Evangelical organizations use students to spread the good news of Jesus at La Crosse area schools

[Heddi]

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/evangelical-organizations-use-students-to-spread-the-good-news-of/article_23ffc269-488f-5eb4-8971-417f9f6e2e87.html

During the school day, Oliver Larson learns about fractions, art and the environment at Emerson Elementary. After the school bell rings on Tuesdays, he learns about God and His word, the Bible.

Oliver, a fifth-grader at Emerson has been involved in the school’s Good News Club since he was in kindergarten, his mother, Wendi, said. Organizations such as Good News Clubs in elementary schools and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at high schools operate in schools across the country to spread the Gospel message and bring students to Christ.

The clubs aren’t new, said Anne Weibel of La Crosse, the director of the Western Wisconsin chapter of the Child Evangelism Fellowship, which sponsors Good News Clubs, and many have been endorsed by their schools’ principals. Weibel’s mother was a third-grade public school teacher who had a Good News Club in her classroom in the ‘70s, and Weibel has organized clubs in a variety of school districts for nearly three decades, and currently has clubs at Emerson and Onalaska’s Irving-Pertzsch Elementary and in the Melrose-Mindoro School District.


...
Because these organizations are ostensibly not affiliated with the school district, happen outside the school day and, in the case of FCA, student-led, they have weathered challenges to their eligibility to operate in public schools. The Madison-based Freedom from Religion Foundation and parents such as investigative reporter Katherine Stewart argue these organizations flout the separation of church and state or prey on the naivete of elementary students.

“Good News Clubs deceive young children into thinking that their public school endorses a particular form of the Christian religion,” Stewart, the author of the 2012 book “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children,” wrote in an email. “Public schools have a kind of cloak of authority in the minds of these young children ... Good News Club leaders know that, which is why they have been so insistent on holding their clubs in public schools — even when nearby church space is free and available.”

...
“God has shown us how powerful He is,” she told the kids. “One of the things we’ve learned in the Good News Club is His awesome love for you.”

She told students about sin and how everyone has broken God’s commands and thus needs salvation. She asked students who hadn’t already accepted Jesus into their hearts to do so, and to approach her or one of the other adults with questions about God’s love and grace.

“We don’t want you to leave with any questions about whether you are saved by God or not,” she said.

...
“I sometimes feel that our schools have become closed to religious freedom,” she said. “It is great the club meets at the school and all are welcome to attend.”

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Time is one of the biggest barriers to prayer, he said, and he isn’t alone in hitting the snooze button in the morning. But that was time they could have given to God, he said, and a choice to make every morning.

“Is five minutes of sleep more important or five minutes of this?” Lichty said. “My challenge to you is to carve out that time.”
...

“It is very disturbing,” Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the FFRF, said about the 2001 decision. “As soon as the school bell rings, these clubs are in there with their message.”

Young children are a captive audience, she said, and research shows younger children have difficulty separating what they learn during the regular school day from what they hear at the club. Topics such as sin, Hell and salvation through Christ are too advanced for kids to critically address as elementary schoolers, she added.

“It is deeply offensive this is going on in a public school setting with young children,” she said. “This is not sunshine and sweetness. It is very fundamental religious dogma.”

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“In America, we have any number of places to practice our religion: houses of worship, private homes, businesses rented out for that purpose, even public parks,” Stewart said. “Do we really need to turn kindergarten classrooms into religious battlegrounds?”
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Why can't we leave religion in the churches and private homes where it belongs?

[msongs]

1. the ultimate child molesting nt

[TlalocW]

2. Yeah, they're all for religious freedom

Until another religion wants the same freedom they have and tries to get access to the kids, and then, if they can't keep them out, they'll fold up shop and become the biggest separation of church and state proponents you've ever seen.

TlalocW

[Wellstone ruled]

3. This same Crap happened from

1948 until 1952 in most of the Schools of Northern Wisconsin. It was all about preventing the Commie Scourge from indoctrinating our little brains. Remember,we had Tail Gunner Joe as a Senator during that time frame .

[gtar100]

4. Deception in the name of the Lord, Praise God's mighty power!

Why can't they be up front about their intentions? If they think they've got such a great thing, they should just be honest about it and let people make up their minds. If what they are doing is so good, there shouldn't be a need for lying or half truths. But instead they have to be sneaky and deceitful in their practices. I think in their heart of hearts they know that people don't want what they're offering on face value. And it damn sure reveals what kind of "faith" they really have in their God.

Same could be said about republican practices. Who needs their shit if they can't be up front about their true intentions.

They all must miss the 1400s and 1500s in Europe when the religious could kill people for not believing as they do and the filthy rich had no accountability towards the peasants. Right wing paradise indeed!