To feel a bit [hmm] about 'Christianity Day' at school

[nameforaday]

Regular MNer, namechanging because this identifies my son's school.

He is in year 7. Now their end of year exams are over there are a lot of special projects, away days etc...One of the compulsory events is 'Christianity Day' which as far as I can work out is a whole day run by these people...groovy young evangelical Christians who are basically doing missionary outreach work in schools - their aim is to bring more young people to Jesus.

I don't think it is appropriate; it is one thing to teach children about different religions, but another to give over teaching time and premises for an evangelical group to peddle their wares for a whole day. They didn't even send home a letter saying what they day was going to be, and giving people a chance to withdraw.

Any advice on what to do? If if it was primary school I'd go and have a chat with the Head, but secondary school is so much more intimidating! I don't think it will harm my son, I just think its a bit off.

Purgatory isn't biblical. I think there may be one reference to it by Paul which is very vague.

no it isnt alemic, lots of religious things are not biblical though.

I'm completely against evangelism in school even if the school is a religious one. Children go to school to learn and to make informed choices, not to be brainwashed. YANBU. I would go and see the Head and explain your concerns. Learning about religion is fine, marketing from a particular branch, not fine.

I don't think evangelical organisations should be allowed in to schools to run events. If it's compulsory, I'd raise it with the school.

IME with a similar organisation, the content they present in schools is quite limited/vetted to be factual (Christians believe xxx, etc) or non-religious such as lessons about PHSE issues. The more evangelistic activities are limited to optional settings like lunch clubs and youth groups. The schools will not have them in if they overstep the mark. But obviously this particular group or school might have some different arrangement - they might be desperate to fill a day with anything.

Children are being 'brainwashed' every day in schools and it's not religion that they're being fed. None of you ever seem to object to this, but as soon as Christianity is mentioned, everybody has a meltdown. Just because it's not the cosy, harmless 'visit to the nearest cathedral' type activity everyone is filled with suspicion and angst.

They are recruiting and they are usually pretty sneaky about it. They should not allowed in.

Crikey, it's laughable. One of the Step Churches is a CofE church.

You honestly cannot tell me that the CofE is anything like a EC and there's a Methodist Church there too. This is hardly nutty faith healing, happy clappy stuff

You people really are just too suspicious.

(I know I shouldn't ask...) What exactly are our children being 'brainwashed' about?

Try telling me that Rowan Williams is sneaky and dangerous

Although, he could be hiding anything under that beard I grant you

ha, our local Methodist Church holds 'clandestine' movie shows for kids and parents during the school holidays......the last one was

Toy Story Three

Hiddenhome - how are children brainwashed at school? Big Bang thoery? Evolution?

theory

grimma algebra, its a smoke screen for the communists.

When I was a student, I went to a CofE church as there wasn't one of the denomination I'd been brought up in anywhere near.

It was very evangelical, charismatic, happy clappy. The CofE is a broad church.

hiddenhome - have you read the explanation given about natural disasters under the questions section on the Young People page of their site?

I was brought up in a Methodist family, my grandfather was a lay preacher - I spent hours in Sunday school and listening to sermons etc. No-one EVER suggested, deliberately or through flawed, garbled, illogical writing, that the victims of natural disasters were to blame. Sadly the fact that there are reputable churches on the list of supporters does not seem to have guaranteed a team of people who can talk in a reasonable way about christian beliefs.

The CofE church that you experienced is still hardly going to be dangerous or sinister though is it?

Children are being 'brainwashed' into accepting the values of current society, many of which are harmful and damaging.

It's all about me values

Rowan Williams may not be sneaky, but he's put forward at least one dangerous idea in his time.

Spooks - I wonder if your experience of churches has been more of the evangelical end than mine (which is high church anglican). I would say that IME evangelical churches definitely tend to be less liberal, more fundamentalist. Some of them are also notably more keen to extract money (I was once in an evangelical church where the preacher said that people needed to pray to ask God how much they should give, and not to worry if the answer sounded a bit high because God would provide - followed up by telling people about caring for the sparrows and the lilies of the field, just in case anyone was sweating about monor matters such as paying the mortgage that month). I've never heard that kind of sermon preached at any other church (and I felt it was deeply irresponsoble, in a recession). I certainly wouldn't say this sort of thing was representative of Christianity as a whole, though.

Hiddenhome - I don't understand - I agree that many children grow up with 'me first' values, don't really see how they are taught this is schools. Anyhow - values should come from parents...

Bottom line is that school is primarily for educating, not indoctrination or promotion of any sort of ideology. This is not a CofE school - therefore it does not fall within its remit to promote any religion.

That said nice and reasonably, I would be in the Head's office after his balls! OP, I am fuming for you. We had a lot of this shite at my (non CofE) secondary school in the 80's, because a small handful of the teachers had happy-clappy leanings.

Children are being 'brainwashed' into accepting the values of current society, many of which are harmful and damaging.

Are they? I've not seen anything remotely of the sort in my DDs curriculum.

These values are everywhere, not merely within schools. In certain parts of the curriculum these values will emerge, and others will come from parents, wider family, friends, peers, the media etc.

Parents also indoctrinate their children with values that can be damaging.

HiddenHome I know that there are CofE and Methodist churches down there too. Doesn't make it any more acceptable to me.

Have you also read the answers they are giving to young people about why people like Ian Huntley exist as paedophiles to murder 10 year old girls?

www.stepschoolswork.org/young-people.php

Just bizarre - and the answers to the volcanoes qn on that link above too - someone has mentioned above about the fact that they are blaming the people scraping a living from living near volcanoes as 'greedy' and equivalent to a man who died in America putting his car away in a tornado - he died too because he was greedy. Fucked up.

I would hate to hear their views on illness - I have a friend whose mum is from a religious family - they viewed her getting breast cancer as meaning she must have done something to deserve it . This group are not far away from expressing that view with the shit they've spouted about God and natural disasters. Imagine the impact that would have on a child who has an ill parent. Not only do they have to deal with that, they now have to think their parent deserved it and this is God's wrath in someway? Fuck that. What an absolutely evil idea to pass on to children.

grimmathenome I removed my ds1 from his first secondary school because of a certain activity that he was expected to take part in. I felt so strongly that I changed schools. He now attends a Catholic Secondary school and is far happier and doing much better academically. He's no longer cheeky and has some pleasant friends who don't spend their time threatening to kick someone's head in on the way home from school