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Ideas & Progressive Faith Movement & Religion Posted by Zeus, 03 Oct 2007 05:14 am

A Critique: The Spiritual Case Against Institutional Christianity

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Responses to “A Critique: The Spiritual Case Against Institutional Christianity”

1. on 03 Oct 2007 at 7:03 am 1. Zeus said …

   I’m curious. Given this new way to realign the focus and principles of “spirituality” vs. religion, and given how many of you lean heavily toward a complete separation from and even abandonment of spiritual influence (as distinct from religious) in the public square. Have these possibilities offered in this essay done anything to change your thinking around this perennial tension?

2. on 03 Oct 2007 at 8:39 am 2. Oaktown Girl said …

   Thanks for this, Zeus. It would certainly be nice to hear non-doctrinal Christian voices once in a while in the corporate media, even if Limbaugh and Co. would just say it was the opinion of “phony Christians”.

   Question: how do we get non-doctrinal Christian voices to be heard in the larger public square, since folks of that spiritual persuasion don’t tend to congregate in large groups and attract a lot of attention?

   I liked your description of the differences between doctrinal and mystic Christianity. Any major religion’s name could be plugged in there, and it’d be just as true.

3. on 03 Oct 2007 at 9:13 am 3. JP Stormcrow said …

   Zeus,

   To what extent are the Baptists in fact non-denominational? My understanding is that they lack much of the doctrine of other Christian churches, and I believe they originated from ideals that seem close to what you describe. I think they mostly part of things like the SBC (Southern Baptist Council) etc. now, and are certainly not hotbeds of progressive thought, but my understanding is that there is still no “doctrinal” control. And I would think that many of the non-denominational megachurches are even more “on their own”.

   Would you (and if so, How would you?) differentiate what you are espousing and the non-denominational fundamentalists? Is it just the linkage with progressivism versus conservatism, or is there something different on the spiritual side in terms of the persons relationship with God.

4. on 03 Oct 2007 at 11:34 am 4. christian h. said …

   Second attempt - my first was interrupted by a power failure.

   Zeus, thank you so much for this post. I’ll pick out a part I find very important and insightful:

   For mystics, worship practice means following and channeling spiritual inspiration and energy into the world, into interpretation, poetry, theology. Institutional, doctrinal religion seems to be more interested in powerful self-anointed worldly representatives leveraging, advocating, and in many cases speaking for, the spirit.

   The (protestant) parish I grew up in - although part of a denomination (complicated, Germany is very different in that respect) - practiced largely the first kind of worship. We had pastors, of course, but they were partners in discovery much more than leaders or interpreters. So I’d say that I had a very positive spiritual/religious experience as a child, and I don’t want to lose that connection to spirituality. (This makes me kind of an “on-again, off-again” atheist.) I find religious/spiritual practice in the form you describe as “mystic” a very positive thing. To paraphrase a student of catholic theology I once talked to: “Our religious practice should be such that it works for the good even if there is no God.”

   To address (maybe) JP’s question: my impression with many of the “independent” churches is that they are very doctrinal, in the sense that they tell their members how to channel their spirituality, instead of engaging in a joint enterprise of discovery.

   More later, I think - I better post this before the power fails again.

5. on 03 Oct 2007 at 11:42 am 5. Zeus said …

   Oaktown Girl,

   Excellent observations and questions.

   The problem politically and spiritually seems to be getting past people’s ignorance and fear in understanding, expressing, engaging, and maybe even supporting an alternative to the jingoism and intolerance that can too easily dominate important spheres of public human endeavor. Remember when you weren’t “allowed” to say anything negative about Bush because our “country had just been attacked.” (Even the Daily Show cooled it for a while.)

   One, I think the best way is to declare your opposition in positive terms. We are “taking back our country” (or our religions) for higher democratic purposes, and this is why we make our observations. In other words, this is not just an “opinion.” Two, for this you need to also present a strong narrative and alternative practice that is accessible in language and fulfilling to human need at a deep and demonstrable “healthy” level. This is what has obviously been lacking both from political and religious liberalism. This is what I am trying to offer in my own humble way. Three, this “alternative” is an offering (not a sales job) I am willing to stand behind with my deepest convictions and courage. (Something also missing from the present Democratic Congress for instance.)

   The toughest thing to defeat is not the neocons, etc. but the sense of “it’s hopeless”. It’s a mindset that might say: “I’m glad to see this alternative, and I’m curious to learn more, but I’m unsure where to go and somewhat disheartened. Is this “Christianity” or any religion thing beyond saving?” To this I would only say, as I might on the farm I grew up on (as a kind of parable), “The cows are out. We need to get them in, fix the hole in the fence, and make sure they have something good to eat on this side.” Not that people are cows (mostly anyway), but we haven’t been tending to either the human problem or the human need. We’ve mainly been angst-ing over it, being outraged over it, etc. This just doesn’t ultimately work and it shouldn’t. We have to roll up our sleeves and put ourselves out there.

6. on 03 Oct 2007 at 11:43 am 6. Zeus said …

   JP, Excellent point.

   What about the guys that are “off the reservation” altogether, taking doctrine and turning into their own personal frothing hellhole of idiosyncratic and dangerous bigotry. You mention the megachurches and many Southern Baptist churches, which are so-called “charismatic” and largely unaffiliated, except in numbers and for purposes of political clout to enact their bigotry on a political level (i.e. ban gay marriage).

   “Charismatic” means of course, “I’ve got a direct line to God and I don’t need your stinkin’ badges.” Whoo boy, how to take the worst of so-called “inspired” and doctrinal Christianity to make your own toxic brew, full of bigotry (doctrinal) and unfettered from any accountability except to my own little personal ego-God (pseudo-inspirational).

   But this is why I also suggest an alignment of secular progressives (and liberals and conservatives who believe non-theocratic government) with spiritual progressives who have conviction and a real “inspired” alternative. You have to be both able to fight the bigotry and offer a different form of faith. These people are not just looking to be “saved,” a term I find quite anti-spiritual in nature– “I’ll believe in you if you promise heaven to me” as if God were some two-bit street vendor. They are looking for meaning.

   I believe it a big mistake to believe that all those people simply need bigotry to have their meaning. I’m encouraged by some of the alliances along poverty, environment, fighting vacuous consumerism and materialism (including corporate greed), that have been produced lately that are splitting up the “bigotry” alliances with anti-tax, pro-corporate, pro gun-owning, etc. framework. The contradictions are being exposed between a Christianity that follows Christ and the one that seeks to place values and words in Jesus’ mouth. That’s a step. We have a long way to go. OG and Christian will be posting my more fully-sketched out alternative “spiritual commitments” on Monday of next week, so stay tuned.

7. on 03 Oct 2007 at 11:55 am 7. Zeus said …

   Christian,

   Thanks for that helpful clarification and deepening of my points. Yes, I do believe as you mentioned that my role is in offering and providing service on the spiritual journey. And this has nothing to do with whether ultimately I am rewarded or there is a “God” out there that matches my ideations. (If that God is indeed great and universal, I would expect that God to be far beyond my ideations.) It creates a kind of almost built-in humility, that is not really humility, but simple recognition of our smallness and partiality in the great scheme of things.

   Redemption is not achieved, in my understanding, by some dramatic conversion into the “kingdom” of God, but in letting God speak through me, through love and service, to create the kingdom of God on earth, to usher in a kind of “heaven,” by loving, and helping humanity suffer less and heal and prosper more. The practical fact for me, is that I am rewarded immensely and deeply by doing this kind of “work.” Is may be tough at times, but it is always a source of great spiritual joy for me. I like cracking a spiritual sweat, just like I like splitting wood. There is something deeply fulfilling about it for me.

8. on 03 Oct 2007 at 12:01 pm 8. Kiera said …

   You mention the megachurches and many Southern Baptist churches, which are so-called “charismatic” and largely unaffiliated, except in numbers and for purposes of political clout to enact their bigotry on a political level

   Don’t get me started on the megachurches. We stopped in to gawk at the “Crystal Cathedral” near Anaheim last summer, home of Robert Shueller’s “Hour of Power”. It was enough to make me puke, literally.

   As I sat in the main part of the “church”, I stared at the pulpit and wondered why I saw no cross. Then I did a double-take. They had a HUGE cross, I forget if it was silver or bronze, right next to the pulpit, but when I first glanced at it, I didn’t see a cross, I saw a dollar sign. When I focused on it, it was as though the dollar sign was occupying the same space as the cross, so that I saw both.

   I excused myself, went to the extremely opulent ladies room (carved wood stall doors, marble and granite everywhere, pristine fancy fixtures - more elegant than at any posh place I’ve ever been), used one of their fancy stalls, and threw up.

   The megachurches, in my opinion, are killing spirituality. The new religion that they espouse is the worship of the mighty dollar. God (goddess, or whomever) help us all.

9. on 03 Oct 2007 at 12:35 pm 9. James Killus said …

   I find myself once more in the grip if “difficulty at the beginning.” The text and tone of the piece pits the “spiritual” against the “secular.” I am simply not willing to allow this sort of annexation of human realms by those who refuse to accept the applicability of reason to the matter. Moreover, I do not agree that religion is “of the spirit” in any meaningful use of either either religion or spirit. For example, if Rushdie’s “artistic” case against fundamentalism is not a spiritual case, then what is? Exactly how dewy-eyed must one become to be allowed to use the word “spiritual?”

   I understand that persons of good will who are also persons of faith will find my position stubborn and unyielding. I can only ask how much of that sort of stubbornness do they accept from others who claim “faith” as their justification. Apparently someone with a “strong faith” has some sort of leg up because they are so spiritually sincere. And with that sort of enabling from so many quarters, they’ve run roughshod over the world. So I’m thinking that before we get down to basics, the “spiritual” among us owe the rest of us an apology, and maybe a few demonstrations that they really aren’t still afraid to challenge the entire basis of the opposition, which, when you get right down to it, is just plain bigotry, aka “faith.”

   I didn’t start this fight, but I’ve been at it a long time, and one of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of so-called “allies,” aren’t.

10. on 03 Oct 2007 at 1:16 pm 10. Arnaud said …

    Zeus,

    “Even then, human beings find their way back to spirit, because, being spiritual beings as well as worldly beings, human beings cannot live affectively without spirit anymore than they can live physically without water.”

    I think this is where your analyse flounder: you fail all along to really address the fact of “institutional religion”. If it is as destructive of true spirituality, as bigoted, as greedy, racist and antagonistic as you describe it – note that I am not contesting these particular points – where does its appeal reside? Surely it didn’t managed to defeat mystical christianity solely by buggering small children?
    So that’s why I disagree with your “human beings are spiritual beings” line and contend that, in my experience, most people do not affiliate themselves with a particular church to satisfy their spiritual needs but out of a sense of community, a need for social cohesion and if these churches often show us an ugly side of religion it is mainly because this sense and this need are not totally harmless aspect of our nature.

    I may be mistaken, not living in the States, but it seems to me that in the actual debate between christianity and, let’s call them the more secular minded, very little mention is made of god (and when it is made, it’s usually by atheists) and that the proponents of religion usually try to sell it as a social force for good, threatening us not with the furnace of Hell but a vision of Hell-on-Earth (where homosexual pacifists rampage at night through the countryside to feast on the institution of Holy Matrimony). More the neighborough cop than the “holy mediator” in my experience.

    Or, maybe, it’s just that, despite having spent my childhood and teenage years at a catholic school, I cannot really remember a time when I believed in god and certainly do not believe for a minute that the need for spirituality is innate in us.

    A horrible thought though : does that make me non-human?

11. on 03 Oct 2007 at 1:19 pm 11. Zeus said …

    Kiera,

    It’s interesting that more than a few churches have the “spirit” wrapped symbolically around the cross with a kind of swooping S-shaped image. Yes, it does look a lot like a dollar sign when just glancing at it. Its bizarre to me that opulence ever got tied to salvation, Christianity, etc., and the the “prosperity Gospel” has become about the love of money, the very root of all evil if one quotes the Bible. One could only conclude that this turn is an evil turn, then, and it wouldn’t be hard to argue why. (The best and most final argument is the one you have already provided, the wordless one– throwing up.) The arbiter is of course not what people claim or even intend, but what effects one creates with their “spiritual practice” or “faith” or “religion” and what habits and idols it supports or does not. I simply look at these places and go, “Why.” Jesus already has said to the Pharisees that God is not glorified by their fine robes and huge houses, but rather the opposite, and you don’t even need to believe nor read a word of the Bible to conclude the same.

    These palaces are are more gory than glory. I used to think that good ole Schuller was one of the better of the megavangelists since he seemed to concentrate on positive messages and leave the bigotry largely untouched, but there is something simply wrong about the whole enterprise of bringing the “message” to the people in a way that is largely spectatorial, demanding nothing of them besides their money and allegiance. It is a simple restatement of idolatry.

12. on 03 Oct 2007 at 1:33 pm 12. Zeus said …

    James,

    I don’t believe in some inherent split between the “secular” and the “spiritual”. Spirit is expressed in the conduct of life, no matter how you live it. When I use the term to denote actual activities, it is a matter of emphasis. This spiritual activity draws explicitly and consciously (through meditation, contemplation, prayer, inspiration, you name it) from a source one may call God or love which is essential and non-reducible to the simply personal. It’s motivation and informing is from a different space, but it’s activity may look entirely the same as any other activity. Much the same, “poetry” is not the same as prose event though both of them are artistic and use words and often aim at the same things.

    One way to like this is to refer to the Buddhist example of working up to a point where meditation is not simply a formal sitting and silent contemplation with empty mind, but a present-mindedness and equanimity one brings to all activities, walking, sitting, standing, and lying. So it is with “spirit”. There may be activities, as with meditation, we formally describe as spiritual (many of them associated with religion-tinged notions), and then there is simply living a spiritual life, suffused with this larger awareness and mobilization around love and universal outlook. This latter is largely what I talk about, and part of where I come from when criticizing certain religious practices. If one does the “devotional” activity devoid of the love, that may be “religious” but it is not spiritual in my understanding.

    My own church is contending with this and there is no easy solution, and simply avoiding it does not work for me. Yes, people can earnestly believe they are being “spiritual” by discriminating against gay people, but that cannot be reconciled with the requirements of unconditional love. People can make complex or simple arguments. Ultimately it is about presence, and I would not expect you to believe a word I say unless I demonstrate that presence in your presence. This is where “allies” too often fail, and where their faith fails. When push comes to shove, they get political and try to accomodate bigotry under the guise of reconciliation, when what one needs is courage and conviction to stand with the persecuted, in presence and solidarity, calling out the bigotry.

13. on 03 Oct 2007 at 1:41 pm 13. Zeus said …

    Arnaud,

    Being spiritual beings does not immunize us from the other aspects of our nature. We are also primal, mental, physical, emotional, psychological, social, political, etc. creature. The spirit can suffuse and powerfully inform, but it does not make our choices for us. Yes, the spirit can too easily be subordinated to other concerns, values, and fears. That is readily observable.

    But what I find more intriguing is how little the human possibility emanating from the spirit has been effectively (and affectively) developed on the human level. It is more often used as an instrument to serve other ends. What if the spirit were an end. What if there were a much deeper and broader conversation of the nature of the Spirit and of our spirit, the nature of love, instead of 24-7 about the Iraq War.

    The red herring is always that we can’t “afford” to talk about love, that is is inconsequential next to the persecution and the abuse, but what compels us to do otherwise. Why don’t we simply just kill each other and get it over with? Regardless of our intents and our deeds most noble, we still die. We are mortal. Why not explore and then act upon, rather than assume and assert deeper meaning?

14. on 03 Oct 2007 at 3:07 pm 14. Kiera said …

    a few churches have the “spirit” wrapped symbolically around the cross with a kind of swooping S-shaped image

    No, there was nothing wrapped around it. It was a toally unadorned metal cross. This was a spritual impression I received, a kind of “double vision”. The dollar sign was not physically there, nor was there any decoration to which this impression could be attributed. The mental or spiritual “stink” of it was just so strong that it appeared visually to me.

    From what I understand, back in the day, Rev. Schuller was an okay guy. But it seems he and his got away from his original message when he moved from holding services in drive-in movie theaters and parking lots to building a glass monstrousity.

15. on 03 Oct 2007 at 3:17 pm 15. Kiera said …

    The red herring is always that we can’t “afford” to talk about love, that is is inconsequential next to the persecution and the abuse

    We can’t afford NOT to talk about love. Lack of love is what causes persecution and abuse, after all.

16. on 03 Oct 2007 at 3:56 pm 16. James Killus said …

    As a practical matter, religion, churches, faith, and doctrine play a number of roles in human life. Churches are social organizing forces. Doctrine offers an encapsulation of rules of conduct, ethics, and morality. Faith is one of the things that people place between themselves and their fear of death.

    Appeals to love, spirituality, and the mystical experience simply cannot be counted on to meet these needs. I’ve had more mystical experiences than I can count, but I don’t trust them even a little bit. They are an end, not a means. They are experiences, and rather private ones at that. What do you say to someone who says that they torture out of love for their victims’ souls? How do you separate the mystical we-are-all-one from the mystical go-forth-and-conquer-in-my-name? And let me tell you flat-out, when you’re face to face with your own mortality, that mystical experience may not come at the right time, or tell you what you’d like to hear.

    So, you know, fight the good fight and keep up the good work, or whatever. But I don’t think that religious arguments are going to make much of a dent in religious authoritrianism, because what’s important in that phrase isn’t the “religious” part.

17. on 03 Oct 2007 at 4:04 pm 17. Arnaud said …

    Zeus
    I guess my point is: we don’t have to assume and assert deeper meaning. I for one find the sheer physicality of the universe cause enough for wonder.

    Kiera
    Love and abuse often go hand in hand. I find naive, if you will excuse me being so direct, to believe that one exclude the other.
    When it comes to persecution and abuse, I would prefer to be able to rely on an effective police force, national and international laws and a proper education program than on an emotion elevated to the status of near-deity.

18. on 03 Oct 2007 at 4:08 pm 18. Arnaud said …

    And also our good masters at the waagnfnp need to organise a French-only-day in the comments to prevent James from stealing my thunder while I fight with the intricacies of the English language.

19. on 03 Oct 2007 at 4:39 pm 19. Kiera said …

    Love and abuse often go hand in hand

    Any “love” that goes hand in hand with abuse, is not truly love by my definition. It is a sick parody of love. Lust, sexuality, obsession, possessiveness, none of these are love, but all of them often encompass abuse and are sometimes mistaken for love.

    Perhaps I am naive in that I believe mortals can truly love, and love purely, without allowing these others to taint the feeling.

20. on 03 Oct 2007 at 4:46 pm 20. Seattle said …

    The mind is an amusing place. I used to sing in a Presbyterian choir. Not because I was a member of the flock, but because the choir master was a personal friend and he recruited me. Nobody gets religion like the choir. Two sermons or more each Sunday they sit through plus choir practice of usually three songs of religious text… After a while, through sheer repetition of concepts, I found myself looking over my shoulder, wondering if the Christian God was keeping an eye on me. And knowing why it was happening made it even more interesting. The sheer spiritual force of sitting with a congregation of believers on a regular basis can affect you, even if you’ve no interest in converting to the faith.

    “I’m curious. Given this new way to realign the focus and principles of “spirituality” vs. religion, and given how many of you lean heavily toward a complete separation from and even abandonment of spiritual influence (as distinct from religious) in the public square. Have these possibilities offered in this essay done anything to change your thinking around this perennial tension?”

    I’ve never thought that abandonment of spiritual influence in the public square was a practical concept. Might as well say, “Kill all the (fill in the blank.)” If the blank was all practitioners of a religious faith, we’d have difficulty disposing of all the bodies in a sanitary and effective manner, etc. and it all just goes down hill from there. Though you can’t say several groups haven’t given it the old college try…. I often come back to the same conclusion-lots of people have embraced a religion-spiritually or superficially, due to personal preference or societal pressure. They aren’t going away, and I don’t chose to live in a cave in an effort to isolate myself from them. I left the choir, but who knows what I’d be thinking if I’d stayed in the area, and stayed in the choir?

21. on 03 Oct 2007 at 6:33 pm 21. James Killus said …

    Kiera,

    One of the problems with ideals is the way that they are protected by idealists. If faith results in mass murder it must be a “perversion” of faith. If capitalism or socialism result in exploitation, they must not “really” be capitalism or socialism. If love carries abuse, or possessiveness, or lust, or fickleness, it must not “really” be love.

    People are capable of contradictions and betrayals. I would wish it weren’t so, except that I don’t. Life amongst the ideals would not be “real” life.

22. on 03 Oct 2007 at 8:41 pm 22. Zeus said …

    Ideals don’t have to be protected by idealists and to do so is to neglect what needs protecting, those people and ways of living that are supposedly embody those ideals. I’m not great fan of communism as an abstract ideology. Sure, it hasn’t fared to well in practice, but you won’t find me saying it has been “perverted,” frankly, even if it has. I would simply challenge the actions and people devoted to this ideology to match their actions with the ideas themselves. In this I am a realist. No, whoring Christianity out to flack for material wealth and adulate over war is NOT a “perversion” of Christianity; it is a rejection of it. You cannot do the exact opposite of what your ideals plainly say, and then somehow legitimately claim that you are serving them. If you notice, most idealisms which are protected as ideas, instead of the people and ways of life they are meant to serve, tend to, in fact, get perverted and then end up doing the opposite of what they plainly say.

    There is not some astral “force” around love that makes it inherently good. Any sane definition of love involves respect which not only acknowledges the other, but is actively informed by the other. These ideologies (and any concept can become one, including love) are reduced to tools for power. And another thing, just because love is an end-in-itself, does not mean that one therefore simply “communes” with it as some warm-fuzzy entity. You have to actually demonstrate it to have it exist in this world.

23. on 03 Oct 2007 at 10:20 pm 23. spyder said …

    So before i work my way through most of this substantive commentary, i want to make one comment about the post itself. It reads much like a sermon to me; it has that taste that has crossed my palate. Your entire thesis is predicated on your faith and the subsequent definitions and connotations of terms are grounded in that faith. You present constructs (for example, that there is such a thing as a spiritual being that every other human being must accept, or that mystical christianity is inherently better than doctrinal christianity {paragraphs 2-6}) for which you have no evidence except your insistence that they are so.

    I am baffled to a certain extent by your final paragraph. Sectarianism is just one long schism of those that want their beliefs to be held paramount in all matters against being told by others what to believe. The whole piece somewhat smacks of prostelytizing for restorationism.

    As i said, this is my first take just on your original post. I will pay due diligence to the comment thread and perhaps glean something i overlooked or disregarded.

24. on 04 Oct 2007 at 9:48 am 24. James Killus said …

    You cannot do the exact opposite of what your ideals plainly say, and then somehow legitimately claim that you are serving them.

    The weasel word here being “legitimately” (though I will give a nod to “exactly opposite” and “plainly say”). And who, exactly gets to adjudicate? Would it be anyone who is a party to this present discussion?

    Without the “legitimately,” the sentence is plainly wrong. You cannot? Odd, I see it being done all the time, by almost everybody, including, I must say, me.

    The zeroth commandment of every doctrine is Hypocrisy. It cannot be otherwise, because doctrine is constructed of words, and the world is too big to cover with words.

25. on 04 Oct 2007 at 9:48 am 25. spyder said …

    There is some movement of resistance within the GOP, but rather than cast notions of spirituality and faith and love, one could suggest pragmatic capitalism as a raison d’etre. One new article demonstrates business conservatives are abandoning the Repubicans, leaving the party to the Christians conservatives. But another new article shows that the Christians are abandoning ship, too…

    New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party’s identity — what strategists call its “brand.” The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond.

    Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don’t share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.

    Already, economic conservatives who favor balanced federal budgets have become a much smaller part of the party’s base. That’s partly because other groups, especially social conservatives, have grown more dominant. But it’s also the result of defections by other fiscal conservatives angered by the growth of government spending during the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress.

26. on 04 Oct 2007 at 11:32 am 26. Seattle said …

    Lions and tigers and angry fiscal conservatives, Oh My!

    I too caught not so much a whiff of sermon as a whiff of evangelism in the original post, but that’s ok. Zeus is comfortable with spirituality and there’s no harm in communicating that here or anywhere else. And there’s also no harm in anyone re-evaluating where they stand on a position relative to the post.

27. on 05 Oct 2007 at 11:21 am 27. spyder said …

    whiff of sermon as a whiff of evangelism
    I suspect that one person’s sermon is another person’s witnessed evangelizing.

    Be that as it may, there is a great essay posted up on Alternet that speaks to some of these issues as they are manifested in Texas’s new law and recently appointed Superintendent of Schools (why can’t they elect them like the rest of us do??).
    

    In mid-August, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed something called the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act” into law. Although the new law has an innocuous-sounding title, it’s really a ticking time-bomb, opponents say.

    The law requires every public school in the state to adopt a policy guaranteeing students’ right to religious expression. It mandates that schools create “limited public forums” for religious and other types of speech. A student could, for example, read the morning announcements over a loudspeaker and then lapse into a prayer or mini-sermon.

    …

    The Texas law reflects the Religious Right’s latest ploy: drafting students as evangelists to preach to a captive audience of their peers. The groups hope that the courts will consider the prayers and sermons offered during the “limited public forum” as a form of free speech that is, technically, not sponsored by the school.

    One of the drafters of the law, a Houston attorney named Kelly J. Coghlan, urges students to lead their peers in prayer before the beginning of the school day as well as before football games, graduation ceremonies and other school events.

    “For many years, students have been reluctant to stand up and express their faith in public schools for fear of being disciplined,” Coghlan writes on his Web site. “Students should no longer have such fear. Schools are not religion-free zones; school officials are not prayer police; and students of faith are not enemies of the state. The new law makes this clear.”

    Of course i suspect that were a student to begin to read from the Koran or the Buddhist Sutras these folks will think very differently and react most negatively???

28. on 05 Oct 2007 at 1:52 pm 28. Seattle said …

    How about if they read a text from a different religious group every morning? It could take a month to get through all the possibilities before they cycled back to the big J.