Great post by Nicholas Tuohy. It’s funny how circular journalists are absolutely opposed to absolutes. The Age is funny, period, though. It looks like The Age (a dying newspaper here in Victoria with appalling sales) is trying to crucify itself. I’m sick of them disrespecting black Christians too. Just abhorrent. But they have a long history, as predominantly white atheist missionaries, trying to force their new Gospel, according to Marx, on all of us. Again, they’re projecting.

“What about exposing secularism to “brutally equal treatment”?”

Wow – you have no idea, do you?

“How would this work? There are at least 22 faiths/worldviews with over 500,000 adherents in the world. How do you cram all of that into 20 hours per year of RE?”

Now you see the problem. The Government cannot hope to give all religions and faiths equal time. Perhaps they should leave the entire issue alone and leave it to the individuals as I suggested?

“Would you want your children to join the Branch Davidian’s or Heaven’s Gate suicide cults?”

Can you prove them wrong? No. Just like every other faith. That why they call them :”faiths” you know – there is no evidence.

“The Bible has some challenging parts, for sure. But text, context, genre, and chronology are important to understanding ancient literature.”

In what “context” is it alright for God to murder the first born of an entire nation?

“Show me where Jesus condones the murdering of millions?”

Jesus is Yahweh according to the myth. Remember when god flooded the entire world and killed every living thing? Charming fellow.

Interesting statistics, Nickosjt.

But just between you and me, if I was a school principal, surveyed on the basis "would you like some funding, or not", I'd probably support their offer of Beelzebub giving ethics lectures.

>>98% of principals surveyed who currently have a Chaplain want government funding for School Chaplaincy to continue<<

There you go. Funds/no funds. Chaplain/no chaplain.

Tough decision. Most Heads I know would sell their grandmother if it would release enough money for a new bookshelf.

But they have to justify their position. It's not good enough just to say "give me the funds, and the extra headcount", it is important to justify why you need them.

>>98% of principals surveyed said that Chaplaincy was making a major contribution to school morale<<

Ah, that's good. No-one can measure morale, so no-one can suggest I'm just after the funding.

The only surprise is that two percent were dumb enough to say no. Perhaps they misunderstood the question.

But you'd have to be a little suspicious anyway. After all, 98% is the sort of result you would expect to find at the election of a President-for-life in a remote African country.

So, who did the survey?

http://www.suact.org.au/pdf/ChaplaincyReport09.pdf

Oh look.

Dr Philip Hughes is a Minister in the Uniting Church of Australia, and works for the Christian Research Association.

Bless.

The role of the public school is to be non-political and non-religious. Parents have the choice to send their child to a religious school, I assume by the meer presence of catholic, christian, islamic school their is religious instruction, and in a public school there definately should not be.

If you wish to practice your faith that is a personal matter, and not for our public schools to get involved in. Religious leaders have an important role to paly in our communities - and to presume that the only way that the religious arm is present in our community is using our tax paid money to employ their srevice in our public schools is inappropriate and in my opinion needs to stop. If our children need counsellors, provide counsellors that have an impartial view

Nicholas,

You are exactly the type we are trying to protect our children from.

No one objects to Religious instruction being available at schools. What they object to is the mechanism that makes it close to compulsory, and assumed that unless you object you are preached to.

If an alternative were available such as tutored homework classes, the SRI classes were opt in, and the chaplains were not given automatic access to the children, the issue would be dead.

The issue with Chaplains in school is whether in a secular society the state has the right to contract with organisations that make religious belief a requirement of employment. It's not about whether they do a good job or whether principals want them or anything else. Chaplaincy advocates deliberately misrepresent the issue for their own advantage, which is one reason why I am suspicious of them.

This type of trickiness is also evident at my children's school. The chaplain likes to bring 'child development experts' for talks at the school. When I google these people they turn out to be nothing more than church leaders or someone that has a show on the christian radio station. The chaplain also runs bible classes and the like at lunch time and invites students along - technically avoiding breaking the rules but without any concern for how she may be blurring her role.

This type of role needs to be filled by people that are responsible, trustworthy and without ulterior motives - things I haven't really seen from the people and organisations involved in chaplaincy.