You might think fundamentalist Christians would be satisfied with God on our money, God in the Pledge of Allegiance, influence in the Democratic party, and full ownership of the Republican party. But it’s never enough for people on a “mission from God.”

As a part of their ongoing mission to turn the United States into a fundamentalist backwater, they want to ensure that kids become model Christians™. They have done this in part by creating their own parallel Christian Universe, populated by separate TV channels, movies, video games, clothing lines, and, of course, schools.

Private Christian schools are an essential part of ensuring proper indoctrination of children. In these schools, Creationism is taught as science, and people actually use terms like “Flood Geology” with a straight face. However it’s not enough that they can submit their own children to this drivel with their own money. Instead, they would like to do it with your tax dollars, Constitution be damned.

The scary thing is: It’s actually working.

Student, activist, and all-around awesome person Zack Kopplin profiles how private Christian schools across the country are using taxpayer-funded vouchers to submit kids to Creationism.

A few frightening tidbits:

Life Christian Academy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma says their life science class will “lead the student to recognize that God created all living things and that these living things are fearfully and wonderfully made.” Evolution is taught only in history class, where students “evaluate the theory of evolution and its flaws.” The school uses the creationist Bob Jones and CSI curriculums.

In an Alice Through the Looking Glass world, Iron Age mythologies are being taught in science class, while the cornerstone of modern biology is being taught in history class. It’s bizarro school.

Here’s another:

Rocky Bayou Christian School, in Niceville, Florida, says in its section on educational philosophy, “God mandates that children be discipled for Christ. They must be trained in the biblical world view which honors Jehovah, the sovereign Creator of the universe. It recognizes that man was created in the image of God” and says “Man is presumed to be an evolutionary being shaped by matter, energy, and chance… God commands His people not to teach their children the way of the heathen.”

I wonder what Florida politicians would say to taxpayer funds being used to teach children to be “servants of Allah and trained in the ways of the Holy Q’uran”? Incidentally, the thing about not teaching their children the “way of the heathen” comes from the book of Jeremiah:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. Jeremiah 10:2-10

I wonder if the Rocky Bayou Christian School puts up any Christmas trees…?

Unsuprisingly, Zack’s home state of Louisiana doesn’t fare very well either:

The principal of the Claiborne Christian School, in West Monroe, Louisiana, says in a school newsletter, “Our position at CCS on the age of the Earth and other issues is that any theory that goes against God’s Word is in error.” She also claims that scientists are “sinful men” trying to explain the world “without God” so they don’t have to be “morally accountable to Him.

I’m sure it will take my 80% female lab by surprise tomorrow when I inform them that they are all “sinful men.” As for accountability, we all feel accountability to funding committees who, granted, can feel like gods sometimes. Still, I’ve maintained my bouts of mass genocide limited to the hapless yeast that have the misfortune to end up on the wrong end of my pipette, despite what the principal of Claiborn Christian School sees as my nonexistent moral compass.

Thousands of children are having their scientific education and curiosity stunted by these institutions. That this happens at all is wrong, but that tax dollars are going to subsidize the religious indoctrination of children is an outrage that must be stopped.

(image via Shutterstock)



