In Georgia, Christians Are Angry That Kids Are Learning Facts About Islam in School October 4, 2015

In Georgia, Christians Are Angry That Kids Are Learning Facts About Islam in School

Another day, another group of Christians who are furious that their children are getting educated in school.

This time, in Walton County, Georgia, Christian parents are angry over a homework assignment that correctly pointed out that Muslims believe Allah is the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians.

In Walton County, that manifested itself in a homework assignment one parent found objectionable: “Allah is the [blank] worshiped by Jews & Christians,” the document said. The child filled in the blank with “same God.”

It seemed like half the truth to me, they didn’t talk about the extreme Islamics,” the child’s father, Steven Alsup, told Channel 2.

[Spokesperson for Walton County Public Schools Kim] Embry said parents are complaining that they don’t want their children exposed to Islam, but, she added, “if you’re learning about the Middle East, it’s very difficult not to teach about Islam.”

Let’s go back to Alsup’s comment for a moment. He’s angry because the school didn’t teach seventh grade children about Muslim extremists. Does anyone think he’d be supportive of schools teaching about Christians who blow up abortion clinics and shoot doctors who perform the procedure?

Look: the point of the lesson isn’t to get into some geopolitical debate. It’s to give students an introduction to Islam since many of them may never have encountered the faith before. That means teaching them basic facts. You can’t do that without mentioning words like Allah, Mecca, and Muhammad.

And yet Christian groups like the American Center for Law and Justice are saying those facts amount to “Islamic indoctrination”:

This is outrageous. State education standards require education on Islam, not indoctrination into the religion. Rather than explain the history of world religions, schools are reportedly forcing students to learn the Five Pillars of Islam — the creed one must learn to convert — and teaching students that Allah is the same God worshipped by Christians.

There’s some Christian spin for you: These kids are learning what Muslims believe! That’s an offense to my faith!

The Five Pillars are pretty damn relevant to Islam. Kids need to learn that, just as they should all learn that Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus.

The people at the ACLJ, just like the ignorant Christian parents, don’t know the difference between fact and fiction. (Surprise!) Teaching what Muslims believe is fact. No one’s telling the kids they should convert. No one’s telling the kids to abandon their parents’ Christianity. These conservatives just want kids to remain sheltered from ideas that might conflict with their own beliefs.

And, really, if the kids change their religious views after filling in a few blanks on a homework assignment, can’t we all just admit their faith wasn’t very strong to begin with?

Don’t worry, though. The ACLJ is totally looking into this pseudo-problem. They’ve filed open records requests with districts in Tennessee to find out what they’re really teaching children. (I’m sure it’ll be as enlightening as the inquiries into Benghazi and Planned Parenthood.)

If nothing else, at least we finally know what Christian non-profits do when they have no real problems to solve.

(Thanks to Randy for the link)

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