Michael Bird has contributed a ripping opinion piece to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Religion and Ethics page.
It is entitled School chaplains: The real issue isn’t separation of church and state and features much typical insight and humour which are typical of Bird.
I’m sure the comments section will flow with outrage.
A taste:
If separation of church and state is the real issue – at least, in regards to providing state funding for chaplains – then why isn’t there an equally loud protest against chaplains in the military, prisons, hospitals and police force?
School chaplains are just ordinary people, often with a theological degree, working in schools providing pastoral care. They are the Salvation Army of the school yard. However, ADF and police chaplains are formally ordained clergy, members of an organized religious institution, and they perform full sacramental and religious ministries.
If Bob Carr and Bob Brown are so perturbed by school chaplains on the grounds that the wall separating church and state is being eroded, why aren’t they up in arms about military chaplains who have been known to baptize soldiers upon request?
I have a sneaking suspicion about the answer. The separation of church and state is just a smoke screen.
The real issue is that some of the more ardently godless simply do not want kids or teenagers to have a positive experience of religion or religious people. After all, there are stereotypes to be maintained. All Catholics are child molesters and all Evangelicals are psychotic crazies trying to sign you up to their weird cult.
The problem is, of course, that if you start meeting some of these people and learn that they are not sexually-predatory-religious-whackos, but are sincere and caring people, many of whom have left lucrative careers in order to become school chaplains, then these stereotypes become rather difficult to maintain.
The myth of religious dysfuntionality must be impressed upon our youth and it is rather inconvenient for this dominant secularist myth-making if young people meet functional and likable men and women of faith.
If separation of church and state were the real issue, then there would be calls for the abolition of all chaplains, not just school chaplains.
For the most vocal opponents of faith, freedom of religion is principally freedom from religion. Religious people are permitted to exist as long as their religion is neither seen nor heard.
It is a bullying dogma that aims to deny the religious any voice or influence, much less a platform in a place like a public school, where young people can get to know them and – Stalin forbid – even start to like them. Or, worst-case scenario, young people might begin to find their way of life so attractive and their worldview so coherent, that they might even aspire to be like them.
That’s the real issue, if you ask me…
Read the whole post at ABC Religion & Ethics
‘Stalin forbid!’
Absolutely classic.
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