Christianity in Public Schooling and in the Larger Society

As far as privilege is concerned, I recall going to church one time, and it’s a UCC/Baptist church, with my brother and his Taiwanese friend. As the congregation got up to greet each other, it’s customary to say “peace of god be with you.” My brother’s friend is Buddhist so he was telling me, after the service, that he would shake a person’s hand and take the “God” out. So he would say, “peace be with you.” I had become so accustomed to Christian services that the idea of different religions calling God something else slipped my mind.

 There were a couple of spots where Blumenfeld seemed to trail a bit off topic. When discussing how Christmas, Blumenfeld talked about “ the promotion of music, especially Christmas, by radio stations, and Christmas special played on TV” (250).” Most of the advertising for Christmas does not stem from Christian views, but the capitalist view of buying presents. So the comparison with Christmas music seemed a bit off because generally the music is not song from a hymnal.   

            Japanese concentration camps in America also felt like a bit of a stretch from religion. Isn’t that more a discussion on being Asian then being Buddhist? Those were the only two spots that confused me.

            Reading about the hate crimes against Muslims that occurred after September 11, 2001 was informative. I recall watching a 20/20 episode about Islam in America and it allowed me to see how disillusioned Islamic extremist have marred the religion with their anti-western teachings. I saw how the majority of people practicing Islam would cringe at the thought of even categorizing the extremists as Islamic.

            If you stop to think about it, Christian missionary groups have that same effect on Christianity, at least for me. I cringe just thinking about a group of people that go to different cultures and say, “Your beliefs are wrong. You’ll be damned to hell if you don’t change your ways.” That’s like Nazi brain washing.