Religious Discrimination
There are a couple of stories of personal interest to me one involving a school district in Indiana attempting to deny the rights of a student to practice his religion. A sixth grader in Lowell Indiana has been threatened with expulsion if his family takes him out of school for about a week to attend a religious festival in October. There are several stories on it. A recent synopsis can be found at http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
I find it amazing that in 2005 a school would attempt this blatant religious discrimination. This story has been going on for a while and at first I figured eventually saner heads would prevail at the school district but apparently not and now the US Justice Department is having to get involved. I have no doubt the district will end up having to change its policy. This is of personal interest because I also am a member of the church involved, The United Church of God. http://www.ucg.org/ I grew up keeping the days in question and still do. I took the same time off school and never once had a real problem with administrators or teachers. I would get assignments and do them while away. In fact I usually came back further ahead than the rest of the class and they had to catch up to me instead of the other way around. This is an obvious case where the school needs to make a religious accommodation. It does not put an undue burden on the district, does not disrupt school and is not a danger to other students. The school district needs to do the right thing, save the district money in legal fees that could certainly be put to better use and accommodate the student.
On a related note the reason The United Church of God was formed was because of radical doctrinal changes in the Worldwide Church of God. Without going into a long history, at one time The Worldwide Church of God had over 140,000 members. Beginning in the early 90’s subtle doctrinal changes were introduced culminating in massive changes in 1995-96. At that time thousands left. The United Church of God formed at that time primarily from those who disagreed with the doctrinal changes. Smaller amounts either formed their own churches or went elsewhere. Others either gave up religion altogether or continue to practice by themselves. Presently The Worldwide Church of God has anywhere probably from 30,000 to 60,000 members depending on who is doing the counting and who they are counting. It is an interesting study of a church dynamic. The United Church of God is the largest of the groups with around 16,000 members. The Living Church of God has around 8,000 members and various other groups probably total several thousand more. So at best probably around 30,000 from the original 140,000 had enough conviction to hold on to their beliefs. I bring this up because now The Worldwide Church of God is studying name changes. I have no doubt that in the near future it will happen thus in their eyes completing their transformation to traditional Christianity of course in many of our eyes it simply puts an exclamation point on their plunge into heresy.
The lesson here is that so many people were willing to toss away religious convictions when challenged. I’m sure there are many different reasons why. Some perhaps were just there for the socialization and the religion was secondary, others maybe never really examined their beliefs. We see similar things in other churches. Take Catholicism for example. In the US especially people who consider themselves good Catholics will disagree with the doctrines on that church on birth control, abortion, priesthood celibacy, etc. All of which are major doctrines of that church. I am not trying to pick on Catholics. The same could be found probably in any denomination. The question I have to ask then is if someone disagrees with so many fundamental doctrines, why are they there?
I would encourage all who attend a church to examine their beliefs. Are they in line with what is being taught and if not who is wrong, you or the church you attend? Use the Bible to find the answers to those questions.
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