Rough sketch ideas for book for students to oppose school chaplains and Evangelical Bible lessons in the schools.
I am putting out these really rough drafts to get ideas.
Subscriptions are free.
Links were submitted to the Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/
Introduction
In Texas there has been legislation passed to allow school chaplains and also to require the school districts to vote on whether they want school chaplains. The requirement that the local school districts vote on it is to force school districts to go on record as to whether they support or are against school chaplains.
The school chaplains were rejected by Texas school districts except one.
https://www.texasaft.org/uncategorized/texas-schools-say-no-to-chaplain-counselors/
Texas isn’t the only state pushing for school chaplains.
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has approved Bible stories curriculum for schools. Schools that use it would get extra funding.
https://apnews.com/article/texas-bible-religion-schools-52b74577982b34ce2607b693bd51cae7
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzyexv018o
I will have more indepth reports towards the end of this post.
This might not seem to be a real issue, with only one school district with school chaplains and the Bible lessons optional, but I think a plan still needs to be in place for students to have counter measures.
Texas Evangelicals are not going to just accept that their measures didn’t accomplish their objectives.
They want to avoid appearing to be pushing theocracy, but they also want to be pushing theocracy. Likely they are thinking about how to promote school chaplains and Bible lessons to push them into more schools.
This is going to be an ongoing issue. Also, with the recent elections, the U.S. Dept. of Justice isn’t going to be working to restrain theocratic moves, but instead very possibly might be in support of theocratic moves.
To be prepared to future developments and to assist students in the few school districts that hire school chaplains, we need to have an existing plan ready for use. It is going to take some time to develop a plan.
We need to be prepared.
The usual liberal and atheists efforts to fight these theocratic moves on the public schools aren’t working. The idea of seperation of church and state, doesn’t work when the opposition doesn’t believe in it. Evangelicals think the murderous campaign against the Indigenous in Latin America by the Spanish is okay since it Christianized them.
The current Evangelical movement has fangs. Opposing them with the sentimental ideas of the past won’t work.
The failure of liberals and others to understand or to be in denial of the inherent nature of Christianity, or to want to avoid antagonizing liberal Christianity has resulted in a unilateral disarmament of the resistance against the dangerous Evangelical movement.
Earlier I wrote the book, “Disable, Defeat, Demolish Homophobic Christianity.” I am getting some readership. (Free at this link.)
How I am going to write something for students in schools. I am trying to build a tool box of things we can do to fight back against the Evangelicals.
I have combined the two issues into one book so it would be over 72 pages and thus could be a paperback with online publishing.
The tools I design maynot be the best, but hopefully these writings stimulate others to think of what we might do that would be effective.
A lot of what will be in the book will be items that students whose parents have put them in religious schools could use also.
Rough draft of what I have written so far.
Not much editing done. Sure it is full of grammatical montrosities.
Fighting Evangelical Christianity in the schools.
Introduction
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 and only one person be in contact if necessary.
In particular people need to keep their mouths shut. Do not admit to your group those who are compulsive gossips or can’t keep from blabbing.
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. The members of on 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 let 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.
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.
This book will lay out a systematic program that in the end will make the Evangelicals regret every wanting to have invaded the schools.
Book organization
The book will have first what needs to be done that is applicable to both opposing school chaplains and what needs to be done to resist Bible lessons. Then there will be two seperate sections of the book, one for counter measures against the school chaplains and one for counter measures against the Bible lessons.
Raise sectarian awareness to the limit.
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 prostylizers, 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.
You will want to keep records on the computer and not physical records.
First thing to identify the church and denomination the church chaplain is a member of. What are their beliefs and what is the denominations beliefs. In particular what groups they think are sinful or will go to hell.
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 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 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 she was.
After identifying what religious affiliation all the students, teachers, assistants, administrators, staff of the school is. If your school doesn’t have any school chaplains and it is just an issue of Bible lessons being passed off as literature or something you can just start with this step.
These steps are critical for the counter measures described in this book.
Try to be indirect. What does their church do for Easter? Or some other such like question will lead the information you want.
However, just increasing sectarian awareness you increase the potential for conflict over the school chaplains and the Bible lessons. Persons who aren’t Evangelical Protestants will feel targeted or marginalized. So will their parents. You will have induced others to undertake the direct challenges to the system.
Your general strategy is not directly confront Evangelicals, but to shape people’s thoughts so that there will be conflict over the Evangelical agenda in the school and to make their agenda as disagreeable as possible.
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 their agenda.
You still can gather information, but will need to be less visible doing so.
The next steps will either be applicable to school chaplains or school Bible lessons.
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. The Evangelical school chaplains will not want much of what they believe upfront since what they believe is really appalling.
For example, if you asked a chaplain if their church was anti-Gay they would reply in a way that might 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.
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.
Save all links to web pages that are informative to the internet archive. 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 information. You will want a WORD document for him, 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.
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.
Besides basic information, 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. What is their view of the LGBT?
4. What is their view of Catholicism?
5. Which version of the Bible do they use and why?
6. What are their views of other Protestant groups.
When you find information, print it as a pdf file with a recognizable name and keep information organized in folders so you can find the information quickly and easily.
Check not only these organizations web pages, but search the internet for news stories and reports on them and these topics.
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. Attempts by them to do so will undermine their credibility and lessen their moral standing.
Most Evangelical churches have non-Christians going to hell. They will say that they aren’t saved or with Christ in the afterlife, but that means that they are in hell.
To the non-Christian students you need to inform them of the religious beliefs of the school chaplain. Make it personal, the school chaplain believes their late relatives are burning in hell, such as their grandparent or great grandparents. They believe their ancestors are burning in hell.
Point out that the school chaplain believes that their religion is idolatry.
Likely the non-Christian students are familiar with Evangelical views of their religion already. Your research will confirm their suspicions. Importantly they are now known to know about the school chaplain and have to have some position about it before their family and co-religionists. 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.
If the school chaplain’s religious beliefs are denigrating towards Catholicism, which they almost always are, make sure that the Catholic students know these beliefs. In particular the Evangelicals are critical of the veneration of the Virgin Mary which Catholics have often deep feelings about. Wearing religious medals, a populr practice of Catholics could be encouraged.
Evangelicals often are out spoken against liberal Christianity also and other Christian denominations. Students who are members of these Christian groups should be informed.
When Christians fight, they are not able to focus on Gays or target non-Christians. When they fight, it brings down the moral credibility of both sides.
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.
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.
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 their won’t be known 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. You can talk to them. They will be another segment of the student body that will be mobilized against the school chaplains.
They may not say anything, but they won’t like having a homophobic chaplain on campus.
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?
Reactions to your research may be that students in the 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 with this allow them to have a single intense focus on their topic, it will keep the general effort leaderless.
End note
I will be writing one or two sections a week. I am still working on other projects, but by the time this book is needed I want it to be already written and have gone through revisions.
If you know some people who need this book already, let them know about it. Being able to work with students and adults who are already fighting the Evangelical invasion of the schools would greatly help in writing a book on how to resist these invasions. Right now I am writing in a sort of vacuum.
I am in Dallas, Texas so homophobic Christianity is right here in our face. I do a lot of research on the Christian right.
An editorial pushing Bible lessons into the classroom.
Chaplains
Other ways they invade the schools.
It is free for download.
