I saw this item in Huffington Post.
Science advocates in Texas won a battle last month after the State Board of Education voted to approve new science textbooks that teach evolution. However, they don't seem to have won the war.
During a debate Thursday, three of the four Republican candidates in the state’s lieutenant governor race said that they think creationism should be taught in public schools, according to The Texas Tribune. While the fourth candidate, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, did not specifically state his beliefs on the subject, he later told The Dallas Morning News that he thinks creationism should be taught in schools, just not in science class.
For my reaction to this crisis, follow me below the
Orange Omnilepticon.
It's typical of mealy-mouthed politicians to seize on a solution to a problem that is simple, easy, fast, and wrong. Attempting to use the schools to fix the failings of the religious-industrial-financial complex is a testimony to how beholden they are to the corrupt religious bosses who run it, and their legions of deluded shock troops, AKA "church thugs."
If the children of Texas are failing to get a firm grasp of such fundamentals as Creation Theory, it's clear the real source of the problem is the failure of churches to carry out their basic mission: educate them in the ways of the Lord and raise them up so they shall not depart from them in adult life. There are a series of reforms that need to be instituted ASAP.
• There is a critical dearth of basic information. How can church members rate the effectiveness of their houses of worship without good numbers? Obviously the state needs to address this by instituting a system of standardized testing that will periodically evaluate the children in those institutions and identify those that consistently fail to measure up.
• This will require a Common Core of religious fundamentals that need to be taught in every church. In this way, it will be possible to give every child a uniform set of religious skills that will enable them to compete with the faithful of other nations. The global faith-based system of moral behavior is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century. Without these skills, the children of Texas will be doomed to perdition.
• It's also critical to identify religious leaders who don't measure up. Again, there needs to be outcome-based testing to spotlight those who are failing their congregations. We need to impose testing to look at failure rates in such areas as divorce, alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, marital infidelity, sex out of wedlock, and other sinful behaviors. Leaders of congregations who consistently fail to address these problems within their flocks need to be removed and replaced by people who can get the job done.
• We need to take a serious look at other traditional practices. It may no longer be enough to expect one or two hours of dedicated worship one day a week to fill the critical need for faith in an immoral world. We may need to increase worship hours and consider imposing them at non-traditional times. A crisis of faith can happen anywhere, at any time; we need to look at just-in-time solutions to make more efficient use of our religious infrastructure.
• It's time to shake up the process of how we inculcate faith in our citizens. Where traditional churches consistently fail to meet their objectives, it's time to look at Charter Churches, using the power of the markets to instill more competition in the industry and offer religious consumers a better range of choices for their religious needs. Just as market-based reforms have revitalized other failing institutions, it's time for churches to get up to speed.
• The power of the Internet should not be overlooked. Online-preaching combined with home-worshipping promises to revolutionize the practice of faith and the moral education of our children in a family-based setting. Why shouldn't children be able to take advantage of the best and brightest leaders in the field of religion to better pursue salvation within the comforts of their homes and families? The adoption of MOOW (Massive Online Open Worship) could make a fundamental difference.
• It's important to not ignore financial oversight. How many congregations have no idea what kind of ROI they are getting on their tithes and offerings? External audits should be an option they can call on as needed.
• There is also the need to impose reforms among the work force. What kind of wages and benefits should preachers and other religious professionals expect when the rest of the world is being asked to tighten their belts in a competitive global religious marketplace? Reform is needed in this area. No preacher or other professional in the field should expect lifetime tenure if they fail to maintain high standards of performance, fail to remain current with the state of the art, or otherwise neglect the need to continually go back to school to refresh their skills.
• Mentoring should also have a place in religious reform. Individuals within congregations who are identified as having superior religious skills should be partnered with those struggling to master the material. Leading and learning by example is a recognized best practice, as are such other peer-based techniques as shaming and ostracization.
Texas faces a crisis. Only by adopting real solutions that directly address the real sources of Religious Shortfall in so many outcomes can the state hope to move forward. If the Great State of Texas, Gold Buckle on the Bible Belt, can't lead the way - who else can?