My next book is called Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government and is coming out in May for $18.
As a parent of a Citipointe student, I agree that the timing and process of sending out the enrolment contract was terrible.
But I was happy to sign it. The only new part in the contract was the gender part and I fully support treating students according to their biological sex. I don't want boys in my daughter's bathrooms, bedrooms or sports teams. In this, the school was showing pastoral care for the students.
There was nothing about sexuality in the contract. There was a statement in the Declaration of Faith about sexuality. Parents did not need to agree to that but acknowledge that this is what the school believes. I agree, putting beastiality and paedophilia in the same sentence as homosexuality was insensitive and it could have been worded with more compassion. The school has also acknowledged this and is re-working it. However, I think the school should be applauded for having the guts to make a clear statement and I know the (now ex-) Principal was genuinely wanting to give parents clarity about these murky issues.
The contract was never meant to be used to expel students for being gay or transgender or unsure, despite what the media and lobby groups claimed. I think it was for the school to use if there was deliberate flouting and undermining of these beliefs.
Also, where do the governments get their funds from? From tax payers! I'm sure most of the parents at Citipointe pay a lot of tax as do parents in most Christian schools. If all the private schools closed the government would have to use a lot of "funding" to build new schools, etc.
Things don't get to me very often, but I have been horrified by the death threats, vandalism, megaphone protests outside the kindergarten on their very first day of school.
This school and the staff and students need prayer.
Hi Mike, do you find the placement of Leviticus 18:23 right after Leviticus 18:22 to be cringy and alarming? Could you expand on your reasoning here? Would both verses fit under the NT term pornea?
Far less invasive than the Perth example, which is truly shocking. But late last year I conducted a Saturday evening service at the Anglican Church in Wodonga when masks and social distancing were mandatory and numbers capped at twenty. As people were leaving the church we noticed a Police car parked across the road. The penny quickly dropped that the officer was counting how many people exited the church and were they wearing masks. Fortunately everyone was and our numbers were eighteen. The reaction was a mixture of amusement and annoyance, but some measure of disbelief that the local Police had nothing better to do on a Saturday evening. Our church has always complied and accepts that enforcement is necessary, but this seemed like overkill.
Good points, I wonder where is the wisdom? Why not say we endorse the sanctity of marriage and sexual relations need to be within those boundaries? Let people know that the leadership is there to help those struggling. Why be so specific, smh.
It's the church I went to during my undergrad. I didn't expect them to be affirming, but I was horrified to find out friends were secretly put through conversion therapy and not even some of their close friends knew, I of course was horrified by this contract.
Also a bit concerned by the death threats and vandalism. These are people I know, so feeling a lot of emotions right now. I expect this sort of stuff though whenever there is a protest. I was reading the comments of the Brisbane times article and I was a bit disturbed that the most frequent response was not something that implicitly condemned violence such as "violence is the language of the unheard" but more along the lines of "good they deserve it". It was a bit dark.
Ironically, I think this strengthens the case for public funding of religious schools - contracts like this are harder to pull off in Australia than in the more autonomous usa.
On the religious freedom issue: non-affirming theology seems to be correlated with worse mental health outcomes including suicide, whereas affirming Christian theologies causes better mental health out comes than even affirming secular ideologies. It is true that such studies (as far as I know) don't seem to check if more compassionate versions of non-affirming theology have the same negative effects. But there seems a strong ethical case to at least make sure every child has access to alternate religious theology on lgbt in case even the compassionate non-affirming theologies are painted in a bad light by evidence. The child doesn't get that much choice in which school they go to. That's fine and cuts both ways usually, unless suicide is plausibly caused by the choice of parents and the school?
In this way, it is very different to the Folau case where someone's employment is torn up because of his beliefs. I guess my conscience is that when rights are in tension to err on the side of the weaker party - the employee over the employer, the child over the school etc.
In any case, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about how religious freedom should intersect with the rights of lgbt youth in the hypothetical that future research shows that compassionate non-affirming ideologies cause suicide/depression/substance abuse.
Hi Mike, the church in your first example is spelled with an extra 'e' as Citipointe not Citipoint. Also, the denomination is now INC (International Network of Churches) and no longer Christian Outreach Center. Great article other than those trivial points.
As a parent of a Citipointe student, I agree that the timing and process of sending out the enrolment contract was terrible.
But I was happy to sign it. The only new part in the contract was the gender part and I fully support treating students according to their biological sex. I don't want boys in my daughter's bathrooms, bedrooms or sports teams. In this, the school was showing pastoral care for the students.
There was nothing about sexuality in the contract. There was a statement in the Declaration of Faith about sexuality. Parents did not need to agree to that but acknowledge that this is what the school believes. I agree, putting beastiality and paedophilia in the same sentence as homosexuality was insensitive and it could have been worded with more compassion. The school has also acknowledged this and is re-working it. However, I think the school should be applauded for having the guts to make a clear statement and I know the (now ex-) Principal was genuinely wanting to give parents clarity about these murky issues.
The contract was never meant to be used to expel students for being gay or transgender or unsure, despite what the media and lobby groups claimed. I think it was for the school to use if there was deliberate flouting and undermining of these beliefs.
Also, where do the governments get their funds from? From tax payers! I'm sure most of the parents at Citipointe pay a lot of tax as do parents in most Christian schools. If all the private schools closed the government would have to use a lot of "funding" to build new schools, etc.
Things don't get to me very often, but I have been horrified by the death threats, vandalism, megaphone protests outside the kindergarten on their very first day of school.
This school and the staff and students need prayer.
Thanks Karen, good to get a local's perpsective.
Hi Mike, do you find the placement of Leviticus 18:23 right after Leviticus 18:22 to be cringy and alarming? Could you expand on your reasoning here? Would both verses fit under the NT term pornea?
Far less invasive than the Perth example, which is truly shocking. But late last year I conducted a Saturday evening service at the Anglican Church in Wodonga when masks and social distancing were mandatory and numbers capped at twenty. As people were leaving the church we noticed a Police car parked across the road. The penny quickly dropped that the officer was counting how many people exited the church and were they wearing masks. Fortunately everyone was and our numbers were eighteen. The reaction was a mixture of amusement and annoyance, but some measure of disbelief that the local Police had nothing better to do on a Saturday evening. Our church has always complied and accepts that enforcement is necessary, but this seemed like overkill.
Good points, I wonder where is the wisdom? Why not say we endorse the sanctity of marriage and sexual relations need to be within those boundaries? Let people know that the leadership is there to help those struggling. Why be so specific, smh.
It's the church I went to during my undergrad. I didn't expect them to be affirming, but I was horrified to find out friends were secretly put through conversion therapy and not even some of their close friends knew, I of course was horrified by this contract.
Also a bit concerned by the death threats and vandalism. These are people I know, so feeling a lot of emotions right now. I expect this sort of stuff though whenever there is a protest. I was reading the comments of the Brisbane times article and I was a bit disturbed that the most frequent response was not something that implicitly condemned violence such as "violence is the language of the unheard" but more along the lines of "good they deserve it". It was a bit dark.
Ironically, I think this strengthens the case for public funding of religious schools - contracts like this are harder to pull off in Australia than in the more autonomous usa.
On the religious freedom issue: non-affirming theology seems to be correlated with worse mental health outcomes including suicide, whereas affirming Christian theologies causes better mental health out comes than even affirming secular ideologies. It is true that such studies (as far as I know) don't seem to check if more compassionate versions of non-affirming theology have the same negative effects. But there seems a strong ethical case to at least make sure every child has access to alternate religious theology on lgbt in case even the compassionate non-affirming theologies are painted in a bad light by evidence. The child doesn't get that much choice in which school they go to. That's fine and cuts both ways usually, unless suicide is plausibly caused by the choice of parents and the school?
In this way, it is very different to the Folau case where someone's employment is torn up because of his beliefs. I guess my conscience is that when rights are in tension to err on the side of the weaker party - the employee over the employer, the child over the school etc.
In any case, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about how religious freedom should intersect with the rights of lgbt youth in the hypothetical that future research shows that compassionate non-affirming ideologies cause suicide/depression/substance abuse.
Hi Mike, the church in your first example is spelled with an extra 'e' as Citipointe not Citipoint. Also, the denomination is now INC (International Network of Churches) and no longer Christian Outreach Center. Great article other than those trivial points.