The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children Hardcover – January 24, 2012

Katherine Stewart's "The Good News Club: The Religious Right's Assault on America's Children" is a book I would encourage everyone to read. It is not only a well researched and informative work of investigative journalism on a deeply important subject, it is also very well written; Stewart also writes for the New York Times, Reuters and the Guardian..I had the good fortune to meet with Ms. Stewart when she addressed the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry at one of our recent meetings. She is an articulate and charming speaker, and gave a précis of her work which was disturbing and thought-provoking enough in itself. The full impact will only be felt if you follow the story as it unfolded to her, as recorded in "The Good News Club" in detail.The title of Stewart's "The Good News Club" refers to a particular after-hours school club infiltrating public primary schools in a very systematic and organized way by Evangelical Christian groups, in an attempt to recruit children into their particular brand of Christianity.I do not use the word infiltrate lightly; it is a false-flag operation on multiple levels. The Good News Club presents itself as a general, ecumenical and nondenominational Christian Bible study group to the parents of the communities it targets, but they and their parent organization the Child Evangelical Fellowship are actually rigidly authoritarian Biblical literalists.Stewart documents how they will blandly assure Catholics, for example, about how unthreatening they are, but subsequently indoctrinate the children with theological positions that tell them Catholics and adherents of other "incorrect" sects of Christianity are doomed to Hell. Needless to say the same applies to all the children's atheist and non-Christian theist friends. The object is to get the kids to preach to their peers, typically in exactly that bullying fashion of telling them they will burn in Hell if they don't believe "correctly" (i.e. in Evangelical Christian style).This inculcation of child preachers is one of the foundational principles of the Good News Club. Teachers are not allowed to preach religion in public schools, of course, or lead public prayers. Students can, though, and the false flag that the GNC works through is to coach the kids into doing that preacher's work for them. It is legally defensible as permissible "student-led activity" even though (as Stewart pointed out in her presentation) it is in reality no more student-led than a Little League meeting - adults organize the group's meetings, teach the kids what to do, set their goals, track their progress, and reward their achievements. (From the very beginning the children are conditioned with rewards like sugary snacks, first to attend and then to recruit.)There is also a deliberate effort on the part of GNC organizers to blur the lines between school activities and GNC activities; one of the first Good News Clubs Stewart came across was actually offered free space of superior suitability in a neighboring church, but they preferred to continue using the school. The aim is obviously to absorb some of the school's cloak of authority for the Club's teaching, and it works; Stewart relates how one girl, when told that her schoolmate was not in fact going to Hell for not being the right kind of Christian, objected that she'd been taught it in school, and they couldn't teach wrong things in school. This was not an isolated incident, but an example of a desired result of GNC policy; they want those kids confused in that way.Another confusion which works to the advantage of the Good News Club organizers lies at the heart of why they are allowed to preach religion in a school at all; Stewart goes into some detail about the implications of the Supreme Court case that let that particular camel's nose into the tent. The confusion lies in conflating the right to free speech and the right to freedom of conscience; I won't go into a great deal of detail here but Stewart does an excellent job of presenting how this conflation actually puts religiously based clubs like GNC in a supercategory with greater protections than any normal club would have.I for one was totally unaware that taxpayer-maintained public schools are now commonly repurposed on Sundays as out-and-out churches, and I'm not at all happy about that either. Not only does it direct public funds toward sectarian uses (building maintenance isn't free!) but it further erodes the distinction in children's minds between the secular public school and the church that inhabits the same building. It's a double whammy for the church; they get a fantastic deal on a building they could not possibly afford if they weren't sucking off secular tax monies, and they get the blurring of authorities too.It's hard to know where to stop on this, but I suppose that the preceding will give you an idea of what kind of information to expect from this important book. Once again, I strongly urge you to read it. You can also get more information at the Web site thegoodnewscclub.com where Katherine Stewart posts relevant articles and maintains a blog on the subject.

If you're one who cares about the First Amendment and separation of church and state,* this book will scare the Bejesus out of ya. The characters behind this movement, whose ultimate goal seems to be putting their genocidal Bible-monster back** into our schools all over the country, have no respect for people of other or no faiths. And their feelings of entitlement hitched together with persecution hallucinations and paranoia -- and the fact that there are a metric sh*t-ton of them out there means that we're stuck with them for some time to come.I respect their right to believe whatever delusional bull____ they wish, but to force their warped views onto children is evil, plain and simple. Their Bible-monster doesn't exist, and even if he did would not deserve worship or respect from sane humans.Their beliefs are that the Constitution only applies to Christianity, and specifically only to their warped fundamentalist version of it. Few come out and say so publicly like David Barton. Such people are a menace and threat to our country. And now they're going after our children to infest them with hogwash of monumental order.Not such good news.* "Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.” -- John Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88)"The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent—that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgement of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions.... The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes up his abode among us with none to make him afraid.... and the Aegis of the Government is over him to defend and protect him." -- John Tyler, letter, 1843** The lie that "God was taken out of our schools" is one of our fundie Christianists' biggest. Students are free to pray, read their Wholly Babbles and proselytize at public schools before and after school and at times in between when it is not disruptive or interferes with learning time. Always have been, always will be.What won't happen is having some Southern Baptist teacher leading the classes in prayer which was the case for me through sixth grade. That's it; no establishment of religion. Practice it all you want, and force it on your kids if you must, march in the streets about it; just keep it in your pants in publicly funded settings.The fact that they are allowed to inject their poisonous fantasies into the minds of schoolchildren is proof that the pendulum has swung way too much to their side.