Cathy continues to distinguish herself as an observer and scholar of this issue:
Please discuss. Do parents have any experience with Chaplains in schools?
Cathy continues to distinguish herself as an observer and scholar of this issue:
Please discuss. Do parents have any experience with Chaplains in schools?
“Cathy continues to distinguish herself as an observer and scholar”. Are you serious??
Clearly the experience of being blinded by prejudice is not just the domain of the religious! One would hope that a commentator on this issue would avoid the obvious mistake of the uninformed – to confuse chaplaincy and “religious instruction”. Instead Byrne claims that “RI was previously delivered by paid chaplains, the once paid position will only now be filled by the extremely committed evangelical missionaries”. Let’s not worry about providing supporting evidence for such an assertion!
“Courtesy of John Howard’s NSCP, school RI became a national, government funded, permanent mission in public schools”. My failing memory tells me that the Howard funding was to establish more chaplains in schools, and once again had nothing to do with RI. But then, I’m not the person purported to be “an observer and scholar of this issue”
“Thanks to chaplains, RI has also become more militant and more mercantile”. (See previous comments about supporting assertions with evidence).
I could go on of course, but I suspect the point has been made.
Let’s have a debate by all means. But let’s at least ensure that those who seek to lead the debate actually understand the topic and the need for academic rigour in expressing their perspectives.
Peter: ACCESS Ministries recently changed its policy on the role of chaplains in the provision of RI in VIC, they also recently removed the word “god” from their mission statement. They did both these things because they are perfectly willing to dissemble when people express their opinions with academic and I might add, legal, rigor. The arguments that FIRIS has mounted have been mounted in our courts – I assure you, the people in these institutions are not just carrying on in uninformed manner.
You are completely wrong about these things being separate these programs in VIC are administered by the same group and are part of a clear pattern. Only recently, and only in response to the massive protest by FIRIS has there been any attempt to reign any of this in. You seem to mock Cathy’s scholarship, however this is an opinion piece not a peer reviewed article. Her scholarship has documented all of these things you ask for citations for so this is not just her opinion it is documented. Lastly, you don’t seem to have read the speech Paddison gave at a church conference in which she clearly delineates the strategic framework and goals of what she calls “christian mission in schools”.
You can find this speech here http://www.scribd.com/doc/55338278/ACCESS-Ministry-s-head-Evonne-Paddison-s-speech-to-Anglican-Evangelical-Fellowship
I think anyone who has read this understands what is going on and why. How do you explain this away? More tone scolding, pleading for context? This is a youth ministry which holds a belief that “without Jesus, our students are lost” – our government is paying for this.
At my daughters schools there are families from many different religious backgrounds, many families have consciously chosen to live outside the religions they were raised in. It is fine with me if people what to stand on the street corner and shout at my kids – but that isn’t what is going on here, as Paddison clearly articulates, this is a state funded missionary group, who understands what it is doing and intentionally lies about it when questioned. You are most welcome to come on here and debate, but before you castigate people who have spend years studying this issue, have based their comments on in depth research and have documented examples to back up their position, your arrogant demands for even handedness are hollow, this speech is mercantile and militant and it is not a quote taken out of context, the speech is a 30 min long statement of strategic intent and a rationale for the need for this strategy.
Please explain how the CEO of the largest parachurch can say in plain english that these programs are measured by whether they lead to “christian conversion” – reacting to this is not prejudice, it is “judgment” – so there is your evidence, are you going to refute this or just insult people who you seem to disagree with for not “understanding”?
Ms Byrne is missing the point.
What has actually happened is that the court has neatly side-stepped the religion in schools issue by saying that according to the constitution, although the Federal government is not allowed to apply a religious test for an “office or public trust under the Commonwealth”, it is free to sub-contract that function to a third party.
The funding issue will doubtless require some legal fudging or legislation, I doubt if it will change anything in the medium to long term.
@Peter
Yes, Ms Byrne seems rather carried away by her enthusiasm, but the point, raised at the start of the piece, that “Attorney General Nicola Roxon and Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett have immediately defended chaplaincy, publicly declaring their aim to find another funding route. Why? Heaven (and perhaps the Australian Christian Lobby) only knows.” lies at the heart of the matter.
Why is a government headed by an atheist, and subscribing to the supposedly rational creed of socialism, propping up a scheme invented by their political enemies to infiltrate the concept of faith into the education system? Not out of moral conviction, you can be sure. I can think of a couple of reasons, and I’m sure other people can as well.
Very well said Scott.