The New York Times has reported that the organization that calls itself the “American Family Association” is opposing Mix It Up Day – a day during which children are (get ready for it) encouraged to sit with someone that they would not normally, outside of their comfort zone.
American Family Association, and anyone who keeps their children home from school at their advice, I am talking to you:
The Jesus you claim to follow ate with tax collectors and sinners. He went to spend time among the Samaritans. He touched, and allowed himself to be touched by, the unclean and marginalized. He encouraged women to learn at a time when that was controversial. He broke down boundaries, and his earliest followers followed in his footsteps and went even further down the path of eliminating distinctions between slave and free, Jew and Greek and other ethnicities, rich and poor, male and female – specifically working to accomplish this by bringing them together at meals.
If you oppose having your children sit next to someone they don’t normally, someone who is different from them, the values you are standing for are not Christian but anti-Christian. And by your actions, you are not only instilling anti-Christian values in your own children, but giving a bad impression about Christianity to everyone who hears about what you are doing.
To those who actually understand who Jesus was and actually seek to follow him, I think the best thing that we can do is to (1) speak out about this, and (2) promote Mix-It-Up Day. I’ll be mentioning it to everyone I know who works in education – I hope that you’ll do the same!
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