Noah Feldman, who last year published the book "Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem -- and What We Should Do About It", was the main speaker at a recent event at The Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life. From someone who has a Jewish background, an academic interest in Islamic law and has written about Evangelicals, Feldman approaches church-state issues from an inter-religious, international and pragmatic perspective.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has castigated Sirius Satellite Radio's outrageous new shock jock for his arrogance and ungodly speech. They've called him an "embarrassment" who "bears responsibility to retract, rethink, repent, and restate his position" after his on-air endorsement of political assassination. But the SBC -- America's largest Protestant denomination, with more than 16.3 million members nationwide -- has stopped short of calling for this noxious but powerful broadcaster to be yanked off the air. In fact, the SBC now has a partnership with Sirius to beam his show to the whole planet. (Because in space radio, everyone can hear you scream.)

Howard Stern? Don't be ridiculous -- Stern doesn't advocate political assassinations. The SBC's new shock jock is a real worldwide media king -- one with a daily television broadcast audience that, according to the New York Times, has "more viewers than CNBC or MSNBC in prime time." We're talking about Pat Robertson, who should be taken seriously, not dismissed as a blowhard buffoon.

Fundamentalist religious interpretation claims to speak for all within its faith, which is (of course) ridiculous and anti-pluralistic (and anti-realistic). Within the American Christian community, as with ANY community, there are wildly different views on many issues. We have heard ad nauseam this idea of an inerrant Bible saying that the earth is around 6000 years old, and the Bush Administration has even allowed the placement of books in the Grand Canyon bookshop which say this! This is called the "Young Earth" argument. Schroeder Publishing, a Southern California Christian publisher, has put some time and effort explaining this pseudo-science, and is active in debunking the argument within a Christian context. Their message - TRUTH is more important than ideology, and "Old Earth" science is not only NOT incompatible with the Bible, but common sense.

As the public schools in this country fall more and more into lockstep with the government-funded and religiously motivated 'abstinence only' sexual education, what does this spell for the future health and education of our young people?

Silja Tavli has written an important essay entitled "Cult of Character" that is posted on the In These Times website.  She examines the work of Bill Gothard and his Character Training Institute.

Like Tavli, I suspect that the Character Training Institute is a Dominionist organization that employs stealth methods to spread its message.

Since the 1980's TV reporters and other researchers have been comparing the academic performance of American students with that of students in other developed countries and declaring that our public schools are failing.

Their shallow research receives much wider dissemination than it deserves because it serves the political purposes of people who have been trying to dismantle public schools since the day they were integrated.

In an article that mentions the Southern Baptist Convention's Dominionist "Exodus" movement, Ethics Daily reports that ABC's John Stossel will have a report critical of "government schools" that will air on 20/20 Friday evening. I suspect that it will add yet another chapter to an ongoing saga of cheap attacks on the underpaid professionals who devote their lives to teaching children in America's underfunded public schools.

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Between the holidays , the triumphant conclusion of the Dover intelligent design lawsuit and the NSA spying scandal, this story has gotten a little lost in the last week, but I think it's significant.  Last week, the Odessa, Texas school board voted to adopt a bible study curriculum created by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools , a dominionist outfit whose advisory board includes D. James Kennedy, David Barton and Howard Phillips.

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If there was any doubt whether Southern Baptists officially endorse Intelligent Design, Richard Land has laid those doubts to rest. Here's a quote about the ID decision in Dover from yesterday's Washington Post:

Sometimes, we need to consult the wisdom of our esteemed story tellers when contemplating a problematic issue like Intelligent Design and its apparent 'stickiness' in so many places.

I like Mark Twain's take on things, and he appears to have a pretty rational solution:

"Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution -- these can lift at a colossal humbug -- push it a little -- weaken it a little over the course of a century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."

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Those who doubt there are links between Southern Baptists and theocratic Christian Reconstructionists should look inside the front cover of the December 2004 issue of the Chalcedon Report. There the chief publishing house for Reconstructionist thought, Chalcedon, announces that it has published Bruce Shortt's book, The Harsh Truth About Public Schools. Bruce Shortt, along with T.C. Pinckney, leads the movement against public schools within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Across America two armies are poised to wage war over how children should be taught to read.  One army demands attention to the "drill" of "phonics."  The other army commands standing "at ease" with "whole language."  Most Americans have been deaf to the conflicting orders issuing from these armies, but the bugle is being sounded and our children and grandchildren will soon be caught in the crossfire of what may well become a significant skirmish in America's culture wars.

This USA Today article by Charles S. Haynes of the First Amendment Center hasn't drawn much attention in the blogosphere. Our pals Bruce Prescott and  Carlos Stouffer are the exception. Here's what caught Carlos' eye:

In spite of these positive developments, some opponents of public schools stick to the storyline of the Godless school where guns get in the door but prayers are banned. These are the "Restorers," people who long to bring back the "good old days" when one religion (historically Protestant Christianity) was preferred in school policies and practices. Still angry that the courts won't allow school officials to promote religion with prayers over the intercom or by posting the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, the Restorers downplay or ignore all of the ways in which religion is alive and well in schools. Any concession that things have changed for the better would undermine their call for an "exodus" from "atheistic government schools," to quote a recent direct-mail letter from a religious conservative group.

Of course, it doesn't help that people on the other end of the spectrum -- the "Removers" -- are determined to scrub every vestige of religion from the classroom. Proposals to teach more about religions are attacked as backdoor ways to impose religion. Policies designed to protect students' religious expression are seen as efforts to encourage evangelization and harassment.

But to my mind, these grafs are the interesting ones:

Caught in the crossfire, it's not surprising that some school officials are still nervous about implementing the consensus guidelines or that some teachers remain afraid to touch religion, whatever the standards say.

And it's no mystery why many students and parents are confused about what is and isn't allowed under the First Amendment. Nevertheless, the quiet revolution begun 20 years ago continues to spread.

All of the changes - the Equal Access Act, new standards and textbooks, consensus guides - are built on this: Under the First Amendment, public schools may not inculcate or inhibit religion. This means that school officials must be careful to protect the religious liberty rights of students of all faiths and none. And they must ensure that the curriculum includes study about religion (as distinguished from religious indoctrination) as an important part of a complete education.

To see what this looks like, visit Ramona, Calif.; Davis County, Utah; Mustang, Okla.; or any one of the many other school districts that have successfully translated the national agreements into local policies and practices that take the First Amendment seriously.

Instead of lawsuits and shouting matches, these communities have come together to find common ground on how to protect student religious expression while guarding against school endorsement of religion. Visit schools in these districts and you'll see teachers teaching about religions without controversy, students practicing their faith during the school day without interfering with the rights of others, and school officials handling potential conflicts over religion with the support and trust of their communities. Getting it right, however, won't be easy after more than 150 years of getting it wrong.

I'll tell you why below the fold.