Defeating the school chaplains. Initial writings towards a guide. Fighting homophobic Evangelicals.
As Christian groups get state legislators to push having school chaplains we need to develop subtle but tough tactics to fight back against these homophobes.
Subscriptons are free.
Introduction
I get emails from the school chaplains and they make clear that their goal is to make the public schools religious schools while working in the guide of counseling students.
They are evangelicals and their religous faith can be expected to be homophobic. This movement is a menace to the Gay community.
So I have been developing ideas as to how students in the schools can quietly undermine and defeat he proselytizing agenda to convert the students and their parents into homophobic Christians and make Gays hate their own self.
The suggested tactics are ruthless. We need to so what is necessary to defeat homophobia.
The recent requirement to have the Ten Commandments in the schools will actually support the proposed tactics, since they will make religion ever present in the school and therefore help enable sectarian division.
I haven’t completed this guide yet, but I have written enough for students to get started in undermining and defeating these school chaplains. And we don’t have a moment to lose.
Introduction
Yet to be written.
Fighting Evangelical Christianity in the schools.
Basic concepts
1. Stealth. Not overt.
2. Leaderless.
3. Psychological and not direct.
Stealth
There should be no visible groups. The administration and Evangelicals might suspect that there is some organized opposition, but they never should know for sure or whom.
If some other group organizes and is very visible in their activities they will be useful as a decoy. You should not join their activities or be in contact.
In particular people need to keep their mouths shut. Do not admit as members to your group those who are compulsive gossips or like to play I got a secret.
Leaderless
Do not organize into a group larger than you need to accomplish a function. If there are a large number of people interested, organize into smaller groups each with a function. Only the leader of one group needs to know the leader of another group and only the leader of the group. The members of one group doesn’t need to know the members of another group.
Even if the members of one group are discovered, the rest of the groups will remain undiscovered.
Psychological tactics
Don’t shout or express visible anger or give any clue that you are an opponent. The school administration will easily be able to shut you down or contain your actions. Further the Christians have tactics to deal with such type of direct expressions of opposition. They consider expressed opposition to be an opportunity to enter into dialog and win you over to their side. They have 20 centuries of expertise to do this. It is impossible for you to say something that the school chaplain hasn’t heard of or for which he hasn’t been trained.
Instead you will engage in activities that seem innocuous, but subtly poison and undermine the Evangelical’s efforts and develop an opposition to their efforts.
Being that these actions are subtle, they might not be recognized as counter actions and not be opposed. Even if recognized, recognizing them and speaking against them will actually empower our tactics, since it will publicize what we want publicized.
For example if their church is denouncing Hindus, and they come up with something to say regarding their beliefs regarding Hindus to minimize or deny them, they will alert every Hindu student and their parents that there is something to be concerned about.
This book will lay out a systematic program that in the end will make the Evangelicals regret every wanting to have invaded the schools.
Investigate who and what the school chaplain is.
The first thing to learn is how religious people can be evasive in their use of language to mislead.
Their church might believe that all Hindus will burn in hell, but if you asked them about it, they would find ways of avoiding the topic and appear to be sympathetic to Hindus. Further investigation will find that they want to save Hindus from Hinduism and convert them. So they will be seeking to destroy Hinduism with a smiling face and friendly conversation.
Another example, if you asked a chaplain if their church was anti-Gay, the chaplain would likely lead you to believe that they aren’t. They would say Jesus loves everyone and Gays are welcome to come to their church. They sincerely believe Jesus loves everyone and they truly welcome Gays to come to their church. However, they want Gays to come to their church to learn to accept their religious beliefs and cease being Gay.
Theology is known for its convoluted reasonings and its use of language. A statement might be thought to be one thing, but actually mean other thing.
Getting a clear answer from an Evangelical when the Evangelical knows that a clear answer would negatively impact his agenda is impossible. Plus, even if you got a clear answer, you wouldn’t have proof of it.
Instead use the internet to research him, his chaplains organization, his church, and denomination if any. Any literature the chaplain is handing out might be useful in that it will have URLs and addresses. In particular, phrases and sentences can be copied into Google search, and used to search the internet to find where that phrase is used. Thus you would learn which organizations are behind the literature the chaplain is handing out. There might even be some commentary on it giving you background information about the purpose of the literature and who is behind it.
Save all links to web pages that are informative to the internet archive. (archive.org) The Internet Archive is very easy to use and free. Web pages do get deleted or edited when an individual or organization wants to hide something. See the section on its use.
Have a WORD document where you will paste into it links to important online information. You will want a WORD document for the chaplain, a WORD document for his chaplains organization, a WORD document for his church and pastor, and a WORD document for his denomination if any.
To research the chaplain, chaplains organization, church and denomination you will need to learn advanced Google search tricks including the Advanced Google Search page. There are other search tricks to know on Facebook. There will be a section on Internet searching. [Haven’t written it yet.]
However, one Google trick to know that is very important is using more than one parenthesis enclosure in Google searches. Instead of searching John Doe and First Baptist as a list of words, use parenthesis to search for “John Doe” and “First Baptist”. You will get only results having both these phrases. You can have three or more parenthesis enclosures if needed.
You will want to have a list of key words, and also know that the chaplain’s might use words that aren’t generally used.
For example, Pastor John Doe is arrived to your school. You start doing research. Maybe you search “John Doe” and “idolatry” and get nothing, but with “John Doe” and “idols” you find something. Or the way to search is “John Doe” and “heathen” or it might be “John Doe” and “pagan.”
A lot of anti-Gay Christian groups don’t use the word “Gay” or “homosexual” since they are against recognizing that being Gay is a type of person. So they say things like, “same sex desire,” or “broken sexuality.”
For research you might want a WORD document to keep lists of search terms so you don’t over look the word to use to research your chaplains beliefs.
Scan any literature they give out and file it in a computer. Also, exam the literature for links and organizations. Maybe the chaplain, his church has no record of homophobia, but the literature they had out is from an organization with blistering homophobia.
Besides basic information such as their denomination, church, education, etc., you will look for information on their religious beliefs as they apply to the following subjects.
1. What is the role of women in their religion?
2. What is their view of believers in other religions. Do they think they will go to hell? Do they consider them idolaters? Do they permit members of their religion to marry members of other religions?
3. Do they or their religion talk about demons, devils, witches, witchcraft or supernatural creatures of one type or another.
4. What is their view of the LGBT?
5. What is their view of Catholicism? Or if they are Catholic, what is their view of Protestantism? If they are Protestant, find out what their view of the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary.
6. Which version of the Bible do they use and why?
7. What are their views of other Protestant groups besides themselves.
In regards to the pastor, his church, and his denomination, you need to search if they are in the news for scandals of any and all types. You need to follow the news for any scandals. Online there are individuals and groups which report on church scandals.
When you find information print it as a pdf file with a recognizable name and keep information organized in folders on your computer so you can find the information quickly and easily. You don’t want to be spending 15 minutes and not find the information because you have a folder with poorly labeled and unorganized files where you have to open each of them to see what they are.
Keep the information well organized in files on your computer. Save three copies onto flash drives, store them, and have a weekly update routine. Store them in an anti-static bag.
Determine sectarian identities
The Evangelicals want their invasion of the schools not seem to be sectarian. The pastors acting as counselors don’t want to be seen as they really are, sectarian proselytizers, missionaries exploiting emotional distress. They want to be seen as just friendly counselors.
School lessons that incorporate Bible stories will want to pass themselves off as literature and not subtle sectarian prostylizing.
The first step is to make the school very aware of sectarian identities of the principal, assistant principal, teachers, librarian, and school counselor.
You will want to identify all students, teachers, administrators, and other school employees that are a member of the chaplain’s church or denomination.
You will want to keep records on the computer and not physical records.
You will want to ask all the teachers in a casual way whether they are members of the chaplain’s church or denomination even if you already know. You want to subtly get everyone thinking about their sectarian identities, and their identities versus the school chaplain.
You want to create a sectarian school environment. The professional teachers with their degrees will find themselves given sectarian identities. They won’t like that. So you need to make an inquiry that seems to be a casual and indirect.
Instead of asking, “Are you a member of xxx church?” where the church is that of the school chaplain, ask, “Aren’t you a member of xxx church?” as if you thought that the person was a member. Or did you see Pastor John Doe Sunday? as if you mistakenly thought the teacher was a member of the chaplain’s church.
After identifying what religious affiliation all the students, teachers, assistants, administrators, staff of the school you will be able to start undermining the school chaplain and generate suspicion and hostility towards him.
Again, try to be indirect. Ask what does their church do for Easter? Or some other such like question will lead the information you want. Don’t ask too many people too many questions in a short period of time. You have months to quietly collect the information. Keep the information electronically, so that it can be handed off to others. Also, if you are graduating it can be handed off to the next year’s class.
Prioritizing getting the principal, assistant principal and the school wide employees like the counselor, librarian, administrators, sectarian identifications. After that the teachers. Then the students. Prioritize getting the sectarian identities of the student president, club leaders, and other prominent students.
In just gathering this information, will inevitably increase the thinking about sectarian identities at the school somewhat. When they explain they are a member of one church and denomination, they can’t avoid noting that they aren’t the member of the church or denomination of the school chaplain. Asking will raise sectarian consciousness at the school.
Historical resources
You will want to have historical resources to be used to counter the chaplain’s influence.
One these resources are a listing of those Christians burnt at the stake or put to death in gruesome ways by other Christians.
For example, Unitarian Michael Servetus was burnt at the stake by Calvin’s Geneva government. If the school chaplain is a member of a Calvinistic Protestant group, such as the Reformed churches or Presbyterian churches, the Unitarians can be informed of this historical episode. That combined with these Calvinistic Protestants strong Biblical beliefs and the Bible’s view that idolaters should be put to death, you can create an impression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus
Mostly though, it was Protestants burnt at the stake by Roman Catholics, and it is not likely you will have Roman Catholic school chaplains.
Protestant sects did persecute each other.
However, there is a history of Christians persecuting non-Christians during the European imperial conquest of the world. There is also the history how Protestant missionaries were part of the imperial conquest of Africa.
It can be pointed out that it is very likely that they are Christian because of some imperial conquest and subjugation, by the Spanish, Portuguese, French, British, Italian, German, Dutch and Belgians with atrocities committed. There Christianity is because some ancestor colluded with the colonial oppressors.
For example, you can point out that Catholicism in Southeast Asian begins and ends at the borders of the conquests of the French imperialists and is nearly absent in Thailand.
Or that the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe was part of the brutal crushing of the Indigenous religion and peoples of Mexico. (click on the image.)
Further the history of the Christians burning witches, along with Biblical statements about witches and idolaters surely arouses concern among non-Christians. If they aren’t concerned, it would be good to point out the problem of of Protestants attempting to burn down Buddhist temples in South Korea.
The Historical Appendix will have resources that can be used in specific situations. (I have yet to write it.)
Using the collected information.
You can start using the information that you are accumulating about the school chaplain and the sectarian identities of the people at the school even before you are done doing that research. Using the research information can be done in parallel with the collection of the information.
The use of this information is in some way straight forward, but not without some difficulties. Again, the Evangelicals will make statements that will attempt to obscure their beliefs. However, attempts by them to do so, when presented to others will undermine their credibility and lessen their moral standing. People who are evasive are not credible as moral leaders.
There are a series of ways the information about the school chaplains’ beliefs and affiliations can be used in conjunction in with knowing the religious affiliations of the state.
The most immediate use is to share with non-Christians the religious views of the school chaplain regarding their religion. Non-Christians are very likely to already have some knowledge of the derogatory ideas regarding their religion by Evangelical Christians and other conservative Christians and will already have suspicions of the school chaplain. They are the most likely to be your ally if not join in your effort. Often, they or their families have been targeted by Evangelicals before in obnoxious or intrusive ways.
Most Evangelical churches say that non-Christians going to hell and nearly most school chaplains will be Evangelical. They often use derogatory language. If questioned, they might evasively say that they aren’t saved or not with Christ in the afterlife, to avoid saying directly their beliefs.
Often, they will have missionary societies that seek to promote Christianity in nations where the non-Christian’s co-religionists live. Further they often say derogatory things about the religion of the nation in which they are engaged in missionary activities.
Many times, Evangelicals will call the Gods of another religion demons or devils.
The history resource appendix will have some information about Christian historical crimes against their religion. Some aren’t that distant in the past. (History appendix yet to be written.)
To the non-Christian students, you need to inform them of the religious beliefs of the school chaplain. Make it personal, that the school chaplain believes their late relatives are burning in hell, such as their grandparent or great grandparents.
Point out that the school chaplain believes that their religion is idolatry, and they will not go to heaven and will go to hell.
Likely the non-Christian students are familiar with Evangelical views of their religion already. Your research will confirm their suspicions. Importantly they are now are informed about the school chaplain and have to have some position about it before their family and co-religionists. Likely the parents and the student’s co-religionists won’t be very happy about a school chaplains whose denomination thinks they are gong to burn in hell. These co-religionists can be other students who will be collectively discussing the school chaplain. The co-religionist will include family and relatives which the Evangelical’s beliefs are denigrating.
It would be good if non-Christians wore emblems of their faith to school.
If the school chaplain’s religious beliefs are denigrating towards Catholicism, which they almost always are, make sure that the Catholic students know about these beliefs.
Evangelicals are somewhat more outspoken about their negative views of the Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary. If the school chaplain, or his church or denomination is critical of the veneration of the Virgin Mary, which Catholics have often deep feelings about, make sure Catholics know about it. Some times you might have to dig for the info.
In particular, make sure they know in about how generaly Evangelical are critical of the veneration of the Virgin Mary even if there isn’t specific information about the school chaplain or his denomination having statements about the Virgin Mary.
Evangelicals also reject many Catholic practices. You can heighten awareness of this by wearing a religious medal of the Virgin Mary. Religious medals can be very cheap, and often various Catholic groups give them away. You might wear different ones to school and know their story.
Perhaps some of the Catholics can start wearing religious medals of saints and the Virgin Mary following your example. Evangelical Christian students, full of self-righteousness, will be unable to contain themselves and will share their opinions about saints and other Catholic practices. This would start injecting some sectarian tension into your school and isolate the school chaplain from the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox.
The school would not dare prohibit religious medals since they don’t prohibit crosses, and it would be favoring Protestantism, such as the school chaplain over the Catholics. If they did prohibit religious medals, make sure you wear one secretly under your clothes the next day and let students know about it and have it be a thing. Or wear it openly and get expelled. That would likely cause a sectarian uproar which would be in the press.
If the school chaplain hands out literature, you can hand out book marks with the Virgin Mary.
Evangelicals often are out spoken against liberal Christianity also and other Christian denominations. Students who are members of these Christian groups should be informed of what you find regarding the chaplain’s church or denomination.
The whole purpose of the separation of church and state in history was to avoid religious conflict. Breaching that separation with the school chaplains will tend to aggravate sectarian differences by itself, but you have the opportunity to greatly accelerate the process to aggravate all sectarian differences. This by itself will make the school board which voted for school chaplains to regret, hopefully bitterly, having hired school chaplains.
Homophobic Christianity will have its full agenda exposed and since it is in the schools it confronts the community.
Once the school chaplains’ sectarian agenda is revealed, parents of the students with different religious beliefs than the chaplains will learn of their children’s concerns and get involved.
If for some reason they are Catholic chaplains, you would do largely the same, but the Evangelical and Catholic related items in reverse.
Each student whose religion is targeted by the school chaplain’s religion or church will be motivated to oppose the agenda of the school chaplain.
If an area is known for sectarian conflict, businesses won’t locate in that area. No business wants to have a workforce with sectarian conflicts, be in a place where they might be dragged into some sectarian conflict. The local chamber of commerce would abhor having the area known for sectarian conflicts.
Sometimes Christians will say that something is in the past, however, on Easter they act as if the Resurrection was that morning. You will have to be able to debate them, when they evade historical responsibility and point this out. After all, are they saying Jesus is old stuff. Why read the Bible if it is full of really old stuff.
The violence of Christians in South Korea shows that the violence of Christians isn’t necessarily confined to the past. They have to have police barricades to prevent attacks on Pride Parades and there has been the issue of Christian arson attacks on Buddhist temples.
The Evangelical attitudes towards women and in particular what roles a woman can have in the school chaplain’s church needs to be made known to woman students who have ambitions in life. You merely need to show them the documentation and get out of the way. They will come up with an agenda of their own.
As for informing the student body about the school chaplain’s homophobic beliefs, likely there won’t be out Gays to talk to. If your school board voted for school chaplains, likely you don’t have a Gay-Straight Student Alliance. However, the LGBT have relatives and a large number of students will be aware of having an LGBT relative. LGBT people have brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. and it adds up. Likely over half the population has a LGBT relative. The students with an LGBT relative may or may not speak up, but they will have a dim view of the school chaplain’s view of the LGBT.
When the school chaplain’s church or denomination is in the news for their homophobic beliefs make sure students know about it.
They may not say anything, but they won’t like having a homophobic chaplain on campus.
Evangelical Christians have conflicts also. The denomination of the school chaplain might have broken from another religious group. Do some research and find out if that was so and what was the conflict. The students of the religious group the school chaplain’s denomination broke away from, might not know this, and you can inform them of this history.
As for the students who are in the same church as the school chaplain, they should be asked about their church’s beliefs. Before this would be off limits for general discussion and only between friends or if brought up by the church member. However, with a member of their church now having a position at their school with an official purpose to work with them, the students have every right to ask questions about this church of students who are part of the same church as the school chaplain. In particular, how much are they working with the school chaplain both at the school and outside the school. Do the students who are co-religionists with the school chaplain discuss the chaplain’s work at the church? How much of what goes on at the school do they discuss in the church? Are the attitudes to the school chaplains of individual students discussed or mentioned?
The co-religionists of the school chaplain can be seen as in collusion with the chaplain and a fifth column of the chaplain’s church and denomination in the school.
Reactions to your research may be that students in the groups towards which the school chaplain’s beliefs are denigrating may decide to take action. Encourage that, but in groups separate from your group or yourself. Not only will this allow them to have a single intense focus on their topic, it will keep the general effort leaderless.
Again, your general strategy is to not directly confront Evangelicals, and if possible, not to talk to them at all, but to shape people’s thoughts so that there will be conflict over the Evangelical’s agenda in the school and to make their agenda as disagreeable as possible. Hopefully, the school administration never suspects that you are engaged in an operation against the school chaplain. Again, you should be discreet.
In the case where the school administration becomes aware of an increasing sectarian agenda and tries counter measures of persuasion or repression the response is that they are doing a cover up and are covertly acting as a group to push a religious agenda of the school chaplain.
Conflicts with the school curriculum.
This section needs further development.
Evangelicals are hostile to the teaching of evolution. They think that the universe is about 6,000 years old and was created as written in the Bible. The galaxy which we see and which is about 100,000 light years across, implies that the universe must be old enough so the light could travel to us. The Big Bang theory upsets them. There are still some Christian sects which think the sun revolves around the earth. They are generally in conflict with most credible history.
Studying the chaplain’s denomination’s conflicts with education, science, and knowledge in general should give an abundance of opportunities to bring the Evangelical’s beliefs in conflict with the curriculum and some teachers.
Conflict with popular culture.
This section is yet to be written.
There are books they don’t like, art of which they don’t approve, music which they condemn. The Evangelicals often condemn movies, novels, prominent entertainers. These cultural elements and individuals have fans. Also, condemning popular culture will make them look like scolds.
Further there are popular movies which could be used, like “The DaVinci Code,” and a series, “His Dark Materials” which could be watched and discussed. There are other cultural products which could be watched, read or listened to.
Undermining Christianity
Once you have intensified sectarian conflict with the school chaplain, you can go onto the next step, attacking Christianity itself.
This is another reason you want different Christian groups in antagonism with the chaplain in their own groups, so you can act upon this agenda without the Christian groups in antagonism with the chaplain decide that you are the greater problem.
Showing the logical contradictions of Christianity will have little effect. Religious people just defy logic in their thinking. Christianity has developed over 20 centuries an argument for criticism based on logic. Showing that a religion doesn’t make rational sense is a tactic that hasn’t worked with Christians for 20 centuries.
Other means, such as working on emotions and using religious ideas can be more effective.
The public in general thinks that there simply is a Bible and is unproblematic and simple in its origins. For them it is just something that just existed and wasn’t the result of religious politics. Though this has changed somewhat with the movie, “The DaVinci Code,” where the Gnostic gospels got mentioned, which upset Christians a great deal. What had been the object of study of graduate students in an obscure field of theology, archeology, and history, became something generally known.
The reality is that the Bible is the output of a historical process which included some books and excluded other books and that there are major historical branches and current branches of history that have different Bibles.
The books that make up the Bible often refer to books which are not considered part of the Bible.
The Ethiopian Bible is much longer than the other Bibles and has some really wild books in it, in particular the Book of Enoch, which is referred to in the Western Bible. There are a lot of online videos about the Book of Enoch which are dramatic and would surely interest some students.
The Gnostic gospels are interesting also.
Prior to European slavers and the European imperialists, the only Bible in Sub-Saharan Africa was the Ethiopian Bible. Further before the European imperialists, the only Sub-Saharan African church was the Ethiopic church. African Americans get their religious denominations and their Bible from the American slave holders. There were no Methodists in Africa until the slave trade and British imperialists. There were no Baptists in Africa until the European imperialists and the slave trade. You should refer to the various Protestant Bibles as the white man’s Bible, since that is what they are.
The complicated history of the Bible, the various Bibles, the books mentioned in the Bible, the books rejected, the Gnostic gospels and the lost books mentioned in the Bible change the perception of the Bible. Rather than being a solid rock of certainty, it becomes a thing in historical flux, a shifting uncertain thing, an accidental product of history. Its authority becomes weakened if not entirely disintegrated.
You might carry with you one of the Bibles not used by either the Protestants or Catholics to school.
The appendix on the Bible origins is a resource for this. (Not written yet.)
The appendix about the Bible will contain information such as in these posts.
This book is for a general Gay audience and applies to fighting Homophobic Christianity in society as a whole.
