Just a Harmless Islamic Phrase?

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Once again, a major news source, one that is supposed to be trusted to bring you unbiased news has spun a story to support only one side of an issue.  For those of my friends who may be tempted to buy into CNN's intentional editorializing of this article, let me explain why this is a much bigger issue than this article makes it seem.

If your child was homosexual and his teacher asked him to write, "Homosexuality is evil, and homosexuals are going to burn in hell," you would be angry.

If your child was Jewish and her teacher asked her to write, "Hitler was a kind man who tried to help German Christians have a better life," you would be angry.

Just as you would want the school system to allow your child the freedom to believe what they want without bullying or condemnation, Christians want the same.

Perhaps you're thinking that the Christians should be able to write the phrase as long as they don't actually believe it.  Well, first of all, if you asked a Muslim child to write, "Allah is a false god. Jesus is Messiah.  He is the only true god," you would not only piss off the Muslim parents, but the Jews as well.  Second, Christians believe that acknowledging any God other than the God of the Bible is so wrong that many throughout history have been martyred before they were willing to do so.  Third, If you think martyrdom is going too far, perhaps you still haven't grasped the fact that just because you don't believe it doesn't make it less viable to those who do.

We have gotten to the point, whether you believe it or not, that the majority of Christians in the USA feel persecuted and discriminated against.  They feel attacked and picked on.  I personally don't send my children to public school partly because I feel they would be in a harmful environment.

Let me say that again.  The system that is supposed to be here to help my children get an education, the system that I support with my tax dollars has become so toxic toward people of my faith that I cannot, in good conscience allow my children to go there without fear that they will be damaged.

According to the article, they are going to replace the Islamic statement of faith with a different Islamic phrase. My question is this?  If the school system is truly trying to eliminate any religious affiliations to the point where kids are asked not to bring religious books to school, why in the world would they choose a religious phrase for the children to copy?

I love, love, love the idea of introducing the children to the beauty and complexity of calligraphy.  I myself have studied calligraphy over the years and enjoy using my, perhaps less than perfect skill from time to time. This was intentional.  This was an educators test to see how much the school system will allow.  This was someone putting a purposely anti-Christian phrase into a textbook to see if it would slip by unnoticed.  I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist right now, but if you step back and truly look at this objectively you will see that this could have been very easily avoided if the authors of the textbook wanted to be benign.

So, yes.  This situation caused a lot of chaos.  You will probably see angry Christians talk about this on social media.  Your first reaction, if you read the CNN article will be to dismiss the Christian uproar as being unnecessarily agitated.  You may even be tempted to post snarky retorts about the ridiculousness of your Christian friends reactions.  But before you add to the hate and the anger, please consider that if it was you being discriminated against, if it was your child who was asked to do something you are vehemently opposed to, if someone you loved was going through this type of unnecessary, easily avoidable persecution, would you still laugh at their pain?  Would you dismiss their anger and their frustration?