A Must Read Book: "The Good News Club"
Chris Rodda printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri Feb 03, 2012 at 12:25:02 PM EST
For anyone who wants to read a book that really goes inside the movement to indoctrinate children through our public schools, I highly recommend the new book The Good News Club by Katherine Stewart. I received an advance copy of the book months ago to review, but, because of working on my own book, just didn't have time to read it and write a review before it came out on January 24. But I'm reading it right now, and from what I've read so far, this is the best book I could imagine to explain to people just how the "The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children," as the book's subtitle describes it, is happening right under everybody's noses.

The author, Katherine Stewart, embarked on her investigation of what's going on in our public schools with the best possible motivation to expose the truth --  she became alarmed by what was happening in her own kids' school. She then traveled the country interviewing both other parents like herself and experts on the stealth "Good News" movement, resulting in a book that is not only full of well documented facts, but tells the personal accounts of parents who, like herself, have seen first hand what these innocuous sounding "Bible study" groups are really all about and the tactics they're using to lure and indoctrinate America's children into the fundamentalist Christian mindset.

Like I said, I haven't read the whole book yet, but what I did was to read the chapters about the things that I am very familiar with from my own work, such as the chapter on the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools and some of the stuff about Child Evangelism Fellowship. Because of my own prior knowledge of these subjects, I felt like the accuracy and thorough explanation I found in those sections was enough for me to write this preliminary review, and to call Ms. Stewart's book a must read piece of investigative journalism.

I'll be writing a full review as soon as I finish reading the entire thing, but I didn't want to wait to tell people to READ THIS BOOK!




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I am so glad to hear that you are working again on your own book. I am assuming it's Liars for Jesus Vol. 2?

I plan to look for this book too. While my children are long out of school, I have contacts with women who have kids in school here in the south, and it is amazing how fundamentalists sneak their proselytizing into public school classes. One woman told me of her child bringing home math homework with word problems that refer to the age of Moses as a basis for the math computation.

Have you heard about the "Bible man" who conducts assemblies in public elementary schools in Alabama?

by monarchmom on Sat Feb 04, 2012 at 12:26:17 PM EST


I'm so glad you Chris are keeping tabs on this stuff. They never give up, they never stop! We must be vigilent, like that WWII song says.

by rdrjames on Sun Feb 05, 2012 at 08:11:38 PM EST
I am in full agreement with you on that score, and I really try to impress that on people who are just now realizing how adamant the Christian right is about indoctrinating our kids.

They can't stop, because they know that most kids aren't taught such stringent ideas about their faith. It has to be drilled into them from an early age, and the Christian right knows this full well.



by trog69 on Tue Feb 07, 2012 at 03:10:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]


...that Rachel Tabachnick and I did last Spring?

http://vimeo.com/25606393

"
"School choice" advocates claim they are working to improve educational opportunities by using public funds to subsidize private school students.

Many of these private schools use A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press or other fundamentalist curricula. The textbooks in these series teach young earth creationism; hostility toward other religions and other sectors of Christianity, including Roman Catholicism; and a biased version of history that is often factually incorrect. This video focuses on Pennsylvania's EITC program, but the information is applicable in states across the nation with school vouchers or corporate tax credit programs. "

by Bruce Wilson on Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 10:48:50 AM EST



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