Although persecuted, Sudan’s Christian population is growing - Rendering unto Bashir

Rendering unto Bashir Although persecuted, Sudan"s Christian population is growing

Life may be awful in Muslim Sudan, but it is even worse in largely-Christian South Sudan

Print edition | Middle East and Africa

Nov 23rd 2017 | KHARTOUM

“IF SOUTH SUDAN secedes,” Omar al-Bashir told supporters at a rally in 2010, “we will change the constitution”, paying no attention to “diversity of culture”. The Sudanese president revisited the subject two years later. “Our template is clear: a 100% Islamic constitution,” he said in a speech to Muslim leaders in the capital, Khartoum. As for non-Muslims: “Nothing will preserve your rights except for Islamic sharia.”

The south seceded in 2011, taking with it most of Sudan"s Christians. After the split churches in the north were burned. Then came demolitions: at least 20 since 2011. Four took place in August this year. About 27 other churches are listed for bulldozing. The government says it is merely removing unlicensed buildings. But only churches seem to be getting knocked down. In any case, the government announced in 2013 that it would no longer grant licences for the construction of new churches. “Christians have no rights here any longer,” says Reverend Kuwa Shamal of the Sudanese Church of Christ, one of several church leaders who have been arrested on specious charges of spying and undermining the constitution. Upgrade your inbox

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Sudan"s treatment of Christians has long been dire. Forced assimilation in the 1980s and 1990s helped spark its decades-long civil war. “Denial of religious freedom” was cited by Bill Clinton, then America"s president, among his reasons for imposing sanctions on Sudan in 1997. A peace agreement with southern rebels in 2005 brought some respite, but “after the independence of South Sudan the government decided there was no space for Christians,” says Muhanad Nur, a human-rights lawyer in Khartoum.

Many Western observers agree. On November 17th America"s deputy secretary of state, John Sullivan, told Sudan to stop smashing churches. Open Doors, an NGO, ranks Sudan as the fifth-worst country in the world for the persecution of Christians. In June, American congressmen from both parties wrote to President Donald Trump urging him to delay lifting sanctions for another year, citing in particular “state-sanctioned persecution of Christians”. (They were lifted anyway on October 12th to prise Sudan from the orbit of Iran, a long-standing ally.)

Although foreigners focus on Sudan"s central government, much of the repression is happening locally and sporadically. Church demolitions in Khartoum, for instance, are carried out by local authorities. Many suspect they are more interested in grabbing valuable land than in suppressing religious minorities. The governor of Khartoum, Abdel Rahim Muhammad Hussein, has threatened to kick out tens of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, many of whom are Christian. He claims they cause insecurity and spread disease. Such words are worrying when coming from a man who, like Mr Bashir, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity.

Yet Sudanese citizens are far more welcoming. Sudan still has many Christian schools, most of whose pupils are Muslim. And many of the Christians that Sudan lost when the south broke away have since returned: about half a million South Sudanese have crossed the border since the start of a civil war there in 2013. Father Juma Charles of St Matthew"s Catholic Cathedral in Khartoum says that so many of his flock have returned that prayer centres that were closed in 2011 are open again. This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print edition under the headline"Rendering unto Bashir" About The Economist Be the first to comment Reuse this content

A classical alternative to the SAT & ACT

A classical alternative to the SAT & ACT

August 3, 2017 by Gene Veith 0 Comments COUNT

High school graduates who want to go to college nearly always have to take the SAT or the ACT, the college entrance exams that universities use to assess prospective students for admission and scholarships.

These tests do not measure knowledge, as such, as implied when teachers warn against “teaching to the test.” Rather, they measure aptitude, a student"s academic skills. Thus, much of the tests consist of having students read passages of various difficulties and answer questions about them designed to assess comprehension and analytical ability. Other parts of the test measure vocabulary, logical reasoning, and the ability to do math problems. (The math section is the one part of the test that depends on the specific content of what the student learned in high school, drawing on algebra, geometry, and some calculus and trigonometry.)

But content is also important. Progressive education in general focuses on skills rather than knowledge, which fits the SAT and ACT. But how can a student handle challenging content? Can the student interact with great ideas? Can the student understand works of literature, philosophy and history? Or a scientific article? Or a discussion of theology?

The new classical schools work on those kinds of questions. Their curriculum–used also by many homeschoolers–is more challenging than the typical school that follows some version of progressive educational theory. Their students generally do well on the SAT and ACT, but there has not really been a test to assess how well they do with what they have been taught.

But now there is such a test. The Classic Learning Test (CLT) is an alternative to the SAT and ACT. One of the developers talks about it after the jump.

Homeschoolers, classical charter schools, ACCS schools, and Classical Lutheran schools should take a look at this test. Their students may still need to take the SAT or ACT, depending on what college they want to attend. So far, 67 schools accept the CLA in lieu of the other exams. (Concordias, why don"t you?) But having their students take the CLA is also a good way for classical schools to see how they are doing.

Here is the CLA website.

From Mark Bauerlein, A Test for Classical Christian Students | Mark Bauerlein | First Things:

“No more teaching to the test!” is the battle cry of the growing anti-testing movement in primary and secondary education in America. But there is one area where we need more tests, not fewer—or rather, more choices of which test to take: college admissions. There, we have a two-party system, consisting of SAT and ACT. In the class of 2015, 1.7 million kids took the SAT, nearly two million the ACT. How many of these kids would have found the college application process less alienating and more authentic (and therefore a better gauge of their talents) if they had had more options from which to choose?

An alternative has been developed. It"s called the Classic Learning Test, a college entrance examination that tests for verbal and quantitative reasoning. I helped develop the project in 2015, because it looked so much more calibrated to the teaching I do in freshman classes than do the other options. The CLT resembles other standardized tests, except that it breaks the area of verbal reasoning (which other tests treat as one) down into four sub-areas: Philosophy/Religion, Natural Science, Literature, and Historical/Founding Documents. Those areas reflect the contents of a classical Christian curriculum. Whereas the SAT and ACT adopt a value-neutral approach, often because of “bias” fears, the CLT selects passages deeply and frankly value-heavy, ones that ask students to grapple with strong and often difficult moral implications.

The project is only a few years old, but 67 colleges have already agreed to accept scores on it instead of SAT and ACT if students submit them. More than 125 high schools across the country currently serve as local testing centers. Students can take the exam at one of the centers, receive their scores in less than a week, and have them sent directly to any of the colleges listed on the test"s web site. Students who have attended schools that assigned great works of Western civilization—or who home-schooled using a Great Books curriculum—will be pleased to find an exam that rewards them for the knowledge they"ve acquired.

News - Student Publishes Comparison of ACT and Classic Learning Test | Heartland Institute

Looking to Enroll fin Classical Education or the CLT Exam in South Florida? Connect with Us HERE!

Student Publishes Comparison of ACT and Classic Learning Test

November 15, 2017 By Teresa Mull

A homeschool student who took both the ACT and the Classic Learning Test (CLT) says ACT disfavors students with no Common Core experience.

The ACT and SAT college entrance exams are tied to the Common Core State Standards, a set of national standards dictating what students should know at the end of each grade level. The CLT was developed in 2015 to give students an alternative to the ACT and SAT. More than 80 colleges and universities accept CLT for college admission.

ACT ‘Unfair" to Homeschoolers

Olivia Dennison, a homeschooled student from West Virginia, took the ACT and CLT within a week of each other. Dennison says the ACT was biased toward students who studied Common Core-aligned curricula.

“I have no experience with Common Core,” Dennison told School Reform News. “I"ve always been homeschooled, and so all I know about Common Core is what I"ve researched about it, and I"ve read that the ACT is very based on Common Core. The ACT is very unfair to students who are growing up in differently styled classrooms. Whether that be a homeschool, a Christian school, a charter school, whatever it is, students with no Common Core experience can definitely be [at] an unfair disadvantage.”

‘Working to the Test"

Dennison says ACT stresses test-taking skills, whereas CLT emphasizes full comprehension of learning materials.

“The ACT is based on students working to the test and not on students being lifelong learners, which is the point of education,” Dennison said. “Some pros [with the CLT] would be that I thought there were a perfectly balanced number of passages on creationism and evolutionism. I think this is necessary, because students need to hear all sides of an argument, and that will help them form and strengthen their opinions.”

“Existing standardized tests focus too narrowly on sterilized texts without allowing students to consider broader implications of decisions, ideas, and discoveries found in the rich and abundant variety of sources ranging from St. Augustine to Kant,” the CLT website states. “The CLT reintroduces this variety by focusing on sources and materials that draw upon a strong tradition and challenge students to analyze and comprehend texts that are not just concerned with one small, narrow topic but rather represent the scope and complexity of Western tradition.”

Says ACT Lacks Balance

Dennison says ACT gravitates toward trendy subject matter, unlike CLT.

“I really, really love classic literature, and I think the ACT makers had this opportunity to choose these passages from classic literature and benefit students, but instead they chose these modern passages that are more about life events for an author instead of quality material that could benefit a student"s mind, and that almost made me cringe,” Dennison said.

Says Schools Feel Pressured

David Wagner, CLT"s chief executive officer and cofounder, says his company encounters schools that feel the need to conform to standards and sacrifice their unique identity.

“People recognize it is inherently not fair that the only two options for college entrance exams are both Common Core-aligned, really public school assessments, that all kids are required to take,” Wagner said. “It"s amazing the consistency, when we talk to headmasters, that they feel the pressure from parents who say, ‘I like all the classical stuff you"re doing, but what really matters is if [my children are] going to be seeing what"s on the SAT." With that they feel this pressure to conform to a testing standard that is very disconnected from their values and their principles and their own curriculum as a school.”

More Colleges Adopting CLT

Wagner says CLT is experiencing great early success.

“Our strategy has changed a little bit,” Wagner said. “CLT was really born with a Catch-22 problem, where we want to have widespread college adoption, but in order to get that, you need students using it first to really interest the colleges. At this point, we"re probably seeing two to three college adoptions a week. One school actually dropped the ACT and SAT altogether.”

Teresa Mull ( tmull@heartland.org ) is a research fellow in education policy at The Heartland Institute.

I

Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century | Pew Research Center

Polling and Analysis November 8, 2017

Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century

Concentrated in Europe, Orthodox Christians have declined as a percentage of the global population, but Ethiopian community is highly observant and growing Mgvimevi Monastery church, near the city of Chiatura in the Imereti region of Georgia.

Over the last century, the Orthodox Christian population around the world has more than doubled and now stands at nearly 260 million. In Russia alone, it has surpassed 100 million, a sharp resurgence after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Yet despite these increases in absolute numbers, Orthodox Christians have been declining as a share of the overall Christian population – and the global population – due to far faster growth among Protestants, Catholics and non-Christians. Today, just 12% of Christians around the world are Orthodox, compared with an estimated 20% a century ago. And 4% of the total global population is Orthodox, compared with an estimated 7% in 1910.

The geographic distribution of Orthodoxy also differs from the other major Christian traditions in the 21st century. In 1910 – shortly before the watershed events of World War I, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the breakup of several European empires – all three major branches of Christianity (Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism) were predominantly concentrated in Europe. Since then, Catholics and Protestants have expanded enormously outside the continent, while Orthodoxy remains largely centered in Europe. Today, nearly four-in-five Orthodox Christians (77%) live in Europe, a relatively modest change from a century ago (91%). By contrast, only about one-quarter of Catholics (24%) and one-in-eight Protestants (12%) now live in Europe, down from an estimated 65% and 52%, respectively, in 1910. 1

Orthodoxy"s falling share of the global Christian population is connected with demographic trends in Europe, which has lower overall fertility rates and an older population than developing regions of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Europe"s population has long been shrinking as a share of the world"s total population, and, in coming decades, it is projected to decline in absolute numbers as well.

Historically, the presence of what is now called Orthodox Christianity in the Slavic portions of Eastern Europe dates to the ninth century, when, according to church tradition, missionaries from the Byzantine Empire"s capital in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) spread the faith deeper into Europe. Orthodoxy came first to Bulgaria, Serbia and Moravia (which is now part of the Czech Republic), and then, beginning in the 10th century, to Russia. Following the Great Schism between the Eastern (Orthodox) churches and the Western (Catholic) church in 1054, Orthodox missionary activity expanded across the Russian Empire from the 1300s through the 1800s. 2

While Orthodoxy spread across the Eurasian landmass, Protestant and Catholic missionaries from Western Europe went overseas, crossing the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British empires, among others, carried Western Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) to sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the Americas – regions that in the 20th century experienced much faster population growth than Europe. On the whole, Orthodox missionary activity outside Eurasia was less pronounced, although Orthodox churches retained footholds through the centuries in the Middle East, and Orthodox missionaries won some converts in such far-flung places as India, Japan, East Africa and North America. 3

Today, the largest Orthodox Christian population outside of Eastern Europe is in Ethiopia. The centuries-old Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has an estimated 36 million adherents, nearly 14% of the world"s total Orthodox population. This East African outpost of Orthodoxy reflects two broad trends. First, its Orthodox Christian population has grown much faster than Europe"s over the past 100 years. And, second, Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia are more religiously observant, by several common measures, than Orthodox Christians in Europe. This is in line with a broader pattern in which Europeans are, on average, less religiously committed than people in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, according to Pew Research Center surveys. (This is true not just of Christian s in Europe but also of Europe"s Muslims, who are less religiously observant, as a whole, than Muslims elsewhere in the world.)

Orthodox Christians in the former Soviet Union generally report the lowest levels of observance among those of their faith, perhaps reflecting the legacy of Soviet repression of religion. In Russia, for example, just 6% of Orthodox Christian adults say they attend church at least weekly, 15% say religion is “very important” in their lives, and 18% say they pray daily. Other former Soviet republics display similarly low levels of religious observance. Together, these countries are home to a majority of the world"s Orthodox Christians.

In sharp contrast, Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia report considerably higher religious observance, on par with other Christians (including Catholics and Protestants) across sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly all Ethiopian Orthodox Christians say religion is very important to them, while roughly three-quarters report attending church weekly or more often (78%) and about two-thirds say they pray daily (65%). (For more information on Ethiopia"s Orthodox Tewahedo Church, see this sidebar.)

Orthodox Christians living in Europe outside the former Soviet Union show somewhat higher levels of religious observance than those in the former Soviet republics, but they are still far less observant than Ethiopia"s Orthodox community. In Bosnia, for example, 46% of Orthodox Christians say religion is very important in their lives, while 10% say they attend church weekly or more often, and 28% report that they pray daily.

Orthodox Christians in the United States, who make up roughly 0.5% of the overall U.S. population and include many immigrants, display moderate levels of religious observance, lower than in Ethiopia but higher than most European countries, at least by some measures. About half (52%) of Orthodox Christian adults in the United States say religion is very important to them, roughly one-in-three (31%) report that they attend church weekly or more, and a slim majority say they pray daily (57%).

In addition to their shared history and liturgical traditions, what do these disparate communities have in common today?

One nearly universal practice among Orthodox Christians is the veneration of religious icons. Most Orthodox Christians around the world say they keep icons or other holy figures in their homes.

In fact, having icons is among the few indicators of religiosity on which Central and Eastern European Orthodox Christians surpass Orthodox Ethiopians in surveys. Across 14 countries in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in Europe with large Orthodox populations, the median share of Orthodox Christians who say they have icons at home is 90%, while in Ethiopia, the share is 73%.

Orthodox Christians around the world also are linked by a married, all-male priesthood; church structures headed by numerous national patriarchs and archbishops; recognition of divorce; and moral conservatism on issues such as homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center study of Orthodox Christianity around the world. The data in this report come from a variety of surveys and other sources. Data on the religious beliefs and practices of Orthodox Christians in nine countries across the former Soviet Union and five other countries in Europe, including Greece, are from surveys conducted by Pew Research Center in 2015-2016. In addition, the Center has recent data on many (though not all) of the same survey questions among Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia and the United States. Together, these surveys cover a total of 16 countries, collectively representing about 90% of the estimated global Orthodox population. In addition, population estimates are available for all countries based on information gathered for the 2011 Pew Research Center report “Global Christianity” and the 2015 report “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050.”

Wide support among Orthodox for the church"s teachings on priesthood, divorce

While they vary widely in their levels of religious observance, Orthodox Christians around the world are largely united in their affirmation of some distinctive church policies and teachings.

Today, majorities of Orthodox Christians in every country surveyed say they favor their church"s current practice of allowing married men to become priests, which contrasts with the Catholic Church"s general requirement of celibacy for priests. (Lay Catholics in some countries prefer allowing married priests; in the United States, for example, 62% of Catholics say the Catholic Church should allow priests to get married.)

Similarly, most Orthodox Christians also say they support the church"s stance on recognizing divorce, which also differs from Catholicism"s position.

Orthodox Christians also broadly favor a number of church positions that happen to align with those of the Catholic Church, such as the prohibition on women"s ordination. In fact, there appears to be more agreement with this position within Orthodoxy than within Catholicism, where majorities in some places say women should be able to become priests. For example, in Brazil, which has the world"s largest Catholic population, most Catholics say the Catholic Church should allow female ordination (78%). Similarly, in the United States, 59% of Catholics say the Catholic Church should allow women priests.

Orthodox opinion is closely divided on the issue of female ordination in Russia and some other countries, but in no country surveyed do a majority of Orthodox Christians support ordaining women as priests. (In Russia and some other countries, roughly a fifth or more of respondents do not express an opinion on women"s ordination.)

Orthodox Christians also are broadly united against the idea of the church performing same-sex marriages (see Chapter 3).

Overall, Orthodox Christians see plenty of common ground between their own faith and Catholicism. When asked if Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism “have a lot in common” or “are very different,” most Orthodox Christians across Central and Eastern Europe respond that the two faiths have a lot in common. For their part, Catholics in the region also tend to see the two traditions as more similar than different.

But this perceived kinship only goes so far; there is limited support among Orthodox Christians for “being in communion again” with Roman Catholics. Formal schism owing to theological and political disputes has divided Eastern Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism since the year 1054; while some clerics on both sides have tried for half a century to foster reconciliation, the view that the churches should reunite is a minority position across most of Central and Eastern Europe. 4

In Russia, just one-in-six Orthodox Christians (17%) say they want Eastern Orthodoxy to be in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, the lowest level of support for reconciliation found in any of the national Orthodox populations surveyed. Only in one country, Romania, do a majority of respondents (62%) express support for reunification of the Eastern and Western churches. Across the region, many Orthodox Christians decline to answer this question, perhaps reflecting a lack of familiarity with the issue or uncertainty about what communion between the two churches would entail.

This pattern may be linked to a wariness of papal authority by Orthodox Christians. While most Orthodox Christians across Central and Eastern Europe say Pope Francis is improving relations between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, far fewer express a positive opinion of Francis overall. Views on this topic also may be bound up with geopolitical tensions between Eastern and Western Europe. Orthodox Christians in Central and Eastern Europe tend to orient themselves, both politically and religiously, toward Russia, while Catholics in the region generally look toward the West.

Overall, in Central and Eastern Europe, Orthodox support for reconciliation with Catholicism is about as high as Catholic support for it. But in countries with substantial shares of both Orthodox Christians and Catholics, Catholics tend to be more supportive of a return to communion with Eastern Orthodoxy. For example, in Bosnia, a majority of Catholics (68%) favor communion, compared with a minority (42%) of Orthodox Christians. A similar pattern is seen in Ukraine and Belarus.

Sidebar: Eastern Orthodoxy vs. Oriental Orthodoxy

Not only are there important theological and doctrinal differences among Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants, but there also are differences within Orthodoxy, which conventionally is divided into two major branches: Eastern Orthodoxy, most of whose adherents live in Central and Eastern Europe, and Oriental Orthodoxy, most of whose adherents live in Africa.

One theological difference has to do with the nature of Jesus and how to articulate Jesus"s divinity – part of a theological field of study called Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as Catholicism and Protestantism, teach that Christ is one person in two natures: both fully divine and fully human, accepting the language from an early Christian gathering called the Council of Chalcedon, held in 451. But Oriental Orthodoxy, which is considered “non-Chalcedonian,” teaches that Christ"s divine and human natures are unified, not separated. 5

Oriental Orthodoxy has separate self-governing jurisdictions in Ethiopia, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Armenia and Syria, and it accounts for roughly 20% of the worldwide Orthodox population. Eastern Orthodoxy is split into 15 jurisdictions heavily centered in Central and Eastern Europe, accounting for the remaining 80% of Orthodox Christians. 6

Data on the beliefs, practices and attitudes of Orthodox Christians in Europe and the former Soviet Union come from surveys conducted between June 2015 and July 2016 through face-to-face interviews in 19 countries, including 14 for which samples of Orthodox Christians were large enough for analysis. Findings from these surveys were released in a major Pew Research Center report in May 2017, but additional analysis (including results from Kazakhstan, which were not included in the initial report) is included throughout this report.

Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia were polled as part of Pew Research Center"s 2015 Global Attitudes survey, as well as a 2008 survey on religious beliefs and practices of Christians and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa; Orthodox Christians in the U.S. were surveyed as part of Pew Research Center"s 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. Since the methodology and the mode of the U.S. study are different from surveys conducted in other countries, comparisons between them are made cautiously. In addition, due to differences in questionnaire content, data are not available from all countries for every question analyzed in this report.

The largest Orthodox populations that were not surveyed are in Egypt, Eritrea, India, Macedonia and Germany. Despite the lack of survey data on Orthodox Christians in these countries, they are included in the population estimates in this report.

Although Orthodox Christians comprise roughly 2% of the Middle East"s population, logistical concerns make it difficult to survey these groups. Egypt has the Middle East"s largest Orthodox population (an estimated 4 million Egyptians, or 5% of the population), mainly members of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Additional data on the demographic characteristics of Middle Eastern Orthodox Christians, including their declining shares over time, can be found in Chapter 1.

Historical population estimates for 1910 are based on Pew Research Center analysis of data from the World Christian Database, which was compiled by The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The estimates from 1910 provide a vantage point on worldwide Orthodoxy at an important historical moment, preceded by an especially active period for Orthodox missionaries across the Russian Empire and shortly before war and political upheaval threw most Orthodox populations into tumult. 7 By the end of the 1920s, the Russian, Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian empires had all ceased to exist – replaced by new, self-governing nations, as well as, in some cases, self-governing national Orthodox churches. Meanwhile, the Russian Revolution of 1917 ushered in communist governments that persecuted Christians and other religious groups for the length of the Soviet era.

This report, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation, is part of a larger effort by Pew Research Center to understand religious change and its impact on societies around the world. The Center previously has conducted religion-focused surveys across sub-Saharan Africa; the Middle East-North Africa region and many other countries with large Muslim populations; Latin America and the Caribbean; Israel; and the United States.

Other key findings in this report include:

Orthodox Christians in Central and Eastern Europe widely favor protecting the natural environment for future generations, even if this reduces economic growth. In part, this view may be a reflection of the environmentalist stance of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who is considered a theological authority in Eastern Orthodoxy. But environmentalism seems to be a widespread value across the Central and Eastern European region as a whole. Indeed, a majority of Catholics in the region also say the natural environment should be protected, even if this reduces economic growth. (For more details, see Chapter 4.)

Most Orthodox-majority countries in Central and Eastern Europe – including Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine – have national patriarchs who are regarded as preeminent religious figures in their home countries. In all but Armenia and Greece, pluralities or majorities see the national patriarchs as the highest authority of Orthodoxy. For example, in Bulgaria, 59% of Orthodox Christians say they recognize their national patriarch as the highest authority of the church, although 8% also point to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who is known as the ecumenical patriarch across Eastern Orthodoxy. Patriarch Kirill of Russia also is highly regarded among Orthodox Christians in the region – even outside Russian borders – a trend that is in line with Orthodox Christians" overall affinity for Russia. (For Orthodox Christians" views on patriarchs, see Chapter 3.)

U.S. Orthodox Christians are much more accepting of homosexuality than are Orthodox Christians in Central and Eastern Europe and Ethiopia. About half of U.S. Orthodox Christians (54%) said same-sex marriage should be legal in a 2014 survey, similar to the share of Americans overall who took that position in that year (53%). By comparison, the vast majority of Orthodox Christians across Central and Eastern Europe are opposed to same-sex marriage. (For Orthodox Christians" views on social issues, see Chapter 4.)

Overwhelming majorities of Orthodox Christians in Central and Eastern Europe say they have been baptized, even though many came of age during Soviet times. (For more on religious practices of Orthodox Christians, see Chapter 2.)

Correction: The chart “Relatively low shares of Orthodox and Catholics favor Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism being in communion” has been updated to correct the share of Catholics in Bosnia saying the two churches should be in communion.

Population figures for 2010 are based on Pew Research Center analysis of numerous censuses and surveys, including Pew Research Center"s 2011 report, “Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World"s Christian Population.” The 1910 estimates are derived from Johnson, Todd M. and Gina A. Zurlo, eds. “World Christian Database.” Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, accessed April 2017. ↩

According to church tradition, the two best known Byzantine missionaries were brothers named Cyril and Methodius, who are saints in the Orthodox Church and who have been called “Apostles to the Slavs.” See Tachiaos, Anthony Emil N. 2001. “Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs.” Also see Veronis, Luke A. 1994. “Missionaries, Monks and Martyrs: Making Disciples of All Nations.” Also see Herrin, Judith. 2008. “ Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire.” At the time of these ninth-century missions, Christianity in Central and Eastern Europe was not yet called Orthodoxy. The group became known as Orthodox Christians after the Great Schism of 1054 divided most of the era"s Christian world between its Latin West and its Greek East. High among the dividing issues was a dispute over papal authority; the Western Church (now called Roman Catholic) contended that the pope"s religious authority over Christians was universal. The Eastern Church (now called Eastern Orthodox) disagreed, investing their highest religious authority in various patriarchs across the Eastern Orthodox world, with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople traditionally holding the title “first among equals.” ↩

See Veronis, Luke A. 2008. “Eastern Orthodox Missions.” In “Encyclopedia of Christianity Online.” Also see Stokoe, Mark and Leonid Kishkovsky. 1995. “Orthodox Christians in North America (1794-1994).” ↩

Orthodox-Catholic relations began improving just over a half-century ago, in January 1964, when Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras met in Jerusalem. In December 1965 they lifted mutual excommunications from the year 1054 that had long helped define the schism. Since then, many clerics from both traditions have worked to ease tensions. See the Dec. 7, 1965, statement, “Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I.” ↩

Hastings, Adrian. 1999. “150-550.” In Hastings, Adrian, ed. “A World History of Christianity.” Also see Kirkorian, Mesrob K. 2010. “Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Christology in the Tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church.” ↩

One of these 15 jurisdictions is the Orthodox Church in America, which is not universally recognized as its own jurisdiction by Eastern Orthodox churches. ↩

See Veronis, Luke A. 2008. “Eastern Orthodox Missions.” In “Encyclopedia of Christianity Online.” ↩

About Pew Research Center - Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. 

Copyright 2017 Pew Research Center

Trump champions a voucher program that asks disabled students to waive rights – ThinkProgress

President Donald Trump climbs the stairs to board Air Force One before his departure from at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Friday, March 3, 2017, en route to Florida. CREDIT: AP/ Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump plans to visit a Catholic school on Friday to promote the expansion of private school vouchers, even though the state"s voucher program asks students with disabilities to sign away their rights.

Florida"s tax credit McKay Scholarship Program, started under former Gov. Jeb Bush (R), provides vouchers for students with disabilities to attend schools like St. Andrews, the site of Trump"s visit. But it also asks students with disabilities to waive their rights under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law that protects students with disabilities.

Florida also has a tax credit scholarship program for low-income students and education savings accounts for students with disabilities as part of its school choice model.

During his campaign, President Trump promoted the expansion of school voucher programs using federal dollars. But many of these programs ask students to waive all of their rights under IDEA, including those programs targeted toward students with disabilities. The accountability standards for these schools are often insufficient, making it difficult to ensure students with disabilities are being properly served by the private schools they attend.

Education Secretary Betsy Devos — who said during her confirmation hearing that she was “confused” on the requirements of IDEA — has also indicated she will do little to protect the rights of disabled students. DeVos has called Florida"s voucher program a “good and growing example of what can happen when you have a robust array of [school] choices.”

IDEA requires that schools identify and provide services to preschool-age children with disabilities; that students with disabilities have an individualized education plan (IEP) to make sure a school meets the needs of that particular child; and that students with disabilities are not isolated from classrooms where students without disabilities are being educated. It also protects students from being disciplined as a result of their disability.

Vouchers don"t help disadvantaged students, regardless of what DeVos thinks

A new report finds little to praise in school vouchers.

Florida — like Louisiana, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Utah — has special education voucher programs, but most of them ask students to sign away their protections under IDEA. The schools benefiting from the Florida program also aren"t required to report on student achievement or program quality, which makes it difficult to assess how students with disabilities are benefiting from this voucher system — or being harmed by it. Most voucher programs for students with disabilities do not require that schools participate in standardized state assessments, or that schools report those results.

The Florida Department of Education page that is supposed to answer questions about these vouchers doesn"t make it easy for a parent to find information on the scholarship, because it uses jargon parents may be unfamiliar with. The voucher program offers different voucher amounts depending on what a student"s disability is; a child is assigned a funding level, known as a “matrix of services.” This website tells parents to go to a link to find their “child"s matrix number” for a 504 funding plan. This abstruse website is a good example of why some education experts say that vouchers work better for parents who have the time and resources to investigate how these programs work, and who can ferret out which school best serves their child"s needs.

K-12 students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education"s Civil Rights Data Collection for the 2013–2014 school year. Students with disabilities also made up two-thirds of students who were restrained or isolated from their classmates.

One of the schools involved in Florida"s voucher program, South Florida Preparatory Christian Academy, used corporal punishment, according to the Miami New Times. The publication"s investigation found that the department of education has investigated 38 schools suspected of McKay voucher fraud, which has been enabled by the thin requirements schools must meet to qualify under the program.

It"s not just disabled students who see dubious gains from voucher programs. There isn"t evidence that they improve the quality of education for any students. In some cases, vouchers have even been shown to hurt student learning.

Private schools public money little oversight in voucher program - Sun Sentinel

COME CHECK OUT The Best Private School in Broward County 

It"s crunch time at the University of Florida as white nationalist Richard Spencer shows up to deliver his spiel. And President Donald Trump is dealing with the fallout from CallGate. We"ll get into all of that, but first, let"s talk about Florida"s private school voucher system, which could maybe use a little work.

Is anybody keeping track of anything? The Orlando Sentinel is out with a major investigation into private schools that accept state money in the form of vouchers, both to take in needy children and those with special needs. These schools have taken in almost $1 billion in state money with almost no oversight from the state. That has led to some severe consequences. One school that repeatedly violated what few rules there are in place for schools that take this money nevertheless received $5.6 million from the state. And the investigation found widespread problems in schools that take state money to accept children with special needs.

That was pretty familiar to me. Back in 2014, I called all 138 private schools in Broward County that accepted McKay Scholarships, the state"s voucher program that allows private schools to take state money for tuition of children with special needs. I found that 83 of them did not have a full-time special education teacher on staff, much less the security measures and other factors necessary to provide a safe and educational space for special needs children.

Nor do they have to -- these are private schools, free from state oversight, despite the fact that Florida keeps shoveling money at them. The Orlando Sentinel has found it is a problem now. The Sun Sentinel found it was a problem three years ago. We can assume it"s been a problem pretty much since day one.

After my story came out, I asked then-Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, about it. He"s term-limited out now, but back then, you couldn"t find a bigger advocate for special needs kids in the Legislature. Gardiner has a son with Down syndrome, and he made it his top priority in the Senate for the state to do more for special needs children. But when I asked him about the lack of oversight, he simply said that families of kids with special needs are very active in their children"s education, and if one school doesn"t cut it, they"ll know and will move them on. No state oversight necessary, apparently.

Point being, if things weren"t going to change with Gardiner in charge of the Florida Senate, I"m pessimistic that they"ll change now. We"ll just keep shoveling money at private schools that are totally ill-equipped to handle children with special needs because, hey, school choice.

White glower: White nationalist Richard Spencer is speaking at the University of Florida today, the Orlando Sentinel"s Jeff Weiner reports. Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency, the whole campus is on alert, and there are competing Facebook groups organizing counter protest by declaring this"Ignore Richard Spencer Day" or"No Nazis at UF" day. The pull between either ignoring or protesting Spencer is at the heart of these pages, but no matter how many choose to ignore the man, enough will actively protest to turn this into just the sort of circus that Spencer is likely hoping for.

CRC not what it"s cracked up to be: The Constitution Revision Commission meets every 20 years to propose changes to the state constitution. It just so happens to be meeting this year. The commission is one of just a few ways, along with a petition drive and an act of the Legislature, to get proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot, where they can be enshrined in the constitution by a vote of 60 percent of Floridians.

But the News Service of Florida"s Lloyd Dunkelberger reports that, despite receiving some 2,000 proposals from the public, commissioners have approved just six of them to be heard by the full commission, where a vote of 22 out of 37 members will send them to the ballot. Critics such as the ACLU and the League of Women Voters have blasted the commission for ignoring public proposals, but there"s a little more going on than that. As Dunkelberger reports, many of the public proposals overlap. Plus, if you look at the history of previous commissions, this year"s is about in line so far. The 1977-78 commission put eight proposed amendments on the ballot, while the 1997-98 commission included nine.

Doors staying shut at Hollywood Hills: The state Agency for Health Care Administration has moved to permanently close the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, the Sun Sentinel"s Megan O"Matz reports. Fourteen people died after the nursing home lost power due to Hurricane Irma, and the resulting loss of air conditioning turned the nursing home into a death trap. Meanwhile, the nursing home billed one of the deceased on what would have been her 100th birthday, the Sun Sentinel"s Erika Pesantes reports, because sometimes life is just cruel.

Strike two: The Broward Legislative Delegation met Wednesday to approve local bills to be heard in Tallahassee. The news to come out of there that will actually affect Browidians (Browardites? Browardese?) is a bill that will allow the Broward County Children"s Services Council to raise taxes by half a percent. Some residents could also see a lot more names on their ballots with the move to make water control district members elected positions. All of that and more is in my story.

But the reason I"m calling this section"Strike Two" is because the delegation also shot down a proposed annexation of part of Southwest Ranches by Pembroke Pines, the latest in a long war between the two cities that currently involves three active lawsuits. And that failed annexation followed a failed annexation local bill at the Palm Beach Legislative Delegation, which took place Tuesday.

The lesson appears to be that if you want to annex or de-annex, you"d better have all parties on board before going to the delegation.

CallGate: So, President Donald Trump, after receiving criticism for not contacting families of dead soldiers, responded that he always does so, and will do so for the families of four soldiers killed in Niger two weeks ago. He then supposedly called up the family of the late Sgt. La David Johnson of South Florida and told Johnson"s pregnant widow that the sergeant"knew what he signed up for."

That"s according to U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, who was with the widow at the time.

Trump said that he never said those words, and that he had proof of it. (That proof is still forthcoming.) The woman who raised Johnson said that, yes, Trump disrespected her son. Trump is now pushing back against Wilson and the dead soldier"s mother"s claims on all fronts, the Associated Press"s Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Kay report.

But other problems with Trump"s treatment of the families of soldiers killed in the line of duty have started to surface. First, Trump"s claim that he always contacts such families is simply not true, the Associated Press"s Calvin Woodward and Tom Davies report. They have multiple families to confirm this.

And of those who were contacted, one father says Trump promised him $25,000, which, per the Washington Post, had not yet arrived.

DMZ-you later: The Washington Post"s David Nakamura reports that the South Korean government and the U.S. State Department is advising the Trump administration to steer the president away from the Demilitarized Zone when he makes a planned Asian trip next month. A trip to the DMZ has been a regular feature of almost every administration since Ronald Reagan, but tensions are particularly high right now, and South Korea and State worry that such a trip would not end well.

Remember this guy? There"s ol" Barack Obama, back to political life. The Associated Press"s Jesse Holland reports that Obama will make stops in New Jersey and Virginia to campaign for Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Polling has the Democrat with a comfortable lead in New Jersey, and an uncomfortable lead in Virginia.

Looking for a promotion: Republican Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie is in the race to replace Palm Beach County Commissioner Steven Abrams, the Sun Sentinel"s Aric Chokey reports. Abrams is himself a former mayor of Boca Raton. The Boca Mayor to County Commissioner of District 4 pipeline isn"t too surprising, given that the overwhelming bulk of voters in the district are in Boca. The district also includes Highland Beach, Golf, Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and Ocean Ridge, which have a combined population of about 7,400 people.

Going green: Boynton Beach has taken the first step toward allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in city limits, the Sun Sentinel"s Brooke Baitinger reports. If approved, the city would join Lake Worth and unincorporated Palm Beach County in allowing dispensaries. Delray Beach has banned them, and Boca Raton is still mulling over what to do.

Speaking of Delray Beach: With the news that Mayor Cary Glickstein won"t serve a third term in office, the Sun Sentinel"s Ryan Van Velzer reports that the race to succeed Glickstein is wide open.

Sorry about the victim blaming. Our bad: After the Sun Sentinel"s Scott Travis reported that the Palm Beach County School District had defended several abuse claims by partially blaming the abused children, the Palm Beach County School Board has apologized and told outside counsel that such a defense would no longer be allowed. Board members said they were unaware that such a defense had been attempted in these cases.

Drill, baby, drill! An administrative law judge has overturned the Department of Environmental Protection"s rejection of a plan to drill for oil in the Everglades, the Sun Sentinel"s David Fleshler reports. There are still many legal hurdles to jump, but the ruling is a big step toward Kanter Real Estate LLC being allowed to drill at a site about six miles west of Miramar.

Steven Cavan

Dictators Hate Education

Learn More About Christian Classical Education in South Florida!

Dictators Hate Education

October 23, 2017 by Adam Lee

It"s not news that conservatives in America dislike and distrust the school system. Whether it"s their longstanding attacks on evolution, true but unflattering information about our national history, or scientific predictions about the dangers of climate change, they"re agin" it all. And recent polls show that Republicans have become hostile to higher education in general, not just specific teachings that contradict their ideology.

Now we have another example, as Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism points out. It comes from Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), a company that publishes a curriculum and textbooks written from a fundamentalist viewpoint, intended for private Christian schools.

Just guess what ACE"s books have to say about the civil rights movement:

The workbook for 1945-1969 was comprised of roughly 13,000 words and made no mention of Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, or numerous other civil rights giants. In fact, neither it nor the previous workbook mentioned racism, the KKK, Jim Crow, or lynchings.

And as for Martin Luther King, Jr.

…the text devotes 345 words to King"s life and death, focusing mostly on his assassination… never quotes from any of King"s speeches.

King"s murderer, James Earl Ray, gets more space than King himself. As a final insult, ACE sneers that the response to his death was that “angry young blacks rioted, robbed, and burned buildings… in the name of a man who wished to be remembered as a man of peace”.

Meanwhile, when white people rioted in the 1970s in response to school desegregation – throwing rocks and bricks at black children, setting buses on fire, smashing store windows, assaulting police – the ACE text merely says blandly that violence “erupted” and “continued to surface”. It"s a neutral, impersonal sentence construction which carefully avoids any mention of who was rioting or why. (Again, see Libby Anne"s post for photos of these white-on-black riots, including a literal bus full of Nazis.)

This isn"t some embarrassing relic of the distant past. This text is in the 2015 edition of the ACE workbooks. And it"s not an isolated faux pas, but a consistently racist viewpoint. Past editions of the ACE curriculum had this to say about apartheid South Africa:

“Although apartheid appears to allow the unfair treatment of blacks, the system has worked well in South Africa… Although white businessmen and developers are guilty of some unfair treatment of blacks, they turned South Africa into a modern industrialized nation, which the poor, uneducated blacks couldn"t have accomplished in several more decades. If more blacks were suddenly given control of the nation, its economy and business, as Mandela wished, they could have destroyed what they have waited and worked so hard for.” (source)

This all fits with evangelical Christians coming full circle and reembracing white supremacy. Just like with their creationist beliefs leading them to spurn evolution, pro-white racism is an integral part of their religious identity and they"re anxious to deny, downplay or gloss over any information which might undermine this. The civil rights era is too big a part of American history to omit entirely, but ACE is wary of letting its students learn more than the absolute bare minimum about it.

America isn"t alone in beating a retreat from facts and reality. If there"s a global trend, it"s in the wrong direction: even though information is easier to access than ever, governments and religious leaders are fighting the tide. We also see it in Turkey and Hungary, two countries where increasingly illiberal rulers are trying to starve the educational system, purge teachers with suspect loyalties, and hamper private schools not under the state"s control.

There"s an insidious feedback loop here. Autocratic, conservative leaders try to restrict their people"s access to information; and as a new Pew poll finds, lower education levels and more conservative politics both correlate with support for autocracy (defined as “a strong leader making decisions without interference from legislators or courts”):

…it is often people with a secondary education or below who are more likely than those with more education to favor autocratic rule. This educational divide is particularly wide in the UK (19 percentage points), the U.S. (15 points), Poland and South Korea (both 13 points).

…Those who place themselves on the right of the ideological spectrum are more likely than those who place themselves on the left to say a strong leader making decisions would be a good way of governing.

(In the name of fairness, I should point out that there"s just one country where leftist political views correlate with support for autocracy, which is Venezuela.)

In this way, dictatorship and illiberal rule become self-sustaining. America hasn"t sunk to that level of autocracy (but ask me again in a few years), but here, too, would-be dictators of the mind are trying to construct a parallel educational system designed to keep its graduates ignorant and obedient. It"s no coincidence that the ACE curriculum focuses heavily on rote memorization, avoiding that scary, unpredictable critical-thinking stuff.

This is an immensely frustrating dilemma because, from an outsider"s perspective, it"s so easy to see what the cure is. But the people who have the most need of it are also in the worst position to realize that. Mired in their enforced ignorance, supporters of autocracy lack the information that would let them make better judgments, but that same ignorance makes them dig in their heels against everything that would allow them to correct their problem. The first step on that escalator of reason is the most crucial one, but it"s also the hardest.

Steven Cavan

Santa Claus" untouched tomb may be beneath surface of church in Turkey, says archaeologist

 

 

The untouched grave of St. Nicholas --- better known as Santa Claus --- may be located just below the surface of a church in the Demre district in Turkey"s southern Antalya province, according to an archaeologist. (REUTERS / Kacper Pempel) A man dressed like Santa Claus sits in his sleigh as he prepares for Christmas on the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, northern Finland, December 19, 2007.

Hurriyet Daily reported that a special section with a grave site has been found at the St. Nicholas Church in Demre district, which is known as the saint"s birthplace. Antalya"s Monument Authority head Cemil Karabayram said they discovered the untouched tomb while running digital surveys just beneath the church"s surface, the Daily Sabah relayed.

"We believe this shrine has not been damaged at all, but it is quite difficult to get to it as there are mosaics on the floor," Karabayram told Hurriyet.

St. Nicholas" remains were previously thought to have been smuggled to Bari, Italy, by Italian merchants in 1087. However, Karabayram said the bones they took actually belonged to a priest.

Karabayram said they may be able to get to St. Nicholas" untouched burial site, but they are still looking for researchers who will finish the work. Nevertheless, archaeologists have already started on the groundwork and are now set to continue the excavation below the surface.

In 2015, the Anadolu Agency reported that excavations at the Santa Claus Museum in Demre have resulted in the discovery of Ottoman-era ceramics and Byzantine era artifacts. At the time, the head of the museum excavations talked about the bones of Santa Claus.

Hacettepe University Faculty of History of Arts Professor Sema Dogan mentioned a few years back that Turkish experts had tried to have the alleged stolen bones of Santa Claus returned. However, at the time, they did not know the exact location of St. Nicholas" burial site and if the bones taken to Italy were really his.

Dogan also explained that St. Nicholas was an important figure in both Greek and Russian Orthodox Christianity, as he was a patriarch during the 4th century. It is believed that he helped children, sailors, the poor, and women who had no children.

Steven Cavan

Preschool Activities: Learning Aids For Parents - Teachers

Preschool Activities & Crafts for Kids:

If you have preschoolers or young children, you are probably always on the lookout for NEW activities, games and ideas to help them learn, as well as keep them occupied.

There is so much mind numbing entertainment on the television today that sometimes we are best if we leave our and preschoolers & kids to entertain themselves! In order to do this, we need to have the activities, ideas, learning games & arts/crafts needed to stimulate their young minds.

To keep children entertained, you need to keep the ideas and activities fresh and exciting!

There are art activities, craft activities, science experiments, & physical activities as well. All of these are things that are essential for your childÂ’s physical and mental development.

www.Preschoollearningonline.com offers a huge variety of games, activities science experiments, simple exercises and more for teachers & parents looking to entertain, as well as teach preschoolers and children. There are healthy recipes, playdoh recipes, coloring sheets, printables, books, activities, art supplies and a whole lot more!

One example of the kinds of preschool activities found at http://www.preschoollearningonline.com:

Flower Power Science

(*example from http://www.preschoollearningonline.com/preschoolfunactivitieskids.html )

You will need:

3 white carnations

3 vases or tall glasses

Red, blue, and green, food coloring

Fill each glass or vase half way with cool water. Color the water in each vase/glass a different color with food coloring. Place one carnation in each vase/glass.

You can document how many hours or days it takes for each carnation to start to change color. Which carnation changes color first, which carnation changes color last.

You can also use other colors like yellow, orange, or purple. Make a nice bouquet of “homemade” colorful carnations to display around the classroom.

These activities and games help to develop your childÂ’s mind and teach them to be more observant, as well as learn. Your children will love to try the NEW activities & games.

Other Interesting Areas:
http://www.preschoollearningonline.com/HealthySnacksforkids.html
http://www.preschoollearningonline.com/preschoollearninggames.html

FREE DOWNLOAD- INTERACTIVE COLORING BOOK for use on a Computer!

Download This Free Coloring Book Now!
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If you live in South Florida and are looking for a great Christian School for your children, then please visit us at 

www.paideiaclassical.org

or 

www.paideiaclassicalacademy.com 

Steven Cavan