Fear of "Godless" Schools is Fear of Religious Neutrality

May 30, 2004

Source: Newsleader

http://www.newsleader.com/news/stories/20040530/opinion/535945.html

On May 30, 2004 Newsleader published an editorial noting, "T.C. Pinckney is the publisher of a Baptist newsletter in Alexandria. Bruce Shortt is a Texas attorney. Together, they are calling for America's 16 million Southern Baptists to wage holy war on the nation's 'Godless' public school system by taking their children out of that system and placing them in Christian schools or preferably, home-schooling them. Pinckney and Shortt have submitted their proposal to the Southern Baptist Convention in hopes that its leadership will vote on the measure when they meet June 15-16 in Indianapolis. Whether the SBC will choose to act on this Christian fatwa cannot be predicted. We hope they will not, because what Pinckney and Shortt are tossing a fit about is not the lack of religion in school, but that their particular brand of faith is not being pressed into the flesh of every American schoolchild. There is more religion in the American public school system today than at any point in recent history. In fact, federal guidelines laid down last year by the U.S. Department of Education protect many expressions of religious freedom by students. Students are free to form religious clubs, bring their books of faith to school and read them, and pray before or between classes, to name just a few. Schools that do not comply with the government's guidelines face the loss of federal funding. Pinckney and Shortt's object not to the American public school system's lack of instruction in religion but its religious neutrality. They have forgotten that one of America's greatest strengths lies in its lack of endorsement of a particular faith so that all faiths may worship without fear of persecution."