One tactic of cultic indoctrination,,,
But the most important discovery that demanded my attention was
one particular club activity I found. In this activity a child, as young
as 5 years old, is singled out. The child is presented with an envelope
and told that they have earned what’s in it. After some discussion the
child opens the envelope and finds the word DEATH written on a piece of
paper. The instructor tells the child “…you have earned death –
separation from God forever in a terrible place of punishment…”
After I picked myself up off the floor, I sent the lesson to a
mental health professional (a psychotherapist) and simply asked for
their opinion. He described, in a very basic sense, how children need to
feel good about themselves and feel safe to grow into well adjusted
adults, and how presenting this lesson to a child undermines that entire
process. He was quite blunt in saying that this lesson is,
“incompatible with mental health.”
Another example of
church planting,,,
There are so many issues it’s hard to single one out – The Good News
Club is part of a broader religious right push to actually destroy
public education; they use children to evangelize other kids
in the school as a way to bypass objections from parents that don’t
share their extreme beliefs; they intentionally use schools so kids
think the message is sanctioned by the school – but for me the one
overriding issue is the psychological abuse of the kids. Parents expect
schools to be a place that is safe for their kids, and then in comes
this group claiming to be nothing but fun and games, when in fact
they’re causing real, long-term damage to innocent children. And this
isn’t just my opinion, but rather a broadly accepted view in the mental
health community, and backed up by the real human tragedy of lives spent
in shame and fear.
On the 2001 Good News Club vs. Milford Central Schools,,,
Aside from the broad legal issue in which religious speech was
granted unprecedented privilege, it’s rationally indefensible. The
majority opinion in this case concluded that children – as young as 5
years old – would not perceive the message provided to them in a school
classroom immediately after the regular school day as sanctioned by the
school. In other words, we’re supposed to believe that 5 year olds can
distinguish between official school instruction and the instruction of a
private club in the very same room, often by instructors that volunteer
in the classroom during the regular school day. This is preposterous on
its face.
School of Doubt | Going Up Against the Good News Club: An Interview with Dan Courtney
