"Flier" in school -- "Jesus gave me a new life!"

[Hell Hath No Fury]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/10/29/forbidden.flier.ap/index.html


LIVERPOOL, New York (AP) -- A fourth-grader and her mother claim a school district violated the girl's constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute "personal statement" fliers to other students because they carried a religious message.

(snip

The flier, about the size of a greeting card, starts out: "Hi! My name is Michaela and I would like to tell you about my life and how Jesus Christ gave me a new one." The flier mentions five ways in which Jesus had come into her life.

"This is nothing less than viewpoint discrimination," said Mat Staver, an attorney and executive director of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando, Florida-based conservative legal group that is representing Bloodgood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good heavens, has it come to this? Christ peddled like an "I lost 20 pounds -- ask me HOW!" advertisment???? And from a fourth grader???

As the saying goes:

Jesus, save me from your followers....

[Ezlivin]

1. Get thee to a nunnery!

If she wants to learn, stay in school.

If she wants to convert others, she needs to be elsewhere.

And, yes, I realize that Shakespeare was using the "nunnery" term as an insult.

[patrice]

2. If it's real you don't NEED to convince others.

IF Jesus is in her life, she will go find Him in the streets and help him. Matthew 25:40

There was a big debate about evangelism in the early church; it should be revived.

[TahitiNut]

4. Their "Jesus" is the Ronco Brand ... plastic, cheap, and profitable.

These are the hypocrites and money-lenders of today.

[JHB]

6. I wish I still had it...

...back when Pat Robertson was hawking "The Book" (his flock mistrusts "modern translations", so he was selling the King James version "adapted to todays language" -- a translation of a translation, frm and to English, no less!), I felt compelled to REALLY adapt it (bits, at least), so there was the Parable of the Good Secular Humanist, and of course the temple moneylenders were wearing their red, white, and blue "Yahweh Saves" pins (something Jerry Falwell was hawking as a fundraisng "premium").

Wish I still had it. It got lost two or three moves ago...

[cavebat2000]

3. In the words of Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man"

[JHB]

5. You're surprised?

The fundies love this sort of thing. It lets them feel "persecuted for their beliefs", as if they were having their toenails yanked out by the Inquisition.

[Bridget Burke]

7. How sad to think of a condemned sinner needing a "new life"...

Who's only ten years old.

Sort of like a teenager getting breast augmentation.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

8. Did you watch the CNN special...

..."The Fight Over Faith"?

It was truly one of the scariest things I have ever seen. It looked at the break between the mainstream Prot denominations and the wack-jobs. It featured a young girl maybe 9 or ten from a "Christian" family who was "saved" at the age of three, when she realised she was a sinner and needed Jesus in her life. You should have seen her utter certainty when she declared to the interviewer the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, and that everyone else was going to hell.

Of course, her Mom was convinced The Rapture was at hand and said that if it came tomorrow it wouldn't be soon enough for her tastes.

They scared the shit out of me.

But what was really chilling was seeing the political movement these RW "Christians" are building. They are bound and determined to make this country a Christian theocracy and, if we are not very careful, they may succeed.

Here's the CNN guide to the program and air dates/times. It is worth checking out -- perfect for Halloween!

"It is the fastest-growing form of Christianity in America. Some surveys say nearly 40 percent of Christians in the United States describe themselves as "evangelical" or "born again." What does it mean to be an evangelical in America 2004 and why is this brand of Christianity spreading so rapidly right now?

Sunday, October 24, 8 p.m., 11:00 p.m. ET
Saturday, October 30, 6 a.m., 8 p.m., 11 p.m. ET"