The Age has published an interview with Mary Bluett, President of the Education Union regarding the contacts she has received from some teachers who have been concerned with the lessons being instructed to young children. Is this now the job of teachers during these half hour lessons? To review each volunteers course content and pass along each concern?

“We have had examples of straight out preaching. Comments such as Buddha is Satans friend”

This comes on the back of some damning evidence sent to The Age of a conference speech made by Evonne Paddison. It is well worth a listen.

”In Australia, we have a God-given open door to children and young people with the Gospel, our federal and state governments allow us to take the Christian faith into our schools and share it. We need to go and make disciples”
FIRIS have been inundated with stories from parents who felt they had no support and nowhere to turn to when their children come home speaking of subjects they cannot possibly understand. We have heard from teachers not willing to speak up. We have heard again and again complete confusion over the content of these classes that have not been communicated to parents because even the schools dont seem to know.
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‘What really matters is seizing the God-given opportunity we have to reach kids in schools.” Evonne Paddison
Given there are no standards in how CRE is conducted in each school (Martin Dixon has made it clear this is up to the individual schools to figure it out for themselves) , we cannot rely on a teacher acting as content police in every situation. What we have are large gaps in control over what is taught by these volunteers. We have the CEO of ACCESS Ministries stating the obvious, that their missionary work is in our schools, and to make disciples of each child. Anybody with a basic understanding of Christianity would not be surprised that this missionary work is taking place. It is indeed required. Evonne Paddison has stated clearly that this access to our young children is God given and that it should not be squandered.

 

With the head of the organisation stating this clearly how in the world can Archbishop Freier and Bishop Stephen Hale make the claim that the volunteers themselves would not be enacting this mission themselves? Our many emails from parents with their own horror stories of what their children are being told makes it very clear indeed that this is what is occuring in many schools. How does this keep happening? Because nobody is telling them to stop. Because as the messengers for God they have a duty to save these children. We all understand this, so why does Peter Garrett and Martin Dixon not? They clearly need to receive some instruction themselves from a CRE volunteer to understand these basic truths.