Professor Glenn on the Tyranny of Public Education

Professor Charles L Glenn of Boston University once contributed a thought-provoking piece over at First Things concerning Secular Education in the United States. It is well worth reading and pondering. Below are a few excerpts.

Most Americans are products of the public school’s 140-year near-monopoly on education, and have an understandable residual loyalty to our current educational settlement; many believe, as advocates of the “myth of the common school” have been arguing since Horace Mann, that only the public school can form citizens. But low test scores and concern over the moral vacuousness of both curriculum and school life dominated by peer culture have shaken faith in the public system. Parents are seeking alternatives, not only in private schools but in charter schools (legally “public” but functionally private), homeschooling, and cyberschools. Even those parents who do not want religion taught in the schools their children attend usually see no problem with other children attending schools whose religious character is preferred by their parents.

America did not always have a rigid educational establishment that claimed religious neutrality. Its rise was propelled by anti-Catholic sentiment, leading to a unified educational system that displaced the patchwork of local arrangements that prevailed in the early republic and that provided a degree of religious pluralism surprising to those raised with the contemporary idea of the separation of church and state. It was common in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries for public funding to be provided to schools that we would now consider “private” and religious, the great majority of them Protestant but some of them Catholic. These denominational arrangements were actually the norm in federally funded schooling for children on Indian reservations until the late nineteenth century.

Our nation needs to confront the loss of faith in public education, a loss fueled both by disappointing international comparisons of test results and by a severing of the rootedness of schools in local communities. Consolidation of school districts, professionalization of educational administration, the unresponsiveness of teachers’ unions to the concerns of parents, and ballooning state and federal requirements, all have led to a loss of confidence in America’s schools.

Read the whole article here.

Reason on Paul Controversy

As a Christian, I hold to ethical principles that strongly influence my political views.

As a priest, and bound by civic legal rules that stifle my First Amendment rights to free speech, I do not represent my political views as in any way reflecting the teachings, opinions, or holding the authority of my Church. Thus, in this my first - and likely only - posting of a distinctly political nature, I speak only for myself and in no way posit an evaluation of religious censure against anyone who disagrees with any inferred opinion that may be attributable to me herein.

As a citizen, I firmly believe in Federalism as exemplified by the Federalist Papers of Hamilton, Madison and Jay, and the US Constitution (as interpreted through the lens of the annals of the Constitutional Convention by James Madison). I am convinced that it is only through upholding the Liberties protected in the Constitution that the US Republic can provide a setting for people of good will to work out their salvation, promote a peaceful, productive and ultimately moral culture, and establish an equitable society for the general welfare of all its citizens.

That said, and having followed the ongoing political debates that form part of the lead up to next year's Federal election in the US, I recommend the following article.

Ron Paul Ugly, Racist Newsletters Not Going Away, But Do They Invalidate His Candidacy?

Incidentally, Reason is typically an interesting and often thought-provoking read.

Chicago Sun-Times Reports on Christian Suffering in Middle East

Today, the Chicago Sun-times reports a rarely stated fact for Christians in the Middle East: Persecution at the hands of Moslem neighbors.

From the report, note the following:

Only in Israel, where religious freedom is honored, have Christians increased, soaring from 34,000 in 1948 to 140,000 today.

Advocates for Islam talk about its history of tolerance, but political, revolutionary Islamism is the driving force in Mideast history today; it has little use for religious freedom. That has Christians literally running for their lives.

Read it all here (and post a comment to let it be known that it is an important issue).

Professor Glenn on the Tyranny of Public Education

Professor Charles L Glenn of Boston University has contributed a thought-provoking piece over at First Things concerning Secular Education in the United States. It is well worth reading and pondering. Below are a few excerpts.

Most Americans are products of the public school’s 140-year near-monopoly on education, and have an understandable residual loyalty to our current educational settlement; many believe, as advocates of the “myth of the common school” have been arguing since Horace Mann, that only the public school can form citizens. But low test scores and concern over the moral vacuousness of both curriculum and school life dominated by peer culture have shaken faith in the public system. Parents are seeking alternatives, not only in private schools but in charter schools (legally “public” but functionally private), homeschooling, and cyberschools. Even those parents who do not want religion taught in the schools their children attend usually see no problem with other children attending schools whose religious character is preferred by their parents.

America did not always have a rigid educational establishment that claimed religious neutrality. Its rise was propelled by anti-Catholic sentiment, leading to a unified educational system that displaced the patchwork of local arrangements that prevailed in the early republic and that provided a degree of religious pluralism surprising to those raised with the contemporary idea of the separation of church and state. It was common in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries for public funding to be provided to schools that we would now consider “private” and religious, the great majority of them Protestant but some of them Catholic. These denominational arrangements were actually the norm in federally funded schooling for children on Indian reservations until the late nineteenth century.

Our nation needs to confront the loss of faith in public education, a loss fueled both by disappointing international comparisons of test results and by a severing of the rootedness of schools in local communities. Consolidation of school districts, professionalization of educational administration, the unresponsiveness of teachers’ unions to the concerns of parents, and ballooning state and federal requirements, all have led to a loss of confidence in America’s schools.

Read the whole article here.

Rod Dreher and the Norway Bomber

Rod Dreher speaks to the issue of the Norway terrorist bomber and the media's somewhat biased coverage. It is worth your time to read it. Find it here. Below are a couple of snippets.

...In the rambling document, Breivik calls for a new "crusade" against Islam,
and quotes from the work of journalists and commentators (including, briefly,
me) who have spoken out against Islamic extremism and the refusal of our liberal
institutions -- including the media -- to hold Muslim leaders to account....

...The late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, an openly gay hedonist whose
politics were to the left of the Democratic Party's, was routinely denounced in
European and American media as a member of the "far right" because he criticized
Muslim extremists on secular liberal grounds....

CBN on Constantinople

I can't say that I frequent the CBN website or TV network, however their video on the fall of Constantinople is accurate in its historic detail. While some terms are changed out for Protestants (Christian "service" for "Divine Liturgy", etc.) it is worthy of your time and attention. Several of the page's links are also worth checking.

It's nice to see Protestantism look into some of that Old Time Religion.

View the video itself here, and the full page of features here.

From the Net

MercatorNet recently had a very interesting piece on the new Hungarian Constitution. It's worth a read.

Mattingly on Fundamentalism

Terry Mattingly always provides thoughtful and insightful comments, and this week's submission,"Define fundamentalist, please", is no exception. Below is one excerpt to tease you along to read the full text.

The problem is that religious authorities — the voices journalists quote — keep pinning this label on others. Thus, one expert’s “evangelical” is another’s “fundamentalist.” For “progressive” Catholics, in other words, Pope Benedict XVI is a “fundamentalist” on sexuality.

Anyone who expects scholars to stand strong and defend a basic, historic definition will be disappointed. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame once quipped, among academics “fundamentalist” has become a “term of abuse or disapprobation” that most often resembles the casual semi-curse, “sumbitch.”

I expect brother Mattingly will be offering more on this topic in the future.

Where there is no Elijah...

A beautiful story as told by Leonard Fein at the Jewish Daily Forward.

Here is a story of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, a story my mother, herself an eighth-generation descendant of the Besht, told me:

It happened that a disciple of the Besht came one day to the master and said: “I don’t understand. Every year, we have a wonderful Seder, we do everything we have been instructed to do, and every year, we open the door for Elijah — and he never arrives. How can this be? I feel we are spurned.”

The Besht considered his disciple’s complaint, and then told him to load a wagon with food, wine, matzos and also clothes and gifts for the children, and travel to a certain hut in a nearby village and spend the first two days of Pesach with the destitute family that lived there; it was there that he would certainly see Elijah.

The Hasid followed the Besht’s instructions punctiliously, and the next morning he arrived at the dilapidated hut in the nearby village. He was greeted warmly, his gifts were accepted with tears of gratitude, and that night, the entire family — mother, father, five children, along with their surprise guest, celebrated Pesach together.

Yet when the door was opened for Elijah — no Elijah.

Bitterly disappointed, the Hasid returned to the Besht and told him what had happened — and, more important, what had not happened. The Besht explained that Elijah must have been delayed, but that at Pesach time next year, the Hasid would surely encounter him. So he must at the time of the holiday return to the hut, once again with a wagon filled with food and gifts — but this time, before knocking on the door, he must first eavesdrop on the goings-on within the hut.

The Hasid did as told, putting his ear to the door before knocking. He heard the mother’s lament: “We have no food for the holiday. Nothing. How can we celebrate?” And he heard the father’s reply: “Not to worry! Don’t you remember that last year, Elijah came with all that we needed, and gifts for the children as well? Have faith; he will surely come on time once more.”

So ends the story, save for its moral: Hillel taught, “Where there is no man, be thou a man.” The Besht, through this story, taught, “Where there is no Elijah, be thou Elijah.” Bring closer the redemption.

A beautiful sentiment!

Upside-Down Religion

Check out the offering by David Warren over at Real Clear Religion. It's entitled, We Have an Upside-Down Religion. I won't even quote it; I'll just say, Read it.

A Child's Voice is Silenced in Tripoli (and on Rutledge) as Planned

Where is the outrage?
Where is the shame at the continued slaughter?
Can we really pretend to be righteous
when innocents die,
murdered by those
who claim authority
and blasphemous right?

What has happened to our consciences
that we bray at the suffering of animals,
yet turn a blind eye to a massacre
taking place here in our sight?

How can we lay ourselves down
to hypocritical sleep
while blood stains the ground
and angels weep?

They cry out to God for help
and we, who claim to be His children,
refuse to hear
the dirge that will one day haunt our memory
and condemn us for complacency
for ever more.

And on that day we will mourn,
O yes, and bewail our inaction
laid naked as sin unto ages.

Let prayer be the start of our work,
not the excuse for our inaction.

Trouble in Egypt (for Christians)

The Assyrian International News Agency posts this story:

Egyptian Armed Forces Fire At Christian Monasteries, 19 Injured

(AINA) -- For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army's use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday's army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

"When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen," said Monk Ava Bishoy. "Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest."

For the rest of this important story, click here.


Also see the interview with Pope Shenouda recently included by our friend Josephus over at Byzantine Texas.

Incidentally, AINA should be added to your regular reading (as should Byzantine Texas) for more in-depth coverage of the treatment of Christians in many places in the Middle East.

Harsanyi Reconsiders Abortion

Over at Reason.com, David Harsanyi has contributed a piece encouraging a re-examination of the question of abortion. It is entitled Abortion, Religion, and Science. His basic thesis is that one should honestly look at the science as well as the religious issues involved. I have often made the pro-life argument solely on the basis of biology, genetics, and logic. The debate Mr Harsanyi proposes should be taken up on all sides as the impact on the Abortuary Business could be significant.

Here is a snippet to encourage you to read it:

Does life really begin on the say-so of a single person—even the mother? Does her position or mental state change what a fetus is or is not? That kind of elastic calculation grinds against reason. Even our intuitive reaction to motherhood agrees. As Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who is an ob-gyn, once explained, "people ask an expectant mother how her baby is doing. They do not ask how her fetus is doing, or her blob of tissue, or her parasite."

Read the article here.

First Things and Disgust

Joe Carter at First Things' On the Square has contributed an article literally filled with disgust. It is a thought-provoking essay on the role of disgust in human life and society.

Below a few excerpts...

Because we lack an innate sense of what to avoid, the full range of disgust triggers must be taught. Disgust, as an emotion, must be learned. And as with any knowledge that is not inherently in our biological makeup, disgust can be culturally relative and passed on through successive generations.

...

Repugnance, therefore, may be a form of knowing that precedes rational thought. Reactions to the repugnant may be similar, for instance, to the way that "fight-or-flight-or-freeze" responses work. When confronted with a dangerous situation, we don't have to wait until we can develop a reasoned response based on propositional knowledge before we react. Our autonomic responses, which are conditioned to respond to similar situations, take over and allow us to respond quickly.

...

If socio-moral disgust is an offshoot of core disgust, then shouldn't we be careful before we dismiss it as a relic of an outmoded cultural bias? What if the wisdom of repugnance protects us from harm in the same way core disgust do? Should this form of cognition be dismissed simply because it may hinder progressivism?

Read the full essay here.

Would that this sort of thing happened more often ... and when I'm shopping...

Frankly, I'm surprised and delighted that no one called the cops!

What it actually says

Amendment XXVII

No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

What it actually says

Amendment XXVI

1: The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.

2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

What it actually says

Amendment XXV

1: In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

2: Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

3: Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

4: Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

What it actually says

Amendment XXIV

1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

What it actually says

Amendment XXIII

1: The District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a state, but in no event more than the least populous state; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the states, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a state; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.