June 30, 2004
Two Roman Catholics are announcing a new campaign to remove evangelical and Protestant children from public schools.
The new group, "GetTheKidsOut.org," is being headed by interim director Alan Schaeffer and Marshall Fritz with the California-based Alliance for the Separation of School and State. Their goal is to get evangelical denominations like the Assemblies of God and the Nazarene Church, as well as mainline Protestant churches, to embrace the idea of giving children a Christian education.
Schaeffer believes public schools are harmful to young people. "They drive a wedge between children and their families -- and that is a bond, a relationship that is so sacred that it reflects the Holy Trinity," he says. "And to have our children wrenched from us for so much time and given every reason to question our faith and no reason to reinforce it is probably the single-largest area of concern."
Fritz says there needs to be a "consciousness raising" in the Christian community about what he calls the "Godless" nature of public education. He says believers need to understand that "schools are way too dangerous -- dangerous morally [and] dangerous spiritually." He adds that in some cases, schools are even dangerous physically and academically, "although that's not our primary emphasis at this point."
The two men say they were inspired by recent proposal submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention. That resolution, which was subsequently turned down, would have urged members of the denomination to provide their children with a "thoroughly Christian education."
Schaeffer and Fritz are currently looking for an evangelical Christian to head their new organization.
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GetTheKidsOut.org (http://www.getthekidsout.org)
Alliance for the Separation of School and State (http://www.honested.com)
© 2004 Agape Press.
