{"id":7248,"date":"2012-02-17T12:30:46","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=7248"},"modified":"2012-02-18T16:32:13","modified_gmt":"2012-02-19T00:32:13","slug":"empty-buildings-nyc-kicks-churches-out-of-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/empty-buildings-nyc-kicks-churches-out-of-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Empty Buildings, NYC Kicks Churches out of Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck
Chuck Colson<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Chuck Colson –
\nIt\u2019s no secret that Christianity has been unwelcome in public schools for a long time. But recently New York City\u2019s government took an unprecedented step by forcing around 60 churches to vacate sanctuaries they pay to use.<\/p>\n

Why? Because Monday through Friday, those sanctuaries also happen to be classrooms.<\/p>\n

This deadline was set back in December, when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the 2nd Circuit\u2019s decision upholding the City\u2019s crass discrimination against communities of faith. New York at this time is the only major city in the nation to ban religious services in its school buildings. But this precedent does not bode well for what may happen in other cities.<\/p>\n

The reasoning behind this decision was ludicrous. In his ruling, Circuit Judge Pierre Leval claimed that renting school property to churches implies \u201can unintended bias in favor of Christian religions,\u201d that makes public schools look like \u201cstate-sponsored Christian churches\u2026but not synagogues or mosques.\u201d <\/p>\n

New York City Department of Education spokeswoman Marge Feinberg, agreed: \u201cPublic school space[s]\u2026 which are funded by taxpayers\u2019 dollars\u2026cannot and should not be used for worship services, especially because school space is not equally available to all faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hogwash. The last I checked, Muslim and Jewish groups weren\u2019t standing in line waiting for a room on a Saturday or Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

But more than that, it\u2019s out-of-touch, both with history and reality. Public schools and churches in this nation have always shared space, dating back to the early, single-teacher schools that met in church buildings on the frontier. And today around the nation, thousands of congregations meet every week in public schools. If that\u2019s a government endorsement of Christianity, then what about the millions of Americans who will cast their ballots this November in church buildings?<\/p>\n

In addition to their blatant discrimination, city officials are also shooting themselves in the fiscal foot and harming the community.<\/p>\n

By renting space, New York churches help alleviate budget shortfalls \u2014 something which, according to Fernando Santos of The New York Times \u2014 has hit the city\u2019s schools hard. Without religious tenants, schools will find themselves further in the hole and may have to lay off more employees, including teachers.<\/p>\n

Tim Keller, my good friend and pastor of New York\u2019s Redeemer Presbyterian, says, \u201cFamily stability, resources for those in need, and compassion for the marginalized are all positive influences that neighborhood churches provide.\u201d He\u2019s right. George Russ of the New York Metropolitan Baptist Association noted that some churches have \u201cpurchased furniture for the teacher’s lounge; they’ve given video equipment to the schools. They’ve done so many thank-you kinds of projects.”<\/p>\n

But all this apparently means nothing to New York bureaucrats and the Circuit Court in their effort to expunge religion from public life.<\/p>\n

Christians introduced the virtue or tolerance into Western civilization, and we cherish it to this day. But apparently our faith is too much for the New York City government to tolerate in its empty buildings \u2014 even long after the bell has rung.<\/p>\n

HT: Break Point<\/a> (read full article)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chuck Colson – It\u2019s no secret that Christianity has been unwelcome in public schools for a long time. But recently New York City\u2019s government took an unprecedented step by forcing around 60 churches to vacate sanctuaries they pay to use. Why? Because Monday through Friday, those sanctuaries also happen to be classrooms. This deadline … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113,79,142,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-persecution","category-freedom","category-leftist-tyranny","category-religion-in-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}