[soc.religion.christian] Pungentt

hakim@bigq.enet.dec.com (18-Oct-1989 1046) (10/19/89)

I came across this article in my research few months ago. It saddens me to see
that a respected religious leader should write such an article. I hope that
such articles does not widen the gap of mutual understanding and friendship
between the followers of various religions in the fast shrinking world of
today. 

================================================================================
		              PUNGENT AND PERTINENT 
					by
			         Hans W. Zegerius

			      A Thundering  Silence

"The Ontario Court of Appeal, in a decision released on September 23, 1988, has
concluded, on the basis of  the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that
S.28(1) of Regulation 262 under the Education Act of Ontario is of no force or
effect. S.28(1) reads as follows:
A public school shall be opened or closed each school day with religious 
exercises consisting of the reading of the scriptures or other suitable readings
and the repeating of the Lord's Prayer or other suitable prayers.

At the same time, the Court made note of the experiences and practices of the
Toronto Board of Education.

Since 1980 Toronto public schools have used a book of prayers and readings,
composed by an interdenominational committee, which are drawn from a number of 
sources, including: Baha'ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism,
Islam, Jainism, Judaism, People of Native Ancestry, Secular Humanism, Sikhism,
and Zoroasterianism.

The Ontario Education Minister said on October 14, 1988, according to  news
reports, that the Ontario Government will not appeal the above court decision.
Instead, the ministry will draft new rules for opening exercises that reflect
the court ruling.

The news item further stated that several urban schools have already adopted
multicultural opening exercises.

It is almost beyond belief that in a number of public schools in Ontario the
pupils are being drawn into such a baffling religious mish-mash. It is even
more amazing that there has not been a thunderous reaction from Christian
churches and parents to it. Most distressing is that the composition of these 
readings took place, and may still take place, with the co-operation of 
Christian ministers and theologians. A close look at  the sources for the
Toronto practices reveals that the concept of God as Judaism and all of 
Christianity holds it, must become so blurred and contorted as to be
unrecognizable. For instance, Secular Humanism if not atheistic, is agnostic.
Confucianism presents only the vaguest notion of `Heaven' (t'ien); not that of
a divine Ruler or Lord but of a supreme moral-spiritual power. Buddhism does
not hold the idea of a god who would be even remotely akin to the Father of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Essentially it has no god at all.

Have the Christians, co-operating in this enterprise, not even had an inkling
of the startling fact, that the Protestant character of the public schools has 
now been abandoned, and that is the Baha'i religion that has replaced the 
Protestant Faith?

The Baha'is teach that religious truth is not absolute but relative. God is
the Eternal Logos. But while the Logos is One, his manifestations are many.
They are "prophets." The manifestations of God through the prophets never
cease. Every prophet is the `seal' of the preceding ones. Hence the great
importance attached to Mohammad, who came after Jesus and whose work, therefore,
sealed (superseded?) that of Christ.

By the so-called multicultural opening exercises in our schools our children 
are not just being acquainted with the gamut of belief in our present Canadian
society, they are being ushered into the mindset of Baha'ism. Instead of being 
made conscious of the Christian faith among the other religious beliefs, they 
are implicitly being taught that all religious truth is relative, including 
that of Christianity. They are, in fact forced to attend exercises with 
distinct Baha'i flavour.

As it stands now, the trend away from the Protestant character that once was 
the hallmark of the public school system in Ontario cannot be reversed. However,
Christian witness is not therefore muted. It ought to be ringing loud and 
clear. This is the time, when Christians ought to be determined that our Lord
Jesus Christ shall not be immersed in a religious smorgasbord; that  his
teachings shall become part of an ethical cakemix on which the daily selection
from umpteen different religions is the icing-of-the-day.

The staggering ring lethargy of Christian leaders and churches ought to stop! 
Deeply conscious of our unshakable faith that Jesus Christ is the Truth, the
Way, and the Life. and that no one comes to the Father but by him, we ought to 
protest the inclusion of Christian sources, especially of the Bible, in the 
opening exercises in the public school. Instead of being part of the 
development of a Baha'i-style set of opening exercises, every Christian should
pull out of such futile and divisive undertaking....

It is time that we protest Jesus Christ made into a Baha'i prophet! There must 
be no Christian content whatsoever in the material that adorns itself with the
epithet `multicultural,' but its very nature emasculates the Christ of God and
so discriminate against us who worship him. Perhaps it is our turn to appeal to
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Christian witness may take two forms: evangelistic witness and prophetic 
witness. Evangelistic witness must be winsome and loving. Prophetic witness must
be clear and intrepid. The time for Prophetic witness in this matter is NOW in
Ontario, and who knows how soon in the rest of Canada.                    []

The Presbyterian Record   January, 1989

Mr. Zegerius is a retired minister of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, living
in Guelph, Ontario

================================================================================

For the sake of clarification I'd like to emphasize that my disappointment is
not with the the fact that this is the personal view of an individual about
another religion. I am saddened to see that a religious leader should convey
such feelings.

Regardless of the fact that we humans pride ourselves in our natural, and
God-given freedom of choice, a great majority of us prefer to be blind 
followers in one way or another, in order to decrease the burden of excessive
mindfulness in our lives. As a result, the views of an individual who is in
the position of leadership and authority (especially in a highly emotional area
such as religion) becomes very critical in toggling the emotions of the masses
of the following believers in a specific way. It is not necessary to analyze
the effect of this emotional toggling in this posting, since, the history is
full of prime examples of this (i.e. Crusades, Inquisition, persecution of
various religious/ethnic minorities in Iran, etc....). Moreover, according to
various Scriptures, the leaders of religion have always been in the forefront
of opposition to the succeeding revelation, and the primary stirrers of
sedition is every society and culture, throughout the history. This is indeed
very disappointing. What do you think?

Regards,

Kamran Hakim
hakim@bigq.dec.com				Tel#508-568-6925

[For those who don't realize, Kamran Hakim is a Baha'i.  I can
certainly understand why he would be upset at this article.  Its
attacks on Baha'i do not seem to contribute to what is being said.
However the point it makes is an important one, and could be made
without the Baha'i-bashing.

There are very serious problems for Christians with participating in
non-Christian worship.  The potential objections vary with the way the
worship is designed.  There seem to be two basic approaches.

One approach to multi-religious prayer is the
lowest-common-denominator approach.  This attempts to intersect all
religions, and come up with some sort of generic prayer that no
possible religion could object to.  I could imagine specific contexts
in which such a thing might be OK.  But we're apparently talking about
daily prayer for children.  This exercise is going to constitute a
rather substantial fraction of their total prayer experience while
growing up.  While there are no specific magic words that Christians
are required to say, prayers are supposed to be in the name of Jesus.
There are also specific models that many Christians follow in
constructing prayer.  I do not like the idea of requiring (or strongly
encouraging -- I don't know how strongly participation in these
exercizes is pushed) daily prayers from which all specifically
Christian ideas were excluded.

Another approach is to use a variety of prayers, or single prayers
that combine elements from a variety of faiths.  The intent here would
be to avoid the lowest-common-denominator problem by giving students
experience with many religions.  I would be happy to have students
learn about a variety of religions.  However I do not like the idea of
requiring (or strongly encouraging) participation in acts of worship
based on religious ideas that contradict Christianity.  If no such
contradiction happens, I'm going to be very sceptical of whether all
religious views are really being represented.  (Why do I have a
feeling that these "multicultural" prayers are really going to be
Protestant prayers with the "in Jesus' name, Amen" omitted?  If so,
of course the objections are of a somewhat different nature...)

I think the reason for the Baha'i-bashing in this article is the
Christian perception that the Baha'i faith is based on an attempt to
construct an intersection of all religions.  This may not be an
entirely accurate portrayal of Baha'i.  (I get the feeling from your
postings on talk.religion.misc that it is not.)  However Baha'i do
seem to be one of the primary proponents of the concept that all
religions are at the very least pointing at the same thing, and that
one can accept the founders of all the major faiths at the same time.
So the policy described sounds suspiciously similar to what Baha'i
have been saying.  On the other hand, I do not see that the
anti-Baha'i attacks in that article add to either its clarity or
persuasiveness.  I think the space could have been better spent
looking more carefully at what sort of prayers were actually being
used and what specific problems they raised for Christians.  If read
carefully, the article contains remarkly little discussion about its
purported topic.

--clh]