McReal,
Your starting point is suspicion ... suspicion about what Christians are up to, and suspicion about what we say. Why? And what would change that demeanour?

LanceL.
How dare you skew and extend my point - about YOUR communication style - to me being suspicious of all Christians.

How dare you comment on my "demeanour" when I make a point about how you are pleading for special consideration. Play the ball not the man.

It would be appropriate for you to address the points I made in the first post (Monday, 30 May 2011 2:14:51 PM) about the primary debate being about an unbalanced scenario.

LanceL, your arrogance is breath-taking.

How about all you cynics switch channels for a moment and recognise that what Lance is saying about incompetent debate is also true of other areas -esp in the Age and the ABC . Take Qanda. If Tony Jones and ABC were serious about science and practice change in conservation they would have a range of scientists and practical people dominating the debate - but they always have polys.
Take the Age yesterday -its a very quick and predictable read ( mostly)for me so I no longer buy it . Dick smith outlines a genuine concern about population but he ,like the greens, provides no more than a good intention: No people and role respecting means for moving into a better future so that its almost impossible for me to take him seriously. We must put our feet firmly on the ground if we are going to move forward.http://politicaceleste.blogspot.com

But Lance, you have admitted you hold an irrational belief, and you worship a deity who is documented as using lying and deception as a tool for his own ends:

"And the ... Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and do so. Now therefore, behold the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, thy prophets." (1 Kings 22:20-23)

So why should we believe anything you tell us?

Lance, "It's not helpful to make assumptions from outside a community about what goes on within it, much less about what the people within it are thinking."

Some of us have been within the community and note the great disparity between the way many chaplaincy and RE supporters portray the issue and the way it was portrayed and dealt with when we were part of that community.

Jane Douglas's excellent article spells that more clearly than I've been able to put it http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12102

I've also posted links to SU Qld material which spells out quite clearly their goals.

I'm a former chaplaincy sponsor who knew a number of people working as chaplains and RE teachers quite well. It was very clear to all involved that the goal was evangelising children, it was known that they needed to be circumspect, no sinners prayer in the classroom but promotion of christain club's, youth camps, youth group's, christain concerts etc all worked to get access to the kid's outside the boundaries of the school environment.

There was never any suggestion that the primary purpose of the churches involvement in RE and chaplaincy was anything other than evangelising of children (and then their families).

It is true that christain's don't spend all their time evangelising people, it's true that in some social situations most manage to restrain themselves, it's probably true that many chaplains and RE teachers manage to avoid outright pleading to convert within the school's but it's not true that evangelism is not the primary purpose of much of the churches involvement in that area.

Someone once said, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no", that seems to have been lost on supporters of christain chaplaincy and RE programs in state schools.

R0bert

The problem here seems to be that McReal and some others, is painting all chaplains with the same brush and this is patently not the way things are. There are only some who abuse the system, but the majority are doing their best to be honest. It was a mistake in the first place to call the position "chaplains", they should have been called "Councillors". That way, the predominance of religious people may not have occurred.

If the article had been written by someone outside the church (which it might well have been), the rabid anti Christians would have accepted it at its face value. In my experience, and I have been on both sides, most churches, even the most fervent evangelicals, spend most of their time and efforts doing good works and lead by example. Their evangelizing is generally only a small part of their operations. The outrageous TV evangelist types might get most of the public attention, but they are really in the minority, at least here in Oz. We shouldn't judge the wider church by the way groups such as Hillsong perform.

David