The Tentacles of Islam Invading American Education

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by the Rev. Dr. Joe Renfro, Contributing Editor

It is argued that Muslim population explosion and the migration of the Muslims from the Middle East to the rest of the world justifies the teaching and affirmation of the Islamic religion above the other Non-Christian religions in our public schools, while at the same time promoting a rampant curtailment of attention or support of the Christian religion in public education.

Does the fact that Islam is expanding, as the Muslims have many more children per family than other religious groups mean that public schools should teach only the good about Islam and ignore the bad?  Does it mean we should accommodate this religion to the exclusion of others? As Christian mission work in Islamic areas is very difficult, while in the West as the door is wide open for Muslim expansion, does this mean that America Public Education should encourage or promote the Islamic faith? Does the population explosion projections with the Muslims, mean as understood from the Progressive thinking- so dominant in America education – that it is good to affirm Islam, while at same time instilling in the educational environment the cloud that we have entered a Post-Christian era, as the anti-religious minds like to think?

Kimberly Morin wrote in The Federalist Papers Project how “Any references to Christmas were banned in some Massachusetts schools; a school wanted to cancel a trip to the Nutcracker because some were offended by the Christmas tree in the ballet; Parents complain that their children shouldn’t have to say the Pledge of Allegiance; parents try to get prayer removed from classrooms (no one actually says a prayer during this time) and the list goes on and on.”

Morin also observed that “Massachusetts is a bastion of hate towards the Christian Religion but they seem to embrace the Muslim Religion and even want to force children to learn about it in school…In Revere, Massachusetts, students at public schools have not only been forced to learn about the principles and core tenets of the religion of Islam, but they have also been forced to learn and recite the Islam conversion prayer.”  The conversion prayer is “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God.”  Sincere recitation of this confession of faith before two Muslims is the sole requirement for those who wish to join the Muslim community.

While some Christian parents are completely outraged, most of these liberal parents are one hundred percent okay with it and do not mind it at all. They must not realize this key component of the Islam is their conversion prayer, and it moves on to the other four, which are Almsgiving, Fasting during the day time during the month of Ramadan, a Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once, and Prayer five times daily. However, by simply reciting the conversion prayer, this means you are officially converted to Islam. Forcing non-Muslim students to recite the prayer, the Shahada, is simply wrong and considered manipulation.  Becoming a Muslim is very different from becoming a Christian!

The same left wing parents who want Christmas and Christian Religion out of the classroom are the ones pushing for students to learn about the Muslim Religion.  I wonder how they would respond to teaching of the plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, and the message about how God became incarnated in the Lord Jesus, how he taught God’s message, and died and rose again from the death to give us victory over sin and its judgment?

Various local and national organizations have urged public schools to make accommodations for Muslim students so that they may practice their faith.  These accommodations, already implemented to some degree in many states, help practicing Muslims attending public schools to follow the teachings of their religion above all.  Notice this is contrast to the fact that teachers in America who had Bibles on their desks have been forced to remove them so as to not offend Muslims!

Yes, schools have sought to accommodate Muslim students to give them released time for their Friday prayers off campus. Schools have tried to accommodate their beliefs through different arrangements, such as Muslim prayer rooms and prayer times to accommodate the Islamic demand for Muslims to pray five times daily—which overlaps with the classroom time often.  The Muslims have been very insistent of this, and in one instant the Christian teachers were upset when Muslim students took over the classes and began praying during class at Parkdale High School in Riverdale, Maryland, as they said it was their required prayer time.

Ann-Marie Murrell in the September 7, 2011 Patriot Update wrote an article, “ACLU Okay with Prayer in Public Schools (Muslim prayer that is)” in respect to Muslim prayer time at school and asked the question, “Would someone please explain to me why the ACLU, who has fought all-things Christian for decades, is not only okay with this but is calling everyone who doesn’t agree ‘intolerant’?”   And she went on to say, “This is the same ACLU that has (wrongly) asserted that it is unconstitutional to allow any type of prayer and/or religion in schools. Yet they’re perfectly okay with children following whatever the violent Quran tells them to do?”

American education accommodates Islam. Several state and local districts with large Muslim populations have placed Muslim holidays alongside other religious holidays on the school calendars for teachers’ information and planning.  Many schools have excusal policies that allow students to opt out of limited portions of the curriculum that offend their religious beliefs.

The Koran specifies which foods are lawful and unlawful for Muslims to eat.  Islam prescribes a particular method for slaughtering lawful animals. The meat of lawful animals, such as cows, goats, and chickens, among others that are slaughtered in this prescribed manner is commonly designated halal, or lawful. The Koran states that the food of Jews and Christians is lawful for Muslims, provided that certain conditions of method, cleanliness, and purity have been fulfilled.  The Islamic message is that our schools be sensitive to this in the preparation of school lunches that he Muslim might be provided for without conflicting with the faith.

Muslim students have been given excused absences to participate in the two major religious holidays in Islam.  School officials and teachers are requested not to schedule standardized testing or exams on these holidays and to allow for makeup time on important assignments so that Muslim students can avoid any adverse effects upon their academic efforts.

Much of the motivation for this article came in response to an article, “Islamist running140 tax-funded charter schools in U.S.”, (WorldNetDaily, by Leo Hohmann, January 17, 2016), regarding how Muhammad Fethullah Gulen heads a global empire of schools and Islamic cultural centers and is one of Turkey’s most influential spiritual leaders and how he lives in exile in the United States and has 140 charters schools in 26 states, funded by our tax payers.  He is involved in the political realm in the U.S.A. as USA TODAY reported that his faith movement had secretly funded 200 overseas trips for congressional lawmakers and staff to Islamic lands since 2008.

The charter schools purport to be secular and more academically rigorous alternatives to the public schools, and Gulen schools rake in tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year.  The schools have names such as “Horizon Science Academies” in Illinois, “Harmony School of Excellence” in Washington, D.C. or the “Magnolia Science Academies” in California.  These schools have long been the subject of investigations into alleged corruption scandals involving conflicts of interest, influence peddling and visa abuse.

Charter schools in themselves are not religious, as Jewish charter schools don’t teach the Jewish religion, the Greek Orthodox schools are dual language schools, not religious, the French dual language schools are not Catholic, and the growing number of Mandarin schools are not Buddhist schools.  But critics argue that Gulen’s charter schools also covertly engage in Islamic missionary outreach, usually after-hours or during school extra-curricular activities.  And their faculty consists of devout Muslims often brought to the U.S.A. to work in this area of outreach

It was observed that “It has been widely reported for years that he wants ultimately to restore the Islamic caliphate in Turkey. That alone should make his charter schools in the U.S. a subject of law enforcement scrutiny, but it largely hasn’t,” Geller told WND. It was also noted that “There have been allegations that funds from these schools have gone to a Turkish Islamization movement, Hizmet. The U.S. government shouldn’t be funding Gulen’s schools; it should be investigating them and shutting them down.” (WorldNetDaily, Hohmann, Jan. 17, 2016)

Most of the parents of students who attend Gulen charter schools have no idea about Gulen’s background as a Turkish Islamist and believer in civilizational jihad — which is a form of nonviolent jihad focused on infiltrating and overcoming Western nations over time through immigration and exploitation of the civil liberties available in those nations.  The Christian religion with Judeo-Christian values are basic to the freedom in our land, where the Islamic focus is very different.  There is not a functioning democratic government in any Islamic lands!

School children should not be forced to say, “There is no god but Allah.” They should not be taught Allah is the same god worshipped by Jews and Christians.   They should not be given work sheets stating “Most Muslims faith is stronger than the average Christian.”  School children should not be asked to dress up as Muslims or design Islamic prayer rugs.  They should not be forced to memorize the “Five Pillars of Islam.”  They should not be asked to agree with the statement, “All people must submit to Allah.”  They should not be asked to sing the song proclaiming, “Allah is on the way…Spread Islam now.”  The federal government should end Title VI funding of Islamic programs in the public schools.

The symbol of the Islamic religion throughout the Islamic world -the crescent moon with the star beside it-can be traced back to the pagan moon worship of the Assyrians and Babylonians. In fact, in Islam, the moon is considered the holiest astronomical object and is the guiding light of ALL Islamic rituals and festivals. Crescent moons and stars are the symbolic sign in the national flags of many Muslim countries, present over the Mosques, in Muslim graveyards, etc.

Muslims declare their worship is not of the moon, and in the same way we can say our worship is not the cross, but rather what it symbolizes.  The Word of God, however, forbids any type of moon worship, as Deuteronomy 4:19 says:  “And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.” The Bible as well warns in Isaiah 47:13 to avoid the teachings of the “astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators.”  The roots of Islam date back to supreme God in the moon worship.

One of the primary reasons Islamic and Western nations are “worlds apart” is because the way they understand the world is worlds apart. This dichotomy of Muslim and Western thinking is evident everywhere.  When the Islamic State declared that it will “conquer Rome” and “break its crosses,” few in the West realized that those are the verbatim words and goals of Islam’s founder and his companions as recorded in Muslim sources—words and goals that prompted over a thousand years of jihad on Europe.  What is symbolized by the “Cross” and what is symbolized by the “Moon” don’t fit together in the long run!  We need to be aware of this as the tentacles Islam are reaching out in the American education at our time!

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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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