"Put Christ Back Into Schools" Facebook Group - Really?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 4:10PM
Justin Bathon in Church-State, Put Christ Back Into Schools, church and state, church/state, establishment clause, facebook, first amendment, social media

The "Put Christ Back Into Schools" Facebook group is almost at a million members. Their position statement:

  1. Allow Teaching of and only the Bible by teachers at any time to students anytime.
  2. Allowing the Bible (and only the Bible) to be an elective in all schools, and not forced upon.

They also ask:

According 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, every person has the right to religion. Why is praying/reading of the Bible not allowed in most schools?

Oh ... I don't know ... how about the other clause in that Amendment ... the one on the government not establishing a religion? Allowing teachers to read the Bible, and only the Bible, in public school classrooms is about as close to establishing a religion as you can get.

Now, I would really hesitate to believe that a million people support a public school teacher force feeding a Muslim student Bible passages - yet, that is the impression that you get when you see it. I love social media, but one of the drawbacks is that the more extreme the group, the more likely it is that they get a ton of followers. So, this is a great example of why it is important to understand social media before you can assign small elements of it (inaccurate) meaning.

Article originally appeared on The Edjurist - Information on School and Educational Law (http://edjurist.com/).
See website for complete article licensing information.