WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.880 Good evening. Welcome to Moral Politics with Bill Alford. I'm your host Valerie 00:08.880 --> 00:13.880 Tirico and this is our monthly series on Christianity in the public square. How 00:13.880 --> 00:18.240 would you feel if you found out that your local neighborhood grade school, 00:18.240 --> 00:24.400 your public grade school, had become a religious recruiting ground? Would it be 00:24.400 --> 00:30.720 okay if it was your church? How about if it was Mormons or Muslims? Would it 00:30.720 --> 00:35.840 matter to you if it was Catholics or evangelicals or Jews? How about Jehovah's 00:35.840 --> 00:41.760 Witnesses or Scientologists? You're probably thinking it doesn't matter who. 00:41.760 --> 00:47.360 We have something called separation of church and state. It's not happening. No 00:47.360 --> 00:53.000 religion has the right to troll for converts on a public grade school 00:53.000 --> 01:01.480 grounds. If you think that, you're wrong. Here with us tonight is a North Seattle 01:01.480 --> 01:08.600 parent, John Lederer, who's going to talk about what was happening at his daughter's 01:08.600 --> 01:12.280 grade school. Thank you for joining us tonight, Mr. Lederer. 01:12.280 --> 01:19.400 Oh, thanks. Is it okay if I call you John? Oh, please do. Call me John. So you went to your daughter's 01:19.400 --> 01:23.480 school and quite by accident found out that there was something going on there 01:23.480 --> 01:29.560 called a Good News Club. What is a Good News Club? Well, basically a Good News 01:29.560 --> 01:37.200 Club is Sunday school that happens right in the public school. And it was 01:37.200 --> 01:42.960 happening in my daughter's school back in 2008. She was a first grader. And 01:42.960 --> 01:48.040 basically it has all the elements of Sunday school that you would expect to 01:48.040 --> 01:57.080 find. It's basically, you know, singing songs, scripture, memory, learning about 01:57.080 --> 02:02.320 the Bible in this case. Everything you would expect to see in Sunday school 02:02.320 --> 02:07.080 happens in a Good News Club. And it was happening after school on a Friday 02:07.080 --> 02:12.600 afternoon right after classes in my daughter's public elementary school. In 02:12.600 --> 02:17.320 this case, it was Loyal Heights Elementary in Seattle. So, but it's after 02:17.320 --> 02:22.640 school. It's not actually happening as a part of the school program. Well, it's not 02:22.640 --> 02:27.600 exactly part of the school program, but it's happening right alongside all of the 02:27.600 --> 02:32.400 school-sponsored after-school activities, all of the PTA-sponsored after-school 02:32.400 --> 02:35.200 activities. It's happening in a classroom. In this case, it was a 02:35.200 --> 02:40.240 kindergarten classroom. It's happening right after school and basically the 02:40.240 --> 02:45.560 Good News Club students who are going to their Sunday school, essentially, 02:45.560 --> 02:52.360 in the public school, were meeting in the cafeteria right alongside the 02:52.360 --> 02:57.160 other groups, the chess club and the math club, who were meeting to have 02:57.160 --> 03:02.760 their snacks. And they were virtually indistinguishable from any of the school 03:02.760 --> 03:07.360 or PTA-sponsored after-school activities. So do you think the children, though, 03:07.360 --> 03:12.160 could tell the difference? Absolutely not. I mean, if you walked into that 03:12.160 --> 03:16.600 cafeteria and you saw, you know, one group of students over here and another 03:16.600 --> 03:20.480 group of students over there, the Good News Club, you wouldn't know which was 03:20.480 --> 03:25.400 the school-sponsored after-school club and the PTA-sponsored after-school club, 03:25.400 --> 03:29.760 which was the why and which was the boys and girls club and which was the Good 03:29.760 --> 03:33.280 News Club. You wouldn't be able to know. But, you know, they call it the Good News 03:33.280 --> 03:38.440 Club because they want it to sound like an after-school activity, like the math 03:38.440 --> 03:42.040 club or the science club. But it's not a club. It's Sunday school. Well, but I 03:42.040 --> 03:45.560 think a lot of people would say, look, like kids in our culture could use a 03:45.560 --> 03:51.960 little bit of character education, spiritual education, having the chance to 03:51.960 --> 03:56.720 learn some Bible stories, you know, kind of learn about our Judeo-Christian 03:56.720 --> 04:01.960 heritage. That doesn't sound all bad. Well, it isn't bad at all. The 04:01.960 --> 04:05.280 question is whether it should be happening in a public elementary school 04:05.280 --> 04:11.360 or not. And in this case, though, you have to also look at the kind of Bible study 04:11.360 --> 04:18.560 the kind of religious practice that was going on in the Good News Club. So what 04:18.560 --> 04:24.720 kind of Bible study is it? Well, you sort of have to go back to 04:24.720 --> 04:31.960 who is sponsoring it to really understand what was going on. Who is sponsoring it? The Good News Club is 04:31.960 --> 04:37.480 sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. So child evangelism. Child 04:37.480 --> 04:43.160 evangelism means converting kids, right? Yeah, it's basically about proselytizing 04:43.160 --> 04:50.040 and converting children to a particular evangelical fundamentalist brand of 04:50.040 --> 04:56.040 Christianity that is espoused by the CEF, the Child Evangelism Fellowship. This is 04:56.040 --> 04:59.440 a national organization that's been around for quite a long time since the 04:59.440 --> 05:05.960 1930s. But only starting in the 1990s did they really start to push in a major 05:05.960 --> 05:10.840 way with some of their legal partners to get into the public schools. And they 05:10.840 --> 05:16.200 were able to succeed in 2001. There was a Supreme Court decision that got them 05:16.200 --> 05:21.200 the right to rent facilities in public schools. So you're saying that 05:21.200 --> 05:26.920 the Supreme Court said they have the right to go on to public schools and try 05:26.920 --> 05:32.100 to convert kids. The Supreme Court said that they have the right to go into the 05:32.100 --> 05:38.700 public schools and rent school space if that district, if that school district is 05:38.700 --> 05:43.640 making their space available to other to other community organizations. No, they 05:43.640 --> 05:49.080 did not say they have the right to proselytize or to convert public 05:49.080 --> 05:52.680 school kids to their brand of Christianity. But in fact, that is exactly 05:52.680 --> 05:57.280 what they do when they move into a school. And unfortunately, it's not being 05:57.280 --> 06:04.840 properly checked by either the courts or the school districts. It sounds, it's, I 06:04.840 --> 06:14.880 mean, targeting five, six, seven-year-olds for religious conversion seems ugly. Well, 06:14.880 --> 06:21.960 it, you know, I kind of think it's, I think it's very wrong. I mean, basically, 06:21.960 --> 06:30.320 as a parent, it's, it's my job to oversee my children's religious exposure, that 06:30.320 --> 06:36.120 initial exposure to spirituality and to religion. That's my job as a parent. Are 06:36.120 --> 06:41.040 you, may I ask, are you a church-going family? I'm a part of an interfaith 06:41.040 --> 06:48.120 family. We do attend church on a regular basis at Trinity United Methodist and in 06:48.120 --> 06:54.240 Ballard. And my children get their religious education, as I think is proper, 06:54.240 --> 07:00.200 in a church, not in a public school where it doesn't belong. I would think a lot of people would 07:00.200 --> 07:04.640 listen to you being offended at the thought of, you know, kind of Sunday 07:04.640 --> 07:10.400 school, Bible school happening on, at a grade school, and they think, well, he 07:10.400 --> 07:16.240 must be anti-religious. No, I'm not anti-religious at all. I, and neither is 07:16.240 --> 07:22.200 my family. What I'm trying to do is to protect my children and, and my rights as 07:22.200 --> 07:29.760 a parent to be overseeing and directing my children's initial indoctrination 07:29.760 --> 07:33.360 into religion and spirituality. Well, what's wrong with a little bit of extra 07:33.360 --> 07:40.560 Bible study? I mean, you, you go to a church, you value the Bible. Well, that, 07:40.560 --> 07:46.840 that may be, that may be true, but the, the, the issue is where is the proper 07:46.840 --> 07:54.080 place for this kind of education to take place? And I strongly believe it's proper, 07:54.080 --> 08:01.240 not, not in a public school where we have lots of people of varying different 08:01.240 --> 08:06.520 faiths and non-faiths, but in the community where, where it properly 08:06.520 --> 08:13.240 belongs. I think you have to look at, at CEF, the Child Evangelism Fellowship, and, 08:13.240 --> 08:17.920 and what they believe in to get a sense of, of, of the evangelical and 08:17.920 --> 08:22.160 proselytizing nature of their work. So what do, what do they believe? Child 08:22.160 --> 08:28.680 Evangelism Fellowship? Well, they, the purpose of the Good News Club, and you 08:28.680 --> 08:33.080 can go to their website, cefonline.org, and you can find this for yourself, the, 08:33.080 --> 08:39.400 the purpose of their Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls in the 08:39.400 --> 08:46.360 gospel of Jesus Christ. And by the gospel of Jesus Christ, they mean what? Well, it's a 08:46.360 --> 08:52.160 very kind of fairy tale version of Christian faith, and, and that's a little 08:52.160 --> 08:56.000 bit understandable given that they're focusing on five to ten-year-olds who 08:56.000 --> 09:01.600 really don't have the capacity to, to understand their faith at a, at a much 09:01.600 --> 09:06.640 deeper level at that, at that age. But, but given that, it's, it's a very fairy 09:06.640 --> 09:11.160 tale version in a way. So by fairy tale you mean kind of happy, a little too 09:11.160 --> 09:16.080 clean, a little too pretty? Well, there's, there's a basic story. One of the things 09:16.080 --> 09:22.360 that they do in these Good News Clubs is they, they hand kids these little puzzle 09:22.360 --> 09:28.200 toys. They're called flipper flappers. Flipper flappers. Yeah, they're, they're a lot of 09:28.200 --> 09:33.080 fun. You can, you can, you can flip them around, and I gave one to my daughter 09:33.080 --> 09:38.280 once, not telling her what it was or what the story is behind it, and she played 09:38.280 --> 09:42.040 with it for 20 minutes. She, she thought it was a lot of fun. It really captured 09:42.040 --> 09:46.200 her attention. But the idea is, is a pretty simple one. If you hand this to 09:46.200 --> 09:50.240 kids, it costs 50 cents, and they bring it to school, it's gonna start a 09:50.240 --> 09:55.240 conversation. So what's the, what's, yeah, what's the conversation? The conversation that they have around 09:55.240 --> 10:00.200 this little toy is one which, you see, you see this yellow, yellow circle. That's 10:00.200 --> 10:08.160 supposed to represent the, the wealth of, of Christian faith, the, the God's love. 10:08.160 --> 10:12.800 And then, and then if you turn to the black heart, the black heart is supposed 10:12.800 --> 10:17.920 to represent the, the heart of sin that is in all children that they're born 10:17.920 --> 10:22.760 with. So they're basically teaching this idea of... You're going to hell because you 10:22.760 --> 10:27.160 have a heart of sin unless you would, unless you adopt some simple rules, and 10:27.160 --> 10:31.180 they have to be simple because they're only five or six years old. Obey your 10:31.180 --> 10:37.320 parents, love Jesus Christ, adopt Jesus Christ as your Savior for the rest of 10:37.320 --> 10:44.640 your life, and go to church. If you do those simple things, then you, God will 10:44.640 --> 10:50.160 absolve you of your sin, and that's the Red Cross, the idea of this, the blood of 10:50.160 --> 10:56.960 Christ. God will absolve you of your sin, and you will achieve the white heart, the 10:56.960 --> 11:01.560 pure heart, and achieve salvation. So what they're looking for children to do in a 11:01.560 --> 11:05.580 Good News Club is to make a, what they call a salvation commitment, where they 11:05.580 --> 11:15.280 agree to adopt these, these, these four basic rules, and to, and to basically move 11:15.280 --> 11:21.080 on to, to, to a world in which they're ensconced in a church. So you go to a 11:21.080 --> 11:24.920 Christian church, and I happen to be familiar with that church, that I don't 11:24.920 --> 11:30.280 think that that church would say you have to be saved by blood, that you have 11:30.280 --> 11:35.260 this kind of original sin, your black, heart is black, unless you're saved by 11:35.260 --> 11:39.840 this, the blood of Jesus, you're going to go to hell and burn forever, and there's 11:39.840 --> 11:44.540 only one way. So, so you come from a different kind of Christian tradition. 11:44.540 --> 11:49.800 Your church doesn't teach those things. Well, absolutely it doesn't, and, and, but 11:49.800 --> 11:53.360 when you, when you do teach those things to very small children, and you do it in 11:53.360 --> 11:57.560 a public school, I mean, think about how the child reacts to that. How do they 11:57.560 --> 12:02.040 react? Well, I, I can see how they react, because it's happened in our school. You 12:02.040 --> 12:05.800 know, they basically say, okay, I'm saved, I've made that salvation commitment, but 12:05.800 --> 12:09.320 all my friends in my school, they haven't made that salvation commitment, so 12:09.320 --> 12:12.840 they're all going to go to hell. They're not going, they're not going to get to 12:12.840 --> 12:16.720 live with Jesus after they die like, like, like I will, because I haven't made 12:16.720 --> 12:20.880 that commitment. They haven't made that commitment like I have. So you've got five-year-olds at 12:20.880 --> 12:23.680 Loyal Heights looking at their friends and thinking their friends are going to 12:23.680 --> 12:27.520 be tortured forever. That's basically it. So, of course, they're going to try to 12:27.520 --> 12:33.960 draw them in. They're going to try to take that message to them and say, I want 12:33.960 --> 12:38.280 you to be saved like me, because I want to live with you and with, and with Jesus 12:38.280 --> 12:43.560 after we die. So, so the message itself is evangelical. The message tells 12:43.560 --> 12:50.960 children to try to reach out to, to other kids, but there's other things that CEF 12:50.960 --> 12:55.720 does in addition to the message that clearly is designed to reach the 12:55.720 --> 13:01.360 unchurched. I mean, and in fact, that is the goal of CEF is to, that's why they're 13:01.360 --> 13:05.280 in the public schools. That's why their name is called Child Evangelism, 13:05.280 --> 13:11.400 evangelize them, right? Evangelism. It's about, it's about getting converts, right? 13:11.400 --> 13:15.920 Getting converts, and, and the school becomes a fertile ground for doing just that. 13:15.920 --> 13:21.160 You know, there's a lot of different ways in which they do this. So if in the 13:21.160 --> 13:26.280 Supreme Court, in this kind of legal gray area, whatever it is, if, if it was said 13:26.280 --> 13:33.880 these guys are going into our public schools, their goal is to get converts 13:33.880 --> 13:40.720 among five, six, seven, eight-year-old children, you're saying that, that the 13:40.720 --> 13:45.240 Supreme Court said, that's okay. We can't stop that. No, absolutely. The Supreme 13:45.240 --> 13:50.560 Court did not say that's okay. You know, in a way, it's, it's kind of sad because 13:50.560 --> 13:55.000 CEF is pretty systematically misrepresented what the Supreme Court 13:55.000 --> 13:59.520 actually said in its, in its decision. What did the Supreme Court say as you understand it? 13:59.520 --> 14:05.200 As, as I understand it, in reading Justice Clarence Thomas's decision, it was a 14:05.200 --> 14:09.240 six to three decision. It was very controversial. There were five different 14:09.240 --> 14:13.840 decisions rendered among nine justices. They couldn't agree on how to decide 14:13.840 --> 14:19.280 this case. I mean, that's pretty unprecedented, but Justice Thomas wrote 14:19.280 --> 14:25.520 the majority opinion, and he, he basically said, look, if a school district makes 14:25.520 --> 14:30.960 its facilities available to anyone, to any community group, they can't 14:30.960 --> 14:35.520 discriminate as to whether that community group is religious or not. Okay, 14:35.520 --> 14:44.200 that's what he held, but he then went on to say there's no issue here about the 14:44.200 --> 14:51.500 Establishment Clause of the Constitution. There's no issue because the CEF in the 14:51.500 --> 14:56.880 case that was before the court had taken great pains to separate itself from the 14:56.880 --> 15:01.240 school. They weren't holding their, their, their, their Good News Club in a 15:01.240 --> 15:06.120 classroom. They weren't involving teachers. They weren't involving staff. 15:06.120 --> 15:11.560 They weren't, they were doing it well after school. They weren't advertising 15:11.560 --> 15:15.640 in any of the school communications. He noted all of those things in his 15:15.640 --> 15:19.400 decision. So, and, and is that what happened at Loyal Heights? The exact 15:19.400 --> 15:23.040 opposite happened at Loyal Heights, and the exact opposite happens every time CEF 15:23.040 --> 15:27.440 goes into, into a new school. How did it work at your school? At our school, what 15:27.440 --> 15:32.400 they did is they came in and they immediately tried to embed themselves in 15:32.400 --> 15:38.280 kind of the legitimacy of the school. They, the, the first thing they did is they, 15:38.280 --> 15:43.000 they sent home a flyer in kids mail advertising themselves. Well, kids mail, 15:43.000 --> 15:49.720 you know, kids backpacks. That's, that's a school communication tool, and they 15:49.720 --> 15:53.680 basically used it. So it's an implicit way of saying this has school approval. This 15:53.680 --> 15:56.920 is a school approval. It's a very implicit but direct way of saying this 15:56.920 --> 16:01.280 has school approval, and a lot of parents immediately objected to saying, okay, what 16:01.280 --> 16:05.120 is this Good News Club and why is it here? Because we didn't ask for it, and two, 16:05.120 --> 16:09.400 why are you using kids mail to get the word out about this outside group that 16:09.400 --> 16:14.360 wants to hold an after-school club at our school? And the principal immediately 16:14.360 --> 16:18.640 reacted, said, oops, we shouldn't have done that. From now on, I'm changing the 16:18.640 --> 16:23.080 policy. I'm going to review everything that goes out in kids mail, and I'm, and, 16:23.080 --> 16:27.360 and, you know, that's never going to happen again. They're not going to use it. 16:27.360 --> 16:31.160 So that was, that was the first thing. The next thing they tried to do is they 16:31.160 --> 16:36.360 tried to sponsor an ad in the PTA's auction pamphlet. We have a big fundraiser 16:36.360 --> 16:40.480 at the school. It's an auction that happens every year. So another way of saying this 16:40.480 --> 16:43.680 is integrated into the school. We're a part of the school community. They were 16:43.680 --> 16:48.000 trying to reach parents and get the word out, so they wanted to have a full-page 16:48.000 --> 16:55.080 ad in the auction catalog, and a bunch of us, other parents, basically said to the 16:55.080 --> 16:58.840 PTA, no, you can't accept their ad because then it will look like they're 16:58.840 --> 17:02.040 part of the school, and they're not. And that's what the Supreme Court said they 17:02.040 --> 17:08.680 couldn't do. They couldn't do, exactly. And so, so in that case, that was the, that 17:08.680 --> 17:12.920 was the second example. The most egregious example of them over, and then 17:12.920 --> 17:15.920 they were also putting up signs in the hallway, and we had to deal with that, 17:15.920 --> 17:20.880 but the most egregious example was when the leader of the Good News Club, who was 17:20.880 --> 17:27.440 this woman from a local church, an evangelical church called United Free 17:27.440 --> 17:34.000 Evangelical Church in Ballard, she decided she wanted to start 17:34.000 --> 17:37.880 volunteering in a kindergarten classroom, and she started volunteering four days 17:37.880 --> 17:43.840 a week in a kindergarten classroom as a teacher's helper. And this, this 17:43.840 --> 17:48.840 was really problematic because suddenly you had the church lady, the person who 17:48.840 --> 17:54.040 was leading Sunday school, who's now volunteering and looking like a teacher 17:54.040 --> 17:58.920 to a five-year-old in the classroom. So suddenly it looks like teachers, or 17:58.920 --> 18:03.360 volunteers in this case, are participating in the Good News Club and 18:03.360 --> 18:07.720 leading the Good News Club so that it's all part of the, so, so clearly it crosses the 18:07.720 --> 18:12.400 line of making to the student the Good News Club look like it's part of the 18:12.400 --> 18:18.280 school curriculum. And as a psychologist, I would say there is no way a five-year-old 18:18.280 --> 18:22.280 can tell the difference. Between a volunteer and the teacher and the staff, 18:22.280 --> 18:27.080 and I mean it's all the same to them, they're all adults, right? And so they 18:27.080 --> 18:29.880 couldn't see the difference. There were a lot of parents in that classroom who 18:29.880 --> 18:34.040 said, you're not, this woman is not working with my kid, and they had to move 18:34.040 --> 18:37.880 her to another kindergarten classroom, and this kept happening until eventually 18:37.880 --> 18:44.080 the principal had to ask this woman to not volunteer anymore because it wasn't 18:44.080 --> 18:48.040 working. She couldn't work with any of the, any of the parents' kids because they 18:48.040 --> 18:51.680 all kept saying, we don't want to work with her. So what can, you said though, the 18:51.680 --> 18:56.600 school can't do anything about it? What, or can they? Well there's a lot of things 18:56.600 --> 19:04.840 that the school district, you know, needs to do in order to really make sure that 19:04.840 --> 19:11.440 that these, these divisions that need to take place between the Good News Club 19:11.440 --> 19:17.240 and the rest of the school are solidified. One is that they need to make sure that 19:17.240 --> 19:20.720 teachers and staff don't participate in the Good News Club in any way, and that 19:20.720 --> 19:26.120 includes right on down to helping a kid get to the Good News Club meeting place. 19:26.120 --> 19:30.840 I mean they, they really can't go anywhere near the Good News Club. Once 19:30.840 --> 19:35.080 they do that, then it looks like the Good News Club is part of the school's 19:35.080 --> 19:40.640 curriculum. And, and then they also need to take great pains to make sure that 19:40.640 --> 19:45.960 there's no perception of any endorsement or the practice of religion. They need to 19:45.960 --> 19:49.840 make sure that the, all the school's communications vehicles, all the PTA's 19:49.840 --> 19:54.320 communications vehicles are free of any information about the Good News Club. It 19:54.320 --> 19:58.960 cannot be just simply added to the list of after-school activities because then 19:58.960 --> 20:03.400 it becomes part of the, of the school's sponsorship. So what do you want, what 20:03.400 --> 20:09.640 do you want parents to know about this? Well I think, I think, I think part of it 20:09.640 --> 20:16.200 is I need to, I need to tell parents what we were able to do with this story. We, 20:16.200 --> 20:21.640 we pushed back and because immediately they came in and crossed all of these 20:21.640 --> 20:25.680 lines that, that the court had established, that, that school policy had 20:25.680 --> 20:30.120 established, they immediately came in and crossed all of these lines. And we pushed 20:30.120 --> 20:38.000 back and we got the administration at the school to stop some of the most 20:38.000 --> 20:44.520 egregious practices. We got the PTA to not, to not take these ads and do all of these 20:44.520 --> 20:50.520 things. And no, the club hasn't gone away. It's still there, but the second year 20:50.520 --> 20:54.760 that they came back was a hundred and eighty degree change from that first 20:54.760 --> 20:59.160 year. They had clearly decided consciously they were going to change 20:59.160 --> 21:03.480 their strategy radically in Loyal Heights Elementary School. They did not 21:03.480 --> 21:07.520 put, advertise at all, not even on the community bulletin board where they're 21:07.520 --> 21:11.960 allowed to advertise. They didn't advertise anywhere in the school. They 21:11.960 --> 21:16.160 stopped wearing their t-shirts. They, they, the first year they had all of their 21:16.160 --> 21:19.960 kids wearing Good News Club t-shirts on Fridays just to remind everybody. 21:19.960 --> 21:23.960 So they were using kids to recruit other kids. They were using kids as advertising. They were using kids as advertising by giving 21:23.960 --> 21:29.760 these t-shirts and telling them to wear them on Friday. The kids are the mules that carry the advertisers home. The kids wear the t-shirts. 21:29.760 --> 21:34.560 They were wearing the t-shirt. The kids worry about their friends going to hell. Well, and, and just having the t-shirt is a 21:34.560 --> 21:37.880 conversation piece and that's what it's designed for. But in the second year they, 21:37.880 --> 21:45.520 they stopped doing that. And they also were moved from a classroom to, to a 21:45.520 --> 21:50.640 portable. So farther away from the mainstream and they accepted that. So 21:50.640 --> 21:56.400 basically we've come to an uneasy standoff where because parents pushed 21:56.400 --> 22:03.840 back against the Good News Club and CEF, we were able to change the rules in a 22:03.840 --> 22:08.840 way that we can live with. We don't like them, but we can live with it. And they 22:08.840 --> 22:15.480 were not able to cross, immediately cross the line of trying to integrate 22:15.480 --> 22:19.480 themselves into the rest of the school. And they, and they have remained somewhat 22:19.480 --> 22:23.680 isolated from, from the rest of the school ever since. So, so I guess the 22:23.680 --> 22:29.460 message for parents is if you're vigilant and you press back, you can 22:29.460 --> 22:33.960 change their behavior in a very fundamental way and we, we've shown that. 22:33.960 --> 22:39.600 You know, it's another, another major. So I would guess that there are some 22:39.600 --> 22:43.560 parents who would like to have their kids getting Sunday school on the school 22:43.560 --> 22:48.640 grounds, who are getting kind of their, some religious education during the week. 22:48.640 --> 22:52.800 But, but, and, and it sounds to me like maybe by pushing back you've kind of 22:52.800 --> 22:56.480 gotten to a point where the kids who are going to the club would be those kids. 22:56.480 --> 23:02.600 That it's not that they're on campus with the kids in the classroom recruiting 23:02.600 --> 23:08.160 kids and trying to convert kids. Well, CEF is smart. They don't move into a 23:08.160 --> 23:13.760 school unless they've got a core group of, of, of parents that are going to send 23:13.760 --> 23:17.440 their kids. I mean, they need to have a critical mass before they're actually 23:17.440 --> 23:21.960 going to make, make a move into a school. And basically it's, it's, it's generated 23:21.960 --> 23:26.000 to that original critical mass. They haven't grown from what I've seen. They 23:26.000 --> 23:30.680 have anywhere from six to 12 kids participating on a weekly basis. And it's 23:30.680 --> 23:35.520 pretty much stayed there. So, and that's, I think that's been helpful. I think the 23:35.520 --> 23:40.880 awareness raising has, has, has, has been helpful. I think also just keeping them 23:40.880 --> 23:45.680 sort of isolated from the rest of the school has been helpful. So, so, so there's, 23:45.680 --> 23:51.920 there's, you know, there's a group of parents that clearly, you know, are going 23:51.920 --> 23:55.040 to participate no matter what. And the reason that they're participating is 23:55.040 --> 23:59.400 because they want to establish a presence in the public school. I mean, they could 23:59.400 --> 24:03.080 easily have their good news club down the street at the local evangelical 24:03.080 --> 24:07.960 church. It's within walking distance of the school. In fact, we offered to buy 24:07.960 --> 24:11.400 them a van, to help them buy a van if they would just get out of the school. Of 24:11.400 --> 24:15.440 course, they didn't want that because they want to be in the school. The public 24:15.440 --> 24:20.160 school is their mission field. Child evangelism. I mean, I have to say child 24:20.160 --> 24:25.320 evangelism, proselytizing children, converting children away from their 24:25.320 --> 24:32.080 parents' spiritual tradition. Child evangelism, it's just two words that shouldn't even go together. 24:32.080 --> 24:37.560 I kind of feel that way too, but, but I think my fundamental point is this is 24:37.560 --> 24:41.880 just an inappropriate activity in the school. When you press CEF, what they say 24:41.880 --> 24:46.240 is, look, the Supreme Court has said we have a right to be here. But, you know, as 24:46.240 --> 24:50.520 Americans, we need to be able to distinguish between what our legal rights 24:50.520 --> 24:55.200 are and what's the right thing to do. And those are two completely different 24:55.200 --> 25:00.320 things. And in this case, yeah, CEF has a legal right to rent space in a public 25:00.320 --> 25:05.260 school. But does that make it a good idea for us to be having religious 25:05.260 --> 25:11.080 instruction inside the public school as an after-school activity? I think not. I 25:11.080 --> 25:14.400 think it's a really bad idea. And it doesn't, it doesn't really matter 25:14.400 --> 25:19.360 whether it's evangelical Christians or any other religion. It just doesn't 25:19.360 --> 25:24.480 belong in the public elementary school. It's, it's not an appropriate activity in 25:24.480 --> 25:29.520 that venue. If they want to evangelize, go stand on the corner and evangelize, you 25:29.520 --> 25:33.720 know, go stand in the public park if that's where you want to be, but not in the public school. 25:33.720 --> 25:39.880 So if this was, if this was a more minority religion, even farther afield, I mean, I think in, you know, 25:39.880 --> 25:45.320 fundamentalist, fundamentalism in this kind of, what you're describing is a 25:45.320 --> 25:51.120 minority religion in Seattle. But what if it was Scientologists or if it was, who 25:51.120 --> 25:56.920 knows, if it was Hindus, would they let them, would they let them? Well, yeah, I 25:56.920 --> 26:00.960 mean, I think that's, that's the interesting part here is since 2001, any 26:00.960 --> 26:05.440 religious organization has had the freedom to walk through this door. But 26:05.440 --> 26:09.560 only one has. So what you're saying is that Scientologists would have the right 26:09.560 --> 26:14.760 to form clubs on public schools. According to the Supreme Court's decision in 26:14.760 --> 26:18.560 2001, they're, they're free to do that. They're free to rent space and have an 26:18.560 --> 26:22.440 after-school club just like CEF, but nobody has. So you got to ask yourself, 26:22.440 --> 26:28.640 why not? Why only CEF? Why does everybody else seem to get it except the Christian 26:28.640 --> 26:33.440 Evangelical group? You know, everyone else seems to think, as I do, it's not a 26:33.440 --> 26:39.080 very good idea to try to move into a public elementary school. But apparently 26:39.080 --> 26:42.880 only this group seems to think it is a good idea. I mean, there's something 26:42.880 --> 26:48.280 about this particular form of religion that, that lends itself to that kind of 26:48.280 --> 26:51.840 thinking that somehow everybody else doesn't seem to, doesn't seem to think 26:51.840 --> 26:55.920 in those terms. It's all right there in their name, isn't it? Child evangelism. 26:55.920 --> 26:59.600 Right. We're going to reach children. We're going to bring the unchurched into 26:59.600 --> 27:06.040 our church. And thanks to Clarence Thomas, we can now do that in a public 27:06.040 --> 27:11.680 elementary school. And they're doing it. They're doing it every day. John, is there 27:11.680 --> 27:14.680 anything else you'd like to say to our audience as we're wrapping up? We've got 27:14.680 --> 27:21.720 like one minute here. Well, I guess, I guess the biggest thing is that I, I 27:21.720 --> 27:27.280 really, I really don't want them, you know, getting in between me and my child and 27:27.280 --> 27:31.880 my child's initial indoctrination into religion. And by bringing their form of 27:31.880 --> 27:35.480 religion into the public school and by teaching this evangelical message to 27:35.480 --> 27:42.240 children, that's precisely what they're doing. You know, we really need to, to 27:42.240 --> 27:45.040 think about whether this is the appropriate activity that needs to happen 27:45.040 --> 27:50.280 in a public school. And parents have the opportunity to really make a change and 27:50.280 --> 27:55.440 to fight back and to, and to make a difference. Mm-hmm. Thank you for joining 27:55.440 --> 28:06.080 us tonight. It's been my pleasure.