Friday, May 08, 2009

Evangelical Brainwashing FTW

FINDLAY, Ohio – A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said. Story here.
Honestly, where exactly in the Bible does it say that kissing, hand-holding or rock music is a sin? Where on Earth do these insane people come up with their cult-like absurdities?
Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost plans to attend Findlay High School's prom on Saturday. The teen will be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments.
I think you have to deeply question the thought process involved in sending your child to a school like this one. In this day and age, exposing a teenager to this kind of mindless, soulless brainwashing must surely be classified as child abuse.

5 comments:

ck said...

Can't disagree.

Tom said...

Wow, I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, Heritage Christian School's policy is stupid. On the other hand, Tyler Frost "agreed to the school's rules when he signed a statement of cooperation at the beginning of the year".

The thing is, there are other schools that require agreements from students, like the KIPP schools. And when put to non-moronic uses, such agreements are useful.

So, my general feeling is that this is unfortunate, but that I don't want to intervene, except for dope slaps all around.

ck said...

Understand, I fully support the school's right to do what they did. However the statement made was about how it is unwise to allow your children to be in such a situation...

Roland Hulme said...

Hey Tom - I totally understand the concept of a student manifesto, which you get expelled if you break. I used those for years working at the American university of Paris to prevent students drinking etc.

But I'm with CK - there is something deeply troubling about the LEVEL of this school's controlling nature. Even by a fairly conservative estimation of what it says in the Bible (which CK is an expert on!) there is nothing that sneers on dancing, hand-holding or even kissing.

In fact, Jesus would probably have been appalled that such restrictions were put in place under his name!

No sex, alcohol... even swearing or bad behavior. I think that's FINE in a school setting. But c'mon!

You KNOW something's wrong when CK and I agree!

Anonymous said...

This type of thing really disturbs me...

I've been sitting here for awhile now. I don't know where the lines should be drawn. It seems that everyone has their own ideas of what, where and when lines should be drawn on all sorts of issues...

I guess each of us has to decide for ourselves what the answers are for us in our lives and then live out what we believe. It grieves me when over legalistic views of Christianity are in the news because it serves to underline the beliefs of those that are oppositional to Christianity... and I can't really argue with them on why they feel the way they do because I understand.

In my life, that is not what being a Christian looks like. Everyone has different life experiences and those experiences serve to shape what they believe about the world around them, including spirituality. To my knowledge, Jesus only exhibited anger toward those that were religious hypocrits. He was loving and offered hope to those that were broken... he accepted them where they were and encouraged them to then live differently... but, he loved them first. I don't know... I'm just saddened by this and think that this kind of legalism is counterproductive to what the role of the church ought to be. Granted, this is a private school that had a code of conduct that the students had to agree to... I guess I'm just glad I'm not in the middle of that mess. I wonder if the school realizes what kind of message has been sent into the community in regard to what being a Christian means.