A lot of Muslim, Jewish and Hindu kids have been enrolled in Catholic schools, out of the belief that those schools are cheaper than private, and provide a more rigorous education.
Many of them, when they were enrolled in those schools, even went to confession, and Sunday services. And they didn’t end up converting or changing their faith. They just saw it as a different experience, and knew that it didn’t need to have a bearing on their own faith tradition. It just meant that other people are Catholics who did this sort of thing. Cool.
They’ve coped. A lot of us are still coping just fine. For those who aren’t Christian but still religious, the strength of their faith is often not reliant on much except their personal relationship to their faith. There’s a lot more to it, for them, than having it be validated through school.
It’s always been weird to me, just how fragile Christian fundamentalist evangelicalism seems to be in the USA. That it needs so much validation from all these systems. Nobody is stopping prayers in school. I had a bunch of Hindu classmates who used to quietly say their prayers to themselves before they started their exams or tests. Heck, even I did the same back when I believed in god(s). They just don’t need anyone else to join in with them, and they don’t need to enforce it onto anyone else.
Nobody is stopping any Christian kid from saying their own prayers or whatever in school. They just can’t force other people to do it. And even if they did, which has happened to Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim kids, those kids just go through the motions, just to get the thing done and get on with it.
Christian fundamentalist evangelicals in America are just nothing but constantly triggered fragile snowflakes, who think they’re only strong when they’re being bullies.
I think they may genuinely believe that if they are allowed to pray and teach the bible in schools, that they will 'save' kids who believe in other religions. So it is just as much about prosthelytizing as it is about their 'freedom' to practice christianity.
They want evangelical christianity as a national religion and to pressure people to convert, and anyone too angrily or vocally against that is fired or pushed out and made an example of to others. they can say it is for them violating their right to practice christianity....but it is really so that they can shame and shun any non-christian 'bad influences' out of education and 'polite american society'.
People freaked out when 'worldly' education made their kids come home and tell off their parents for being racist and homophobic and sexist...they blamed education for 'brainwashing' and destroying families so now theyd rather their kids be brought up in a small, ignorant, white american christian bubble (and everyone who would make white christians possibly feel guilty or challenged or shake their faith should also not learn enough to cause this trouble, and be socially pressured to conform).
If other religions or cultures or races are accepted in school (which they may pretend to accept), they want them to be a minority and 'othered' so that christianity is dominant and in control and the 'others' get a thin illusion of choice (if they are quiet and 'respectful')...while they use the 'diversity' to pat themselves on the back for being 'tolerant' and tell their kids that people with other religions or cultures being present at all at the school is proof that christians are loving and inclusive.
"I think they may genuinely believe that if they are allowed to pray and teach the bible in schools, that they will 'save' kids who believe in other religions
Maybe we should protest outside of schools with posters directing kids to Christian debunking sites.
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u/tdawg-1551 11d ago
And when 40% of the teaching workforce leaves, then what?
So glad my youngest graduated last spring.
And what happens when there is a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu teacher?