From the Sydney Morning Herald June 27, 2014. smh.au/nsw/god-in-the-classroom-8211-no-thanks-20140627-zsobq.html The scripture sector in NSW say their members make up the second largest volunteer force in the state after surf lifesavers. But many question whether the volunteers training and qualifications are adequate to justify placing them in front of children in contemporary classrooms. “Scripture was traditionally delivered by the major churches by friendly mums or grannies who had some time on their hands,” Dr Cathy Byrne, an expert in sociology of religion at Southern Cross University says. “It stuck to the simple message of being nice, forgiveness, and doing the right thing.” But now, she says, religious instruction in schools has been hijacked by missionary organisations such as the Scripture Union, Access Ministries, Hillsong, and other extreme Christian evangelisers. “Their teaching is anti-science, homophobic, and discriminatory against women, non-Christian believers, atheists and critical thinking.” Former evangelical pastor Joel Pittman can attest to this first hand. Pittman took scripture classes in the Penrith area. In the classes he would explain to the children how they would have at some stage broken virtually all of the Ten Commandments, and how therefore they are going to hell. “And then after that, we say, ‘but there is a solution! And then in your nice little state high school, we would offer people the opportunity to become Christians, in class. And we would have the whole class shut their eyes, and ask that if they wanted to become Christian, and nine times out of 10 every single kid in the room did it.” Pittman went from having a youth group with five or six kids at the start to having 90 kids in his youth group, which was twice as large as the one I had at church. He would then sign the kids up for Encounter Weekends, where they would learn about casting out demons and speaking in tongues. Here in this video, Joel Pittman speaks on SRE and gives a run through of what a scripture class is like and the outcomes. Judge for yourself. https://youtube/watch?v=Fi46mTVqjyI&feature=player_embedded
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 08:24:21 +0000
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