The two sides in the Christian T-shirt conflict might want to take a step back and draw a breath. Jesus, who is supposedly at the centre of the controversy, surely would have suggested as much.
William Swinimer, a Grade 12 student at Forest Heights Community School, was suspended for five days last week. While the T-shirt he was wearing has been identified as the major infraction in the dispute, it sounds as though there is a lot more to this story, which has drawn international media coverage.
The slogan, “Life is Wasted Without Jesus,” seems fairly innocuous to me. In most cases, such a T-shirt might prompt little more than a shrug. School boards have rules against offensive messages on clothing, but Swinimer’s T-shirt would surely fall into the low range of potential violations.
But Swinimer told The Chronicle Herald last week that his conflict at school goes much deeper than that.
“It’s not about the T-shirt,” he said. “It’s about stopping me from talking about my religion. The T-shirt is just the thing they got me on.”
I think suspensions are an outdated, convenient way to punish students who put themselves on the wrong side of school rules. Sending kids home will certainly get the attention of parents, but a suspension is certainly not a discipline choice that enhances a child’s classroom learning.
The five-day suspension handed to Swinimer last week reportedly followed attempts to work out a reasonable compromise and previous in-school disciplinary measures. Other students have complained Swinimer is aggressively preaching his religion to them against their will and that he has told them they are going to hell.
At what point, pray tell, does religious evangelism become harassment?
From his own religious perspective, Swinimer may be well intended. But if his real goal is to encourage other students to adopt his beliefs or join his church, the complaints from his peers would suggest his campaign has not been particularly effective. Rather than drawing people to him, he is pushing them away.
The suspension might not have been the best solution, but the school and the board are clearly on the right footing with the subsequent decision to hold a facilitator-led forum at the school on Monday to enable students to “engage in conversations related to expressing beliefs in a complex, multicultural school environment.”
That didn’t sit well with Swinimer’s father, John, who showed up camera-ready with his New Testament, just in time to preach to the media about why he was hauling his son out of school — minutes after William arrived back at Forest Heights Monday morning.
Good grief, why didn’t he just keep his son at home?
“He will not attend this school unless they are having reading, writing and arithmetic — good old-fashioned academics,” John Swinimer said. “When they’re having forums, when they’re having other extracurricular activity, he will not attend that school.”
Shucks, sounds like he and the board are on the same page: Schools are a place for children to learn, not a place to ostracize, exclude or well, preach religious doctrine. I doubt John Swinimer intended to publicly prioritize the board’s educational mandate, but that is, in fact, exactly what he ended up doing.
It is his right as a parent to exclude his son from an in-school discussion about a school’s responsibility to offer an environment of tolerance. But it is a decision that speaks volumes.
Governments don’t represent only the Christians in our country; the very Charter of Rights that William Swinimer is invoking to defend his right to freedom of speech is also intended to offer an inclusive environment in our government-funded schools that is welcoming to children from families of all faiths.
As for determining whether anybody is going to hell, how about if we leave that decision to a higher power?
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: MARILLA STEPHENSON
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