Public School for the Public, Not Your Personal Religious Teaching

As a person of faith myself, I agree with the idea of this. 

Public school is not the voice of the church, any church, nor should it be. If you want a religious education, send your kids to a religiously affiliated school. The public school is not the place to teach any religion other than ALL of them as they relate to history and literature in a third-person sort of way, not as a school practice. School is never a place to encourage, or promote religious practice, whether Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, Satanism, etc. 

Teach academics and life skills. 

Save the religious practice for home and church. 

And let's put our prayers in our prayer closets in private, not in public (as the Pharisees do). And schools already reserve a period of silence during which students may pray as they please, if they please.

Recommended Reading: The German Churches and the Nazi State (link to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

The population of Germany in 1933 was around 60 million. Almost all Germans were Christian, belonging either to the Roman Catholic (ca. 20 million members) or the Protestant (ca. 40 million members) churches. The Jewish community in Germany in 1933 was less than 1% of the total population of the country.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How did Christians and their churches in Germany respond to the Nazi regime and its laws, particularly to the persecution of the Jews? The racialized anti-Jewish Nazi ideology converged with antisemitism that was historically widespread throughout Europe at the time and had deep roots in Christian history. For all too many Christians, traditional interpretations of religious scriptures seemed to support these prejudices.

The attitudes and actions of German Catholics and Protestants during the Nazi era were shaped not only by their religious beliefs, but by other factors as well, including:

• Backlash against the Weimar Republic  and the political, economic, and social changes in Germany that occurred during the 1920s 

("Weimar Republic" is the name given to the German government between the end of the Imperial period [1918] and the beginning of Nazi Germany [1933]. Political turmoil and violence, economic hardship, and also new social freedoms and vibrant artistic movements characterized the complex Weimar period. Many of the challenges of this era set the stage for Adolf Hitler's rise to power -- https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-weimar-republic)

• Anti-Communism
• Nationalism
• Resentment toward the international community in the wake of World War I, which Germany lost and for which it was forced to pay heavy reparations

These were some of the reasons why most Christians in Germany welcomed the rise of Nazism in 1933. They were also persuaded by the statement on “positive Christianity” in Article 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, which read:

"We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of view of a positive Christianity without tying itself confessionally to any one confession. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and is convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only be achieved from within on the basis of the common good before individual good."

Despite the open antisemitism of this statement and its linkage between confessional "freedom" and a nationalistic, racialized understanding of morality, many Christians in Germany at the time read this as an affirmation of Christian values.

Read the full article: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-german-churches-and-the-nazi-state

Immigrant’s song

by John Fischer

It’s hard to talk about Christianity in American culture right now without getting tangled up in politics — something I prefer not to do from the Catch if I can help it. But on the currently contested issue of immigration, I can’t help it. Mainly because there is a biblical mandate, both New and Old Testament, to welcome and make room for the stranger and the foreigner. If we are going to be marketplace Christians, we need to exhibit God’s attitude toward strangers and foreigners regardless of what our government does, and God is always placing them first. We may disagree over what we want the country to do or how they do it, but there is no discussion when it comes to us individually.

This is true for us as believers wherever we are in the world. Over forty times in the Old Testament, the Jewish people are admonished to welcome the stranger and the foreigner. And both Jesus and Paul speak of the same thing to us as followers of Christ. Hospitality toward strangers is built into our spiritual DNA.

Perhaps we can learn something from our Jewish friends. A recent article I read from a reputable source pointed out that there is a strong movement among Jews in America to aid and assist their Muslim neighbors and provide hospitality toward Muslim refugees among others. Syrian refugees can take English courses through a free program at a New York synagogue. One Rabbi claims that the current attitude of shunning immigrants being exhibited in America is “a betrayal of what this country stands for, what we Jews stand for, and is a terrible recollection of our own history… There has been an incredible coming together of synagogues around the country to welcome Muslim refugees. Jews really understand what it is to be ‘the other’ and to arrive in a strange country.” And now this same hospitality is being extended to Afghan refugees. 

What is it to be “the other?” Many of us don’t know.

Read the full article: https://catchjohnfischer.com/2021/09/14/immigrants-song/#more-18081

A New Word for Christian?

 One of my favorite writers, John Fischer, once asked: Do you ever wish we had a new word for "Christian?" I bet there are a lot of people out there who would be Christians if they didn’t have to become a "Christian" to be one.

To me, John Fischer is a guy who "gets it." A man of faith whose faith deals with the real stuff of life, not the stuff of political activists or irrelevant evangelists or poor communicators with big plans and no skills at getting them across. He's a guy who is able to say the important things about why people dislike so much people who believe what I believe. And he's right most every time, I've come to believe.

People don't like us because by and large...

• We're fake.
• We're hypocritical.
• We're judgmental.
• We're known more by what we stand against than what we stand for.
• We're loud and opinionated.
• We dress funny. (Well, at least on those horrible TV networks.)
• We fit in the real world like a black and white TV with rabbit ears fits with a new Game Cube.
• We throw around language that doesn't mean anything to people.
• We think we're better than others.
• We think we're right. All the time.
• We're unfriendly.
• We're a clique.
• We play at being pious.
• We don't feel comfortable associating with non-religous people.
• We ask people to change who they are before we'll accept them.
• We want converts, not friends.
• We are terribly condescending.
• We like ideals better than people.
• We focus on rules more than living.
• We can't even get along among ourselves.
• And most of the time we end up disproving what we say we believe more than proving it.

It's a painful list to make. And I could go on.

But there's another side. I've seen the soft underbelly of my faith that doesn't get shown on the news. I've seen the man with AIDS who shook my hand and hugged me and said thank you. And I asked him, "For what?" because it didn't seem right for a man to have to thank me for being human to him. I've seen more "Mother Teresa's" at work in storefront centers, helping kids graduate high school and helping people learn job skills to get a better job than fast food. I've seen people I know give their last few dollars of their monthly budget just because someone had a need.

A Christian I know once asked me if I joined an online journaling community so I could "share my faith" with people. That's a tough question to answer for me.

First, because I can't get away from "sharing my faith" with anyone I know. My faith is part of what makes me, well, me. It comes with the package, so to speak, and I'm not going to apologize for it being there. So, I guess, simply by the nature of "being" I'm "sharing my faith" -- at least in one sense.

Second, it really gets down to what people mean when they say, "sharing my faith." If by it they mean, did I join to make a bunch of converts to my way of thinking, then the answer is no. Plain and simple.

I joined social media and blogging communities because I like getting to know people. All people. Particularly people who don't believe the same as me. My life would be really boring with just me-clones around. And to be honest, I don't like most Christians I know either. For all the same reasons many other people don't.

Would I like for my friends to believe what I do? Sure. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't. Is any friendship contingent on it? Of course not. Never will be. I consider it an honor that many of the people I've met in LJ continue to give me the time of day once they learn that I'm "one of those religious types" -- albeit a far cuter and less stereotypical one, I hope. I'm fortunate to be given the opportunity to be a friend in spite of the baggage my world view brings with it.

In fact, I received today what I consider one of the highest compliments I've ever received, bar none. An friend said I was the "nicest Christian I know." (Okay, she added some other stuff about my fascination with fishnets, but that's for the other essay I promised.)

And the worst part...

I start to get pretty proud of myself when I mention things like that.

Which just goes to show how much I still don't get it myself, after all.

[Link] Sterile Christianity

“A Christian should be in the world, but not of the world.”

How many times have you heard, or maybe even said something like this?

This is a mantra of Christianity, the functional approach that many Christians apply to life. It expresses the intent to be fully immersed and engaged in worldly affairs without being compromised by its stink and corrosive effects.

This quasi-biblical command is based passages like John 17, Romans 12, and 1 Corinthians 5. It’s solid theology.

Unfortunately, the problem is in the execution.

Many Christians really struggle with what it means to live in this world while not being tainted or stained by it. I’ve struggled with it myself for much of my faith life (more about that, later).

Wrongly executing the “In/not Of” ideal often results in an effort to self-quarantine from the world and its effects. People who do this reason that until they die and are in heaven, they are “in” the world. Until then, the best, noblest thing they can do is pursue the life of the ascetic, shunning any engagement with the world (inasmuch as possible).

Author John Fischer calls this “the three monkey approach,” a lifestyle defined by “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” These people feel like the only way to be “untainted” is to be segregated from the world. Unfortunately, this is an Eastern philosophy hearkening back to Confucius, not a Christian philosophy issued by Jesus.

Consequently, an entire sub-culture of Christianity has emerged that, while technically “in the world,” it has little or nothing to actually do with the world. I call these people Sterile Christians. Well, not to their face, because that would be rude. Sterile Christians practice Sterile Christianity.

In this series of blog posts, I intend to bust the myth of Sterile Christianity and offer the better way taught, exemplified, and enabled through Jesus.

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Well worth checking out this series from Bryan.

[Link] Getting it

by John Fischer

Peter now claims to “get it,” this essential equality, which prohibits him from falsely judging and practicing separation by the avoidance of certain “unclean” things and by withholding the gospel from those Gentiles who would hear it and receive it.

Peter struggled through his cultural practice of holiness and separation and we are guilty of the same kind of legalism and externalism today.  Peter did not change overnight nor will our entrenched ideas and beliefs. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, God never meant for anyone to judge another. Therefore, by the power of the Holy Spirit, let’s stop the proliferation of our spoken and unspoken judgment.

Here are some concluding thoughts:
Let’s each step into the shoes of those we deem unclean and see what they see when looking at us.

This new insight will cause our knees to buckle toward the floor and our heads to bow in supplication. ...

Continue reading: http://catchjohnfischer.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/getting-it/