talkpolitics | Rendering unto Caesar: Cultivating Vicious Brutality‏

sophia-sadek.livejournal.com posting in

One of my favorite Republican Party intellects is James Weldon Johnson, who worked in the Roosevelt administration. He was a forward looking man who advocated the integration of the Democratic Party. During his time on Earth, the Democrats were virulent racists who favored the exclusion of Chinese immigrants from the US because they competed with workers of Celtic, Slavic, and Scandinavian extraction. Johnson's party favored cheap labor regardless of race. Their primary interest was in expanding business into East Asian markets.

Two generations after Johnson's time, the Democratic Party began to turn the corner on race relations when Kennedy employed troops and marshals to thwart the attempts of a violent rabble to prevent an African American from attending a previously all-white college in Mississippi. Needless to say, that rabble was probably primarily Democratic in party affiliation and illiterate in training. The civil rights movement formed the dividing line between northern liberals and southern conservatives within both political parties. Kennedy's actions planted the seeds of the Reagan Democrats to come.

A religious zealot who stood on the side of segregation was General Edwin Walker, who had been dismissed from military office for religio-political proselytizing. Walker saw integration as a conspiracy of the Antichrist. Reading about the incident reminded me of one of my favorite songs by Ian Anderson. "If Jesus saves, he'd better save himself from all the gory glory seekers who use his name in death."

If you think lynch mobs for Jesus are a thing of the past, you have not seen the plans to teach school kids to kill the infidel. Child Evangelism Fellowship, a strictly flat-Earth organization, promotes after-school programs in public schools for kiddies. The Fellowship promotes "Good News Clubs" under the protection of the federal government:

Good News Club® is a ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship® in which trained teachers meet with groups of children in schools, homes, community centers, churches, apartment complexes, just about anywhere the children can easily and safely meet with their parent's permission. Each week the teacher presents an exciting Bible lesson using colorful materials from CEF Press®. This action-packed time also includes songs, Scripture memory, a missions story and review games or other activities focused on the lesson's theme.

As with all CEF ministries, the purpose of Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.

Here is a video that promotes the program:

A recent change in the program's curriculum explicitly advocates religious violence. Here is a quote from a Guardian news article on the change to the organization's teaching methods:

The CEF has been teaching the story of the Amalekites at least since 1973. In its earlier curriculum materials, CEF was euphemistic about the bloodshed, saying simply that "the Amalekites were completely defeated." In the most recent version of the curriculum, however, the group is quite eager to drive the message home to its elementary school students. The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one:
"You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left."
"That was pretty clear, wasn't it?" the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

What do you feel is appropriate policy for religious instruction in public schools? Do you think it is okay to teach children that violence is positive?

Links: James Weldon Johnson on disfranchisement of African Americans. Overview of the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act. General Edwin Walker's opposition to integration. News article on teaching kids to kill the infidel. Hymn 43