Christian Fundamentalism = Anti-intellectualism = Societal slide to the Dark Ages

ashmama wrote:

<p>Not a fundie, but as a devout Christian, I do feel an obligation to speak up for my faith. </p><p>I am as concerned about the culture of political correctness quelching genuine debate as I am about fundamentalists (of any religion) turning this country into an anti-intellectual backwater. Our very language has been bastardized to the point where we can only use the "correct" terminology for things or risk being called a bigot. Why not just have a dialogue where all sides are respected?</p><p>My kids go to a Christian school. Although the worldview taught there is orthodox Christianity (e.g. the Bible is the word of God, though not necessarily literally interpreted; it is hoped that students will choose to believe in Christ as their savior, etc.), there are students of other faiths, or no faith at all. Evolution is taught in science classes, and sex ed is taught in health class.</p><p>What's really interesting is that both of my kids report that class discussions are much more open and intellectually honest than any they had in public school, and DD went thru the 10th grade in public school. Why? Because nothing is off limits. They really can and do talk about anything, including sex, religion, race, politics, and homosexuality without the sense that they have to tread carefully or risk offending parents.</p><p> As a counter-example, one of DD's friends is taking the same AP lit class DD is, only at her old public school. This girl had no idea that there were significant Christian themes in Beowulf because the idea was barely addressed. Another book, which dealt with the Japanese occupation of Korea before WWII, was taken out of the curriculum at our public middle school because a Korean parent complained that the Japanese protagonist was portrayed in too positive a light. By contrast, this same book has been recommended reading in the Christian middle school for years, even though we have a lot more Chinese and Korean students than the lily white public school ever did.</p><p>I don't disagree that fundamentalism is dangerous (and I know plenty of young earth creationists), but it's not the only threat to intellectual rigor in this country. The real threat, to me, is people not feeling free to discuss the issues for fear of being called intolerant and hateful. I don't want my children being taught the earth is only 6000 years old, but I'm equally averse to having books banned from the curriculum because they are considered insensitive.</p>

My public schooled children have had a different experience.  As parent and Catholic I agree with the local public school not promoting a controversial, opinionated text about the Japanese occupation.  Same with the teachers not introducing Christian themes in Beowulf.  However, students are welcome to introduce a classroom dialogue about these things, and even to write papers solely about Christian themes in Beowulf.

Students have freedom of speech ~ public schools and their teachers may or may not.  They're speaking from a position of authority opening the school district up to lawsuits and constitutional law.  Not so with public school students.  Or private schools and teachers.