Author: Ophelia Benson

About the ‘Good News Club’…

The afterschool world at Cold Spring had hitherto consisted of basketball, karate, dance, and other physical fitness activities. In this context, a sectarian religious group that seeks to recruit the very young stuck out like a barstool in a bunny cage…The CEF labels the Good News Club program as “Bible Study,” but the term “study” in this context is a euphemism for indoctrination in and practice of a particular religion. Once class begins, there is no pretense of analyzing the bible as a literary, cultural, or historical document. The program moves directly to the CEF’s stated purpose, which is “to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the Word of God, and establish them in a Bible-believing church for Christian living.”

Before the Good News Club, afterschool programs were physical activities of various kinds. The Good News Club masquerades as a kind of teaching – complete with ‘instructors’:

[T]he Good News instructor was found approaching students and distributing leaflets just outside school grounds. Often, instructors arrive on campus before the bell rings. When young children exit their regular classrooms, they find the instructor outside the door bearing treats and trailing balloons. In Valencia, California, a parent of a kindergartener reported that the Good News Club actually started 15 minutes prior to the end of her child’s school day. The instructor, she said, would enter the classroom as kindergarten was winding down and perform a roll call – effectively segregating the children by religious affiliation.

So that it all seems like just more school, with teachers teaching content to the students.

In short, the confusion Ashley evinced on the playground about just what her school was teaching her was no accident. It is built into the design of the Good News Club program. The average six-year-old cannot reliably distinguish between programs taught by his/her school and those taught in his/her school; and the CEF may be determined to make use of this fact in order to advance its religious aims.

There’s a big problem here, and it’s not just the familiar old separation of church and state. Or it is that, but the reason for we need separation of church and state is particularly starkly revealed. The problem here is that these people are teaching stuff to children, and the stuff they’re teaching is not true, and there is no good reason to think it is true. That’s not what education is.

That’s part of the social contract when it comes to schooling. People don’t expect the schools to teach their children falsehoods. That’s not the job of the teachers and it’s not the job of the schools.

Given that, I’m not sure why the administration at Cold Spring couldn’t have told the Good News Club people that they don’t have afterschool education programs, Milford decision or no Milford decision. I don’t see why the administration couldn’t have said education was their job and they couldn’t parcel it out to amateurs after hours. I don’t see why the administration couldn’t have taken its stand on education as education and just said No thank you to rivals.

People who oppose abortion rights are making a big fuss about Obama’s invitation to Notre Dame, the Catholic university in Indiana.

The vast majority of faculty and students support the invitation. However, a few academics have come out against and are planning a commencement-day protest. Most of the noise, though, is coming from outside the university. Over 60 bishops have publicly opposed the invitation…

But that’s not the best bit. This is:

The ability of Notre Dame to stir Catholic hearts speaks to the role it plays among “subway” alumni – immigrants and their descendants who in many cases have never visited the university but whose devotion to it and its American football team forms part of their Catholic identity.

Yeah! They’ve never been there, and they couldn’t give less of a shit about actual education or learning or research, but man they love that football team and that there Catholic identity. That’s what universities are for – football, and identity.

Except places like Cambridge. Cambridge has its priorities straight. Right?

Maybe not.

After the university amended its equal opportunities policy to stress it “respects religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds” and opposes discrimination, Prof Ross Anderson warned it could [damage] freedom of speech among staff frightened of causing offence.

It could also damage Cambridge’s reputation for being a university. How can a university possibly respect religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds? When so many religious or philosophical beliefs are idiotic? How can a university sign up to deciding in advance that religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds are automatically worthy of respect?

University policies on race equality were approved in 2002, with statements on disability and gender equality added in 2007. Further development of those policies, as the university puts it, would see respect for philosophical and religious beliefs (including lack of belief) put under this banner of protection. The new addition to policy says: “The university’s core values are freedom of thought and expression and freedom from discrimination. It therefore respects religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds, including the lack of religion or belief.”

But respect for philosophical and religious beliefs shouldn’t be put under a banner of protection. Respect for people, as a shorthand for not doing bad things to them, yes, but for beliefs, no. At a university of all places!

Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering, hit out at the amendment, submitting an official note of dissent. He wrote: “The university has no duty under this legislation to ‘promote religion and belief equality’, merely a duty not to discriminate when hiring staff or admitting students – which we stopped doing in 1877. The unfortunate wording of this policy might be interpreted to suggest that Cambridge is to promote the equality of evolution with creationism, or of cosmology with shepherds’ tales. We must never accept any duty to promote the equality of truth and falsehood.”

Out of the mouths of professors of security engineering.

Watch out for beliefs.

[Judge] Rodenberg found Daniel has only a “rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. … he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently.”…Johnson, the parents’ attorney, said everyone should be able to get medical care that follows their beliefs. “The Hausers believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body”…The Hausers, who have eight children, are Roman Catholic and also believe in the “do no harm” philosophy of the Nemenhah Band. The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

But what the Hausers ‘believe’ is beside the point here in the most fundamental way. It’s beside the point in the same way as it would be beside the point to ‘believe’ that one could stand in front of an approaching high-speed train and be undamaged because one was holding a magic amulet. The Hausers’ ‘beliefs’ make no difference to what is happening inside their son’s body and to what would change that, any more than anyone’s ‘beliefs’ make any difference to what a moving train does to a human body. The train does what it does, lymphoma does what it does, chemo does what it does. What’s needed here is not belief but knowledge. The oncologist knows what chemotherapy does to lymphoma, and the Hausers don’t know, and they apparently don’t know that they don’t know and don’t know that the oncologist does know – or else they do know but choose to decide not to ‘believe’ it. They shouldn’t do that, any more than they should tell their kid to stand in the path of a high speed train while holding a magic amulet.

Rodenberg wrote that Daniel claims to be an elder in the band, but does not know what that means. Daniel also says he is a medicine man under Nemenhah teachings but can’t say how he became a medicine man or what teachings he has had to become one. He also noted that at age 13, Daniel can’t read. “He lacks the ability to give informed consent to medical procedures,” Rodenberg said…According to Daniel’s court testimony, he believes the chemo will kill him, and said: “I’d fight it. I’d punch them and I’d kick them.”

His parents have failed to make sure he knows how to read, and have apparently failed to correct his mistaken belief that the chemo will kill him as opposed to probably saving him. Beliefs are beside the point here, and being beside the point, they are lethal.

Let’s find out what the Child Evangelism Fellowship believes and presumably teaches to very young children immediately after school, on school property.

That the whole entire bible ‘is given by inspiration of God’ and ‘that it is inerrant in the original writing and that its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme and final.’ So if something is in the bible (the translation of the bible into English, that is, though of course they don’t bother to say that) then it is absolute, supreme and final – so no matter what it is, no matter how harsh, no matter how unjust, cruel, tyrannical, interfering, none of anyone’s business, pointless, reactionary, stupid – it cannot be changed or rejected or refused. What a nice little recipe for the abdication of human reason and reflection and thought, and what a great system for anyone who wants to impose the morality of a few Mediterranean goatherds on people living 5 thousand years later. We’re not allowed to think, we’re not allowed to fashion our own laws on the basis of human needs and wants, we have to obey whatever is written down in a very old book, because a bunch of fools take it to be absolute, supreme and final.

And that’s only the first item. This doesn’t bode well.

They believe in

the infallible interpreter of the infallible Word, who indwells every true believer, and is ever present to testify of Christ, seeking to occupy us with Him and not with ourselves or our experiences.

That’s sick. Being occupied with someone who’s been dead for two thousand years and not with ourselves or our experiences is sick, it’s diseased. I can see being interested in someone who’s been dead for two thousand years; I’m interested in a lot of people who’ve been dead for a long time; but I’m not interested in them to the exclusion of my experiences. The hell with that.

I saw a hummingbird a couple of hours ago, close up. I was walking down the street thinking about something or other and I don’t remember what alerted me – I think I heard the high-pitched little vocalization that hummingbirds make, without really registering it (so now I don’t remember it), but it was enough to make me stop walking and look (for I didn’t know what, until I saw it) – and there it was, maybe six feet away, hovering in front of some flowers. That was my experience. It was a good experience. I find hummingbirds enchanting. Why the hell would I want to occupy myself with Jesus instead? Jesus can at least wait until a duller moment.

That no degree of reformation however great, no attainment in morality however high, no culture however attractive, no humanitarian and philanthropic schemes and societies however useful, no baptism or other ordinance however administered, can help the sinner take even one step toward Heaven…

Calvinist trash, devaluing everything good. A pox on it.

That He was made a curse for the sinner, dying for his sins according to the Scriptures, that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to the rules and regulations of any church can add in the very least to the value of the precious blood…

Good stuff for very young children (or anyone else). Nothing good is good, it’s all crap crap crap, except Jeezis and his god damn blood.

That the souls of the lost remain after death in misery until the final judgment of the great white throne, when soul and body reunited at the resurrection shall be cast “Into the lake of fire” which is “the second death,” to be “punished with everlasting destruction”…In the reality and personality of Satan, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world”…

Bad stuff. Bad, bad, bad stuff. Cruel, vindictive, frightening, punitive – ugly. The ugly product of the ugliest part of the human mind. And, fortunately, false. Just a bunch of nonsense that a surprising and depressing number of people take pleasure in believing – and trying to get other people to believe.

But whatever else it is, it’s not something that should be taught to young children on school property. (Or anywhere else, in a better world, but churches have rights.)

This is the scariest thing I’ve read in awhile, at least locally. Schoolgirls being gassed in Afghanistan is much scarier, but locally the Child Evangelism Fellowship is scary as hell. Good News Clubs are terrifying.

Remember the little girl who told her classmate that she was going to hell? Well that was a Good News Club at work.

Their teacher overheard the increasingly heated exchange. When class resumed, she asked everyone to pay attention. People from different religious backgrounds, she explained, have very different perspectives on certain kinds of issues. Emma, feeling good that she had stood her ground, seemed content with the result. But Ashley was crushed. “You mean they lied to me right here in school?!” she began to cry. “Because that’s what they taught me here! How can they lie?”

Because they aren’t actually part of the school but they seem to be, thus giving small children the impression that they are Teachers telling The Truth.

Because the Good News Club seeks to reach children who in many cases are not old enough to read, a centerpiece of its program is the “wordless book,” a simple picture book intended to convey different Evangelical doctrines…The Good News Club aims to use afterschool facilities as soon as possible after the bell rings. Aside from adding to the convenience for students and parents, this maximizes the possibility of contact with non-participating students. It also has the effect of making it difficult for very young children to distinguish between the Good News Club and the other classes they take in school.

And that’s not just a by-product, it’s part of the point.

The club’s best promoters, as the CEF well understands, are the children themselves. Participating students are instructed to invite their classmates to join the group, and prizes are often given to those who succeed. The group’s focus, indeed, is concentrated on the “un-churched” children more than it is on those already in the fold. “If every public elementary school student in the United Sates could join a Good News Club,” the CEF Web site states, “we could revolutionize our culture in one generation!” In short, the confusion Ashley evinced on the playground about just what her school was teaching her was no accident. It is built into the design of the Good News Club program. The average six-year-old cannot reliably distinguish between programs taught by his/her school and those taught in his/her school; and the CEF may be determined to make use of this fact in order to advance its religious aims.

Bad…but at least schools can say No, right? Parents can say No and the schools can say No. Right?

No.

In 2001, in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that to exclude the club on the grounds that it is a religious group is to discriminate against its particular religious viewpoint, in violation of 1st Amendment protections on the freedom of speech. The court also went out of its way to say that it could conceive of no basis for concern about a possible violation of the clause of the 1st Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion. The author of the court’s majority opinion was Clarence Thomas. It is perhaps interesting to note, in that respect, that in a recent speech before a school group, Justice Thomas reminisced fondly about his own school days when he would see “a flag and a crucifix in each classroom.”

Fucking hell – where have I been? How did I not know about the Milford decision? What a nightmare…

“Milford is a bad decision,” a lawyer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote to my husband. But it “is not going to be overturned right now. The lower courts will all follow it and the Supreme Court in its current configuration is not going to reverse itself on this issue.”

Help help.