Christ, Nessie, and teaching children to love lies

Juicy, embarrassing stories travel faster than wind-whipped forest fires. Here is a case in point. Bruce Wilson published an article in Salon about the nonsense some Christian private schools are teaching children ("Shocking Christian school textbooks"), which appeared on June 19. Within days, Rachel Loxton picked up the story for the Sunday edition of The Herald Scotland ("How American fundamentalist schools are using Nessie to disprove evolution"). Renowned atheist Richard Dawkins had a discussion going on his website a few hours after Loxton's article appeared. Before long, people were mocking the Christian fundamentalists in America across the world.

An estimated 200,000 children across 13 states are being educated using these silly textbooks. And thanks to Bobby Jindal, these books will soon become something of a standard in Louisiana.

This 2012-2013 school year, thanks to a bill pushed through by governor Bobby Jindal, thousands of students in Louisiana will receive state voucher money, transferred from public school funding, to attend private religious schools, some of which teach from a Christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and states that the alleged creature, which has never been demonstrated to even exist, has been tracked by submarine and is probably a plesiosaur. The curriculum also claims that a Japanese fishing boat caught a dinosaur.

The issue is that is likely to spark the most controversy is than these private schools receive public funding.

And is not just the science textbooks that are dangerously stupid. The history texts are filled with bigotry and lies. A few of my favorites.

“God used the ‘Trail of Tears’ to bring many Indians to Christ.”

"Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists."

"The [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross… In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”

The Great Depression was fabricated by socialists and unions are filled with socialists trying to destroy the American Dream given to us by the Great god of Capitalism. How much longer before we hear that slaves were really indentured servants rescued from Africa? Those Africans were loved, respected, given a job, and an acre to grow vegetables and raise a few animals. Only criminal acts were punished with whips, chains, and nooses.

Why should you care if children are taught to love lies? If they are not your children, then why should you care if someone else's are rendered incapable of functioning in what is quickly shaping up to be an overcrowded, ugly, poisoned, deadly, and savagely competitive future? If some Christians want their children to be dumber than boxes of rocks, so be it. If their children are not able to function in a hellish future, then what? Well, these children will suffer for the greed, dishonesty, and insecurity of their parents and community. They better be raptured or the future will eat them alive.

Not only will these children likely be playing in a future with the deck stacked against them, but they are likely to lose their religion when they discover how many lies and truly stupid things they were taught by their parents and teachers. Taught in the name of Christ, I might add. Most people throw out the faith baby with the corrupted religious bath water. Violations of trust do that to you. Betrayal does that to you.

And let's not forget the basic message in whitewashed history. Don't worry about your sins and those of previous generations. There is no need to repent and repair the harm. There is nothing Christian about refusing to walk with humility, contrition, and compassion. What do you think Jesus would say about lies in His name? Round of applause from the Lord? Not likely.

People who would be receptive to the message of Christ are going to be turned off by Christians teaching lies and crap. Think about what Gandhi said about Jesus and Christians: "I like your Christ, but I am not fond of your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." In other words, when people cannot see Christ in us, we make terrible witnesses for the Lord. Gandhi would have welcomed Jesus as a brother but questioned claims about His deity because His followers were taking the resources of India and treating India's people like dirt.

Some will benefit from all this. People selling textbooks, serving as curriculum consultants, or running private schools will get rich. Tourism to Loch Ness is going to pick up. Richard Dawkins and other evangelical atheists are going to have a field day mocking Christ because of deliberately ignorant Christians.

Just remember. There is every indication that the future is going to be complex and difficult. Why should God rescue us from overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and lousy stewardship of this earth? Scripture teaches that actions have consequences. Many kids will be unprepared to compete in that turbulent world because their parents and teachers felt it necessary to pretend the world is a few thousand years old and the Flintstones cartoons were based on reality. We are looking at Christians that are choosing to drop out and dumb up rather than prepare for future that will require innovation and working together to solve big problems.

The Lord gets the last word (Matthew 24: 4-21):

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.