Sunday, December 04, 2011

Must not mention Jesus to schoolchildren

We read:
"A North Carolina school has apologized after a teacher complained about a religious message found inside an Operation Christmas Child project. Our intent was not to offend anyone,” said Ira Trollinger, superintendent of McDowell County Schools in Marion, NC.

Trollinger said students at Glenwood Elementary School were preparing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child, part of a community service project.

Operation Christmas Child is sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, an organization run by Franklin Graham. They expect to send more than 8 million shoe box gifts to underprivileged children in 100 countries. Around 60,000 churches and 60,000 community groups in the United States are participating.

As part of the project, the school children received a questionnaire that asked students to fill in the blank: “I love Jesus because ______.”

A part time tutor at the school complained about the questionnaire arguing that it crossed the line and may have violated the First Amendment rights of students.

Trollinger told Fox News & Commentary that no children complained and no parents complained – just the part time tutor.

Nevertheless, the single complaint launched a flurry of apologies and phone calls. Trollinger said they called teachers together to remind them of the rules governing religion and public schools.

“We can’t support one religion over the other,” he said. “So many of us are Christian, but in our setting we will try to make sure we respect all religions.”

The school hopes to continue participating in Operation Christmas Child but Trollinger said in the future they will not participate in the survey involving the “Jesus” question.

Source

It's OK for Christian groups to help the poor but not OK for their Christian identity to be acknowledged?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet if the message was " why i love allah or mohammad---" it would have not been a problem. I would no longer allow that school to participate.You can allah in schools, krisna, vishsnu etc, but omg you better not allow JESUS to be mentioned.

Liz said...

I usually get irritated at stuff like this but I think the school made the right decision in this one. Including something about Jesus in the material is not the same as actually giving the children an assignment to tell why they love Jesus. Not cool. If someone gives my kids an assignment to say why they love Mohommed, I'm gonna get PISSED. Now if it had said I love CHRISTMAS because... then even the Jewish, Atheist, Muslim kids could say something like... there are pretty lights everywhere. It doesn't have to be about you in order for you to enjoy it!!

Bird of Paradise said...

And if it mentioned GAIA,BUDDA or SATAN the school suck heads would approve it

Anonymous said...

2:43 is correct. Charity or good works should not be given as a "bribe" or a form of promoting a particular religion or to compromize the recipients so they are obliged to acknowledge or conform to the desires of the giver or be impressed.
A gift held hostage to a required response is not a gift but a demand or just blatant propaganda!

Kee Bird said...

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON athiests sour pusses

Anonymous said...

It is absolutely fine for Christians to perform acts of charity.
It is also ok to use school resources - including the children - to do acts of charity so long as they are appropriate and approved.
It is not ok to use school resources and the power school authorities have to compel students to do things in school promote a particular religious message.
See - its not that hard.

Anonymous said...

" its not that hard."

that's what your wife said.