Café

• 
  The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have To Preach
  Reviewed by Hans Kristensen
• 
  Little Black Books: Science and God
  Reviewed by Andrew Laird
• 
  Making the Most of the Cross
  Reviewed by Lesley Hicks
• 
  Higher Ground
  Reviewed by Andrew Laird

• We’re publishing daily news articles
• Our new home
• Coming soon a new web home for Eternity
• Eyewitness report from Egypt

• Ethical Investment
• Sarah’s Key - the consequences of truth
• Ben Witherington III: Jesus and Women
• Harry Potter’s Critique of Western Extravagance

• The Komen Fiasco's Silver Lining
• The Pink Ribbon and the Dollar Sign
• The Similarities and Differences in Eric Metaxas's and President Obama's Prayer Breakfast Addresses
• The Ironies of Obama's National Prayer Breakfast Speech
• Evangelicals Mounting Concerns over Obama Administration's Contraceptive Mandate

SCRIPTURE IN SCHOOLS Debating the threat from the “ethics” trial 2

1:00am Tuesday, 29th June 2010  

PART TWO In NSW the State Government has allowed a trial of a secular ethics course in the Scripture timeslot in primary schools. Many Christians are concerned that less students—maybe many less students—will choose Scripture. But is making a fuss the best response? Craig Schwarze says the Scripture campaign PROMOTES the ethics classes.

The NSW Government is currently trialling an alternative to Special Religious Education (SRE) in the classroom. This trial consists of ten one hour lessons on secular ethics, attended weekly in place of SRE. Many Christians are very upset about this, and are attempting to mobilise the pews to scupper the ethics class. I believe this approach is misguided, for the following reasons:
We are giving publicity to the ethics classes. On their own, the ethics classes are fairly dull news. The church aggressively opposing the ethics classes, on the other hand, is a much more interesting story, and one that will get much more airtime in the media.
Playing politics does not look good. People become very suspicious when a religious body meddles too much in politics. Lobbying government to derail the ethics classes looks very ugly, and will alienate the very people we need to win over for “opt-in” SRE to survive.
We are not offering an alternative. Australians are motivated by a strong sense of “the fair go”. I suspect most parents are happy for SRE to continue in school, but it seems common sense to them that students should be given a productive alternative. If we cannot suggest such an alternative, we will need to accept whatever the state provides.
 Our arguments for SRE are not strong. I’ve been disappointed at the arguments put forward by the pro-SRE lobby. They are along the lines of  “We have done SRE for 130 years” or “Christian kids will feel excluded if we don’t have SRE”. This sort of reasoning does not stand up to examination, and really appears to be a self-serving rationalisation. The weakness of our position will be exposed by intensified public scrutiny.
We need to trust God. It is by God’s grace that we have been given the incredible privilege of preaching the gospel in the classroom. I do not believe that this door is closing—but if it is, we need to trust that, by God’s grace, other doors will open in the future.
Craig is a blogger unafraid to take an unpopular view http://creative2567.blogspot.com/