May 19, 2012 -- 12:05PM, amcolph wrote:

May 19, 2012 -- 11:17AM, F1fan wrote:

  She and my cousin belonged to the same church in a small Kansas town...

It wasn't Plains by any chance, was it?  Most of my attitude towards Evangelical Protestants comes from having to live there.

It was McPherson, KS, in the fall of 83.

May 19, 2012 -- 1:10PM, newsjunkie wrote:

A few points. 

1. Most adults can distinguish between a school-sponsored program and one from an outside group, but often first, second and third graders can't. Sometimes the Good News Clubs are taught by a person who also volunteers at the school during school time, so that makes it even more difficult for kids to tell the difference. Young students generally treat all adults in the school as authority figures associated with the school, and this can make it hard for them to distinguish school programs from outside ones.

Parental permission is required to attend.

2. The Good News Clubs often do promote their club meetings to all students by sending flyers home with kids or handing out flyers on the streets around the school. They also get the kids who attend to invite other kids. It's not just something for kids from the church that sponsored the good news club; the church sponsoring the club may not have any children of its members attending the school.

Again, parental permission is required to attend.

3. The Good News Clubs present their meetings as non-denominational Bible Study, and of course they welcome all. But they ultimately want to convert children to their form of Christianity. Often parents don't realize this when giving their children permission to attend the clubs.

4. Religion is inherently divisive, as demonstrated by your example of the Souther Baptists' opposition to another denomination using the public school to meet. The people who run Good News Clubs believe that if you don't convert to thier brand of Christianity, you are damned to Hell. So Mormons, Catholics, members of more liberal Christian denoms are not "saved." And of course non-Christians aren't. Eventually this message gets through to the kids. Divisions can become intense between parents who oppose the clubs and parents who promote them. Sometimes this leads to parents withdrawing support for the school, e.g. not volunteering at school functions.

From their Statement of Faith:

9. That the Church is composed of all those who truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. It is the body and the bride of Christ. That every believer, whether Jew or Gentile, is baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, and having thus become members of one another we are responsible to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, rising above all sectarian prejudices and denominational bigotry and loving one another with a pure heart fervently. Ephesians 1:22, 23; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Corinthians 12:22-27; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; Romans 12:4, 5; Ephesians 4:3-6; Ephesians 5:32; Philippians 2:1-5; Galatians 5:13-15.

5. Good News Clubs are used to get kids to proselytize other kids. 

There's nothing that can be done to stop the Good News Clubs, really, thanks to the Supreme Court decision, so people need to be aware of what they are.

Main source for information in this post is "The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children," by Katherine Stewart, 2012. Also, I attended a Good News Club back in the dark ages of the late 1960s.

Now maybe this is no big deal, and every religion (and secular humanists or atheist groups) should get their shot at converting the kids. But the reality of the situation is that it's almost entirely evangelical Christians who have taken advantage of the SC decision opening the public school doors to religion. 

It's important to make sure you get only one side of the story when you're biased.

May 20, 2012 -- 11:05AM, newsjunkie wrote:

May 20, 2012 -- 10:04AM, Adelphe wrote:

Parental permission is required to attend.

...

Again, parental permission is required to attend.

....

From their Statement of Faith:

9. That the Church is composed of all those who truly believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. It is the body and the bride of Christ. That every believer, whether Jew or Gentile, is baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, and having thus become members of one another we are responsible to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, rising above all sectarian prejudices and denominational bigotry and loving one another with a pure heart fervently. Ephesians 1:22, 23; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Corinthians 12:22-27; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; Romans 12:4, 5; Ephesians 4:3-6; Ephesians 5:32; Philippians 2:1-5; Galatians 5:13-15.

....

It's important to make sure you get only one side of the story when you're biased.

Don't you think the GNC should be up-front in their information to parents about the true goal of their mission?

Please cite a source for the statement of faith you posted. It is very hard to repond to without that. Thank you.

I've read materials by Coral Ridge Ministries and other orgs opposed to separation of church and state. Like I said in my original post, I belonged to a Good News Club. I always take ad homs, such as the one you made in the last sentence of your post, as an indication that the person making them is lacking in their ability to debate the point on its merits.

EDIT to add: The Good News Clubs are part of the Christian Evangelical Fellowship. Here is what the CEF says about its mission

Child Evangelism Fellowship^® (CEF®) is a Bible-centered, worldwide organization that is dedicated to seeing every child reached with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, discipled and established in a local church.

Mind you, they don't mean ANY local church. They mean one that has beliefs consistent with their brand of Christianity.

Their statement of faith seems to clearly demonstrate their theology and mission. I don't think they are trying to "hide" anything.

First Amendment rights and use of school facilities should not hinge on some parents having their heads shoved so far up their backsides, they would send Junior or Janie to such a group, and then somehow be surpised when the little ones come back preaching "Jesus saves."

57

Athiest are bullies.  Their enough to make one sick.

You wouldn't say that if you could answer their questions.

May 21, 2012 -- 8:54AM, newsjunkie wrote:

There's no requirement for anyone to be completely honest about their objectives. I happen to think it's worse for a group to be misleading about its objectives than for a parent to be too busy to thoroughly investigate every organization that comes to their kid's school with what may be a program they think might be helpful to their child. 

I agree. One should be able to trust. A shame how those who claim Christianity are so often dishonest about their behaviour. How does that work????