Polite Christianity and the future of Christian education
by Roger Kiska, Christian Concern:
Roger Kiska, Legal Counsel for the Christian Legal Centre, comments on the case of St Lawrence College, which dropped its support of a Christian charity because of the Biblical beliefs of the charity’s president.
“The Education of children for God is the most important business done on earth…” Robert Lewis Dabney
Last week, Christian Concern published a story about an independent school with an evangelical ethos which had very publicly cancelled its support for a Christian charity. The charity in question provides material aid to the most impoverished and war-torn areas of the world, but the school saw fit to cancel its support of them because of the complaint of a single family who are being supported by Humanists UK.
St Lawrence College, Ramsgate removed its support for Operation Christmas Child, which is run by Samaritan’s Purse. The reason? The parents of a pupil at the school issued a scathing attack against Samaritan’s Purse because of the Biblical views expressed by its President, Franklin Graham.
Franklin Graham is the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham, a spiritual mentor to several US presidents and friend with Martin Luther King Jr. Operation Christmas Child has school children fill shoeboxes with toys, school supplies and hygienic items to be shipped to some of the poorest areas of the world. Samaritan’s Purse, among many other charitable missions, is providing medical and food support in Ukraine and has to date already provided medical support to thousands of Ukrainians affected by the Russian invasion.
The complaining parents went so far as to create their own website to vilify the College, Franklin Graham and the College’s chaplain, before taking the website offline, possibly for fears about being sued for defamation. The parents alleged that because of Franklin Graham’s views on homosexual behaviour and marriage, that Samaritan’s Purse by association must be a ‘homophobic’ charity, despite the fact that the charity does incredible work and has never been accused of refusing to provide charitable outreach to anyone because of their sexual orientation.
See also:
School cancels support for charity working in Ukraine after one complaint about Christian beliefs, from Christian Concern
New Christian schools movement gains momentum, by Steve Beegoo, Christian Concern
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