.

fuck off, propaganda machine.

[Auri-El]

Fair enough. I think it's important for parents to encourage critical thinking and be open to the kids choosing a different religion (or no religion) at some point. I guess I was thinking more of younger kids who aren't capable of thinking critically and pretty much go along with whatever religion and political view their parents have.

[Old Viking]

How many elementary school kids stay after school? 

[erictheblue]

I just checked the amazon.com reviews for this book. 5 1-star reviews. All of them are basically saying "CEF has every right to preach to students. How dare this woman write a book attacking such a wonderful Christian group." There's also 9 5-star and 1 2-star review.

[Morgenleoht]

God I wish there was a why to test for intelligence before allowing people to breed or access the internet...

[Sylvana]

Interesting strategy by the organization. They are using their status as an extramural activity to pressure kids into joining their club / religion. They clearly seem to be better funded than other extramural activities and they understand their target market. They use the lure of sweets and balloons as well as peer pressure from kids in the club already to do their dirty work for them. These are all things that would work well on elementary school aged children.

Once the kids are part of the club at a young age, you basically have them for life. It is the oldest trick in the book, and arguably the one the Catholics are best at. With the effective recruitment happening at a young age you don't need to focus on the high and middle schools as much.

I think their strongest weapon here though is using the kids already in the club / church to do the work for them. As long as it is children pressuring other children into joining no laws are being broken. However, the usual methods of guilt and shame and threats of hellfire from other children is successful. Then having a club where those messages can be reinforced after school also helps. With it being on the school grounds it is very easy for children to be pressured into going as they will not need to be taken there by their parents. They can just go straight there after school to the club. Effectively unless the parent is there to pick their kid up after school right away, they effectively circumvent the parents influence regarding allowing the child to join the club. Given that most parents have jobs these days it is not unlikely that many of the kids would be free after school while waiting for their parents to get off work to come pick them up.

As much as I dislike what they are doing, it really is well played on their part.

[Cerim Treascair]

How many elementary school kids stay after school?

I did.  But I was a book geek reading Shakespeare, Beowulf and Moby Dick, along with LOTR before I'd hit 12 years old.

[rookie]

Hmmm. Looks like it's time to reorder some Wiccan pamphlets to [whatever word they are using for "proselytizing"] some of the parents, just in case.

[TheL]

Forgive me, Kali, if this is simply a moment of disagreeing views, but I would like to change

Three, it's up to the parents to decide what religion, if any, the kids are going to practice. Not the school, not the teacher, not the other kids, and not some propaganda machine trying to turn education into indoctrination. 

To

Three, it's up to the kids themselves to decide what religion, if any, they are going to practice. Not the school, not the teacher, not the other kids, and not some propaganda machine trying to turn education into indoctrination. 

On all other points, I agree with you entirely, but parents can force religion onto someone just as much as these groups can.

This.  If my parents hadn't pushed Catholicism as strongly as they did, I would have never gotten myself confirmed.

How many elementary school kids stay after school?

I had detention almost every day until the 4th grade.  Also, if a child gets picked up by parents instead of taking the bus, zie generally has to wait for zir parents to arrive, which could be a while (when my mother did not personally teach at the school I attended, I generally ended up waiting until 4:00 for her.  School usually got out at 3).

[niam2023]

Well, if they set up shop in my old school its time to take action.

[clockworkgirl21]

Three, it's up to the parents to decide what religion, if any, the kids are going to practice. Not the school, not the teacher, not the other kids, and not some propaganda machine trying to turn education into indoctrination.

That should really be up to the kids, actually, not their parents. First amendment should apply you regardless of age.

[Auri-El]

Well, as I said, I was thinking of younger children who follow what their parents think and believe, and parents should be open to the kids going in a different direction as they learn to think critically and decide for themselves what they think and believe. That being said, what's the harm in parents raising their kids in a specific faith? Are you really saying that parents taking their kids to the Methodist church every week is violating the kid's 1st Amendment rights?