@dustcirclenews - 11 Free DOCUMENTARIES: Crash Course in Ecology, Solar Mamas, Unending War, Deconversion, Bipolar Living, DPRK, The Phase, Crossroads, Land Rush, Permaculture Design Introduction, American Juggalo

The Video-related content I send out will have a link to the website so you can view the videos, instead of seeing just a list: http://www.dustcircle.com

Crash Course: Ecology
Population ecology is the study of groups within a species that interact mostly with each other, and it examines how they live together in one geographic area to understand why these populations are different in one time and place than they are in another. How is that in any way useful to anyone ever?

Solar Mamas
An inspiring film about one woman’s attempt to light up her world. Rafea is an uneducated Bedouin mother from the Jordanian desert.

The Unending War
The US invasions and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan after the September 11th incidents, under the name of war against terrorism, were the most costly wars in the history of the US which took a heavy tool of human lives and properties for the US, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Deconversion, Belief, and the Power of Silence
The author’s hope in making this documentary is that he can be, for one person, the person he never had in his life through the years of losing everything he believed in. It is OK to not be a Christian.

Up/Down: Bipolar Living
In short, Up/Down is a personal analysis of bipolar disorder from those living with it. Bipolar disorder is just one of many mental illnesses that is still highly stigmatized in our culture today, and Up/Down could certainly be instrumental in changing that fact.

DPRK: The Land of Whispers

North Korea lies somewhere between a 1930′s Soviet Union frozen in time and a dark, futuristic vision of society… as imagined back in the 70′s. Land of Whispers invites you to visit arguably the most unique and isolated travel destination in the world – not to criticize, but to observe and listen.

The Phase
It’s an astounding coincidence: in the absolute majority of accounts of the supernatural, be they biblical miracles, UFOs or paranormal phenomena, the protagonist had been falling asleep or waking up at the crucial moment.

Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview
Humanity has reached a crossroad. Our species, the species of human beings is coming to a place where we are deciding about ourselves. We are making a huge decision about “Who are we?” and “Who do we really choose to be?”

Land Rush
In 2008, the world’s food system began to fall apart. However, threatened with hunger, rich countries have started buying up and leasing fertile tracts of the developing world.

Introduction to Permaculture Design

Permaculture is a system for sustainable living on Earth that benefits all creatures and supplies all the needs of humanity. Present systems are failing miserably: resource depletion, water storage, degraded landscape, food shortage, climate change.

American Juggalo
American Juggalo is a look at the often mocked and misunderstood subculture of Juggalos, hardcore Insane Clown Posse fans who meet once a year for four days at The Gathering of the Juggalos.

5 Reasons America Is Not -- And Has Never Been -- a Christian Nation

 
By Rob Boston
"Information Clearing House" -- "The United States is a Christian nation.” If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard this statement at a religious Right meeting or in the media, I wouldn’t be rich—but I’d probably have enough to buy a really cool iPad. The assertion is widely believed by followers of the religious Right and often repeated—and, too often, it seeps into the beliefs of the rest of the population as well. But like other myths that are widely accepted (you use only 10 percent of your brain, vitamin C helps you get over a cold, and the like), it lacks a factual basis.

Over the years, numerous scholars, historians, lawyers, and judges have debunked the “Christian nation” myth. Yet it persists. Does it have any basis in American history? Why is the myth so powerful? What psychological need does it fill?

I’m not a lawyer, and my research in this area has been influenced and informed by scholars who have done much more in- depth work. The problem with some of this material, great as it is,is that it tends to be—how shall I say this politely?—’dense.’ If I were a lawyer (the kind found on television dramas, not a real one), I would present the case against the Christian nation myth in a handful of easily digestible informational nuggets. Swallow them, and you’ll be armed for your next confrontation with Cousin Lloyd who sends money to Pat Robertson.

There are essentially five arguments that refute the Christian nation myth. I’m going to outline them here and then take a look at the history of the myth. From there, we’ll briefly examine the myth’s enduring legacy and how it still affects politics and public policy today.

1. The Text of the Constitution Does Not Say the United States Is a Christian Nation

If a Christian nation had been the intent of the founders, they would have put that in the Constitution, front and center. Yet the text of the Constitution contains no references to God, Jesus Christ, or Christianity. That document does not state that our country is an officially Christian nation. 

Not only does the Constitution not give recognition or acknowledgment to Christianity, but it also includes Article VI, which bans “religious tests” for public office. Guaranteeing non-Christians the right to hold federal office seems antipodal to an officially Christian nation.

The language found in Article VI sparked some controversy, and a minority faction that favored limiting public office to Christians (or at least to believers) protested. Luther Martin, a Maryland delegate, later reported that some felt it “would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism.” But, as Martin noted, the article’s language was approved “by a great majority . . . without much debate.” The Christian nation argument just wasn’t persuasive.

In addition, the First Amendment bars all laws “respecting an establishment of religion” and protects “the freeexercise thereof.” Nothing here indicates that the latter provision applies only to Christian faiths.Finding no support for their ideas in the body of the Constitution, Christian-nation advocates are left to point to other documents, including the Declaration of Independence. This also fails. The Declaration’s reference to “the Creator” is plainly deistic. More obscure documents such as the Northwest Ordinance or personal writings by various framers are interesting historically but do not rise to the level of governance documents. When it comes to determining the manner of the U.S. government, only the Constitution matters. The Constitution does not declare that the United States is a Christian nation. This fact alone is fatal to the cause of Christian nation advocates.

2. The Founders’ Political Beliefs Would Not Have Led Them to Support the Christian-Nation Idea

Key founders such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson opposed mixing church and state. They would never have supported an officially Christian nation.

Jefferson and Madison came to this opposition in two ways. First, they were well-versed in history and understood how the officially Christian governments of Europe had crushed human freedom. Moreover, they knew about the constant religious wars among rival factions of Christianity. Second, they had witnessed religious oppression in the colonies firsthand.

Remember, Madison was inspired to fight for church-state separation and religious liberty because he had witnessed the jailing of dissenting ministers in Virginia. Madison and other founders wrote frequently about the dangers of governments adopting religion; they often worked alongside clergy who made similar arguments. John Leland, a Massachusetts pastor and powerful advocate for church-state separation, said it best: “The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever.”

Jefferson’s Virginia Statue for Religious Liberty, which many scholars consider a precursor to the First Amendment, guaranteed religious freedom for everyone, Christian and non-Christian. Attempts to limit its protections to Christians failed, and Jefferson rejoiced.

In his famous “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” Madison observed, “Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.”

In his Notes on Virginia Jefferson observed, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Alexander Hamilton, writing in “Federalist No. 69,” speaks bluntly to the religious duties of the U.S. president: There aren’t any. In this essay, Hamilton explains how the American president would differ from the English king, outlining several key differences between the two. He writes: “The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church!” 

3. The Key Founders Were Not Conservative Christians and Likely Would Not Have Supported an Officially Christian Nation

To hear the religious Right tell it, men such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were eighteenth-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. This is nonsense.

The religious writings of many prominent founders sound odd to today’s ears because these works reflect Deism, a theological system of thought that has since fallen out of favor. Deists believed in God but didn’t necessarily see him as active in human affairs. The god of the Deists was a god of first cause: he set things in motion and then stepped back.

Although nominally an Anglican, George Washington often spoke in deistic terms. His god was a “supreme architect” of the universe. Washington saw religion as necessary for good and moral behavior but didn’t necessarily accept all Christian dogma. He seemed to have a special gripe against Communion and would usually leave services before it was offered. 

Washington is the author of one of the great classics of religious liberty—the letter to Touro Synagogue (1790). In this letter, Washington assures America’s Jews that they would enjoy complete religious liberty—not mere toleration—in the new nation. He outlines a vision not of a Christian nation but of a multi-faith society where all are free to practice as they will:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. . . . 

All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

John Adams was a Unitarian. He rejected belief in the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, core concepts of Christian dogma. In his personal writings, Adams made it clear that he considered the concept of the divinity of Jesus incomprehensible.

In February of 1756, Adams wrote in his diary about a discussion he had had with a man named Major Greene. Greene was a devout Christian who sought to persuade Adams to adopt conservative Christian views. The two argued over the divinity of Jesus. When questioned on the matter, Greene fell back on an old standby: some matters of theology are too complex and mysterious for human understanding.

Adams was not impressed. In his diary he writes, “Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

Jefferson’s skepticism of traditional Christianity is well known. Our third president did not believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, original sin, and other core Christian doctrines. Jefferson once famously observed to Adams: “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” 

Although not an orthodox Christian, Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral teacher. He even edited the New Testament, cutting away the stories of miracles and divinity and leaving behind a very human Jesus, whose teachings Jefferson found “sublime.”

Perhaps the most enigmatic of the founders was Madison. To this day, scholars still debate his religious views. Some of his biographers believe that Madison, nominally Anglican, was really a Deist. Notoriously reluctant to talk publicly about his religious beliefs, Madison was perhaps the strictest church-state separa- tionist among the founders, opposing not only chaplains in Congress and the military but also government prayer proclamations. As president, he vetoed legislation granting federal land to a church as well as a plan to have a church in Washington care for the poor. In each case, he cited the First Amendment.

4. Shortly After the Constitution Was Ratified, Conservative Ministers Attacked It Because It Lacked References to Christianity

Ministers of the founding period knew that the Constitution didn’t declare the United States officially Christian—and it made them angry.

In 1793, just five years after the Constitution was ratified, the Reverend John M. Mason of New York attacked that document in a sermon. Mason called the lack of references to God and Christianity “an omission which no pretext whatever can palliate.” He predicted that an angry God would “overturn from its foundations the fabric we have been rearing and crush us to atoms in the wreck.” 

Conservative pastors continued whining well into the nineteenth century. In 1811, the Reverend Samuel Austin thundered that the Constitution “is entirely disconnected from Christianity. [This] one capital defect [will lead] inevitably to its destruction.”

In 1845, the Reverend D. X. Junkin wrote, “[The Constitution] is negatively atheistical, for no God is appealed to at all. In framing many of our public formularies, greater care seems to have been taken to adapt them to the prejudices of the INFIDEL FEW, than to the consciences of the Christian millions.”

These eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pastors knew that the Constitution was secular and granted no preferences to Christianity. They considered that a defect. 

5. During the Post-Civil War Period, a Band of Politically Powerful Pastors Tried Repeatedly to Amend the U.S. Constitution to Add References to Jesus Christ and Christianity 

Nineteenth-century ministers knew that the Constitution was secular and that the nation was not officially Christian. They sought to remedy that through an amendment that would have rewritten the preamble to the Constitution.

The drive was led by the National Reform Association (NRA), a kind of early religious Right organization that sought an officially Christian America. This NRA had ambitious goals. It sought laws curtailing commercial activity on Sunday, mandating Protestant worship in public schools and censorship of material deemed sexually explicit or blasphemous. (Thanks to the NRA, freethought societies of this period often had difficulties mailing periodicals to supporters. The U.S. Postal Service was under constant siege by the NRA.)

The NRA was successful in many of its legislative endeavors, but it was never able to secure passage of the Christian nation amendment. The group’s proposed preamble read as follows:

We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the inalienable rights and blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves, our posterity and all the people, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

Congress did consider the amendment, but the House Judiciary Committee voted it down in 1874, declaring its awareness of the dangers of putting “anything into the Constitution or frame of government which might be construed to be a refer- ence to any religious creed or doctrine.” The proposal was reintroduced several times after that; in fact, versions of it were still appearing in Congress as late as 1965.

While the NRA was never successful in getting the Christian nation amendment passed, the group had better luck with another policy objective: adding “In God We Trust” to coins. That practice was codified in the North during the Civil War.

Obviously, there would have been no need to amend the Constitution to declare America officially Christian if the document already said as much. But it didn’t, which is why the NRA felt so strongly about its emendation. 

The Origins of the Christian-Nation Myth

This last point provides the key to understanding the staying power of the Christian-nation myth. The myth’s origins go back not to the founding period but to a much different time in history—the post-Civil War era.

During this period, the country came as close it ever would to being officially Christian. Many laws did reflect the tenets of that faith. For example, books, magazines, and even stage productions were banned if they were deemed insulting to the Christian faith. Protestant prayer and worship were common in many public schools. Laws curtailed Sunday commerce. Even the Supreme Court flirted with the Christian-nation concept in its infamous decision in the Holy Trinity case.

The post-Civil War era was also a period of great social upheaval. The end of slavery in the South created dislocation and confusion, which left people grasping for answers in the chaos. Other social changes loomed. Late in the century, women began advocating for the right to vote. Not surprisingly, some people reacted to these changes by latching onto reactionary religious views. 

Despite the social unrest, in many ways this period of history is the religious Right’s ideal society. Think about it: public schools were pushing conservative forms of Protestantism. Religiously based censorship was common. All people were required to abide by a set of laws based on Christian principles, with the government playing the role of theological enforcer. Significantly, this was also a time of rigidly enforced gender roles and official policies of racial segregation.

Many of these principles still inspire the religious Right’s agenda today. So when religious Right leaders or television preachers hearken back to our days as a Christian nation, remember that they are not talking about the founding period. What they long for is a return to an aberrant era in late-nineteenth- century America.

The attempt to “nineteenth-century-ize” modern America continues into the present. It’s not uncommon to hear the Christian-nation myth invoked in battles over religion in public schools, displays of religious signs and symbols on public property, and other church-state disputes. It has also been raised in questions dealing with tax aid to religious groups through school vouchers and “faith-based” initiatives. The argument is that it’s only to be expected that large amounts of taxpayer money will end up in the coffers of Christian groups because we are, after all, a Christian nation.

The myth also feeds several psychological needs. It assures religious Right supporters who fear the pace of social change that things like same-sex marriage and the rise of secularists are aberrations that run counter to the “real” Christian nature of the country. It also invokes a “stolen legacy” myth—the idea that a grand and glorious history (in this case, a Christian one) exists but that it is being covered up or denied by usurpers who seek to sup- press the nation’s history as part of a power grab.

The Christian-nation myth also has political ramifications. Put simply, it is often used to motivate people to vote a certain way. Increasingly, the theocrats of the Far Right are assailing what they call the “secular Left,” an all-purpose bogeyman guilty of many crimes, including denying the Christian-nation idea.

But the myth is by no means limited to the religious Right. Polls show great confusion in this area: in 2007, for example, 55 percent of respondents told the First Amendment Center they believed the Constitution establishes America as an officially Christian nation.

Misinformation like this has especially bad consequences for secular humanists. The myth promotes the pernicious idea that non-Christians are second-class citizens in “Christian America.” It leads to the idea that the law mandates only a grudging tolerance of nonbelievers rather than what the Constitution really extends: full and equal rights to all Americans, regardless of what they do or do not believe.

That the Christian-nation myth has many supporters among the religious Right doesn’t mean it has validity. It is, in fact, a form of “historical creationism” that mainstream scholars have repeatedly shown to be fallacious. But, like “scientific creationism,” the Christian-nation myth still has great power and wide acceptance. Humanists must confront—and debunk—the myth wherever it appears.

Rob Boston is the assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which publishes Church and State magazine.This article was originally published at Free Inquiry

© 2012 Free Inquiry All rights reserved.

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Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists

AlterNet / By Greta Christina

 19 COMMENTS

A burst of media attention has been focused on atheists of an unexpected stripe -- clergy members. Could non-believing clergy change how we see religion?

 

Photo Credit: Monika Wisniewska/ Shutterstock.com

 

 

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What happens when a clergy person -- a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam -- realizes he doesn't believe in God?

And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they find each other; when they support each other in coping with their crises, when they help each other with resources and job counseling and other practical assistance? What happens when they encourage each other to come out?

Could this affect more than just these clergy people and their followers? Could it change how society as a whole thinks and feels about religion?

That's what the Clergy Project is finding out. In recent months and years, atheists have been all over the news. But over the last few weeks, a burst of media attention has been focused on atheists of an unexpected stripe: clergy members. And in particular, attention is going to the Clergy Project, an online meeting place and support group that exists specifically for these unexpected additions to the ranks of the godless.

The project was inspired by the 2010 pilot study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, "Preachers Who Are Not Believers" (PDF), which exposed and explored the surprisingly common phenomenon of non-believing clergy. The need to give these people support -- and if possible, an exit strategy -- was immediately recognized in the atheist community, and starter funding for the Clergy Project was quickly provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Founded in March of 2011 with 52 members, the Clergy Project currently has over 270 members -- and since recent news stories about it began appearing, in outlets fromMSNBC to NPR to the Religious News Serviceto CNN, applications to join have been going up at an even more dramatic rate.

The cascade of news stories began when Methodist minister Teresa MacBain came to the American Atheists convention following last March's Reason Rally -- and made a dramatic unscheduled appearance at the podium, to announce that she was an atheist. "Being in a group of people with whom I could share openly without fear of persecution gave me the courage to come out," she told me. "The opportunity to stand before the crowd, come out as an atheist and share about the Clergy Project was too good to pass up. I was at the end of my rope and I knew it. It was now or never for me. As I walked up on that stage, I felt fear like no other."

MacBain had been questioning her faith since her early teens, when she came across contradictions in the Bible. "I went to my dad for answers," she said. "He simply shared that God's ways are so much higher than our ways that we can not understand everything in the Bible. Our response should be faith, not doubting. He then told me that doubting was a sin. I left that day and suppressed those questions. This practice followed me for decades."

But eventually, the questions became too much. She let go of her Biblical literalism, which at first helped resolve her doubts about Biblical contradictions -- but this soon made room for other questions to press on her. "Things such as theodicy [the problem of suffering and evil], the question of hell, God's omnipotence yet lack of intervention in heinous events, the historicity of Jesus... all these bubbled to the surface and demanded to be answered," she said. "My work to answer these questions began with the thought that as I discovered the truth, it would create a stronger faith and give me comforting answers to those in my church who were dealing with the same issues. Instead, the truth I found led me away from faith."

This experience is common among members of the Clergy Project. Clergy people, almost by definition, are people who take their faith seriously. They tend to think about religion carefully. They often (although not always) study their religion carefully. Unlike many believers, they actually read the Bible, or Torah, or Koran, or whatever the sacred text of their religion is. They think hard about questions that more casual believers are willing to let slide. After all -- that's their job.

But as many atheists will tell you, thinking carefully about religion is exactly what led them to abandon it. When you ask atheists, "What made you become an atheist?" reading the Bible is one of the highest items on the list. And when I asked Jerry DeWitt -- Recovering From Religion executive director, Clergy Project graduate and new-member screener for CP -- what kinds of ideas and experiences most commonly lead clergy members to question and eventually leave their faith, he answered simply, "Religion's inability to answer for or relieve human suffering."

Lawrence Hunter shares this experience. A former associate minister in the Black Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ, he says that a bad marriage "allowed me to see how life really was instead of the fairy tale versions that are espoused every Sunday... questions about good and evil, the Bible, marriage, suffering, tithes, church corruption and hell filled my mind. I realized that I needed to expand my understanding."

He adds that the failures of religion to meet basic human needs -- and the failures of church leaders to live up to the moral standards they demanded of their flock -- contributed to his questioning. "As a preacher," he says, "I could see that prayers weren't healing people, despite preaching on wealth the only people getting rich were the pastor. I could see that many, many people were mentally disturbed and a host of problems. Not to mention the scandals and adultery. This caused me to look deeper and really find out the true essence of my faith and why the holy spirit wasn't active like it supposedly was back in the Bible days. The rest is history."

And Catherine Dunphy, one of the original 52 members of the Clergy Project, agrees. "I was always curious about the Bible," she told me, "and read it, despite the fact that the church and its priests say, 'Don't bother.' In it I found ridiculous stories that only furthered my confusion." Dunphy, a former Catholic, also had her faith shaken by the widespread child rape scandals in the Catholic Church -- and by the Church's inexplicable response to them. "The bishop of my diocese, an asshole named Colin Campbell, issued a statement saying that the victims were responsible since they kept going back to the predatory priests!"

But for Dunphy, the final nail in the coffin of her faith was realizing that highly trained religious authorities didn't have any better reasons for their beliefs than anyone else. "I remember how frustrated I would become in class," she said, "given that it didn't appear to me that my profs had any more authority than I did!... I came to realize that we were all complicit in making this stuff up as we go."

For many people, questioning and eventually abandoning religion can involve deep emotional and psychological struggles. Atheists commonly say that they do feel relief, even liberation, when they finally relinquish the cognitive dissonance that religion requires, but the process is often difficult. This is often even more pronounced in clergy people... who, again, tend to take religion more seriously than the average believer-in-the-street.

But for clergy people, this internal struggle is only the beginning. For clergy people, losing religion doesn't just mean asking questions like, "How do I accept the permanence of death?" and "What is my place in the universe?" It means asking the question, "How am I going to pay the rent?" For most clergy members, coming out as atheist means the automatic loss of their livelihood. But staying closeted about their atheism means living a lie. As MacBain said, "Once I realized my faith was gone, I began looking for a way out. My conscience nagged at me continually but I felt that the needs of my family required that I work my way out slowly. I took a temporary job (causing me to work 80 hour weeks) in order to pay some bills off which would make the transition easier. As the weeks passed, the turmoil increased exponentially."

And clergy members who leave their faith aren't just faced with losing their livelihoods. They're likely to lose the stature and respect that religious leaders are so commonly given. And while anyone coming out as atheist can be targeted with hostility and bigotry, the venom can get dialed up to eleven when it's a member of the clergy. When Teresa MacBain came home from the American Atheists convention, "The church leadership changed the locks of the church and it took me almost two months to collect my belongings. My email server, mail box and voicemails were filled daily with veiled threats, hateful pronouncements of my impending doom and downright nasty messages. One gentleman stated that he couldn't wait till he stood in heaven and looked down at me in hell while the flesh burned off my body!"

This is exactly why the Clergy Project was founded. In this confidential online community, members can freely discuss the challenges they face in leaving ministry and establishing a new life. This involves emotional and psychological support, of course -- help wrestling with ethical and philosophical issues that often come with becoming atheist, advice on coming out as atheist to family and friends, and so on. But it can also involve practical advice and support: members can share ideas on finding a way out of the ministry and looking for new careers, and can share resources that newcomers to atheism may not be aware of.

Right now, the Clergy Project is primarily a peer support group. But the organization is working to expand its scope, to provide more tangible assistance that atheist clergy people so desperately need. They're preparing now to launch a group of resources that includes re-employment preparation -- resume prep, interviewing techniques, recruiting firms that will work with members to provide leads -- as well as secular counseling, working with the Therapist Project to offer services of secular counselors who are donating their time to Clergy Project members. And they're planning -- soon, they hope -- to provide job training, short-term loans, and temporary housing for atheist clergy members who want to leave.

But they may have their work cut out for them. Nobody knows for sure how many clergy members are secretly atheists (or are secretly on the fence, with serious doubts about their religion). But almost everyone I've spoken with in Clergy Project strongly suspects that the numbers are high -- higher than anyone would expect. MacBain says, "It is definitely more common than anyone thinks." DeWitt agrees: "My experience says it's very common. Over 25 years of ministry I witnessed very few examples of anything other than ministers living 'normal' lives regardless of their supernatural claims. They have to see the disconnect." And Dunphy concurs: "Before I discovered the LaScola Study I thought I was some sort of oddity. I mean, who goes into theology and comes out an atheist? It looks like a lot of people."

The surge of interest in the Clergy Project would seem to bear this out. Since Teresa MacBain outed herself at the American Atheists convention in March, 77 new members have joined the project -- and as of this writing, there are 86 more applicants awaiting interviews. As MacBain says, "This seems to indicate that there are hundreds, if not thousands, who are trapped in the pulpit."

So what does this all mean? Why does this matter, not just to the atheist clergy themselves, but to anyone who cares about religion?

It matters because, if clergy members start publicly abandoning religion, the whole house of cards could collapse.

For most believers, religion isn't something they think about very carefully. Most believers stay with whatever religion they were brought up with as children. Most believers are just trying to get on with their day-to-day lives, and if difficult or complicated questions about their faith occur to them, they often assume that their religious leaders know the answers... the way we assume that pilots know how to keep airplanes in the sky. As Lawrence Hunter said, many believers "are simply unable or unwilling to do the work to read and research their beliefs and other aspects of their lives. It's easier to be told who to believe, vote for and buy from, etc. Religion is the balm that soothes difficult questions."

But if religious authorities start acknowledging that they don't know, either? If religious authorities start acknowledging that they have the exact same questions, and haven't found any good answers? If religious authorities start acknowledging that they've just been making it up as they go along? If religious authorities begin to abandon the tacit agreement among themselves that these questions and doubts should be kept among themselves, and should not be shared with their followers? If religious authorities start saying, out loud, that the best answer they've found to these questions is, "God doesn't exist"? If religious authorities start publicly abandoning their religion? And if they start doing this in significant numbers?

It's going to be much, much harder for ordinary believers to hang on to their beliefs.

I was in the audience at the American Atheists convention when Teresa MacBain came out. It was one of the most dramatic, most powerful moments I've experienced. There aren't that many people in the world who have that much courage, that much integrity, that much fierce passion for the truth. There aren't that many people in the world who are willing to risk losing their families, their communities, their stature, the emotional and philosophical foundation of their lives, even their very livelihood... because they prioritize the truth over their personal well-being.

These people are an inspiration. Regardless of what you think of religion or atheism, they are an inspiration. And there is clearly a place in our society for them. Listen to Lawrence Hunter: "If I were a pastor, who had complete control over my church, I would take the title of 'church' [and change it] to 'community center.' I wouldn't preach from the bible, I would quote from numerous sources of literature and wisdom. As an African American I would focus on neighborhood issues, such as poverty, lack of education and a host of other ills. Gone would be silly rituals of baptism and communion. There's so much that churches can and should do to help their communities, but choose to ignore them."

There is clearly a place in our society for these people. And the Clergy Project is trying to create it.

Read more of Greta Christina at her blog.

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Child Evangelism Fellowship

AlterNet / By Valerie Tarico

 2 COMMENTS

The Christian Group Recruiting Kids in Public Schools

A fundamentalist Christian organization views children as a market for religious recruiting.

June 6, 2012  |  

 

 

 

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It is 1970, a June afternoon in Phoenix, about 105 degrees. My mother pulls into a dusty parking lot where cars and church vans are dropping off little kids with scruffy suitcases and sleeping bags. At $20 a subsidized head, I am surrounded by other kids like me whose parents can’t afford to send them to a real summer camp. We are headed for Camp Good News where the price we will pay for ordinary camp activities is a routine of daily Bible studies and altar calls. In the mornings we will pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to "the Savior for whose kingdom it stands.” We will be kept up late watching movies of modern martyrs and missionaries. And, sleep-deprived and far from our parents, we will be subjected to repeated urgings to confess our sins before it’s too late.

As weeping children move forward down the aisle and are led away by counselors who can guide them through the sinner’s prayer, the rest of us will sing. What can wash away my sin?/Nothing but the blood of Jesus./What can make me whole again?/Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Child Evangelism Fellowship, the parent organization that ran and owned this camp, is a fundamentalist Christian organization that views children as a market for religious recruiting. With a presence in over 170 countries and the support of 40,000 volunteers in the U.S. and Canada, CEF claims to reach 10 million kids a year. CEF often pursues kids who are vulnerable in some way—impoverished perhaps, with parents who can’t provide the resources or attention they would wish.

My camp-mates in Prescott were drawn primarily from the inner city, and the CEF Web site currently encourages outreach to foster parents and state family service agencies.  But its work in North America has now penetrated middle-class communities in all 50 states, largely through expansion of afterschool programs called Good News Clubs. Since the 1990s it has been driving to establish Good News Clubs at public elementary schools and encouraging churches to “adopt” local schools. Sunday school, vacation Bible school and summer camps don’t provide sufficient access to the most desired targets of their conversion activities: grade-school children whose parents and religious communities aren’t Christian fundamentalists.  

In 2001, a Supreme Court decision, Good News Club v. Milford Central School, forced public elementary schools to open their doors to afterschool clubs run by Child Evangelism Fellowship. Alito and the majority accepted the argument that the Good News Clubs weren’t really teaching religion—they were teaching character, in other words morals, from a religious point of view. Last week investigative journalist Katherine Stewart exposed the fact that those “morals” include biblical justification of genocide.

In actual fact, Child Evangelism Fellowship is not in the business of teaching morals. It is an evangelical organization with a core belief that no amount of morals will get you into heaven. In its fundamentalist theology, all children are born sinful and slated for eternal torture. Only the divine human sacrifice of Jesus and being “born-again” can save them from this fate. To funders and volunteers, Child Evangelism Fellowship is very clear about mission: “CEF is a Bible-centered, worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the Word of God and establish them in a Bible-believing church for Christian living.” Your child is their mission field.

Since the 2001 court decision forced open the door, CEF has established afterschool clubs on over 3,200 public elementary schools across the country. Its Web site trumpets the opportunity: The Gospel has been taught freely in public schools all over the world for some time. Now children in the U.S. have that opportunity, too!  

Children can’t participate in Good News Clubs without written parental permission, and some fundamentalist parents like the idea of their children receiving religious instruction at school. But say you’re not one of them. Say, also, that you’d rather not have other kids in your son’s first grade class telling your kid he’s going to hell – because that’s what children are being taught at school. What can you do?

One passionate adult can make a difference. In 2009-2010, a north Seattle parent, John Lederer had a rude awakening.

“I was on the playground volunteering, and another parent said, 'Did you know that there was this evangelical group running a program out of the school?' They had sent a flyer home by kid mail. I was surprised. I thought it was illegal. Why were they showing up in my child’s school? When I read their mission statement and values and principles it was clear that this was a very theologically conservative, right-wing and evangelical form of Christian faith. My initial concern wasn’t that they existed but that they had targeted my child’s school and my child is only six years old.”

Lederer is not an anti-theist. He and his family are members of a United Methodist church. But he believes that spiritual instruction should be guided by parents and that religion has no place in public grade schools, even after-hours. “I resent that there is an organization trying to go around me and recruit my child through her peers in her school to forms of belief that we do not share. They are interfering with what that first spiritual learning is going to be, which I believe should be between a parent and child.”

Lederer and other concerned parents began monitoring CEF activities at their school, Loyal Heights Elementary. They found CEF in clear violation of district policy and of the basic assumptions of the Supreme Court decision, for example that children would be able to differentiate CEF activities from those of the school itself:

The leader of the Good News Club began volunteering in a kindergarten classroom four days per week. This person, who didn’t have a child in the school, who was leading the Good News Club on Fridays, was present in the kindergarten classroom, presumably so she could identify students who she might be able to recruit and build relationships with them. A kindergartener can’t tell the difference between a teacher and a volunteer. Both are authority figures who they implicitly trust. 

In the end, this issue may need to be re-litigated. Someone will have to demonstrate that CEF does not abide by core assertions and assumptions of the Milford case and, in fact, is unable to do so because that would violate their mission. But in the meantime, there are steps that school districts, administrators and parents can take to minimize the harm done. 

The Loyal Heights parents got advice from a local chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Through meetings with school administrators they were able to create a clearer boundary between the Good News Club and the school. This impaired the ability of the CEF volunteers to recruit, and in recent years the Loyal Heights Good News Club has failed to grow and has been moved into a “portable” further from the main school building. The Loyal Heights parents compiled suggestions for other communities facing similar incursions. Here is their list:

What can parents do?

• Learn more so you are able to educate other parents about CEF’s beliefs and strategy for courting children. Read CEF’s statement of faith and Katherine Stewart’s book, The Good News Club. Stewart’s investigative journalism took her deep inside the organization.
• Don’t be intimidated by the Child Evangelism Fellowship and its legal partners.
• Review the CEF curriculum. This allows parents who may be thinking of participating in CEF’s activity to make an informed decision about whether the program comprises the initial religious and moral indoctrination they want for their children.
• Review and understand those school district policies and procedures that can help ensure CEF’s religious activities are separated from the school administration, operations and instructional program. If necessary, push for revision of those policies and procedures.
• Take the time to sit in on a club meeting or two. Document any concerns you want to discuss with school officials.
• Head off faith-based bullying in your school. If your child’s school has an anti-bullying program, make sure it covers religious bullying. If not, create an anti-bullying program.
• Be watchful and ensure that students are not subjected to pressure or harassment with regard to their religious beliefs and practices while at school. Report incidents to the school administration.
• Try to convince other parents that while CEF may have a legal right to rent space at a public elementary school, its activity is best suited for a neighborhood church or similar location. Offer to assist CEF in moving its activity to a nearby location.
• Speak up and make your concerns known to other parents, school staff and CEF leadership.
  

What can the school district do about this?

• Establish policies prohibiting participation by teachers, volunteers and staff in the CEF activity at the same school where they work.
• Educate school staff and volunteers about policies that prevent them, when on the job, from speaking or acting in a manner that can be easily perceived as promoting or endorsing religious instruction or practice.
• Prohibit CEF from using school and PTA communication vehicles to promote its activity, or from sponsoring school activities.
• Enforce student anti-harassment policies that protect students from aggressive proselytizing.
• Assure that CEF, as a religious organization, will pay for the use of the space it occupies and that Good News Club meetings occur well after the end of the school day.
• Obtain a written commitment that interested parents will have access to the CEF curriculum for inspection and that their meetings will be open to all students and parents.

What can concerned citizens do about this?

• Reach out to your local chapter of American United to find out about CEF activity in your community’s elementary schools.
• Open up conversations in your community about religious recruiting of children.
• Support and volunteer for non-sectarian afterschool activities for children in your community.
•  Throw your weight behind Americans United or the ACLU or another church-state watchdog and support them in whatever way you can.

Like John Lederer, journalist Katherine Stewart got involved in this issue when CEF launched a Good News Club at her children’s school. After two years of research, Stewart doesn’t mince words: 

Good News Clubs have as their aim the destruction of public education as we know it, and public school officials, as well as parents, should be concerned. They say their goal is "Bible Study" from a "nondenominational standpoint." In fact, their aim is to "knock down all the doors, all the barriers, to all 65,000 public schools in America and take the gospel to this open mission field now! Not later, now!" in the words of one of their leaders. Most activists I met with the CEF believe that most Americans who call themselves Christians aren't really Christians, or aren't the "right kind" of Christians. That includes United Methodists, U.S. Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, liberal Congregationalists...this list goes on. Keynote speakers at their national conventions promote creationism, rail against the so-called "homosexual agenda," and think that public education is evil because "they removed Christ as the foundation."

As they teach kids as young as six or seven about original sin and blood atonement and divinely sanctioned genocide, CEF staff and volunteers believe they are on a mission from God. They are well-financed and have a seasoned team of legal advocates at their disposal. Any community that doesn’t stand up for its children can expect to have fundamentalist recruiters in its public grade schools. 

Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington and the founder ofWisdom Commons. She is the author of "Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light" and "Deas and Other Imaginings." Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.