When The EYE spotted an “In My View” column by somebody named Stephen Williams in this morning’s Bulletin, bells went off.
The column was headlined “Public school leaders, The Bulletin are hostile to Christianity.” Williams was moved to write it by a front-page story last month describing how teddy bears with ear tags containing an explicitly Christian message had been given out at a ceremony honoring high-achieving students at Bend High.
“Why would The Bulletin consider this story of such newsworthiness as to boldly place it on the front page?” Williams demanded. “We are to think that a high school handing out a few teddy bears with a tiny Christian tag attached is somehow a front-page story?”
The tags might have been tiny, but the religious message printed on them couldn’t have been more loud and clear: “By believing in Jesus, you can spend forever in Heaven. To accept his gift of eternal life, all you need to do is pray this simple prayer: Dear Jesus, I know I have done wrong things that have made Your heart sad. Thank You for paying the price for my mistakes with Your Life. I want to accept Your gift of forgiveness.”
Williams went on to tear into Bend-LaPine School Board members Carolyn Platt and Tom Wilson for having “totally unconstitutional views of the establishment clause in regards to public schools.” The unconstitutionality of their views, according to Williams, lies in expressing concern about the “Jesus bears” and support for the separation of church and state.
“Many feel that public schools should be a religion-free zone,” Williams went on. “The point is, the founders, the Constitution and the current court’s interpretation of religious expression all vehemently disagree with this view. Ironically, many who are intolerant of anything dealing with Christianity are extremely tolerant of a secular humanist (atheist) view.”
Now about those bells: In The Bulletin’s customary cryptic fashion, the tagline at the end of Williams’ piece said only that “Stephen Williams lives in Bend.” But there’s a lot more to him than that.
In May 2007, Williams ran unsuccessfully for the Bend-LaPine school board. But the most interesting part of his history took place in Cupertino, CA back in 2004.
Williams, then an elementary school teacher, sued the Cupertino Union School District on the grounds that his principal allegedly violated his right of free expression by preventing him from using lesson materials that mentioned God and Christianity. The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative fundamentalist organization that bankrolled Williams’ lawsuit, issued a press release under the grossly misleading headline “Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom” and claiming that “throwing aside all common sense, the [Cupertino] district has chosen to censor men such as George Washington and documents like the Declaration of Independence.”
The actual facts of the case were rather different: Parents had complained that Williams was actively trying to evangelize their kids. “My daughter came home one day and said, ‘Mr. Williams talks about Jesus 100 times a day,'” one of them told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The case turned Williams into a right-wing media celebrity. “The debate over Williams’ methods has electrified the evangelical and conservative network that helped return Bush to the White House last month,” the Chronicle wrote. “One result: The normally placid school district, in a town where Bush got only 33 percent of the vote Nov. 2, has been bombarded by 3,000 e-mails and 350 phone calls.”
In the end, though, Williams and ADF dropped the lawsuit and the school district resumed its placid ways. Shortly thereafter, Williams resigned his teaching post, moved to Bend and became a professional Christian. He runs an organization called “Prepare the Way,” whose website describes its mission as “equipping and empowering Christians to uphold a biblical worldview and engage an increasingly secular society.” He also offers his services as a speaker and is planning a “Christian Youth Leadership Summit” in Bend on May 3.
Thanks to the First Amendment Williams has the right to hold and express his views, no matter how bigoted and uninformed they may be. But The EYE also can’t help thinking that the people who read his screed had a right to know more about him and his radical agenda than the fact that he “lives in Bend.”
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2008.
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The biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucino-genic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor. Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shannon of Jerusalemรข โขs Hebrew University said that two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared. Shannon said the thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an รข altered state of awareness.รข ย รข ” Reuters
We as a species stand at a cusp, on the brink. We may evolve as Humans, but to evolve, to mature, we must abandon these irrational dependencies upon adolescent fairy tales to explain away the dark, these crutches for those not strong enough, intelligent enough, to stand up to the unknown.
The most preposterous notion ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. This absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
Animals, bow down to gods; Human Beings, do not.
Good comments, Bears.
If the truth of religion really is self-evident, why do so many religious people feel the need to cram it down everybody’s throat?
Here’s another kick: “We are financially supported entirely by your tax-deductable donations. Prepare the Way Minitries is a part of the Church, as recognized by the Internal Revenue Code 26 USC 508(c)(1)(A), and a member of GMCI’s group exemption status 501(c)(3).” So your tax dollars and mine are going to subsidize Williams and his religious propaganda efforts.
“If the truth of religion really is self-evident, why do so many religious people feel the need to cram it down everybody’s throat?”
Not much different than you in the far left cramming your earth worshiping, radical enviromentalism religion down our throuts.
Jon,
When was the last time a total stranger from the “far left” knocked on your door to try to sell you on “radical environmentalism” or to tried to convince you to attend a particular environmental organization’s meeting? Think man, before you speak.
The Mr. Williams feel their message and morality is perfectly acceptable and should be spread, even clandestinely to school children, especially to those who unfortunately have secular parents. If his stated position, was in fact Freedom of Religion, every teacher, every person with authority and power over another, could begin the process of propagandizing their own beliefs over a captive and malleable class of people. In Mr. Williams’ case, it is students, who, by law must attend the school they are registered in. His piece in The Bulletin, is mostly, that he, and those who believe in Christ, have a right that by law cannot be checked at the door of the school, which he justifies by cherry picking case law from, of all people, judges, who the Christian right complain about as not being elected, and therefore should not interpret the law. His other point appears to be there is no harm or damage caused by spreading a message his belief supports.
My sixth grade “social health” teacher told our clase we would grow hair on our palms, go blind and burn in hell for engaging in an act some pubescent boys do. I’m of Italian decent, had hair growing on the back of my fingers, which tied with his words, caused me to panic. Because of his position as a teacher, I believed him. I became so scared I couldn’t eat or sleep, was obsessed with my hands I started pulling out the hairs on the back of them, I practiced walking around the house, eyes closed so when blind, I wouldn’t bump into things. I kept begging my mother to take me to the eye doctor. Finally, after weeks pressing me for what was wrong, I told my mother of my certain future as a hairy handed, blind boy, damned for all eternity. My mother’s reaction could best be described as blind rage. She stormed into the principal’s office angrily disclosing medical disinformation, the fear for my soul this teacher had caused and the negative physical affects on me. The teacher was allegedly chastised, however, my report cards and relationships with staff were adversely affected by my mother’s actions. I was deemed a problem children from then on.
While this is an amusing though embarrassing story, it’s illustrative of the damage that can be caused by the wrong words, being used at the wrong time with what might be going on in a child’s life, which a teacher could be oblivious of.
Lets give some situations a child of today may face: A father who drinks and either abuses or neglects his child. The child swears at or “curses” his parent for the acts and curses the parent that left allows it. The teacher’s lessons the next day:
Leviticus 20:9 For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.
Romans 12:14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
Exodus 21:17 And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Matthew 15:4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
After hearing this, what do we think the child will be thinking?
Our schools are encouraging children to report sexual abuse. But their teacher is a fundamentalist and quotes these lovely passages:
Deuteronomy 22:21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she has worked folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shall you put evil away from among you.
This will really encourage girls to come forward, knowing that even though she is a victim, her plight in life is death.
But wait, there must be an exception! There is, but not much of one.
Deut 22:23-24 states that a woman is not telling the truth if she says
she was raped but no one heard her scream, the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die.
This is the freedom of religion Mr. Williams hides in his argument. For in his delusion world, the only messages will be those of God’s peaceful words and glory.
But others will have the same right to express their religious views. No thanks Mr. Williams.