The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children

The Good News Club by Katherine Stewart: I read about this book in an Q & A article that appeared in American's United (for a Separation of Church and State) April news magazine, that I have been a member of for many years now. I had to buy it and read it. As a firm believer in the Constitution and the First Amendment that gives us all freedom of religion and freedom from religion. I had to read it to keep up on my ongoing education in the field of the Religious Right. It has proven to be a well worth the money and a well rounded book. One of the best I have read recently on the subject. It also covered a lot of new ground I was not to familiar with to date. It's clear to me, most of the Christian's she is speaking of, do not believe in the same Constitution the rest of us believe in. It's obvious they have no respect for other people's religious beliefs. They are willing to thumb their nose at the Constitution and everything this country has always stood for. It has renewed my determination to fight them every step of the way for the country I grew up in. A country that still respected the Constitution and left religion for the parents and kept religion and religious clubs like the Good New Club as well as church's out of public school space that the taxpayer supported. The biggest thing I remember about religion in the 50's is we were taught to respect other people's religious beliefs. That appears to be distressingly absent in today's Evangelical Christians. On no occasion was it acceptable practice to impose our religion upon others, regardless of whether that person's religion was right or wrong. That was immaterial to our parents and religious institutions both. Even the Fundamentalist ones didn't not indulge in such shabby behavior. The Christian Fundamentalist of today is something I do not recognize as being anything close to what I remember being Christian as a child. They are a pack of marauding wolves stealing other's sheep. Evangelicalism doesn't have much respect for itself as a religion, when it feels the need to 'kick in doors' to impose its beliefs upon innocent children. The fact, it is being imposed upon very young children before the age of consent, children who do not fully understand what it's all about. Who are very impressionable at that tender age. But, are possibly only acting out of peer pressure, fear and humiliation rather than true belief. It does not speak well of their religion or morals either one when they have to dupe and trick youngsters. That's something a child molester would indulge in. Even the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons have more character than to indulge in such deceptive practices. I would not want them teaching my child moral's of any kind, when they clearly have no clue what morals are. They are exactly what they rail constantly against. But, I guess they aren't any more dishonest than the Texas Board of Education who weren't too concerned about the honesty and accuracy of the history children were going to be taught in public school, as they were in rewriting history to look more sectarian and less secular. By promoting minor founding fathers such as John Jay a Christian and the first member of the Supreme Court and demoting Deist one of the author's of the Constitution Thomas Jefferson to a lesser not so important position. In essence playing the shell game with the founding fathers to skew history to their liking. I guess they weren't all that interested in presenting an accurate version of history for children (including their own) and letting the chips fall where they may. They were more interested in peddling an erroneous version skewed to their beliefs. But, I guess that's no worse that Evangelical churches deliberately using public facilities for free, don't pay a dime in taxes, ripping the taxpayer off wholesale with the Supreme Courts blessing. Or being so dishonest they try and dupe the voter into voting them onto a school board. It only leaves you to wonder if these people have one gram of ethics or morals? I personally don't think they do. What has happened to Christianity in this country???? It's unbelievable the depths some of these so called Christian's will stoop to in order to obtain their goals of Christianizing this country. I am familiar enough with the religion to know they employ some less than honorable tactics in attracting new members. When you have a group bullying others, they see as not being the right brand of Christians and trying to convert them to a different belief. Then there are going to be big problems in a community and families both. Something our public schools do not need under any circumstances. They are supposed to be neutral ground for children free of pests like these people. Let's face it, the word 'Evangelism' in their parent name 'Christian Evangelism Fellowship' tells me all I need to know, it's something I would not want anywhere near my children. I would not appreciate bigot's like these people proselytizing and terrorizing them with threats of hell or with their distorted brand of Christianity. They are not a group that is non-denominational like some claim, a lot of mainstream religions do not evangelize or are obsessed with sin and hell the way Fundamentalist's are. To tell a child that a baby who cries is committing sin is downright obscene. I have never had the highest opinion of most Fundamentalist's religions, but it is a good deal lower today. Such deceptive practices and tactics that are used on innocent children who are not old enough to determine what they want to believe, is about as low as one can descend.

Katherine Stewart's "The Good News Club: The Religious Right's Assault on America's Children" is a book I would encourage everyone to read. It is not only a well researched and informative work of investigative journalism on a deeply important subject, it is also very well written; Stewart also writes for the New York Times, Reuters and the Guardian..I had the good fortune to meet with Ms. Stewart when she addressed the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry at one of our recent meetings. She is an articulate and charming speaker, and gave a précis of her work which was disturbing and thought-provoking enough in itself. The full impact will only be felt if you follow the story as it unfolded to her, as recorded in "The Good News Club" in detail.The title of Stewart's "The Good News Club" refers to a particular after-hours school club infiltrating public primary schools in a very systematic and organized way by Evangelical Christian groups, in an attempt to recruit children into their particular brand of Christianity.I do not use the word infiltrate lightly; it is a false-flag operation on multiple levels. The Good News Club presents itself as a general, ecumenical and nondenominational Christian Bible study group to the parents of the communities it targets, but they and their parent organization the Child Evangelical Fellowship are actually rigidly authoritarian Biblical literalists.Stewart documents how they will blandly assure Catholics, for example, about how unthreatening they are, but subsequently indoctrinate the children with theological positions that tell them Catholics and adherents of other "incorrect" sects of Christianity are doomed to Hell. Needless to say the same applies to all the children's atheist and non-Christian theist friends. The object is to get the kids to preach to their peers, typically in exactly that bullying fashion of telling them they will burn in Hell if they don't believe "correctly" (i.e. in Evangelical Christian style).This inculcation of child preachers is one of the foundational principles of the Good News Club. Teachers are not allowed to preach religion in public schools, of course, or lead public prayers. Students can, though, and the false flag that the GNC works through is to coach the kids into doing that preacher's work for them. It is legally defensible as permissible "student-led activity" even though (as Stewart pointed out in her presentation) it is in reality no more student-led than a Little League meeting - adults organize the group's meetings, teach the kids what to do, set their goals, track their progress, and reward their achievements. (From the very beginning the children are conditioned with rewards like sugary snacks, first to attend and then to recruit.)There is also a deliberate effort on the part of GNC organizers to blur the lines between school activities and GNC activities; one of the first Good News Clubs Stewart came across was actually offered free space of superior suitability in a neighboring church, but they preferred to continue using the school. The aim is obviously to absorb some of the school's cloak of authority for the Club's teaching, and it works; Stewart relates how one girl, when told that her schoolmate was not in fact going to Hell for not being the right kind of Christian, objected that she'd been taught it in school, and they couldn't teach wrong things in school. This was not an isolated incident, but an example of a desired result of GNC policy; they want those kids confused in that way.Another confusion which works to the advantage of the Good News Club organizers lies at the heart of why they are allowed to preach religion in a school at all; Stewart goes into some detail about the implications of the Supreme Court case that let that particular camel's nose into the tent. The confusion lies in conflating the right to free speech and the right to freedom of conscience; I won't go into a great deal of detail here but Stewart does an excellent job of presenting how this conflation actually puts religiously based clubs like GNC in a supercategory with greater protections than any normal club would have.I for one was totally unaware that taxpayer-maintained public schools are now commonly repurposed on Sundays as out-and-out churches, and I'm not at all happy about that either. Not only does it direct public funds toward sectarian uses (building maintenance isn't free!) but it further erodes the distinction in children's minds between the secular public school and the church that inhabits the same building. It's a double whammy for the church; they get a fantastic deal on a building they could not possibly afford if they weren't sucking off secular tax monies, and they get the blurring of authorities too.It's hard to know where to stop on this, but I suppose that the preceding will give you an idea of what kind of information to expect from this important book. Once again, I strongly urge you to read it. You can also get more information at the Web site thegoodnewscclub.com where Katherine Stewart posts relevant articles and maintains a blog on the subject.

Astonishing the lengths some religious groups will go to to push their beliefs on other people's children. This is a wake-up call for the secular.

very scary these religious people. good book very good.

It explores how various, very well funded organizations and lobby groups are using public school spaces to evangelize to children, hoping to recruit them to the movement. If politics is an interest to you, or the various faucets of fundamentalism, this a must read. It is very compelling.