Notes from Judges Introduction

Steven,
You have been direct with me so allow me to be direct with you. Churches have been meeting in schools in this country for decades at the very least, if not for 100 to 200 years. It is not a violation of anything in any way, shape, or form. A Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Atheist group meeting in a government or publicly owned facility in no way constitutes the government establishing that religion, nor can it be considered an approval of the beliefs of that group. In fact, our church helps support the school district by paying rent for the use of the facilities. We have done so for several years. The district rents to private parties, non-profit groups like sports clubs, as well as religious non-profit groups like churches. If it were illegal, the school district would certainly know about it and wouldn’t be doing it, nor would any of the other thousands of churches that rent schools all over the country. Your statement “Churches are not allowed to use school property, period.” is unfounded. It may be your opinion, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the constitution or the law. Contact whoever you want, however you want to contact them, we aren’t doing anything wrong. I don’t say that to be snarky, just to communicate that the law is already on our side. I have taken the liberty of forwarding your message to the business office at the school district. We have a great and long-standing working relationship with the school district and I don’t think there will be any problems. Again, not snarky, just the reality of the situation.
As for “spreading darkness and ignorance at a place that represents learning and understanding” I could only speculate as to how you have come to that conclusion, but two categories come to mind. 1) You have had bad, incomplete, or corrupt examples of Christians, Christianity, or instruction in what the Bible says. 2) You have never openly or honestly investigated the truth claims of Jesus or the Bible for yourself and have dismissed them out of hand. The first one I can empathize with because I’ve been the victim of that one as well. Sadly, many people are victims of bad examples. One of my own personal missions is to undo as much of that damage as I can. One of my other personal missions is to address the second category, to help people investigate the truth claims of Jesus and the Bible in a safe and honest way. It wasn’t until I had done that for myself that I came to learn and understand that the Bible is true. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, I went through the public education system up into college, I know what is taught and how it is taught. It’s more than kind of ironic that the first tool used in this country’s public education system to teach children how to read and write was the Bible. It’s also more than kind of ironic that most of the major educational institutions in this country were started by churches as seminaries.
I took the liberty of briefly looking at your website and was interested to learn that you are 34 years old. I’m 35. We are pretty close to being in the same place in life. I don’t know if you are married with kids or not. I’ve been married for 14 years and have two boys that are 11 and 12. I don’t say any of that to brag or try to one-up or anything, just to give you an idea where I’m coming from. I would be more than happy to engage in a constructive, honest, ongoing dialog with you, whether that be online or in person, and discuss whatever you’d like to discuss as to the veracity of Jesus and the Bible, or the issue of church and state for that matter. If you’ve had a bad example of Christians in the past I’d like to help undo that. If you have never investigated the Bible for yourself, I’d be more than happy to do that with you as well. I am constantly investigating, constantly learning, constantly asking questions and finding answers, be they spiritual, historical, philosophical, or scientific. If you are interested, I’m available.