The story first broke when a fourth grade teacher at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina gave a quiz in science class. You may wonder, if the pictures (below) were part of some left-wing, atheist hoax. That question is easily answered with a check of the website of “Answers in Genesis,” a staunch Christian organization, which holds that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
In a moment, we will turn it over to Ken Ham of “Answers in Genesis” to tell the tale. First, the quiz in question:
There’s no problem, of course, if a group of parents wants to send their children to a school that teaches dinosaurs roamed the earth alongside Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. If that’s what they want their children to believe, so be it.
The real issue is the increasing willingness of states to funnel tax dollars to private schools—with no way for lawmakers to close Pandora’s Bible or Koran once they open it.
Here in Ohio, Governor John Kasich and his friends in the General Assembly are pushing for more money for private schools—including private religious schools. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting the moment when Mr. Kasich or Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder has to get up in front of an angry conservative crowd and explain that, yes, freedom of religion does indeed extend to Muslims—and any schools they might like to open, as well.
Conservatives are sure to love that idea.
This summer South Carolina joined a growing list of states which offer at least some tax relief to parents who want to send children to private schools. It came too late to help Blue Ridge Christian Academy, but there are other schools out there ready to pick up the cross and bear it. We know, for example, that in Louisiana a number of Christian schools used taxpayer monies to push a similar type of science.
In fact, in Governor Bobby Jindal’s back yard, the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum favored by several schools went to great pains to explain that the Loch Ness monster was probably real—noting that “Nessie” was likely a plesiosaur. In other words: dinosaurs are not extinct. Darwin is a scumbag. Evolution never happened.
When the story about Blue Ridge first broke “Answers in Genesis” admitted they supplied the science curriculum. They stood by every syllable. Ken Ham of AiG complained about all the attacks on freedom of religion.
Here’s how Mr. Ham saw it:
A Christian K–12 school in South Carolina, with dedicated and highly qualified Christian teachers, has come under vicious attack by atheists. Why? Because one of its instructors, a fourth-grade teacher, tested her children about biblical creation, science, and dinosaurs (using AiG resources), and she has become (in)famous on many atheist websites and blogs.
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It would be bad enough, Ham warned, if this was an isolated incident; but the demise of Blue Ridge was just one battle in an ongoing war, a small school coming under attack from powerful atheist interests. Like David vs. Goliath. Only this time, Goliath triumphed.
Ham continued: “The atheist buzz about the dinosaur-and-Bible quiz, however, is not really all that surprising. Over the past few years, we have seen atheists becoming more aggressive and intolerant towards Christians…They are attempting to impose their belief system (yes, their religion) on the culture.”
In fact, the “atheists” have been emboldened since the last presidential election. Probably something to do with President Obama and his commie plan to impose good health care on sick Americans. (Really: you wonder. Would Jesus have bothered to raise Lazarus from the dead if he knew he was covered by Obamacare?)
I’m sorry. This isn’t funny.
Ham explained:
In South Carolina [the teacher] showed students a DVD of a children’s program, in which AiG song-writer and dinosaur sculptor Buddy Davis and I are featured. In this DVD, we teach children the history of the universe from the Bible, with a special emphasis on teaching dinosaurs from a biblical perspective (as we do inside our Creation Museum. The teacher handed out a question sheet to the children to test what they learned from the DVD.
The quiz ended up posted on the internet; the school lost enrollment and Blue Ridge folded. You might say the Academy went extinct, if you had a sense of humor.
Ham wasn’t laughing:
Though we praise God for the minority of Christian ‘missionaries’ who work as teachers in the public school system (and who need our prayers), government schools have increasingly become, in essence, churches of atheism. We are aware that the overwhelming majority of children raised in the church attend public schools, and thus it should not be surprising that with all the secularist indoctrination in schools, about two-thirds of our young people brought up in church are walking away from it by the time they reach college age.
Look: Ham and his supporters (good people, probably—albeit not up on the latest science) can stand on their heads if they want to.
It’s a free country, and that freedom should cover all religions and atheists, too.
It’s a free country, and that freedom should cover all religions and atheists, too.
The problem, when you start mixing public monies and religion, is that you have no idea where to draw the line. If you introduce a class in “The Bible as Literature,” as Texas did recently, you open a door for an atheist teacher to say to students, “I think this is absurd mythology.” You can imagine a situation developing where a Mormon teacher in one school bats some Jewish kid upside the head with the Book of Mormon, or a Catholic educator whips out a Latin Vulgate Bible and starts reading to innocent Presbyterian children. Buddhists berate Baptists. Hindus hector Lutherans. Mennonites menace Methodists.
Public schools end up in the middle of a theological donnybrook.
Better to keep all religion out for the good of all the students.
Better to keep all religion out for the good of all the students.
Let them think for themselves and with the help of parents and spiritual advisers, let them develop their own belief systems.
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