You’d think that the religion that had survived the Roman Empire, the Inquisition, and all the Crusades would have a little more backbone. But maybe it’s a denominational thing. The US Southern Baptist Convention is apparently working up an “exit strategy” to extract their children from the crippling influence of the American public education system. Normally, I would oppose any group withdrawing from the public arena based on opposing viewpoints, but in this case I can make a huge hypocritical exception. Christians, begone!

If you are so upset and frothing at the mouth at the very idea that people live in ways you don’t approve of and raise kids in those lifestyles and don’t adhere to your idiotic belief that a Guy In The Sky is watching you and testing you and waiting for your soul at the end of your life, I say you AND your spawn should feel free to separate yourselves from the American community as much as you want. I’m disappointedly reminded too often that there are a large number of Americans that believe (and I mean BELIEVE) what’s written in a 2,000+ year old book instead of scientifically proven studies and empirical data that disproves almost all of the content of that book with hard evidence and neutral logic.

There is no data to suggest that home-schooled children are worse off than those children in the public school system. In fact, studies show that home-schooled children are slightly better test-takers, have a stronger concept of self, and are just as likely to socialize with their peers in after-school settings. What bothers me is this Christian mindset of us-against-them. This is, to me, the major cause of much of the conflict in American society, as the Christian majority attempts to impose their faith and their values and their rules upon a culture that is supposed to be all-inclusive and religion-neutral. Atheists and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists and Zoroastrians shouldn’t have to fight against their Christian neighbors for the rights enshrined in the Consitution that guarantee freedom.

If these Baptists want to remove their children from the pit of despair that is the public school system, I really have no problem with that. But it speaks of their larger failure to be a group of people that is willing to take part in the American experience, which is to know your neighbor who is different from you. And that’s not just supposed to be an American value, it is supposed to be a Christian value as well. I guess members of those other faiths will have to learn their Christianity from those Christians who aren’t afraid to send their kids to school with Jews and Muslims and even, God forbid, atheists.