Sure we can be stupid.  Sure we can be selfish.  Sure we can do lots of dumb things as the church.  And no excuses for them.  But deep down the world seethes with hatred for Jesus.  It burns with an unquenchable loathing (and it will be unquenchable) for the fact that Jesus is king of the universe and rules it by his righteous word. The world hates Jesus.  And if the world hates Jesus it will hate you if you love Jesus.

At least we’re cutting to the chase now in our culture.

At least we’re cutting through all the cant about how the problem we have is that people hate the church but deep down really love Jesus.

At least we’re not going to spend acres of time and millions of dollars devising strategies around the idea that if we can just get minimise the idea of church, and maximise the idea about Jesus then those who hate church will start to see what we’re really about and join us.

At least all the hand wringers who are post-church Christians (is that a thing?) can stop calling on us to put Jesus front and centre, or at least the image of Jesus that is churchless, scripture-less and therefore weightless, and get church off the agenda.

For as reported in The Australian newspaper today the Queensland Education Department has moved to ban Jesus from the playground in its state government schools.

Here’s what the article reports:

Talking about Jesus, exchanging Christmas cards and encouraging Christianity have been targeted under an unofficial policy from education bureaucrats that takes aim at junior evangelists in Queensland primary school yards.

The article goes on to state:

Examples of evangelising cited in the review, as well as two earlier reviews into religious ­instruction providers, include sharing Christmas cards that refer to Jesus’s birth, creating Christmas tree decorations to give away and making beaded bracelets to give to friends “as a way of sharing the good news about Jesus”.

At least they are honest.  At least they admit that the news about Jesus clashes with the good news about sex that the same departments will  pay good money to have foisted upon their (our) students.

Now as readers of this blog will know by now, I am completely relaxed about state schools being state schools and there not being a religious education component to their curriculum.  That may buck the trend or upset some others, but here in good old Western Australia there has been a decidedly secular frame to most state schools, and little inroad for SRE classes or the like.

And I don’t expect Christianity to have a place of privilege in the culture, so I’m not placarding for formal structures in schools.  But informal friendship?  A genuine desire from a young child to share something that’s important to them with their mates? Gimme a break!

I can see the Jesus Patrol teacher on duty in the school yard in mid December:

“Hey Carruthers, are you proselytising with those Christmas cards again? Fifty lines: I must not tell people about Jesus!”

“But sir!”

“No buts Carruthers! For that you are on clean up duty for a week as well  And don’t let me catch you coming back to me with 12 baskets full just to prove a point!”

It’s pathetic.

Mind you I am not sure what evil motives they think these junior evangelists would be hiding behind. Perhaps there is genuine fear behind the locked walls of the Queensland Education Department.

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