Yesterday, Senator Louise Pratt gave a Senate speech calling for an end to the National School Chaplaincy Program.  Senator Pratt drew on information I supplied to LGBTIQ lobby, Allout, and from information which emerged from Allout’s survey about chaplaincy. Here is the text from Hansard.

The High Court’s decision will be handed down tomorrow, Thursday, 19 June at 10am. Ron Williams and I will be in Sydney for the decision.

It remains to be seen how the government will respond to a positive decision for Williams. But it is likely that pressure will need to be placed upon the states not to accept funding for the continuation of this fatally flawed and increasingly politically damaging program. Reason Road has a good run down on the problem and suggestions for ways to campaign against chaplaincy.

 

Chrys Stevenson

 

Hansard

 

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (19:29): I rise this evening to share my concerns in this place about the coalition School Chaplaincy Program. There is in our country a mounting and substantial evidence base that young people, especially young lesbian, gay, bisexual or other gender non-conforming people, are being discriminated against by many school chaplains provided through the national school chaplaincy program. I have worked with school chaplains over the years and I have found them to be well-intentioned people. But I also know about the very real suffering that the anti-gay beliefs that some of them hold can cause LGBT young people, even when no harm is intended.

As we know, LGBT young people are at an extremely disproportionate risk of self-harm, suicide and general feelings of shame and depression compared to non-LGBT youth. These feelings are generated not because there is any wrong with their identity but because of the stigma directed towards them by others. And so, while many young people may have positive chaplain experiences ourselves, we in this place have to listen to what young people tell us, especially our most vulnerable youth.

Last week, the LGBT rights organisation All Out ran a survey inviting Australians to share their stories of school chaplains. Over 2,200 people responded, including over 1,000 high-school students aged 13 to 18. Many of these students came from WA and 15 per cent identified as L, G, B or T. The Australian community has been debating school chaplains for some time, but this is the first time that we have heard from the students themselves, and the stories that they have shared are overwhelming. We have heard dozens of firsthand student accounts that describe chaplains as being explicitly anti-gay. Here is one short excerpt:

My best friend was getting bullied by other students last year for being gay, so went to speak to our school chaplain about it. … He suffers from anxiety and depression, has attempted suicide in the past and occasionally self-harms. He spoke to our chaplain about being bullied and about how he has begun to believe what people are saying about him being a ‘fag’ and ‘a disgusting, gay idiot’. … The chaplain told him that his bullies were right and that homosexuality is a degrading sin that sends people to hell. …. That night I got a phone call from his Mum telling me he had tried to overdose on medicine pills and was in hospital having his stomach pumped.

And here is another:

… this term the Chaplain warned us against … non-marital sex. When I asked him about what a lesbian couple of faith would do if they couldn’t get married, he simply replied that gay and lesbian people could never be proper Christians. … He went on to talk about how … gays and lesbians were … unnatural, indecent and perverse. … this event made me feel as if my sexuality was something to be ashamed of. I consider myself a strong person, and for this to affect me so deeply made me realise the dangers of mixing religion with public education.

It is important to mention that a minority of students—about five to 10 per cent of students in this survey—reported positive experiences with chaplains, including stories of chaplains helping them to overcome self-esteem issues and bullying. Of the 1,000 or so parents and other adults who were part of the survey, about 25 per cent reported positive chaplain experiences, including how chaplains had boosted confidence. However, most of the stories were negative, and almost all of the stories from LGBT young people were negative. As well as the two stories I have just quoted, students described chaplains helping them to ‘pray the gay away’ and advising them to sleep with a member of the opposite sex to ‘correct’ their same sex attraction. One very serious story involved a student being told by a chaplain that they should leave home because they had homosexual parents. The family felt unwelcome at the school and subsequently moved. Many non-Christian students also reported that chaplains had harassed them about adopting religion.

In my years as a senator I have heard countless stories of the challenges that LGBT young people face at school, but even I am overwhelmed by some of the heartbreaking stories that this survey revealed—all breaches of program guidelines and the duty of care owed to these students, a duty of care that these stories demonstrate is being breached, a duty of care that states these services must not be biased on the grounds of religious ideology or sexuality. Extraordinarily, the government has refused to give any assurances that even the current program’s standards and safeguards will be maintained—and this could lead to the rules designed to prevent this kind of proselytising being wound back even further

And this is not even the whole picture. I have also had a few very serious reports passed on to me this week, again stories reported by Western Australian school students who are especially vulnerable because of their sexual orientations. These stories describe chaplains committing serious criminal offences against them. Needless to say, these stories will be further investigated and the children will be connected to the appropriate police and support services, where this has not already happened. But obviously we are dealing with a system that is broken and not working, a system that is failing our most vulnerable youth.

I know some great chaplains. They work with love and authenticity, doing wonderful things for our young people. But on a national level we must face the fact that our chaplaincy program is failing Australian young people. We know this because of a steady accumulation of media investigations revealing everything from the distribution of homophobic ‘biblezines’ in our schools to continuous proselytizing to students, against their parents wishes. We know it because of the findings of the Northern Territory Ombudsman in 2009 and similar findings in 2011 by the Federal Ombudsman. We know it because of the damning reviews of this program by academic experts such as Professor Marion Maddox.

It is extraordinary to me that, in the face of such issues, qualified non-religious youth workers are being pushed out of this program in favour of chaplains. A choice between a chaplain or a youth worker is actually being taken away from schools—schools will now only be able to choose a chaplain. It is extraordinary that a government that has promoted choice and autonomy for our schools is forcing chaplains over youth workers on those schools.

I would also like to highlight that questions have begun to surface about links between Australia’s three biggest school chaplain providers—Access Ministries, Scripture Union Queensland and GenR8 Ministries—and extreme anti-gay movements such as the Lausanne evangelical conference. This conference is well known for its links to anti-gay movements that promote anti-homosexuality laws in African countries—places like Uganda and Nigeria, where we have seen extreme anti-gay laws put forward promoting things like imprisonment and the death penalty.

This week, the High Court will hand down its decision on whether the National Schools Chaplaincy Program is unconstitutional, and I hope that the court will find that the Constitution does indeed prevent the federal government from handing over money to religious providers to put untrained chaplains in our schools—chaplains who, however well intended, are in many cases harming our children.

Regardless of the outcome, it is important to me to see this program stopped. Any person giving counselling to our young people should have the proper qualifications, as recognised by organisations like the Psychological Association, and should not hold discriminatory views. Our young people have told us very clearly that they do not feel safe at school, and it is our job to listen to them and to respond. (Time expired)

Sign Peter Short’s petition here.

Peter Short has oesophageal cancer. His condition is terminal. He is going to die.

Peter wants to choose how and when he dies. He’s not particularly afraid of the pain – he knows that can probably be managed by morphine – but he doesn’t like the idea of losing his independence, of being bedridden,  or of the last memory he leaves being of ‘ a’ scarecrow in bed on a morphine tube’.

South Australian doctor, Rodney Syme, has offered to provide assistance to Peter when the time comes, but risks prosecution for doing so.

Syme has recently admitted to giving a terminal patient Nembutal to allow him to end his life.  In part, he has made the admission in order to test the law and with the hope of setting a positive precedent.

Peter accepts that choosing to die before one’s ‘allotted time’ is not a choice that sits well with everyone. He’s not even entirely sure it’s what he’ll decide to do. But he wants to have a choice. That, in itself, says Peter would significantly ease the burden on him and his family. Other people may choose differently. That’s the good thing about choice – it means your rights aren’t diminished by other people’s ideas of what is right or wrong for them.

In Oregon, where physicians are permitted to prescribe lethal medication for terminally ill patients who are deemed psychologically fit to make a rational decision, it’s become clear that giving patients choice has a powerfully, positive effect. Rather than encouraging patients to end their lives, the comfort of knowing they have control over their pain and their life seems to add to the quality of their remaining days. Knowing there is an ‘out’ seems to provide paitents with more strength to endure the pain and discomforts of their illness. Most patients don’t have their prescription filled. Of those who do, most never use it.

On the other hand, a terminally ill man on my Facebook page this week indicated that his ‘plan’ was to drive his car off a cliff before his condition becomes too bad. That ‘plan’ involves someone dying before they really need to, a great deal of trauma for his family and friends, the loss of a valuable asset (the car as well as the man!) to his family, not to mention the trauma, cost and inconvenience caused to those who have to retrieve the body and the wreckage!

A doctor told me that, after diagnosing a patient with a highly treatable form of bowel cancer, the man said, “Nah! I’m not doin’ with that!”, went home and shot himself in the head. One wonders if she had been able to assure him that, if at any time his condition was deemed terminal he would have the choice of palliative care or ending his life, peacefully at the time of his choosing, whether he may have lived and spared his wife the trauma of finding his dead body in the shed.

When people don’t get to choose to die with dignity, it doesn’t mean they calmly accept their fate.  Instead, they turn to other methods like hanging, shooting, or gassing themselves in their vehicles. Is this really acceptable to our politicians? Is granddad swinging from a rope in the shed what Christians want for our elderly? Because that’s what we’re getting under the current arrangements.

My argument is that we are not preventing deaths by refusing to legalise voluntary euthanasia – we are forcing people into premature and violent deaths.

“The choice,” said Peter Short in an interview with Michael Short on “The Zone“, “becomes incredibly powerful because whether or not I choose to avail myself of assistance from Rodney Syme in making that call is not really the important part of this conversation. The important thing to me is that I have come to realise that having that choice takes a burden off me, which is extremely palliative in its own right.”

70-85 per cent of Australians want the option to choose a dignified, medically assisted, death if they are diagnosed with a terminal disease. Claiming that right imposes no obligation on anyone else to make a similar choice.  Despite shameless propaganda from the Catholic Church and other religious anti-euthanasia groups, the checks and balances instituted in countries and jurisdictions where voluntary euthanasia is legal are effective; there is not a skerrick of evidence that the systems are being abused by murderous doctors, hypodermic-happy nurses or avaricious family members.

Groups like the Australian Christian Lobby do not represent the majority of Christians or their views on this matter. A poll conducted by The Australia Institute in 2011 showed 65 per cent support for the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia amongst Australian Christians. 73 per cent of older Christians support legislative change to allow them the choice to die with dignity. There is even a group, Christians supporting choice for voluntary euthanasia, headed by my friend Ian Wood, which represents Christians who support end-of-life choices.

It’s time for politicians to start listening to what the people of Australia want and looking at real research and evidence rather than the poppycock and lies being spouted by religious lobbyists.

Like many Australians, Peter Short is not a religious person. Why should the views of a minority of religious zealots restrict his end-of-life choices?  Why should a doctor who is prepared to help him have to do it at the risk of his reputation and freedom?

Peter wants the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia to provide him with the right to die at a time and manner of his own choosing. And he wants the legislation to be the legacy he leaves to the people of Australia.

Recently, Senator Richard Di Natale visited Peter and his family at their home. Senator Di Natale has asked Peter to travel to Canberra to speak in favour of a bill he’s introducing for medically assisted death for the terminally ill. Senator Di Natale is working to get bipartisan support for the bill.

What would make a real difference, says Peter,  would be  for him to be able to present a petition signed by a huge number of people showing they support legislation to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

You can find more information on Peter’s blog here:  pgs28.wordpress.com.

You can help by signing Peter’s petition and circulating the details via Facebook, Twitter and your other social networks and, if you have a blog, by blogging about it. Peter’s twitter address is @28Short.

Sign Peter Short’s petition here.

Chrys Stevenson

 

Related:  The Debate on Assisted Dying: Distortion, Misinformation and the Influence of the Religious Lobby – a speech by Chrys Stevenson  for the Dying with Dignity NSW AGM and conference, 24 March 2011

Activist dead wrong on voluntary euthanasia – Chrys Stevenson and Dr David Leaf, ABC’s Religion and Ethics, 18 October 2011

 

The High Court of Australia will hand down its decision on the case of Williams vs the Commonwealth and Others on the matter of Federal funding for the National School Chaplaincy Program at 10am, Thursday, 19 June.

Ron Williams hopes to be in Sydney at his solicitors’ office for the decision. Coincidentally, I also fly into Sydney on Thursday morning, so we’re hoping to have reason to celebrate later in the day.

Ron still needs assistance in paying his considerable legal fees.  If you are able to assist, please visit his website at http://www.highcourtchallenge.com

 

Chrys Stevenson

 

Following the reversal of the decision to allow the employment of secular welfare workers under the umbrella of the National School Chaplaincy program, there has been much chatter on social networks about how outrageous it is to deprive schools of this option.

Increasingly, attention seems to be turning away from the idea that the National School Chaplaincy Program is an ideological and political pork-barrel program based on no research and with no performance indicators. Instead, there is nostalgia for those halcyon days when the NSCP (renamed the NSCSWP) included secular welfare workers.

“If only the government would allow schools to ‘choose‘,” go the online arguments, “all would be well …”

Well, excuse me for being blunt, but this is absolute, unadulterated bullshit. And, frankly, I’m sick to death of hearing this ill-informed, wishy-washy argument from people who should know better.

The National School Chaplaincy Program was initiated by John Howard for the express purpose of putting evangelical missionaries into schools. It is not student focused. It was never about helping kids. Let me repeat that. It was never designed to help kids.

The National School Chaplaincy Program  did not emerge out of any identified need in schools for welfare workers. It did not derive from any campaigning on the part of schools. It was not initiated in response to independent research by education and mental health experts. No!  It was conceived to advance an ideological position which held that ‘secular’ schools were ‘value free’ spaces and that if parents and teachers weren’t going to instill ‘Christian values’ into children, the government would respond by sending in an army of Christian soldiers to do the job.

It is a program designed to win the hearts, minds and votes of conservative Christians in marginal seats. And the strategy might have worked if John Howard hadn’t been outfoxed by Kevin Rudd who launched a ‘holier than thou’ campaign to win back Christian votes for Labor. Julia Gillard continued that mission by selling out to the Australian Christian Lobby – not only over chaplaincy but also on the issue of equal marriage.

Howard insisted that he was calling these evangelical missionaries ‘chaplains’ because that word had a certain ‘connotation’. The program was absolutely intended to be religious from its inception. When Julia Gillard extended funding for the program to $220 million, she promised the Australian Christian Lobby that it would not be secularised and that it would be a chaplaincy program with everything that word implied.

After Ron Williams’ first High Court case, the criticisms of both the public and the High Court justices prompted (then) Education Minister, Peter Garrett, to open it up to ‘secular’ welfare workers – but you can be sure this was done after consultation with the ALP’s religious right faction and with a ‘wink wink’, ‘nudge nudge’, don’t-you-worry-about-that we’ll-say-it’s-secular-but-it-won’t-be-really assurance.

The ‘secular option’ was never a viable choice for most schools. It was mostly smoke and mirrors.

Initially, the ‘secular’ option was not available to schools which already had a chaplain – only for the 1000 extra schools that would ‘benefit’ from the extension of the program. In reality, the number of truly non-religious workers employed in the early days of this secular munificence amounted to a single digit number.

Never slow to grab on to a taxpayers’ dollar, para-church organisations like ACCESS Ministries signed on to supply ‘secular welfare workers’ as well as religious chaplains – from the same pool of people!

Further, in order to gain employment through the para-church organisations, the ‘secular’ workers still had to provide religious references and attest to their Christian faith.

I wrote about this in an article on ABC’s Religion and Ethics portal:

“In two separate advertisements on Seek.Com, faith-based funding recipient, Young Life Australia, calls for student welfare workers to fill positions at the Sunshine Coast and in the New South Wales Southern Highlands. To obtain this ‘secular’ position, applicants must commit to attend the Christian charity’s ‘training events’ throughout the year and align with Young Life’s values and statement of mission purpose. Central to this is a commitment to ‘the evangelisation of young people’.  ‘Highly desirable’ qualifications for these ‘secular’ positions are a ‘background in youth-related Christian mission’, a committed Christian faith and a reference from the applicant’s minister or pastor.”

When I rang chaplaincy funding recipient, Campus Crusade for Christ, they confirmed they will provide student welfare workers but stressed their employment conditions require all staff to be practicing Christians.”

The National School Chaplaincy Guidelines changed barely at all under this new arrangement. The word ‘religious’ was changed to ‘spiritual’, no distinction was made between the duties of religious chaplains and ‘secular’ workers, and secular workers were perfectly free to provide ‘pastoral care’ and perform all the same religious functions as chaplains. All that changed was the nomenclature.

Some funding recipients which sounded secular turned out to have religious links. But, if you were a school and didn’t ask the right questions, you’d never know that your ‘secular’ welfare worker was being provided by an organisation with much the same ideology and employment criteria as the major parachurch organisations.

So please, please, please, people. Let us not get all misty eyed about the days when the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program provided ‘options’ to schools. In reality, the only real difference under the new scheme is that it is more open about the rampant religiosity of the program.

And even if the program wasn’t religious – even if ‘welfare workers’ had to show atheist credentials to get the job – it would still be  a shockingly bad idea to put poorly qualified people (of any religion or none) into schools to deal with kids with really serious issues. This isn’t about advancing an atheist ideology – this is about caring about kids’ welfare.

Yet, in the media and on social networks I keep hearing about the loss of ‘secular social workers’. Yes, it’s possible that some of the few legitimately ‘secular’ workers had social work qualifications. But it was never a requirement. The old scheme didn’t employ ‘secular social workers’  – it asked only for a Cert IV qualification or equivalent.  What’s more, there are ways of circumventing even that low requirement. A Cert IV is a low-level qualification that in no way equips someone to deal with at risk children. As the Australian Psychology Society says, placing people with such scanty knowledge in to schools is both ‘dangerous’ and ‘appalling’.  They should know!

Nobody who cares about kids’ mental health or welfare needs should be calling for the National School Chaplaincy Program to be modified to allow the ‘choice’ of  ‘secular workers’. Poorly qualified secular workers are barely better than poorly qualified religious fanatics.

It’s time to abolish this program. Its purpose is clearly to suit the ideological and political aims of the conservative right rather than the needs of at-risk kids. That, in itself, is appalling. To trade kids’ welfare – perhaps their lives – for political and ideological ends is a vomitously cynical act.

It makes me sick to my stomach that that’s how politics works in this country. It makes me sick that the more liberal churches are staying shtum on this issue. It makes me sick that well-meaning, enthusiastic young Christians are being thrown into a job for which they are poorly qualified, probably with no idea of the incredible harm they may be wreaking. It makes me sick that the ALP jumped on the bandwagon to appease their own powerful, fundamentalist Christian faction (take a bow, Joe de Bruyn) and to lure the ‘Christian vote’ away from the Liberals (take a bow, Kevin Rudd). It makes me sick that the lily-livered Greens are all rhetoric and no fucking action on this issue (take a bow Christine Milne). They whine about chaplaincy but do nothing in the Senate to arrest it. Sarah Hanson-Young is on record repeating the wish-washy, fence-sitting, misinformed position about giving schools ‘choice’.

Tony Abbott’s own audit committee gave the best advice on this program. “Abolish it.”

Abolish.

End it.

Get rid of it.

Don’t amend it. Don’t expand the ‘options’. Don’t reverse decisions about it.

Abolish it.

It’s a rort. It’s funded unconstitutionally. It isn’t student-focused. It isn’t based on kids’ needs. There is no credible research which establishes a need for the program or recognises a role fulfilled by by it. There is not one skerrick of evidence that it does any good at all and a great deal of growing evidence that it is ill-advised, dangerous, wasteful, homophobic, divisive, disrespectful of other religions and cultures, and that chaplains are routinely over-stepping the mark, both in respect to proselytising and counselling.

Abolish it.

 

Chrys (getting really, really annoyed) Stevenson

 

Like former Australian Christian Lobby managing director, Jim Wallace,  Dave Hodgson is a former member of the SAS (Rhodesian rather than Australian). Hodgson, a ‘committed Christian’ is the founder and CEO of the $50 million property development and acquisitions Paladin Group of Companies..

Like the Australian Christian Lobby, Hodgson appears to subscribe to the dominionist 7 Mountains strategy for reclaiming ‘the culture’ for God. I wrote about this some time ago for ABC’s Religion & Ethics.

Next week, Hodgson is the special guest speaker at a fundraising dinner for Sunshine Coast chaplains. It is a connection between chaplaincy and dominionist theology which helps to confirm what I believe is the underlying purpose of the chaplaincy program; to use Australia’s state schools as a means of recruiting an ‘army for God’. And, if you think this makes me sound nuttier than a fruitcake, please reserve your judgement and read on.

The Reclaiming 7 Mountains project* is no conspiracy theory. It’s  a strategy which has been successfully employed in places like Nigeria and Uganda; places where homosexuals now live in fear of their lives, and children are burned as witches under the influence of the fundamentalist Western zealots who have infiltrated and colonised those cultures and mentored locals into perpetuating the particular prejudices of the Pentecostal and Apostolic churches. It’s also working pretty effectively in the USA where fundamentalist Christians have infiltrated and taken over the Republican Party.Why ever would we think they’re not also at work here in Australia?

Indeed, Hodgson’s interest is in raising money to advance exactly this kind of project in Australia.

“Dave has spent the last seven years funding strategic areas of the Kingdom of God, activating others to do the same, and counselling the believers to impact the marketplace.”

In this context, Hodgson lectures for the Australian Christian Lobby sponsored Compass program (not to be confused with the television show of the same name).

Regular readers of this blog will recall the Compass program seeks out talented Christian students in schools and universities in order to mentor them into positions of power  in education, the public service, government, business, the arts and entertainment, et cetera: the 7 Mountains of Culture.

Director, David Yates explains that in setting up Compass , the Australian Christian Lobby, was “thinking about 15 to 20 years down the track, who will be in the media, education, politics, law, and history?”

“If you can get through government and policy makers then it can influence laws and it can have a disproportionate effect within the culture,” Yates explains.

Since I published this post, the following comment has been made by a reader. I thought it important enough to bring it into the main text of this article.  Posting as ‘theconsciencevote’, the reader says:

“While she was at high school, my eldest daughter was targeted for recruitment by the Compass program. After initial contact (and conversion) at Planetshakers events, they told her that God had a plan for her life, which was to graduate high school, go to a nominated Bible college, work as a youth pastor for a few years then become involved in politics. The ultimate aim, they said, was for her to represent the Kingdom of God in the Federal Parliament – and she would be supported by a prayer circle to keep ‘demons’ from sabotaging her mission.

Their message was very well-tailored; tell a teenager they’re special, that they’re chosen, that the disengagement or frustration they feel is due to an external force holding them back from their ‘true’ potential, and that here is a group of warm and friendly people who understand them and want to help them.”

It took a lot to convince her that she was being manipulated. Luckily, her fellow Christian students overstepped the mark and tried to ‘exorcise the demons put about her by her family’. That opened her eyes.”

Compass operates in line with the strategy to infiltrate and conquer the 7 Mountains of Culture.

Until I started writing about this, the Australian Christian Lobby’s support was openly acknowledged on the 7 Mountains website – but, in the manner of these things, has since been deleted. Never mind. I took a screenshot.

 

Here is an overview of the 7 Mountains movement:

And here’s Dave Hodgson:

I think the similarities are obvious.

Hodgson presents for all the world like a General in an army which seeks, by infilitration rather than violence, to commandeer the world’s secular and non-Christian governments and install Christian administrations. If you’ve ever turned up to a Parents and Citizens’ group meeting at your local school and found that every member is also a member of the local evangelical church, you’ll be familiar with how the system works.

The goal, outlined in the Reclaim 7 Mountains movement, is to  create a ‘Kingdom of God’ here on earth. Some Christians believe, that until this is achieved, Christ will not return.

Originally, the Australian Christian Lobby was an offshoot of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition of America. So, it’s not coincidental that, in his book,  The New World Order (p. 227), Robertson explains:

“There will never be world peace until God’s house and God’s people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?”

And the strategy is to change the power balance. As 7 Mountains advocate, ‘Apostle’ Bill Hamon warns:

“God is preparing His Church to become an invincible, unstoppable, unconquerable, overcoming Army of the Lord that subdues everything under Christ’s feet. There will be a sovereign restorational move of God to activate all that is needed for His army to be and do what He had eternally purposed.

…God’s great end-time army is being prepared to execute God’s written Judgments with Christ’s victory and divine judgment decrees that have already been established in heaven.  The time is set when they will be administered and executed on earth through God’s saintly army.  All that is destined and needed will be activated during God’s restorational Army of the Lord Movement.”

This is obviously a long-term project and many soldiers are needed to fight in this coming Christian army. Where better to recruit them than in schools?  As former Scripture Union CEO, Tim Mander says:

“To have a full-time Christian presence in government schools in this ever-increasing secular world is an unbelievable privilege. Here is the church’s opportunity to make a connection with the one place through which every young person must attend: our schools.”

Similarly, chaplaincy provider, Access Ministries‘ great interest in ‘making disciples’.

Note the emphasis in Mander’s quote is on the value of chaplaincy to Scripture Union, not the value of chaplains to the children.  Note the negative connotation on the ‘ever-increasing secular world’ . These people don’t see secularism as something which protects freedom of religion and belief but as something which stands in the way of a Christian theocratic government.

I firmly believe that school chaplaincy is a part of this dominionist drive to recruit soldiers to the cause.

Yeah, I know. It sounds like some massive conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? Yet, here’s school chaplain, Wendy Boniface:

 

“A great article. I have just begun a certificate 4 chaplaincy course(last week) to teach me how to be Christ in the world, workplace etc and I thought as I was learning all these skills that this is what every Christian should be learning to equip us to advance the kingdom of God. The good news is the chaplaincy movement is growing quickly and it seems to be a way of getting out of the pews and into the community. I feel like I’ve finally crossed the Jordan River and am about to take territory at last!”

“Taking territory” is classic 7 Mountains/dominionist language and it’s intimately linked with recruiting young people to fight for the cause. In an interview on a Christian television station in the US, leader of the 7 Mountains movement, Lance Wallnau explains:

“The Seven Mountains are – it’s almost like its a template for warfare.  Because the church so frequently does not have a language for how it goes about taking territory…The Seven Mountains is not my message.  I think its a mandate given to me from Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright spiritually.  Because these two titans in evangelism took youth movements, young people, whether it was Youth With A Mission with Loren or Campus Crusade with Bill Bright.  And they literally mobilized the next generation in their day to go evangelize the world.   God visited those two men and showed them seven kingdoms, seven mountains, that if they would focus on it, the next generation could take nations.”

They are looking to the next generation; thus, the focus on gaining access to kids in schools through measures like Compass and school chaplaincy. It is a strategic drive to conquer by infiltration and stealth and our government is funding it!

The aim is to ‘take territory’ by ‘invading systems’. Consider: 3,000 chaplains in Australia’s state schools at a cost (spent and committed) of three-quarters of a billion taxpayers’ dollars.

I’d say the Australian education system has been pretty successfully invaded.

Chrys Stevenson

 

*In fairness, it’s important to note that, at this link, the Reclaiming 7 Mountains project rejects the notion that it is dominionist. I would argue, as would many others, that their rhetoric suggests otherwise.

 

Just in:

“Working with children, introducing them to Jesus and helping them to grow and discover Jesus as their Lord and Savior is a wonderful privilege. Helping children discover they have gifts that can be used to introduce others to Jesus is a vital task. Max7 provides resources for leaders to reach and disciple children and young people across the globe.” – Leanne Palmer, Christian Education Program Manager at ACCESS ministries.

 

 

 

On last night’s Q&A, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and advocate for secular education, Lawrence Krauss, quoted Ron Williams on chaplains:

 

Professor Krauss picked up the analogy from an article I wrote for The Big Smoke.

 

It’s a brilliant analogy and my friend Ross Balch has made a meme of it which really deserves to go viral.

So, dear readers, Facebook it, Tweet it, blog it, send it to your Federal member and to Education Minister, Christopher Pyne (C.Pyne.MP@aph.gov.au),  or share it by whatever means you like.

Or maybe make your own meme – here’s one from my identical twin cousin, Doug Steley:

 

I like this approach because it’s good humoured, poking gentle fun at a program which sends evangelical zealots into schools to teach the kids Christian values and see to their welfare, but tells them, “Don’t proselytise and don’t counsel” –  and hey, we’ll pay you quarter of a billion dollars (three-quarters of a billion since 2006) to go into schools and NOT do what we’re putting you there for (wink, wink, nudge nudge).

It does my head in, really!

 

Chrys Stevenson

 

Ron Williams is still seeking donations to help offset his considerable legal fees in fighting two High Court challenges against Federal funding for the National School Chaplaincy Program. You can donate here – http://www.highcourtchallenge.com

 

 

Later this month, on Friday, 20 June, I’ll be speaking at a symposium on The Enlightenment and the Roots of Humanism. The event is being hosted by the Humanist Society of NSW to celebrate World Humanist Day.

Speakers include: Meredith Doig, president of the Rationalist Association of Australia;  Emeritus Prof Frank Stilwell, professor of political economy at Sydney University;  and Dr Ian Ellis-Jones, a lawyer and Unitarian minister.

You can see the program here.

My speech, “Christian nation? Nonsense on stilts! How Jeremy Bentham’s humanism shaped Australia”  will rebut the oft-repeated claim that Australia is a ‘Christian’ nation. I will argue against the notion that our systems of government, law, and education are based on Christian principles, and that our values are ‘Judeo-Christian’.

Instead, while conceding that Christianity has been influential, I will suggest that the little-known (to most) Enlightenment philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, lays claim to a far greater influence. Indeed, it has been said that Australia is a ‘Benthamite’ society.

Bentham, an adamant atheist, humanist and the father of utilitarianism, never set foot in Australia, but took a keen interest in it.

It has been fascinating to discover the diverse ways in which this eccentric, brilliant thinker impacted the course of Australian history and the shape of its institutions, even well after his death and into the present day.

Bentham was a heavy-weight thinker, but he was also a bit weird and wonderful. I hope my speech will educate and inform, but also honor Bentham with a bit of ‘weird and wonderful’ as well.

If you are in Sydney (or can get there) I’d love to see you at the symposium.  I’ll be there for the day, so there’ll be plenty of time to mix and mingle.

Here are the details again:

The Humanist Society of NSW presents a symposium on

The Enlightenment

and the Roots of Humanism 

10am – 4pm, Friday, 20 June, 2014

(my speech around 11.45 am)

Waratah Room,

State Parliament House,

6 Macquarie Street, Sydney

(Hyde Park end of Macquarie Street)

Cost: $30 per person includes lunch and afternoon tea

RSVP: By 10th June to Affie Adagio on 0421 101 163

Official Program

Chrys Stevenson

Evonne Paddison from Access Ministries wants this video shared as widely as possible.

What the hell! I have a pretty fair network. Jesus Christ! Why wouldn’t I help her out?

Poor old Evonne, plagued with yet another annoying High Court challenge which points out that the government is funding chaplaincy illegally. Surely, Jesus would be just delirious about having  money spent illegally in his name and chaplains breaking their promise not to proselytise in order to spread the Gospel in schools. Great PR for the old boy!

Now, Evonne’s pretty keen that you sign a petition supporting chaplains. But, as you can see from the video, she’s extra-peachy-keen for people to have a choice. So, I know she’ll support me in directing you towards another petition – one which has already garnered over 165,000 signatures. (Guess those chappies aren’t quite as popular as Evonne thinks!)

This petition points out that taxpayers’ money is being ploughed into chaplaincy providers which have decidedly homophobic attitudes. We can’t have that, can we?  It’s being presented on Monday. Perhaps you’d like to sign … and share?

Chrys Stevenson

 

I have a new article up today on The Big Smoke. It’s called:

Send in the Clowns: Guidelines won’t stop school chaplains proselytising

The article is a response to an earlier article :

Chaplaincy: It’s not all God’s work

in which, law student, Rach Mason makes the following claims:

“[Williams’] original High Court challenge failed to address state and church separation on technical grounds. This time, Williams is challenging the legislation used to fund chaplaincy.”

Actually, Williams’ High Court challenge didn’t address state and church separation because Australia has no constitutional state and church separation. Ms Mason would do well to read the Defence of Government Schools Case (1981). Williams challenged the (lack of) legislation used to fund chaplaincy as his primary argument in both cases – as Ms Mason would have known had she bothered to read the submissions and transcripts before writing about it.

“… chaplaincy is justified on its own merits”

I’d like to see the evidence for that. Where is the research? No hyperlink graces the assertion, sadly.

According to Rach Mason – chaplains don’t counsel and don’t proselytise, because those activities are prohibited in the guidelines. The first assertion is addressed in my response to Ms Mason’s article. The second, regarding counselling, was answered by the Commonwealth Solicitor-General and Scripture Union’s QC who argued movingly in the High Court that grief counselling by chaplains was one of the major benefits chaplains offered to students. Oops! It was a tad embarrassing when one of the High Court justices pointed out that counselling was not allowed under the guidelines.

Something that didn’t make it into the Big Smoke article and added here as an extra bonus for my readers is the fact that ‘proselytising’ is rather narrowly defined in the guidelines – intentionally to provide maximum freedom to the evangelicals, we suspect. I spoke to Hugh Wilson, vice-president of the Australian Secular Lobby about the ‘p’ word (proselytising) in respect to chaplaincy. Here’s his response:

“”During the discussions with DETE on the chaplaincy policy review the ASL-HSQ [Australian Secular Lobby-Humanist Society of Queensland]  team tabled a list of many, perhaps 30 or so, precise definitions of the P word taken from a wide range of dictionary sources readily available to anyone able to use Google or a basic book library system.

“The one used by both the Commonwealth and DETE has been carefully selected to exclude that vast bulk of the meaning, quite deliberately we believe, to facilitate P-ing in schools without having a clear, precise and relevant, not to mention comprehensive, definition as the ‘reasonable person in the street’ might understand it to mean.

“While we were discussing this we also highighted the rather ‘light-on’ definition of E-ing [evangalising] too.

“In relation to the P word, DETE staff said they agreed with us but that ‘they [their political masters? the DG [Director-General]? the old REAC [Religion Education Advisory Committee] crew?] would not accept a proper definition”, which rather says it all in my mind.”

I felt the proselytising claim needed my full attention, so that’s what I’ve focused on in my response on The Big Smoke. But my regular readers will know that I could have spent several thousand words refuting Ms Mason’s well-meaning but misinformed views on the Williams case, chaplaincy, and church-state separation.  Perhaps you may wish to set her straight in the comments to either my article or hers. Politely, of course.

Chrys Stevenson

 

 

This video was prepared for tonight’s Q&A but no video questions were aired. It’s too good not to go viral.  Maybe consider reblogging/tweeting/facebooking – or send a copy to your local MP.

http://vimeo.com/95653359

 

Donations towards Ron Williams’ legal fees can be made at his website:  High Court Challenge

 

Chrys Stevenson