Jesus Doesn't Approve Of Southern Evangelism
So the Gideons were here today and were distributing copies of the New Testament right at the front door of school. The following is a copy of an e-mail I sent to my principal voicing my objections.
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Let me preface this by saying that I'm not generally one to rock the boat and I understand that as someone finishing up my first year of teaching I don't have a whole lot of 'clout' in the system.
But...
The fact that the Gideons were on campus today distributing copies of the New Testament is very disturbing to me, and having recently studied many aspects of education law, I can say that it is probably not entirely legal. The effect is that it promotes Christianity as a sort of normalcy in social matters, but Christianity does not hold a monopoly on morality or metaphysics in this country or anywhere. I have no objection to religion; I have a profound objection, however, to this lack of concern for the separation of church and state. Numerous precedents have been set that strictly ban religious material being distributed in public schools wherein students have no choice but to witness it and feel its effects. If a student or anyone else wishes to voluntarily engage in such activity, fine, that's one thing in a public school, but it is a violation of my civil rights that I was involuntarily subjected to a decidedly religious activity unwillingly when a New Testament was shoved in my face this morning.
Now I don't know who was in charge of all this, and maybe there are some additional legal subtleties that I'm not aware of, but I can't help but complain about this. Luckily, I've dealt with such people before in other settings and have been resigned to their obtrusive role in society, but that feeling of resignation should not have to follow me to a public school. Just because the Gideons and anyone else involved are good people with good intentions doesn't make their actions acceptable. And this is just some completely idle speculation, but if I called in a group of Muslims to start distributing copies of the Quran for example it would definitely at least spark a debate and not just be accepted as 'the way it is'.
Sorry to send such a negative note as we're all trying to wrap the school year up - I honestly haven't felt so good about having this job here at Murrah since I was arriving ever so naive on the first day of school, but I hope you understand that I simply couldn't not speak up in some small way. Religion is wonderful, you see, but theocracy is not. Thanks!
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Not the best piece of ‘formal’ writing to say the least, but I didn’t really feel like revising it a hundred times and it certainly gets the job done. Frankly, I’m just tired of the pervasive backwards Christianity down here in Mississippi. I pass large replicas of crucifixes and vague metaphysical billboards about Jesus all the time on the road. On the rare occasions I watch TV, I never fail to catch a commercial that states: “Send your kids to Sunday school. They need and deserve it.” All my neighbors call my live-in girlfriend my wife or fiancée incessantly despite politely asking them on many occasions to stop. There are flyers posted on the door to my apartment non-stop inviting me to various homegrown Bible study groups. The list goes on and on – if I wasn’t so well educated and well balanced about religious issues, I would certainly feel guilty by now about not being a Baptist. So I guess they’re good at what they do despite all the terrible consequences of their faith, and their exaggerated messages about Christianity force me into defensive hyperbole. I was simply shocked – absolutely shocked – that in a public school I can’t find some peace from Jesus.
* I wrote this about a week ago and haven’t posted it until now, but since that time my principal has talked with me about it and he claims to completely agree. Apparently he wasn’t aware that it was going on since he was at a meeting and the teacher who organized it did so maverick-style.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not generally one to rock the boat and I understand that as someone finishing up my first year of teaching I don't have a whole lot of 'clout' in the system.
But...
The fact that the Gideons were on campus today distributing copies of the New Testament is very disturbing to me, and having recently studied many aspects of education law, I can say that it is probably not entirely legal. The effect is that it promotes Christianity as a sort of normalcy in social matters, but Christianity does not hold a monopoly on morality or metaphysics in this country or anywhere. I have no objection to religion; I have a profound objection, however, to this lack of concern for the separation of church and state. Numerous precedents have been set that strictly ban religious material being distributed in public schools wherein students have no choice but to witness it and feel its effects. If a student or anyone else wishes to voluntarily engage in such activity, fine, that's one thing in a public school, but it is a violation of my civil rights that I was involuntarily subjected to a decidedly religious activity unwillingly when a New Testament was shoved in my face this morning.
Now I don't know who was in charge of all this, and maybe there are some additional legal subtleties that I'm not aware of, but I can't help but complain about this. Luckily, I've dealt with such people before in other settings and have been resigned to their obtrusive role in society, but that feeling of resignation should not have to follow me to a public school. Just because the Gideons and anyone else involved are good people with good intentions doesn't make their actions acceptable. And this is just some completely idle speculation, but if I called in a group of Muslims to start distributing copies of the Quran for example it would definitely at least spark a debate and not just be accepted as 'the way it is'.
Sorry to send such a negative note as we're all trying to wrap the school year up - I honestly haven't felt so good about having this job here at Murrah since I was arriving ever so naive on the first day of school, but I hope you understand that I simply couldn't not speak up in some small way. Religion is wonderful, you see, but theocracy is not. Thanks!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not the best piece of ‘formal’ writing to say the least, but I didn’t really feel like revising it a hundred times and it certainly gets the job done. Frankly, I’m just tired of the pervasive backwards Christianity down here in Mississippi. I pass large replicas of crucifixes and vague metaphysical billboards about Jesus all the time on the road. On the rare occasions I watch TV, I never fail to catch a commercial that states: “Send your kids to Sunday school. They need and deserve it.” All my neighbors call my live-in girlfriend my wife or fiancée incessantly despite politely asking them on many occasions to stop. There are flyers posted on the door to my apartment non-stop inviting me to various homegrown Bible study groups. The list goes on and on – if I wasn’t so well educated and well balanced about religious issues, I would certainly feel guilty by now about not being a Baptist. So I guess they’re good at what they do despite all the terrible consequences of their faith, and their exaggerated messages about Christianity force me into defensive hyperbole. I was simply shocked – absolutely shocked – that in a public school I can’t find some peace from Jesus.
* I wrote this about a week ago and haven’t posted it until now, but since that time my principal has talked with me about it and he claims to completely agree. Apparently he wasn’t aware that it was going on since he was at a meeting and the teacher who organized it did so maverick-style.
posted by David Jones | 16:54
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