https://www.aclu.org/other/joint-statement-current-law-religion-public-schools

Joint Statement of Current Law on Religion in the Public Schools

Religion In The Public Schools:

A Joint Statement Of Current Law

The Constitution permits much private religious activity in and about the public schools. Unfortunately, this aspect of constitutional law is not as well known as it should be. Some say that the Supreme Court has declared the public schools "religion-free zones" or that the law is so murky that school officials cannot know what is legally permissible. The former claim is simply wrong. And as to the latter, while there are some difficult issues, much has been settled. It is also unfortunately true that public school officials, due to their busy schedules, may not be as fully aware of this body of law as they could be. As a result, in some school districts some of these rights are not being observed.  

The organizations whose names appear below span the ideological, religious and political spectrum. They nevertheless share a commitment both to the freedom of religious practice and to the separation of church and state such freedom requires. In that spirit, we offer this statement of consensus on current law as an aid to parents, educators and students.  

Many of the organizations listed below are actively involved in litigation about religion in the schools. On some of the issues discussed in this summary, some of the organizations have urged the courts to reach positions different than they did. Though there are signatories on both sides which have and will press for different constitutional treatments of some of the topics discussed below, they all agree that the following is an accurate statement of what the law currently is.  

Student Prayers

1. Students have the right to pray individually or in groups or to discuss their religious views with their peers so long as they are not disruptive. Because the Establishment Clause does not apply to purely private speech, students enjoy the right to read their Bibles or other scriptures, say grace before meals, pray before tests, and discuss religion with other willing student listeners. In the classroom students have the right to pray quietly except when required to be actively engaged in school activities (e.g., students may not decide to pray just as a teacher calls on them). In informal settings, such as the cafeteria or in the halls, students may pray either audibly or silently, subject to the same rules of order as apply to other speech in these locations. However, the right to engage in voluntary prayer does not include, for example, the right to have a captive audience listen or to compel other students to participate.  

Graduation Prayer and Baccalaureates

2. School officials may not mandate or organize prayer at graduation, nor may they organize a religious baccalaureate ceremony. If the school generally rents out its facilities to private groups, it must rent them out on the same terms, and on a first- come first-served basis, to organizers of privately sponsored religious baccalaureate services, provided that the school does not extend preferential treatment to the baccalaureate ceremony and the school disclaims official endorsement of the program.  

3. The courts have reached conflicting conclusions under the federal Constitution on student-initiated prayer at graduation. Until the issue is authoritatively resolved, schools should ask their lawyers what rules apply in their area.  

Official Participation or Encouragement

of Religious Activity 

4. Teachers and school administrators, when acting in those capacities, are representatives of the state, and, in those capacities, are themselves prohibited from encouraging or soliciting student religious or anti-religious activity. Similarly, when acting in their official capacities, teachers may not engage in religious activities with their students. However, teachers may engage in private religious activity in faculty lounges.  

Teaching About Religion

5. Students may be taught about religion, but public schools may not teach religion. As the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly said, "[i]t might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion, or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization." It would be difficult to teach art, music, literature and most social studies without considering religious influences.  

The history of religion, comparative religion, the Bible (or other scripture)-as-literature (either as a separate course or within some other existing course), are all permissible public school subjects. It is both permissible and desirable to teach objectively about the role of religion in the history of the United States and other countries. One can teach that the Pilgrims came to this country with a particular religious vision, that Catholics and others have been subject to persecution or that many of those participating in the abolitionist, women's suffrage and civil rights movements had religious motivations.  

6. These same rules apply to the recurring controversy surrounding theories of evolution. Schools may teach about explanations of life on earth, including religious ones (such as "creationism"), in comparative religion or social studies classes. In science class, however, they may present only genuinely scientific critiques of, or evidence for, any explanation of life on earth, but not religious critiques (beliefs unverifiable by scientific methodology). Schools may not refuse to teach evolutionary theory in order to avoid giving offense to religion nor may they circumvent these rules by labeling as science an article of religious faith. Public schools must not teach as scientific fact or theory any religious doctrine, including "creationism," although any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught. Just as they may neither advance nor inhibit any religious doctrine, teachers should not ridicule, for example, a student's religious explanation for life on earth.  

Student Assignments and Religion

7. Students may express their religious beliefs in the form of reports, homework and artwork, and such expressions are constitutionally protected. Teachers may not reject or correct such submissions simply because they include a religious symbol or address religious themes. Likewise, teachers may not require students to modify, include or excise religious views in their assignments, if germane. These assignments should be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance, relevance, appearance and grammar.  

8. Somewhat more problematic from a legal point of view are other public expressions of religious views in the classroom. Unfortunately for school officials, there are traps on either side of this issue, and it is possible that litigation will result no matter what course is taken. It is easier to describe the settled cases than to state clear rules of law. Schools must carefully steer between the claims of student speakers who assert a right to express themselves on religious subjects and the asserted rights of student listeners to be free of unwelcome religious persuasion in a public school classroom.  

a. Religious or anti-religious remarks made in the ordinary course of classroom discussion or student presentations are permissible and constitute a protected right. If in a sex education class a student remarks that abortion should be illegal because God has prohibited it, a teacher should not silence the remark, ridicule it, rule it out of bounds or endorse it, any more than a teacher may silence a student's religiously-based comment in favor of choice.  

b. If a class assignment calls for an oral presentation on a subject of the student's choosing, and, for example, the student responds by conducting a religious service, the school has the right -- as well as the duty -- to prevent itself from being used as a church. Other students are not voluntarily in attendance and cannot be forced to become an unwilling congregation.  

c. Teachers may rule out-of-order religious remarks that are irrelevant to the subject at hand. In a discussion of Hamlet's sanity, for example, a student may not interject views on creationism.

Distribution of Religious Literature

9. Students have the right to distribute religious literature to their schoolmates, subject to those reasonable time, place, and manner or other constitutionally- acceptable restrictions imposed on the distribution of all non-school literature. Thus, a school may confine distribution of all literature to a particular table at particular times. It may not single out religious literature for burdensome regulation.  

10. Outsiders may not be given access to the classroom to distribute religious or anti-religious literature. No court has yet considered whether, if all other community groups are permitted to distribute literature in common areas of public schools, religious groups must be allowed to do so on equal terms subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.  

"See You at the Pole"

11. Student participation in before- or after-school events, such as "see you at the pole," is permissible. School officials, acting in an official capacity, may neither discourage nor encourage participation in such an event.  

Religious Persuasion Versus Religious Harassment

12. Students have the right to speak to, and attempt to persuade, their peers about religious topics just as they do with regard to political topics. But school officials should intercede to stop student religious speech if it turns into religious harassment aimed at a student or a small group of students. While it is constitutionally permissible for a student to approach another and issue an invitation to attend church, repeated invitations in the face of a request to stop constitute harassment. Where this line is to be drawn in particular cases will depend on the age of the students and other circumstances.  

Equal Access Act

13. Student religious clubs in secondary schools must be permitted to meet and to have equal access to campus media to announce their meetings, if a school receives federal funds and permits any student non-curricular club to meet during non-instructional time. This is the command of the Equal Access Act. A non-curricular club is any club not related directly to a subject taught or soon-to-be taught in the school. Although schools have the right to ban all non-curriculum clubs, they may not dodge the law's requirement by the expedient of declaring all clubs curriculum-related. On the other hand, teachers may not actively participate in club activities and "non-school persons" may not control or regularly attend club meeting.  

The Act's constitutionality has been upheld by the Supreme Court, rejecting claims that the Act violates the Establishment Clause. The Act's requirements are described in more detail in The Equal Access Act and the Public Schools: Questions and Answers on the Equal Access Act*, a pamphlet published by a broad spectrum of religious and civil liberties groups.  

Religious Holidays

14. Generally, public schools may teach about religious holidays, and may celebrate the secular aspects of the holiday and objectively teach about their religious aspects. They may not observe the holidays as religious events. Schools should generally excuse students who do not wish to participate in holiday events. Those interested in further details should see Religious Holidays in the Public Schools: Questions and Answers*, a pamphlet published by a broad spectrum of religious and civil liberties groups.  

Excusal From Religiously-Objectionable Lessons

15. Schools enjoy substantial discretion to excuse individual students from lessons which are objectionable to that student or to his or her parent on the basis of religion. Schools can exercise that authority in ways which would defuse many conflicts over curriculum content. If it is proved that particular lessons substantially burden a student's free exercise of religion and if the school cannot prove a compelling interest in requiring attendance the school would be legally required to excuse the student.  

Teaching Values

16. Schools may teach civic virtues, including honesty, good citizenship, sportsmanship, courage, respect for the rights and freedoms of others, respect for persons and their property, civility, the dual virtues of moral conviction and tolerance and hard work. Subject to whatever rights of excusal exist (see #15 above) under the federal Constitution and state law, schools may teach sexual abstinence and contraception; whether and how schools teach these sensitive subjects is a matter of educational policy. However, these may not be taught as religious tenets. The mere fact that most, if not all, religions also teach these values does not make it unlawful to teach them.  

Student Garb

17. Religious messages on T-shirts and the like may not be singled out for suppression. Students may wear religious attire, such as yarmulkes and head scarves, and they may not be forced to wear gym clothes that they regard, on religious grounds, as immodest.  

Released Time

18. Schools have the discretion to dismiss students to off-premises religious instruction, provided that schools do not encourage or discourage participation or penalize those who do not attend. 20. Schools may not allow religious instruction by outsiders on premises during the school day.  

Appendix

Organizational Signers of "Religion in the Public Schools: A Joint Statement of Current Law"  

American Civil Liberties Union
American Ethical Union
American Humanist Association
American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
American Muslim Council
Americans for Religious Liberty
Americans United for Seperation of Church and State
Anti-Defamation League
Baptist Joint Committee
B'nai B'rith
Christian Legal Society
Christian Science Church
Church of Scientology International
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 
Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs
Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot
Friends Committee on National Legislation
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
Guru Gobind Singh Foundation
Interfaith Alliance
Interfaith Impact for Justice and Peace
National Association of Evangelicals
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC) 
National Ministries, American Baptist Churches, USA
National Sikh Center
North American Council for Muslim Women
People for the American Way
Presbyterian Church (USA) 
Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Union of American Hebrew Congregations 
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Church of Christ, Office for Church in Society

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Yancey: At Least One Famous Christian Author Doesn’t Understand Trump’s Evangelical Following

http://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/09/27/least-one-famous-christian-author-doesnt-understand-trumps-evangelical-following/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

At Least One Famous Christian Author Doesn’t Understand Trump’s Evangelical Following

Politicians will support, and denounce other politicians based purely off of how useful it is to do so at the time. You can hardly ever count on principles to actually come first when it comes to legislators, nor should you be surprised when they suddenly ditch them for political expedience.

But we do expect our religious leaders to be stalwart pillars of principle at all times, in every facet of life. This is why people take it especially hard when religious leaders that they look up to suddenly ditch the principles they’ve espoused in order to actively endorse a candidate who doesn’t share these same principles.

Trump said Jesus had a “far greater ego than you will understand,” brags openly about affairs with married women, and doesn’t think he needs to ask for forgiveness for his sins. So when the likes of Jerry Fallwell Jr., Tony Perkins, and James Dobson come out and endorse Trump, people either feel let down, or obligated to follow the shepherd no matter their reservations on the matter.

But I can safely say that at least one Christian leader isn’t jumping on board the Trump train. In fact, he’s rather confused as to why any evangelical would.

Phillip Yancey is a best selling Christian Author, who wrote such books as Vanishing Grace, and The Jesus I Never Knew. And unlike other Christian authors, he doesn’t understand how evangelicals, especially their leaders, can jump on board with him.

“I am staggered that so many conservative or evangelical Christians would see a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, that they would somehow paint him as a hero, as someone that we could stand behind,” said Yancey.

“To choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero, the representative, one that we get behind enthusiastically is not something that I understand at all,” he went on to say.

 

Sometimes, it feels as is if the church itself is lowering itself into the muck of politics far too often. When religious leaders endorse the state it feels dirty, and it absolutely should. Especially when the person being endorsed is a statist with no appreciation for religious liberty. Yancey is a breath of fresh air as he explains that churches become tarnished, and set back for decades because they “sold their soul for power.”

In other words, it pushes the church into a more secular line that answers to a lower power instead of a higher one. It’s something that many don’t see happening as we all get caught up in the heat of an election.

Of course – and thankfully – Yancey isn’t the only Christian leader who is refusing to get in line with the state. Famed author Max Lucado is not taking the bait either, as he wrote in his blog.

Could concerns not be raised about other Christian candidates? Absolutely. But the concern of this article is not policy, but tone and decorum. When it comes to language, Mr. Trump is in a league of his own. “It is out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” Jesus said.³ Let speech befit the call. We, as Christians, would do well to summon any Christian leader to a higher standard. This includes pastors (especially this one), teachers, coaches and, by all means, presidential candidates.

All of them.

The stock explanation for Mr. Trump’s success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, “We are voting with our middle finger.” Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.

This kind of brutal wisdom is needed during times when political fervors are at their height. It’s very easy to fall into a place where God takes a backseat due to the fear that a candidate you severely dislike will take power, and thus take from you, be it freedom, money, or religious liberty.

But it doesn’t always work out well for you when you’re relying on the unreliable to protect your freedoms, and Trump has proven himself to be more than unreliable to everyone, including his own base. If evangelicals are looking for someone who will protect their faith, a man who has borderline mocked it in the past is no person to rely on.

As C.S. Lewis said, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

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Tan eyes

http://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/09/27/least-one-famous-christian-author-doesnt-understand-trumps-evangelical-following/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

At Least One Famous Christian Author Doesn’t Understand Trump’s Evangelical Following

Politicians will support, and denounce other politicians based purely off of how useful it is to do so at the time. You can hardly ever count on principles to actually come first when it comes to legislators, nor should you be surprised when they suddenly ditch them for political expedience.

But we do expect our religious leaders to be stalwart pillars of principle at all times, in every facet of life. This is why people take it especially hard when religious leaders that they look up to suddenly ditch the principles they’ve espoused in order to actively endorse a candidate who doesn’t share these same principles.

Trump said Jesus had a “far greater ego than you will understand,” brags openly about affairs with married women, and doesn’t think he needs to ask for forgiveness for his sins. So when the likes of Jerry Fallwell Jr., Tony Perkins, and James Dobson come out and endorse Trump, people either feel let down, or obligated to follow the shepherd no matter their reservations on the matter.

But I can safely say that at least one Christian leader isn’t jumping on board the Trump train. In fact, he’s rather confused as to why any evangelical would.

Phillip Yancey is a best selling Christian Author, who wrote such books as Vanishing Grace, and The Jesus I Never Knew. And unlike other Christian authors, he doesn’t understand how evangelicals, especially their leaders, can jump on board with him.

“I am staggered that so many conservative or evangelical Christians would see a man who is a bully, who made his money by casinos, who has had several wives and several affairs, that they would somehow paint him as a hero, as someone that we could stand behind,” said Yancey.

“To choose a person who stands against everything that Christianity believes as the hero, the representative, one that we get behind enthusiastically is not something that I understand at all,” he went on to say.

 

Sometimes, it feels as is if the church itself is lowering itself into the muck of politics far too often. When religious leaders endorse the state it feels dirty, and it absolutely should. Especially when the person being endorsed is a statist with no appreciation for religious liberty. Yancey is a breath of fresh air as he explains that churches become tarnished, and set back for decades because they “sold their soul for power.”

In other words, it pushes the church into a more secular line that answers to a lower power instead of a higher one. It’s something that many don’t see happening as we all get caught up in the heat of an election.

Of course – and thankfully – Yancey isn’t the only Christian leader who is refusing to get in line with the state. Famed author Max Lucado is not taking the bait either, as he wrote in his blog.

Could concerns not be raised about other Christian candidates? Absolutely. But the concern of this article is not policy, but tone and decorum. When it comes to language, Mr. Trump is in a league of his own. “It is out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks,” Jesus said.³ Let speech befit the call. We, as Christians, would do well to summon any Christian leader to a higher standard. This includes pastors (especially this one), teachers, coaches and, by all means, presidential candidates.

All of them.

The stock explanation for Mr. Trump’s success is this: he has tapped into the anger of the American people. As one man said, “We are voting with our middle finger.” Sounds more like a comment for a gang-fight than a presidential election. Anger-fueled reactions have caused trouble ever since Cain was angry at Abel.

This kind of brutal wisdom is needed during times when political fervors are at their height. It’s very easy to fall into a place where God takes a backseat due to the fear that a candidate you severely dislike will take power, and thus take from you, be it freedom, money, or religious liberty.

But it doesn’t always work out well for you when you’re relying on the unreliable to protect your freedoms, and Trump has proven himself to be more than unreliable to everyone, including his own base. If evangelicals are looking for someone who will protect their faith, a man who has borderline mocked it in the past is no person to rely on.

As C.S. Lewis said, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

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http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/search-joseph-pearces-england

In Search of Joseph Pearce’s England

K. V. Turley

Be careful what you read—it may change you, for better or worse.

In the case of Joseph Pearce, his early reading made him a violent white supremacist. It also landed him in jail. While there, he continued to read; only this time, he read the works of G.K. Chesterton. It was not so much that Chesterton’s words suddenly changed his politics or his propensity to violence, but they did initiate a change, one much more profound than his earlier one into a neo-Nazi and this change would, in due course, prove wholly reforming. A remarkable transformation followed: the angry young atheist became a devout Catholic; and, his anger turned to zeal as he set about popularizing Catholic writers and their works.

The fact that, post-conversion, Pearce managed, in 1996, to publish a biography of Chesterton is miraculous in itself given his background. That he did so via a mainstream publisher and went on to publish many more biographies and books on Catholic literary figures, was equally miraculous. His subsequent work on Tolkien proved equally timely, as did those on Shakespeare. His biography of Oscar Wilde, published in 2000, was the first to present the spiritual life of the Irishman, and it was a brave exposition for the times in which it appeared. To say the least, Pearce’s entry into the world of Catholic Letters was felicitous.

Joseph Pearce has just published Merrie England: A Journey Through the Shire (Tan Books). It is a travelogue of sorts. In it, he recounts a walk the length and breadth of the country, with a solitary incursion into Wales. The walk dates from the eve of the Millennium, and tells of a time just prior to when he made America his home. It is, therefore, a “farewell” to a land he loved dearly, and, no doubt, still loves. Inevitably, this book is as much about Pearce as it is about England.

The England he describes is a curious one though. He walks from one sacred historic site to another, thinking, delighting, philosophizing, and lamenting. The reader, to whom he addresses these thoughts, becomes a companion of sorts. We hear potted histories of places that have particular significance for Catholic England. He talks of long forgotten saints, of ruined monasteries, hidden histories of recusancy, in short, of the long, and at times bitter, betrayal of the faith inscribed in the battered monuments of this scepter’d isle.

Merrie England does not record the England that was, at the time of the walk, straining towards the fast approaching new Millennium. Then England was giving hardly a backwards glance to its history. Instead what is presented is Pearce’s idea of England, a lost Albion, one now gone, never to be retrieved. Like many a departing immigrant before, it is as if he is trying to remember what remains dear in his homeland so as to take its memory with him on his journey into exile.

As recorded in these pages, his trek is, therefore, an altogether personal one. All pubs are alehouses; all fields are shires. This is an England of rural simplicity, in tune with an ancient past that informs the present. A self-proclaimed pilgrim, it is as if he ventures forth with a walking stick in hand like a character from Middle Earth. There is not a motorway in sight, nor a petrol filling station, no littered inner city streets, no rubbish dumped in countryside lanes, or—the tribute to mindless vandalism and civic indifference—spray painted graffiti on desolate urban walls. Pearce’s England may have something unreal about it but, needless to say, it has a charm, and is infinitely preferable to many of the realities with which citizens of this country battle each day.

It is interesting to read Merrie England, his latest published work, alongside his 2013 autobiographical Race with the Devil: My Journey From Racial Hatred to Rational Love (St. Benedict Press). That book tells of his growing up in England and ends with his departure to America. The land described in those pages is as far removed from Merrie England as possible: one of poverty, far-right politics, racism and violence. That memoir’s pages are filled with the haze of alcohol-fueled fights, of bitterness and frustration, of odd, half-baked political philosophy, and even odder foot soldiers in the race war Pearce was then trying to ferment. Race with the Devil is as good as any at depicting that period of British social history. It feels more real, in one sense, than his latest work, but this may be to miss an altogether different reality present in Merrie England.

Race with the Devil is a conversion story as unique as it is compelling. It is made all the more remarkable by the fact that Pearce’s former political beliefs at the time also incorporated the anti-Catholic prejudices of Protestant Ulster. He was not only interested in fermenting a race-based conflict in Britain but also in attacking the Catholic communities then besieged in Belfast, Derry, Armagh and other cities across Ulster. At one point, he almost became an international gunrunner, sending weapons that would be pointed at and used on those entering Catholic churches or leaving Catholic schools. As I say, his conversion from the bigoted thug he had become to a first-rate documenter of all things literary and Catholic is altogether unique—or is it more correct simply to say miraculous?

What Race with the Devil is also good at revealing is that conversion is a process. His intellectual conversion to Catholicism proved quicker than the reformation of his morals and lifestyle. He had to deal with the emotional debris left from a former life lived far from God. Sometimes, in meeting those interested in becoming Catholic, it is easy to forget how hard that journey of faith can be, not for doctrinal reasons, but for all too human ones. In Pearce’s case, in becoming a Catholic, he was giving up a cause for which, throughout his adult life, he had lived, fought, and almost died. Some of the friendships he had made during that period were genuine. Baffled former comrades wondered what had become of their “storm-trooper.” The separation from his former life would take years. Nevertheless, Joseph Pearce was heading from the darkness he had inhabited for almost all his life towards the light of a bright new morning, if one that was still slowly dawning.

Read through this prism, Merrie England is, therefore, not so much the recounting of a journey as marking the end of one. It is wholly appropriate that much that “scars the shire” is removed from sight. It is right that there are no voices recorded here but the pilgrim’s on his very personal journey. It is a journey that is as much an inner one as one undertaken over hill and dale. In seeking out the lost beauty of an England older and truer than the one conceived by the boorish chauvinism of his earlier days, Pearce was finding a deeper reality. A reality that was, by then, beginning to shape him, and henceforth was to shape him even more. Now he was slowly being initiated into a secret. One that all believers sense, and that some glimpse daily as they make their way down the litter-strewn streets of modern England while their eyes are upon a transcendence beyond.

Pearce is joining an ongoing pilgrimage that has continued for centuries, and that will continue, despite persecution and contrary dictate. At last, freed from political dead ends, Pearce has become a lively pilgrim, one on his way, with his brothers and sisters not just of England but of every race and nation from across the Catholic world, accompanied, too, by those now departed from this earthly realm who journey with us still.

England today is less merry than it was. Its “merriness” came from being the Dowry of Mary; and until her ancient shrines are rebuilt, that attribute is unlikely to return. Nevertheless, there may well come a time when, in the distance, there shall appear a flickering light, perhaps from one of those re-established centers of Marian devotion, and, with it, hope will be given once more to many. In some ways, mysteriously, that was what happened to Joseph Pearce while in a prison cell reading the work of one of the greatest Englishmen that ever lived and prayed, and who understood what “merry” really meant.

Editor’s note: The image above is a picture of Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, taken circa 1890’s.

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http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/college-succumbed-totalitarian-diversity-cult

My College Succumbed to the Totalitarian Diversity Cult

Anthony Esolen

On my way to work at Providence College, I pass by two notable murals painted on concrete retaining walls to edify motorists passing by. One of them is executed in the brightly colored style of a cartoon, with exaggerated circles and curlicues for eyes and hair and ears and noses. It cries out in big puffy letters, “Celebrate Diversity.” The other is a three-tone series of medallion portraits in amber and gray and black, honoring the patriarchs of the Italian families who first settled in the Federal Hill neighborhood, which now boasts as fine an avenue of Italian restaurants and groceries as is to be found anywhere in the country. Between the medallions, the artist has, as if he were a stark and straightforward Currier and Ives, painted “tunnels,” from one of which emerges an old horse-drawn carriage.

The latter painting is by far the superior, artistically, and I have always noted that gangland graffiti, which is to be found everywhere along walls and abandoned buildings near that particular tangle of highways, has never marred the faces of those Italians and the scene that surrounds them. There are perhaps two reasons for their immunity. One is that punks tend to leave genuine art alone. The other is that the Italians might find out who the vandals were, and that would not be a pleasant prospect for the vandals.

I understand what it is to have a Greek festival or an Italian festival, or a parish festival where fellow Catholics come out to enjoy good high-calorie food, play some innocent games of chance, and try to get the priest to sit in the dunking machine. For man is always united from above, not from below, and that includes even the make-believe transcendence of the local baseball team, which is harmless enough if not taken too seriously. When Catholics come to Mass to pray, they do so as members of one Church, not ten, not fifty, praying the same prayers all over the world, because they give thanks to the one Lord and Savior who died for them on one cross, on the one hill of the Skull, on that one Friday long ago. This was the same Lord who prayed that we would be not ten, not fifty, but one, even as he and the Father are one.

But the watchword at Providence College right now is not unity, but “diversity,” as is made evident by the four-page Diversity Program featured prominently on our website. When I see the word “diversity” in its current use as a political slogan, I ask myself the following questions:

What is diversity, as opposed to divergence?
What is diversity, as opposed to mere variety?
What goods, precisely, is diversity supposed to deliver?
Why is intellectual diversity not served by the study of a dozen cultures of the past, with their vast array of customs, poetry, art, and worship of the gods?

Is not diversity as it is now preached a solvent for any culture? That is, supposing that the people of a tribe in the interior of Brazil are compelled to accept cultural diversity for its own sake, rather than merely adopting and adapting this or that beneficent feature of another culture (something that people have always done), will that not mean that their own culture must eventually vanish, or be reduced to the superficialities of food and dress?

Is not diversity, as currently promoted, at odds with the foundational diversity built into the nature of the human race, the diversity of male and female, to be resolved most dynamically and creatively in the union of man and woman in marriage?

Is not that same call for diversity, when Catholics are doing the calling, a surrender of the Church to a political movement which is, for all its talk, a push for homogeneity, so that all the world will look not like the many-cultured Church, but rather like the monotone non-culture of western cities that have lost their faith in the transcendent and unifying God?

How is it possible for people ever to be truly at one with each other, unless they behold the same object of wonder, and lose themselves in that wonder? Is not that experience of God, whose ways are not our ways nor are his thoughts our thoughts, the single most powerful experience of difference, yet an experience that is also made intimate for us, one with us, by the incarnation of the Son of God?

Granted that God redeems not only individuals but peoples, so that, for example, China in the arms of the Church will be more truly China than she was before, does not this diversity presuppose the distinction of cultures one from another? If so, does not the press for “diversity” then belie a new colonialism, not a Church-inspired elevation and purification of a human culture, but its suppression and its infection with peculiarly western obsessions, particularly those concerning sex, marriage, and family life?

What happens to the other foundational diversity in the order of grace, that between the Church and the world? Must not the Church both meet cultures where they are, and stand forth as boldly as the Cross upon that barren rock, opposing the world, because the ways of the world, when they are not baptized, lead to death?

Why should a Catholic institution not then be itself, precisely to offer to that increasingly homogeneous and nothing-adoring world a different word, the word of Christ and his Church? Have not the secular preachers of diversity instead worked their hardest to efface that difference, to muffle all those who speak with the voice of the Church against the vision that those preachers have to offer—a vision that pretends to be “multicultural,” but that is actually anti-cultural, and is characterized by all the totalitarian impulses to use the massive power of government to bring to heel those who decline to go along?

These aren’t idle questions. I notice, on our Diversity page, that incidents of “bias” will be forwarded to a “Bias Response Team,” which is, if I may adopt the phraseology of one of my shrewdest colleagues, a Star Chamber whose constitution and laws and executive power no one will know. “Fear not,” says the angel, “for the great Unwritten Law will come upon you, and the power of Correct Thinking will overshadow you.” How precisely the fear of being hauled before the Star Chamber can possibly bring people together in friendship, is never revealed.

I notice also, on that same Diversity page, that we are supposed to commit ourselves to welcoming the alphabet soup of cheered-on sexual proclivities. For some reason that does not include F, for Fornicators, or S, for swingers, or P, for pornographers, or W, for sex-workers, formerly called harlots, or A, for adulterers. No political lobby for those? Now, we either affirm, as an institution, that the Church has a real and powerful and urgent message she must bring to the world, a message of harsh truth and genuine healing, or we do not. If we do believe it, then we cannot believe that a disordered inclination towards any sin, sexual or otherwise, can be constitutive of any human being. We may say that John is a liar, because John tells lies all the time, but the true John who is half-smothered by his sins is not a liar; as the true Mary Magdalene was not a whore, and the true David was not an adulterer and murderer. We might then welcome Steven who is deeply disturbed about sexuality and who has, unfortunately, put his disturbance into the form of tentacle-rooting action, but we welcome him as Steven the sinner, hoping to see from him Steven the repentant. Steven as the sinner has nothing to bring to us; we as the Church have the truth to bring to him, to set him free from that sin, whatever it may be.

But there is no evidence on our Diversity page that we wish to be what God has called us to be, a committedly and forthrightly Catholic school with life-changing truths to bring to the world. It is as if, deep down, we did not really believe it. So let us suppose that a professor should affirm some aspect of the Church’s teaching as regards the neuralgia of our time, sex. Will his right to do so be confirmed by those who say they are committed to diversity? Put it this way. Suppose someone were to ask, “Is it permitted for a secular liberal, at a secular and liberal college, to affirm in the classroom a secular view of sex and the family?” The question would strike everyone as absurd. It would be like asking whether we were permitted to walk on two feet or to look up at the sky. Then why should it not also be absurd to ask, “Is it permitted for a Catholic, at a college that advertises itself as Catholic, to affirm a Catholic view of sex and the family?” And I am not talking merely about professors whose specific job it is to teach moral philosophy or moral theology. I am talking about all professors.

In my now extensive experience, Catholic professors in Catholic colleges have been notably tolerant of the limitations of their secular colleagues. We make allowances all the time. We understand, though, that some of them—not all, but then it only takes a few—would silence us for good, if they had the power. They have made life hell for more than one of my friends. All, now, in the name of an undefined and perhaps undefinable diversity, to which you had damned well better give honor and glory. If you don’t—and you may not even be aware of the lese majeste as you commit it—you’d better have eyes in the back of your head. I think it would be safer to vandalize the old Italians on that wall.

Sent from my iPhone

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/college-succumbed-totalitarian-diversity-cult

My College Succumbed to the Totalitarian Diversity Cult

Anthony Esolen

On my way to work at Providence College, I pass by two notable murals painted on concrete retaining walls to edify motorists passing by. One of them is executed in the brightly colored style of a cartoon, with exaggerated circles and curlicues for eyes and hair and ears and noses. It cries out in big puffy letters, “Celebrate Diversity.” The other is a three-tone series of medallion portraits in amber and gray and black, honoring the patriarchs of the Italian families who first settled in the Federal Hill neighborhood, which now boasts as fine an avenue of Italian restaurants and groceries as is to be found anywhere in the country. Between the medallions, the artist has, as if he were a stark and straightforward Currier and Ives, painted “tunnels,” from one of which emerges an old horse-drawn carriage.

The latter painting is by far the superior, artistically, and I have always noted that gangland graffiti, which is to be found everywhere along walls and abandoned buildings near that particular tangle of highways, has never marred the faces of those Italians and the scene that surrounds them. There are perhaps two reasons for their immunity. One is that punks tend to leave genuine art alone. The other is that the Italians might find out who the vandals were, and that would not be a pleasant prospect for the vandals.

I understand what it is to have a Greek festival or an Italian festival, or a parish festival where fellow Catholics come out to enjoy good high-calorie food, play some innocent games of chance, and try to get the priest to sit in the dunking machine. For man is always united from above, not from below, and that includes even the make-believe transcendence of the local baseball team, which is harmless enough if not taken too seriously. When Catholics come to Mass to pray, they do so as members of one Church, not ten, not fifty, praying the same prayers all over the world, because they give thanks to the one Lord and Savior who died for them on one cross, on the one hill of the Skull, on that one Friday long ago. This was the same Lord who prayed that we would be not ten, not fifty, but one, even as he and the Father are one.

But the watchword at Providence College right now is not unity, but “diversity,” as is made evident by the four-page Diversity Program featured prominently on our website. When I see the word “diversity” in its current use as a political slogan, I ask myself the following questions:

What is diversity, as opposed to divergence?
What is diversity, as opposed to mere variety?
What goods, precisely, is diversity supposed to deliver?
Why is intellectual diversity not served by the study of a dozen cultures of the past, with their vast array of customs, poetry, art, and worship of the gods?

Is not diversity as it is now preached a solvent for any culture? That is, supposing that the people of a tribe in the interior of Brazil are compelled to accept cultural diversity for its own sake, rather than merely adopting and adapting this or that beneficent feature of another culture (something that people have always done), will that not mean that their own culture must eventually vanish, or be reduced to the superficialities of food and dress?

Is not diversity, as currently promoted, at odds with the foundational diversity built into the nature of the human race, the diversity of male and female, to be resolved most dynamically and creatively in the union of man and woman in marriage?

Is not that same call for diversity, when Catholics are doing the calling, a surrender of the Church to a political movement which is, for all its talk, a push for homogeneity, so that all the world will look not like the many-cultured Church, but rather like the monotone non-culture of western cities that have lost their faith in the transcendent and unifying God?

How is it possible for people ever to be truly at one with each other, unless they behold the same object of wonder, and lose themselves in that wonder? Is not that experience of God, whose ways are not our ways nor are his thoughts our thoughts, the single most powerful experience of difference, yet an experience that is also made intimate for us, one with us, by the incarnation of the Son of God?

Granted that God redeems not only individuals but peoples, so that, for example, China in the arms of the Church will be more truly China than she was before, does not this diversity presuppose the distinction of cultures one from another? If so, does not the press for “diversity” then belie a new colonialism, not a Church-inspired elevation and purification of a human culture, but its suppression and its infection with peculiarly western obsessions, particularly those concerning sex, marriage, and family life?

What happens to the other foundational diversity in the order of grace, that between the Church and the world? Must not the Church both meet cultures where they are, and stand forth as boldly as the Cross upon that barren rock, opposing the world, because the ways of the world, when they are not baptized, lead to death?

Why should a Catholic institution not then be itself, precisely to offer to that increasingly homogeneous and nothing-adoring world a different word, the word of Christ and his Church? Have not the secular preachers of diversity instead worked their hardest to efface that difference, to muffle all those who speak with the voice of the Church against the vision that those preachers have to offer—a vision that pretends to be “multicultural,” but that is actually anti-cultural, and is characterized by all the totalitarian impulses to use the massive power of government to bring to heel those who decline to go along?

These aren’t idle questions. I notice, on our Diversity page, that incidents of “bias” will be forwarded to a “Bias Response Team,” which is, if I may adopt the phraseology of one of my shrewdest colleagues, a Star Chamber whose constitution and laws and executive power no one will know. “Fear not,” says the angel, “for the great Unwritten Law will come upon you, and the power of Correct Thinking will overshadow you.” How precisely the fear of being hauled before the Star Chamber can possibly bring people together in friendship, is never revealed.

I notice also, on that same Diversity page, that we are supposed to commit ourselves to welcoming the alphabet soup of cheered-on sexual proclivities. For some reason that does not include F, for Fornicators, or S, for swingers, or P, for pornographers, or W, for sex-workers, formerly called harlots, or A, for adulterers. No political lobby for those? Now, we either affirm, as an institution, that the Church has a real and powerful and urgent message she must bring to the world, a message of harsh truth and genuine healing, or we do not. If we do believe it, then we cannot believe that a disordered inclination towards any sin, sexual or otherwise, can be constitutive of any human being. We may say that John is a liar, because John tells lies all the time, but the true John who is half-smothered by his sins is not a liar; as the true Mary Magdalene was not a whore, and the true David was not an adulterer and murderer. We might then welcome Steven who is deeply disturbed about sexuality and who has, unfortunately, put his disturbance into the form of tentacle-rooting action, but we welcome him as Steven the sinner, hoping to see from him Steven the repentant. Steven as the sinner has nothing to bring to us; we as the Church have the truth to bring to him, to set him free from that sin, whatever it may be.

But there is no evidence on our Diversity page that we wish to be what God has called us to be, a committedly and forthrightly Catholic school with life-changing truths to bring to the world. It is as if, deep down, we did not really believe it. So let us suppose that a professor should affirm some aspect of the Church’s teaching as regards the neuralgia of our time, sex. Will his right to do so be confirmed by those who say they are committed to diversity? Put it this way. Suppose someone were to ask, “Is it permitted for a secular liberal, at a secular and liberal college, to affirm in the classroom a secular view of sex and the family?” The question would strike everyone as absurd. It would be like asking whether we were permitted to walk on two feet or to look up at the sky. Then why should it not also be absurd to ask, “Is it permitted for a Catholic, at a college that advertises itself as Catholic, to affirm a Catholic view of sex and the family?” And I am not talking merely about professors whose specific job it is to teach moral philosophy or moral theology. I am talking about all professors.

In my now extensive experience, Catholic professors in Catholic colleges have been notably tolerant of the limitations of their secular colleagues. We make allowances all the time. We understand, though, that some of them—not all, but then it only takes a few—would silence us for good, if they had the power. They have made life hell for more than one of my friends. All, now, in the name of an undefined and perhaps undefinable diversity, to which you had damned well better give honor and glory. If you don’t—and you may not even be aware of the lese majeste as you commit it—you’d better have eyes in the back of your head. I think it would be safer to vandalize the old Italians on that wall.

Sent from my iPhone

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-s-wrong-with-western-missionaries

What’s Wrong with Western Missionaries?

Their words almost knocked me over. They hit me like a horse hoof to the gut. 

When I was a young boy, I helped my father train quarter horses. And we always felt the danger of being the recipient of a wayward hoof. One day, not paying close attention, I was kicked, leaving a well-defined hoof print in the center of my stomach. Every ounce of breath left my body.

Decades later, challenging words delivered by believers from an Islamic background left me just as breathless.

Listening to Persecuted Believers

This event took place after we had visited over 45 countries, interviewing believers in persecution from backgrounds including communism, atheism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. We were learning from believers in persecution how to make Christ known and how to give birth to house churches that then would reproduce on their own.

After experiencing the devastation of Somalia, broken over the martyrdom of over 90% of Somali believers, our learning curve was acute. Believers in persecution were generous with their wisdom; they instinctively understood that investing in us gave deeper meaning to their own suffering.

Now we were returning to the world of Islam. It was in the world of Islam where most of the believers we knew and loved were killed. It was in the world of Islam where our middle son died on Easter Sunday morning of an asthma attack. Islamic environments at that time felt like the graveyard of faith. 

Islamic Persecution Is Unique

We had already learned how important it was to listen. So we set aside time to listen to the believing culture inside a Muslim country, in rural and urban locations, among both young and old, both men and women, and those literate as well as oral communicators. They told us how they had heard of Jesus and his Bible for the first time. We were startled to discover that their experience was quite different from the experiences of most of the rest of the believing world.

In our earlier travels, we had learned that much persecution originates within governments and institutions of power. In the U.S.S.R. and China persecution was institutionalized. Persecutors were typically somewhere “out there,” and they employed means to find, punish, incarcerate, and kill believers. 

In the world of Islam, we discovered that persecutors are typically not “out there,” but “in here.” In Islam, the persecutor often eats at your breakfast table, watches movies with you, and sleeps in your bedroom. 

In earlier interviews, we had been told of parents and grandparents who would hide a believing son or daughter from the government. Within Islamic settings, however, it was the parents and grandparents who would often have incarcerated, banished, or even killed their own believing children and grandchildren.

What Makes a Good Missionary?

As we talked with persecuted believers, we discovered that they often wanted to talk not just about their own persecution, but also about us, workers from the West. As darkness settled in, after a full day of stories and interviews, I asked these believers about Western missionaries. 

“What do we do well? What things do we not do well? What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we pick up? What should we lay down? What makes a good missionary?”

These believers looked at each other in horror. For hours, they had related their most personal stories. 

They had shared accounts of rejection by parents and siblings. They had unpacked events where they had been shamed and beaten. They had told of other believers who were forced to marry nonbelievers. They had even recalled brothers and sisters who had been brutalized before being killed for their faith. They had not held back the most intimate stories surrounding their families, faith, and persecution.

But when I ask this final question about Western missionaries, they froze.

I pushed harder. I sincerely needed to hear what they would say.

Finally, with great hesitation, one of the believers looked at me and said, “I don’t know what makes a good missionary, but I can tell you the name of the man we love.”

When he told me that man’s name, I asked him the next obvious question, “Why do you love him?”

They said, “We don’t know. We just love him.”

The Man They All Loved

I journeyed to five different places in that country. For ten long days, I interviewed believers. Each time, as I reached the end of the interview, I asked the same question: “What makes a good missionary?”

The response was identical each time: “We don’t know what makes a good missionary, but we can tell you the name of the man we love.”

Amazingly, I heard the same name in every place! 

When I asked why they loved him, the answer was always the same: “We don’t know. We just love him.”

At this point, I began to feel jealous. I wondered why people hadn’t loved me this much. I found myself developing a grudge against a man I didn’t even know!

The final interview in that country ended in the same way. After another long day of interviews I asked again, “What makes a good worker from the West? What makes a good missionary?”

While I silently prayed not to hear the same answer, they said to me, “We don’t know what makes a good missionary, but we can tell you the man we love.” By now, the next sentence was predictable and expected; they mentioned that same name that I had heard over and over again.

The Missing Ingredient in Missions

By this point, I was so frustrated that I told them firmly that I was not going to leave until they told me why this worker from the West was such a wonderful man. I insisted on an answer.

Finally, one of the men leaned across the table toward me and said forcefully, “You want to know why we love him? We love him because he borrows money from us!”

I was stunned. I thought to myself, Well, I can do that, if that’s what it takes to be loved by believers in persecution.

His statement, however, hinted at something much deeper, and I pleaded with him to explain. What I heard felt like that horse-kick to the stomach. The words knocked the breath out of my body. 

The man said, “When this missionary’s father died, he came to us and asked for our help. We didn’t have much, but we gathered an offering of love. We bought him a plane ticket so that he could go home to America and bury his father. This man and his family give everything they have to the poor. They struggle to pay rent and school fees, and put meat on the table. And when he has a great need, what does he do? He doesn’t go to the other Westerners for money. He comes to us. He comes to the scattered and the poor, he comes to local believers, and he asks for, and gets, our help.”

“Do you want to know why we love him? He needs us. The rest of you have never needed us.”

We Need to Need the People We Serve

I was tearfully overwhelmed. And I confessed the arrogance of Western missionaries — and my own arrogance. So much of what we do is about us and about what we can provide. We travel around the world to meet needs, not to be honest about our own, nor to become part of their body of Christ. We are the “haves,” and they are the “have-nots.” 

Though our motives are not always suspect, we generally come and tell other people to “sit down and listen” while we stand and speak. We are aggressive, and we expect local people to remain passive. We bring the gospel, Bibles, and hymnbooks. We provide baptisms, discipleship, and places to meet. We choose the leaders. We care for orphans, build orphanages, rescue the broken, and care for the crippled.

And those are all wonderful things.

But here’s the challenge: What’s left for local people to do? What’s left for the Holy Spirit to provide? Where do we model how to trust God and his provision through the local body of believers? Where do local believers find their worth, their sanctified sense of signficance? What gifts and sacrifice can they bring to this enterprise of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth?

Rarely did the apostle Paul create dependency upon himself. Often in his letters, Paul expressed how desperately he needed his brothers and sisters in Christ. He called those friends by name years later. He never forgot them. When possible, he returned to be with them. When he could not go, he sent them someone else. And he faithfully wrote to them, expressing his love, encouragement, and correction. In a word, he needed them.

If I Were to Start Over

If I were to start my missionary life over, I would bury my pride and unpack some humility. I would become a brother, a friend, and a peer. I would care more about the names of my brothers and sisters on the “mission field” and less about the numbers of baptisms, people discipled, churches planted, and orphanages built. 

I would take to heart the lesson of John the Baptist, saying about a local believer what John said about Jesus: I must decrease so that he can increase (John 3:30). I would invite local believers to lead in the light while I served in the shadows. I would have pressed into what it meant to really need them. 

During most of my ministry in Africa, I felt that I was the apostle Paul. I now know that I often need to be a Timothy.

For those of us in the West, this image should seize our hearts: Jesus taking the cloth from around his waist and washing the feet of the disciples, saying, “The last will be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16).

Sent from my iPhone