Islam in America’s Public Schools, Education or Indoctrination?

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With the decline of communism, the anti-Christian forces most often supported by the Progressives in education and the politically left are pushing the support of Islamism in what they say is the desire to promote a cross-cultural understanding for our children in the public schools, and very little is being said about it.  The question comes, “Is it education, or is it indoctrination?’

At the ConcordCarlisleHigh School in Concord, Massachusetts, a question has come up about just what is education and what is indoctrination. Concord is the site of the first military engagement of the American Revolution, but on the 12^th anniversary of 9/11, the Principal allowed the reading of a Muslim foot washing poem about a Muslim woman washing her feet at a Sears Department Store prior to engaging in her Muslim prayers, while during the same day the Pledge of Allegiance was not recited as it usually was.

Mohja Kahf’s poem was called, “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears,” and part of the poem was:  “Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown as they notice what my grandmother is doing, an affront to American porcelain, a contamination of American Standards by something foreign and unhygienic requiring civic action and possible use of disinfectant spray. They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom.”  Some of the questions that have been asked are, “Why in the world would this poem be the least bit interesting to any child that was not Muslim?  In fact, why it would be interesting even to any Muslim to hear?”  But this was done in the name of “cultural diversity.”

The battle is going on in our American Public schools, as Islamists, or those who are committed to seeing that Islam, which is a political and religious system, must be affirmed. This Islamic attack is a form of jihad on the minds of our children. The attack is ideological instead of being military. It is turning out that Western liberal democracies can be subverted without firing a shot, and nowhere else is this more evident than in the educational realm in our public schools.  The Islamists have taken what has come to be known as the “soft jihad” into America’s classrooms, and children in K-12 are the first casualties as the children are influenced by has been called “Stealth Jihad” in American Schools.  (FOX NEWS by Todd Starnes-Jul 31 2013).

Israel’s prophets saw themselves as watchmen warning the nation of God’s approaching judgment if the people did not repent.  Ezekiel was called to be a watchman and proclaim God’s message to the people.  The watchman is the one who stands guard. Ancient cities had watchmen stationed on the walls. Their responsibility was to sound a warning if an enemy approached. Ezekiel 33:2-3 says that God spoke to Ezekiel, “Son of man, speak to the children of thy people and say unto them, When I bring a sword upon a land, if the people of the land take man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he sees the sword come upon the land, he should blow the trumpet and warn the people.”

We need to hear the warning. The Islamic faith is not a friend to Christianity, nor a friend to democracy! In fact, the Koran says: O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. – (Surah 5:54)  Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah’s religion reigns supreme –(Surah 8:39)  When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly. The unbelievers among the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of hell. They are the vilest of all creatures.” – (Surah 98:51)

The Islamic mentality is not geared toward democracy, but it is geared to authoritarian figures, as is very much evident from the whole history of Islam as it spread by military conquest under the leadership of Mohammed on to Abu Bakr who was the next Muslim ruler or caliph, as the religion spread by military expansion even to threaten Western Europe and Christianity until Charles Martel defeated them at the Battle of Tours in 732.  Caliphs and Imams of various sorts have assumed the dominant power in the history of the Muslims, as they have been ruled from the top down, not the bottom up like a democracy.

There is a continual expansion of the indoctrination of Islam in our public schools, under the cloud of the promotion of cultural diversity. Many Muslims are being appointed to high political and advisory positions in the present administration, in particular into influential in the education positions.  Recall that Proverbs 22:6 says to “Train up a child in the way that he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” We need to sound the warning, for our children in the public schools very often are not being just educated about the Islamic faith, but rather indoctrinated by a romanticized picture of it!

School officials in Florida are defending a textbook that declares Muhammad as the “Messenger of God” after critics accused an Islamic education group of launching a stealth jihad in American public school classrooms.  The Prentice World History textbook being used in Brevard Public Schools includes a thirty-six-page chapter on Islam but no chapters on Christianity or Judaism.

Did you know that for instance by some textbooks Muslims discovered America? Or that Jerusalem is an Arab city? That’s just some of the “history” students in America’s K-12 classrooms have been taught recently–with the help of taxpayer money. A new report by the non-profit Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that American high school and elementary textbooks contain countless inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, Israel and the Middle East. The Institute examined twenty-eight of the most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America. It found at least 500 errors.

One book ignored the Jewish roots of Christianity, saying the faith was founded by a “young Palestinian” named Jesus.  Another stated as fact, not an opinion, that the Koran was revealed to Mohammed from God. Yet another history book said ancient Jewish civilization contributed “very little” to the arts and sciences.

According to Fox News, a ninth grade textbook declares Muhammad is the “Messenger of God” and instructs students that jihad is a duty Muslims must follow. “Jihad may be interpreted as a holy war to defend Islam and the Muslim community, much like the Crusades to defend Christianity,” the book states. It published large passages from the Koran, none from the Bible. While the book makes declarations about Muhammad being God’s messenger, it does not make declarations about Jesus being God’s son. “Some believed he was the messiah,” the textbook noted in an entry about Jesus. The book noted that He was later executed, but failed to mention His resurrection.

William Saxton, the chairman of Citizens for National Security, testified before the Brevard, Florida School Board, warning them that the book rewrites Islamic history and presents a biased and incorrect version of the Muslim faith.  “They promote Islam at the expense of Christianity and Judaism,” Saxton told Fox News. “It blew my mind to see the kind of propaganda, the pro-Islam information that’s in this book – at the expense of Christianity and Judaism.”  (Is Muslim Group Waging “Stealth Jihad” in American Schools?  FOX NEWS by Todd Starnes—July 31, 2013)

Shabbir Mansuri, Founder and Director of the Council on Islamic Education (CIE), has clearly stated his goal in a clear revolution through education to indoctrinate our youth into acceptance of the Islamic faith, saying: “I am waging a ‘bloodless revolution’ by promoting world cultures and faiths in America’s classrooms.” (CIE, Textbook Publishers Promote Islam in America’s Classrooms–Harry Mathews, August 30, 2011)  The <DawaNet.com>, an Islamic web sight, states “Schools are fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed in the hearts of non-Muslim students.”

There is the Islamic indoctrination through textbooks. Political correctness has a double standard when it comes to teaching about religion in public schools.  Drop Christianity down the memory hole, but give extensive and mostly favorable coverage to Islam.

The American public school system notoriously spends lots of money on each student, failing to produce well-educated kids, and along the way, coming up with lots of really bad ideas about education.  One of the worst ideas is inviting Muslim indoctrination into the schools in the interest of multicultural “tolerance” and “awareness.”

You can’t have a moment of silence in public school anymore because someone is offended.  People are pushing to have the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance stopped because it has “God” in it. Christmas trees are removed, Christmas pageants are renamed “holiday pageants”, and every shred of Christianity is being removed, bit by bit, by those who scream “separation of church and state!”

Religious studies are generally unwelcome in public schools, with the exception of the study of Islam. We have not an objective study of Islam, rather it is one that neglects the many negative factors of that religion and only indoctrinates the young students to a romanticized version of it, and it is not only through the textbooks filled with Muslim bias. This can be done by inviting Islamic speakers, devoting a special time to it, having students use prayer rugs, repeating Islamic prayers, and the institution of many other ways like listening to an Islamic poem about no foot washing basins at Sears to get the children into adhering to the Islamic worldview, while both rejecting or neglecting the Judeo-Christian values in the name of a type of cultural diversity.

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by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Educational Columnist, Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, 5931 West Avenue, Lavonia, Georgia 30553,  706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net

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