Public schools ditch Bible over lack of interest

In spite of proselytizers’ best efforts, some schools in New Zealand are dropping Christian religious education classes . . . not over lawsuits, but due to lack of interest.

At least three Auckland schools have dropped the Bible in Schools programme in the past three years. Browns Bay and Campbells Bay schools on the North Shore pulled out of the programme this year.

Browns Bay principal Roger Harnett said parents had been withdrawing their children from the Churches Education Commission programme.

Last year, about 50 students dropped out from a roll of 500, but Mr Harnett said complaints increased when students saw their friends choosing to opt out and persuaded their own parents to let them drop the class too.

Presently, NZ law requires that public school education be secular in nature. However, there is the exemption for “values education”, which may be conducted on school premises with the school officially closed. In other words, on-premises “release time” for churches to proselytize.

Students who opt out–that is, students whose parents agree to opt them out–have to be supervised during the “closed” time.

Unfortunately, the program is not a general “religious education” class, and it is not a humanist “values” class. Ethics aren’t taught, nor is critical thinking. Rather, as one anguished parent put it, the classes were beneficial in her eyes because they “taught Christian values as well as the Bible.”

Yes. Christian values AND the Bible. Not teaching people to be a better person, or to do good things, but teaching Christian values and the Bible.

I wonder if this scripture would garner more interest?

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