Recognition of Faith

Showed up in my inbox this morning:

1) Jews do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

2) Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith.

3) Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.

Heh heh. Indeed. Disclosure: I was raised in Southern Baptist churches, albeit mostly in staunchly liberal ones. That breed mostly doesn't exist any longer here in North Carolina, having either left the SBC or been kicked out for not being sufficiently unpleasant toward homosexuals.

In other faith-based news, the legality of including religious schools in Florida's voucher program is currently being debated in appeals court there. By nature, I'm pretty suspicious about giving tax dollars to religious schools - and I think religious schools should be just as suspicious of it - but I'm pretty agnostic on the voucher question as long as it's happening in other states. It's a bad policy approach , but you can't stop other people from trying out bad ideas. They will eventually figure out on their own that it didn't help and try something else. But best of luck fighting those churches when you try to stop the vouchers.

However, for completely unrelated reasons, I was struck by this paragraph:

Two-thirds of all private schools are religious, but about three-quarters of all schools using vouchers in Florida are religious. The Palm Beach Post said Sunday that 869 of the 1,158 private schools taking vouchers are religious schools. They represent 48 different denominations, 97 percent of which are some denomination of Christianity, including 160 Catholic schools and 138 Baptist ones. Thirteen of the state's 38 Jewish schools, nine of the 11 Muslim schools and both of Florida's Hare Krishna schools get vouchers.

I had forgotten about Krishna schools. Reading that, I remembered that there had been a big lawsuit by former students alleging sexual abuse a few years back. Wondering what had happened to it, I found out that a judge in Texas dismissed the $400M lawsuit back in August, on the basis that individuals should be charged criminally, rather than targeting the church under RICO, the anti-racketeering statute. The Krishnas had the support of the National Council of Churches, the United States Catholic Conference (yeah, I'll bet), the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and the American Jewish Congress.

Y'know, I'll bet music class at the Krishna schools gets a little old. "This semester, we'll be exploring finger cymbals! [pause] Same song, though. One, two, Hare Hare..."

Oh, and that study that showed patients healed faster when people prayed for them? Folks here in town haven't had much luck reproducing those results.