Soul and Spirit | Ain't Complicated

Mennonites and Government Schools

Members of Quebec’s only Mennonite community say they may move to Ontario or New Brunswick so they can keep their children in a private school that suits their religious beliefs.

Fifteen English-speaking Mennonite families in this small community in the Monteregie region say they won’t send their children to government-approved schools, balking at the teaching of evolution, the acceptance of gays and lesbians and low “morality standards.”

They say they are considering relocation out of fear that child-protection officials will seize their children.

Other townspeople here — mostly francophone Catholics — support the primarily English school, deemed illegal by Quebec’s Education Department.

The story continues:

He said about 30 members of the community — young couples and their school-aged children — will have to move before school starts. The others will follow.

News reports last year about unsanctioned schools led to a complaint to the Education Department about the Mennonite school.

Parents were warned they would face legal proceedings if their children aren’t enrolled in sanctioned schools this fall. That could lead to children being taken from families

And this:

In Roxton Falls, the vast majority of non-Mennonites strongly support the school, said the town’s Mayor, Jean-Marie Laplante. This week, he wrote letters to the education department and Education Minister Michelle Courchesne in an effort to save the school.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

I empathize (or at least sympathize) with my fellow-Mennonites and fellow-parents, but I wonder if Mr. Goosen didn’t overstate his case with this comment:

“It boils down to intolerance to our religion” by education officials, said Ronald Goossen, who in the early 1990s was among the first Mennonites from Manitoba to move to Roxton Falls, a sleepy town on the Riviere Noire, about 100 kilometres east of Montreal.

If they truly fail to meet whatever standards the state has, then change or move or appeal, but please don’t play the intolerance card.

Thanks.

🙂

Lured Kids?

This is amazing:

It matters to the security of people here at home if we don’t work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens.

Kids, Mr. President?

Lured?

That is stunning to me.

And when it comes to causal conditions, were none of those fellows educated and such?

And what about those other “kids” more recently in trouble in the UK? You know, those doctors?

Amazing.

I really do think Mr. Bush or Tony Snow or somebody at the White House needs to clarify that. (But it probably can’t be done.)

Rattler Warning

I’ve never heard of this before:

Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous.

That’s what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned as he was feeding his horses this week when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.

Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.

“When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger,” Anderson said. “I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose.”

Book Review: Plain Secrets

A unique story of culture crossing in rural America explores the role of religion in modern society by looking closely at the life of the Swartzentruber Amish.

Amish buggy in traffic

From the Boston Globe, The shock of the old:

Joe Mackall’s new book, “Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish,” explores the role of religion in modern society by looking closely at the life of a small devout religious community in Ohio: the Swartzentruber Amish. The struggle of the Amish people to live with “the English” (the non-Amish), and of the English “outsider” (Mackall) to understand the Amish, is a unique story of culture crossing in rural white America.

The complexity of the bridge that Mackall attempts to build between the Amish and English cultures is mirrored in the Latin root of the word “religion” — religare, to bind together again. This is the problem/promise that Mackall confronts: Religion can both liberate and indoctrinate, both create a community through the bonds of tradition and doctrine, and enslave a community through the binding of minds and control of behavior. The book points to a difficult truth: A religious community is bound to be freed.

If you need more than the first two paragraphs of the review, click the link above.

If you want the book, click the book graphic. 😉

Persecution of Christians Increasing

In Afghanistan. In Turkey. In India. In Kazakhstan. In Malaysia. In Pakistan. In Vietnam. In Iraq.

Are you among the “most”?

Christians continue to be martyred abroad, but few American believers are aware of how pervasive religious persecution is around the world. “Christians in this nation don’t realize how fortunate they are to live in the U.S.,” observes Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International.

Where Does This Fit in Iraq?

Mission Network News reports:

Christian Persecution in Iraq is much worse than most people think, according to a report from the Christian Post.

“The situation is more than desperate,” said White, pastor of 1,300-member St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad. White’s firsthand account of the plight of Christians on the ground included a report that 36 members of his own church were kidnapped. Only one has been released so far since the church found enough money to pay his ransom.

White and others also reported that Dora, Iraq has seen many incredibly violent acts against Christians in the last few months. Almost all the churches have been bombed and burned. Almost all Christians have been forced to leave their homes after receiving death threats.

Somehow, this just doesn’t seem right (or even to be expected) in a country “liberated” and “dominated” and “secured” by the United States.

Why is it so?

They Call This Honor?

Woman raped before honor killing:

LONDON (Reuters) – A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an “honor killing” carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house.

They need redemption. As do all of us.

Indeed, they can be fully redeemed. As can all of us.

Interestingly, though I can’t categorize this under Middle East, it definitely fits in the category I chose.