We're Not all the Same...no, Really Part II

By Rich Bordner

(continued from the previous post)

Why is it when the pulpiteers in education utter certain broad-brush aphorisms, that hardly anyone sees the humor in it? Why is it that few people in education think to speak truth to THAT power?

Here's another silly moment I witnessed at the staff development conference I attended recently. The presenters were waxing eloquent about the necessity of having ambiguity in your classroom discussions and lessons. That is, in your discussions, you should stress that there is no one right answer that you are looking for. There is "more than one way to skin a cat." When the students see that their thoughts will be validated and not "put down," they will buy into the discussion more.

The problem isn't so much that ambiguity is always a vice. The problem is that the presenters lacked balance. Though it was never said, the unqualified aphorisms the presenters made it seem like ambiguity was almost an unmitigated good. In fact, the video they showed for this segment was of a MATH teacher teaching the kids that "there is more than one way to skin a cat." She said in the lesson, "gee, I see a whole lotta different answers here. Which one is wrong? (students pause, then answer "none of them!") "That's correct!" (To her credit, the problem was not a straightforward algebra equation. The problem did lend itself to more than one answer. The issue I take with her was the unqualified application she had.) One presenter even went so far as to say, "When discussing morals and ethics, you as the teacher should not try to steer the discussion towards your own view. You should not impose your view on them. That is the job of their parents and churches and communities. Your job is to lead them in thinking about their OWN viewpoints."

GAH! Where do I start?

Sometimes teachers need to stress that there are, indeed, a range of interpretations that are valid for a certain work of literature (not that anything goes, though). When the issue really IS grey, ambiguity is a virtue. But when the issue is black and white, ambiguity is a vice.

As I said to my fellow colleagues, if I hire an engineer to build me a house, and he comes to me and says, "Gee, um, well, this is such a sticky issue, you see. There's no one right way to build the foundation. We're gonna get creative and wing it," I would promptly fire him. If someone walks into my classroom and doubts whether rape is ok, we aren't going to ponder that viewpoint tolerantly and let him "clarify" his values. We will refer him to the school psychiatrist.

That thought had not occured to ANY of my colleagues. When I said that, they muttered, "hmm...I wasn't looking at it like that. I guess you're right....that's a very ambiguous point, Bordner!" (laughter)

The trick is having the wisdom to discern when ambiguity is a virtue and when it is a vice.

While I'm at it: I'm fairly sure that the educator presenters would quickly drop their "ambiguity" and "values clarification" stance if a student voiced a point of view that threatened the pillars of a relativisitic, secular worldview. In a discussion on homosexuality, if a student stood up and said, "I used to be homosexual, and I was miserable. With the help of Exodus International, I have left the gay lifestyle and have experienced much healing and repentance from that sin," I'm pretty sure the teacher would not allow that value to be clarified. The teacher would probably step in and announce concern that the student wasn't being "tolerant" of gays.

They are only interested in ambiguity when it suits them. Start threatening the cherished worldview of the establishment, speak truth to THEIR power, and its game o-v-e-r.

Islam in Public Schools

Britain’s slow decline continues:

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

But that can’t happen here, right? We have freedom of religion, strict separation of church and state, all that good stuff that makes people afraid to have a voluntary Bible study after school? Wrong:

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving the indoctrination of public school children into Islam. The decision came on the First Monday of October, the opening day of the 2006 Supreme Court term.

Not surprisingly, the controversial case comes from a ruling made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But what is surprising, is that hardly anyone has heard of the legal battle.

The lawsuit stems from a state mandated course in California public schools that requires seventh grade students to learn about Islam, the teachings of Muhammad, as well as studying scriptures from the Quran.

Though the course is mandated, the Californian Department of Education allows teachers to exercise their own discretion on how the course on Islam is to be
taught.

This discretion encouraged one teacher in the Bryon Union School District to adopt a supplementary “Student Guide” that specifically states:

"From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims."

There's lots more about the specific content of the class at the link, or if you Google "byron school islam." To me, it's pretty appalling that this sort of thing goes on in the name of tolerance. Obviously kids should learn in history class about the impact of Islam on world history, and the same goes for Christianity. But requiring them to act out aspects of any religion for course credit takes multiculturalism WAY too far. And yes, I'd feel the same way about a public school class that required students, in class, to pray to Jesus like an evangelical or cross themselves like a Catholic.

Political Potpourri

Edition 2 of our new semi-regular roundup of newsworthy items...

Yet another installment in the slow and disturbing decay of Western values in the United Kingdom:

Muslims have complained over a police advert featuring a puppy sitting in an officer's hat. A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the "offensive" postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel.

Horrors continue in Zimbabwe, and no one seems to quite be able to muster the courage to do something about it:

The supposedly civilised world has allowed Mugabe and his horrors to happen, mainly unchecked. Sanctions on his country merely starve those who disagree with him. Zimbabwe has all the natural, and had all the human, resources to be an example to the rest of Africa. It is now merely a symbol of what happens when a dictator takes charge, and those who might rein him in simply look away.

The guy who came up with the whole national health care system in Canada now thinks it was a bad idea:

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

In Obama news, the Boston Globe has done some high-quality investigative reporting into some pretty shady dealings in Chicago. It's a lengthy discussion of the complete failure of public housing in Obama’s Illinois state senate district, managed under programs he supports and by people involved in his campaigns, including Tony Rezko.

And at least one commentator is worried about what an Obama presidency might mean for individual freedoms in the United States. Jeffrey Lord writes:

Pull back for a moment from the day-to-day and see the pattern.

Talk radio. Oil. Guns. Global warming. Smoking.

On the surface this is a seemingly unconnected laundry list of issues, their connection one to another tangential at best. Or is it?

In the increasingly disturbing view we are all getting of the messianic world that is Obamaland, these subjects in fact have a chilling commonality.

Remember, it's not only the freedoms listed in the first and second amendments that make this country great. As a conservative, I also value the freedom to spend my time and money the way I want to, to be in control of my own health care, to make (currently hypothetical) decisions about my (future) children's schooling, etc. And if I want to use my own money to heat my house to 72 degrees (I don't) or drive an SUV (I do!), the government really ought to stay out of my way. You know, it's that whole crazy thing about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... seems like maybe I read that somewhere... might be an important part of the founding of our country or something... anyone?

What Do You Believe?

Yesterday, in a post about the Bishop of Rochester, Rich included this:

We are rebels in arms against God, and only God's gracious offer of amnesty through Christ can change that....F-A-C-T. T-R-U-T-H, not just "for me," but objectively, is true regardless of who believes it.

Maybe some of us have never really believed that in the first place.

This reminded me of a recent Pew Research study of religion in the United States. There’s a lot of stuff in there, and if you’re interested in statistics about religion you can find a lot to chew on.
There’s some alarming trends, like this:

The Landscape Survey confirms that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%.

And this:

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

And then, if you dig into the report (available in PDF files at the link), you’ll find this:

Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions--not just their own--can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life. (emphasis mine)

I’m really troubled by this. Honestly, I don’t understand why you would spend time and money on religious activities if you don’t actually believe you’re following the Truth. Why are you messing around? And the Truth in my church, and most evangelical churches I know, and most importantly, in the Word of God, is that Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are a lot of other verses to back that up, but it seems pretty clear to me. So what are people thinking?

I’m pretty sure that our current cultural view of tolerance is one of the factors here. We are told in school, in movies, in the media that we shouldn’t tell people that they are wrong. We shouldn’t believe in absolute truth. Clearly it’s started to creep into our churches as well. Plus, I guess, there is the human tendency to wish that no one has to be consigned to hell, or at least only a few really really bad people like Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler. But just because something sounds nice doesn't make it true.

I wish I had an answer. I guess all I can do is remind you that it’s important to THINK, not just feel, about your faith. Know what your core beliefs are, and why you hold them. Think about how they should affect your life, change your behavior, modify your mental habits. Think honestly about the challenges to those beliefs that you might hear from a non-Christian, and know how you would respond. Know what ideas in the culture might pull you away from those beliefs, and be on guard against them. Be ready to talk about this information with others.

It doesn’t seem like enough, somehow, in this multi-cultural, “tolerant,” media-saturated society. But I’ve chosen to believe God’s Word, and in it Jesus says: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." So that's the best I've got, and since it comes from God, I have to trust that it's good enough.

UPDATE: A friend just pointed me to a great article by Cal Thomas on the same topic: "Do They Think Jesus Was a Liar?" It's good, not too long, you should check it out!

UPDATE 2: Just realized this post had no title, so I added one. Sorry!

Totalitarian Times?

Just read a really interesting (and long) article by Bruce Bawer about the way the New York Times has approached reporting on totalitarian regimes and ideas. Definitely worth a read, because we all need to understand the way that the news media can shape our understanding of the world by selective reporting of events. We also need to know what worldview they are putting forth.

Bawer reviews NYT reporting on Stalin, Hitler, Castro, and the Cambodian killing fields, tying it into current coverage of Islamic fundamentalists. Here's a few paragraphs:

Since 9/11, the kind of brazen sugarcoating of Islam that Feldman served up last Sunday has become a convention in the Times and other mainstream media. Routinely, news organizations suppress, downplay, or misrepresent developments that reflect badly on Islam; they go out of their way to find stories that reflect (or that can be spun in such a way as to reflect) positively on it; and they publish professors and intellectuals and “experts” like Feldman, who share the media’s determination to obscure the central role of jihadist ideology in the current clash between Islam and Western democracy and to point the finger instead (as Feldman does) at European racism.

Yet while a number of media consumers are wise to this policy regarding Islam, relatively few realize that it’s a fresh variation on a well-established tradition. This tradition -- which may be fairly characterized as one of solicitude, protectiveness, and apologetics when reporting on totalitarian ideologies, movements and regimes -- involves habitual practices that can be attributed partly to institutional stasis, passivity, and timidity, partly to a desire to maintain access to this or that tyrant, partly to profound failures of moral insight and responsibility, partly to inane notions of “fairness” and “balance,” partly to an unwillingness to face aspects of the real world that need to be acknowledged and dealt with, and partly to an inability to grasp (or, perhaps, to face the fact) that the status quo has changed.

One of the key points here is that modern, multicultural notions of fairness and tolerance lead some people to excuse horrifying, amoral behavior. But read the whole thing, because there's a lot more information there than in this brief comment!

The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism" in Action

Here's another story from Britain that highlights the problems with tolerance and multiculturalism as they are commonly practiced by liberals in Western society (see The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism" below):

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year.

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

Mr Abraham said: "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester was criticised by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."

…

Mr Cunningham said: “[The officer] said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

Update: Here's another story about the evangelists, along with a bunch of links to similar incidents and issues in Britain.

The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism"

A British clergyman has issued a scathing critique of the “newfangled and insecurely-founded doctrine of multiculturalism.” This speaks to the emptiness of tolerance as a bedrock value of society.

The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday.

It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.

If you aren’t aware of the significant social problems facing “post-Christian” Europe, you really need to do some research. Just a couple of examples from the United Kingdom:

• Britain's Mean Streets—about the significant rise in youth crime
• Rowan Williams says Sharia law unavoidable—the Archbishop of Canterbury believes the British legal system should accommodate Sharia law
• Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits—although polygamy is illegal, the British welfare system will pay Muslim husbands welfare benefits for all their wives

These problems arise from the belief that all cultures and ideas are equally valid and must be tolerated and accepted. We should of course love individuals because they are created in God’s image, but it is vital that Christians refuse to accept this moral relativism. We know there is absolute Truth and some ideas and beliefs are absolutely wrong.

One Nation Under Gods?

Thursday was yet another watershed moment in American history. Increasingly, we are becoming a society that is not one nation under God, but rather one nation under many gods. Today, the Democrat-led Senate formally promoted this “new and improved” view for us to embrace as a nation by allowing a Hindu prayer to be spoken before the Senate chamber. This is yet another first in American history!

Let’s ask ourselves what kind of society a Christian understanding of the way the world actually is produces, and the kind of societies produced by a pantheistic belief system. According to Hinduism, you are as valuable as a mosquito. According to Hinduism, you are God. But then again, so is the mosquito. Good; evil; Mother Teresa; Osama Bin Laden; kite flying; abortion: all morally neutral according to Hinduism. In fact, according to some Hindui beliefs, everything is an illusion. What kind of society will result from that kind of thinking?

Embracing today’s politically correct definition of “tolerance” and “diversity” will never unite us. Common sense dictates that there is either one God or many gods. And those beliefs have consequences in how we live as a society. We must all pick sides – every one of us! Be united with truth, or be united to a lie. Choose this day who you will serve!

Are Muslims above the law? Sometimes.

A growing Muslim population in the West has increasingly pitted Islamic teaching against traditional Western values. It appears that this tension has increasingly resulted in the West becoming “de-Christianized” while simultaneously becoming more “Islamo-cized.” If a Christian principle, for instance, counters a prevailing national law, the Christian side is often dismissed, harassed, prosecuted, or persecuted and labeled “closed-minded," "bigoted," "intolerant," or "judgmental.” On the other hand, if a Muslim follows Islamic teaching that runs counter to national law – like wife beating – there appears to be increasing favoritism shown towards Islamic law. Take, for example, the recent wrong-headed effort at “cultural sensitivity” – possibly influenced by intimidation – in Germany, where Judge Christa Datz-Winter placed the Koran above the German constitution. As stated in the New York Times:

“…The judge turned down the wife’s request for a speedy divorce, saying her husband’s behavior did not constitute unreasonable hardship because they are both Moroccan. ‘In this cultural background,’ she wrote, ‘it is not unusual that the husband uses physical punishment against the wife.’”

This has resulted in a political backlash. Fox News reported:

“Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats said traditional Islamic law, or Sharia, had no place in Germany. ‘The legal and moral concepts of Sharia have nothing to do with German jurisprudence,’ Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker with the Christian Democrats, told N24 television.”