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:4. A fundamental statement of faith was to be adopted and enforced.<ref name="HBCM" />
:4. A fundamental statement of faith was to be adopted and enforced.<ref name="HBCM" />
Good News Club lesson book author Ruth Overholtzer, wife of J. Irvin Overholtzer, also expressed her enthusiasm for "the fundamentals" in her autobiography. Describing her experience of being a college student of fundamentalist leader and [[Biola]] dean [[Reuben Torrey]], Ruth wrote: “How could any of us who had the privilege of hearing this author at eleven a.m. each weekday morning teaching from his own book, ever, the rest of our lives, be ‘foggy about the fundamentals’? I was a blotter soaking up great Bible truths.”<ref name="HBCM" /> Ruth credited Torrey's instruction with providing the formative content of Good News Club's lessons: "the great doctrines of the Bible which I had studied under Dr. Torrey began to form themselves into simple doctrinal lessons for children."<ref name="HBCM" />
Good News Club lesson book author Ruth Overholtzer, wife of J. Irvin Overholtzer, also expressed her enthusiasm for "the fundamentals" in her autobiography. Describing her experience of being a college student of fundamentalist leader and [[Biola]] dean [[Reuben Torrey]], Ruth wrote: “How could any of us who had the privilege of hearing this author at eleven a.m. each weekday morning teaching from his own book, ever, the rest of our lives, be ‘foggy about the fundamentals’? I was a blotter soaking up great Bible truths.”<ref name="HBCM" /> Ruth credited Torrey's instruction with providing the formative content of Good News Club's lessons: "the great doctrines of the Bible which I had studied under Dr. Torrey began to form themselves into simple doctrinal lessons for children."<ref name="HBCM" />

As Good News Clubs spread through neighborhood homes across the United States, it began to make inroads into a handful of public schools. A 1961 Daytona Beach Morning Journal article reported a Dade County, Florida state court ruling that held that an after-hours Good News Club in school buildings violated constitutional boundaries between church and state.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}} Articles from the 1970s through the 1980s reported Good News Clubs in a handful of public schools.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}} A 1996 Eugene Register-Guard article reported that most of Oregon’s 250 then-existing Good News Clubs participated in Oregon’s “release time” program.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}} In the 1990s, CEF filed several lawsuits against school districts, claiming equal access rights to organize Good News Clubs in public elementary schools. That litigation culminated in the landmark 2001 Supreme Court decision of [[Good News Club v. Milford Central School|Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001)]], which held in favor of CEF.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}}


After its ''Milford'' victory, CEF began an initiative to move Good News Clubs from neighborhood homes into public elementary schools. It launched an "Adopt-A-School" program to recruit evangelical "church partners" to open clubs in public elementary schools and train their volunteers.<ref>{{cite web|title=Adopt a Public School|url=http://www.cefonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=128&Itemid=100235|publisher=Child Evangelism Fellowship|accessdate=9/4/2011}}</ref> In 2002, only about 1000 out of nearly 4800 clubs met in public schools.<ref>{{cite news|last=Townsend|first=Tim|title=The New After-School Activity: Evangelism|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/nyregion/the-new-after-school-activity-evangelism.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|accessdate=9/4/2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=12/15/2002}}</ref> By 2011, over 3500 out of nearly 5000 clubs met in public schools.<ref name="3560 Clubs">{{cite web}}</ref> CEF reports that it "hopes to one day have a Good News Club in every elementary school in America."<ref name="3560 Clubs" />
After its ''Milford'' victory, CEF began an initiative to move Good News Clubs from neighborhood homes into public elementary schools. It launched an "Adopt-A-School" program to recruit evangelical "church partners" to open clubs in public elementary schools and train their volunteers.<ref>{{cite web|title=Adopt a Public School|url=http://www.cefonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=128&Itemid=100235|publisher=Child Evangelism Fellowship|accessdate=9/4/2011}}</ref> In 2002, only about 1000 out of nearly 4800 clubs met in public schools.<ref>{{cite news|last=Townsend|first=Tim|title=The New After-School Activity: Evangelism|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/nyregion/the-new-after-school-activity-evangelism.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|accessdate=9/4/2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=12/15/2002}}</ref> By 2011, over 3500 out of nearly 5000 clubs met in public schools.<ref name="3560 Clubs">{{cite web}}</ref> CEF reports that it "hopes to one day have a Good News Club in every elementary school in America."<ref name="3560 Clubs" />

Revision as of 20:34, 3 December 2012

Good News Club is a weekly evangelical program for 5–12 year old children featuring a Bible lesson, songs, memory verses, and games.[1] It is the leading ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), which creates the curriculum, translates it for use around the world, and trains instructors to teach it.[2][3] CEF reports that in 2011, there were 3560 Good News Clubs in public schools across the United States and over 42,000 clubs worldwide.[2][4] Good News Club was the subject of Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), which held that Good News Club was entitled to the same access as other groups, like the Boy Scouts, to provide after-school programs designed to promote "moral and character development" to Milford School's elementary children. The dramatic expansion of Good News Clubs in United States public elementary schools has been a source of frequent controversy, as chronicled and exhibited recently in journalist Katherine Stewart's The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children (2012).[5]

Curriculum

Good News Club follows a 5-year curriculum[6] using lesson books and visual aids that describe and illustrate stories from the Old and New Testaments. In the United States, for example, the fall 2011 season features 6 lessons from the book "Elijah: Prophet of the Living God" and 6 lessons from the book "Elisha: Prophet of the Faithful God." Other lesson books feature stories centered on Biblical characters of Daniel, Joseph, Joshua, Esther, Moses, King David, and the Apostle Paul. In all, the 5-year literature cycle spans approximately 120 lessons. CEF translates the curriculum into multiple foreign languages for distribution and use in many of the more than 170 countries in which CEF is active. In those countries, the curriculum cycle lags the English curriculum cycle by one year.[7]

History

Good News Club has roots dating back to the early 1920s, when CEF's founder J. Irvin Overholtzer launched the "Children's Home Bible Class" movement in the Bay Area of San Francisco. According to his CEF-published biography, Mr. Overholtzer sought to reach five classes of children: “those completely outside the church; those in liberal Sunday Schools; those of other faiths and cults; isolated foreign or minority groups; and unsaved in evangelical churches.”[8] At first, the classes were held in churches near public schools, and scheduled to start immediately after the closing bell, in order to "gather as many children as possible of grade-school age into the class."[9] Later, the classes were held "in a good Christian home which had the respect of the neighborhood."[9]

Initially, Overholtzer's Home Bible Class Movement spread slowly: to northern California, to Washington State and later to Chicago, Illinois, where Mr. Overholtzer gained the attention and support of leaders of the Moody Bible Institute, the Moody Church, and other area ministries. In 1936, the movement gained national credence when articles and editorials were published in the Sunday School Times, The King's Business, Moody Monthly, and Revelation. In 1937, Overholtzer and leaders of Moody Bible Institute, The Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now Biola University), and Wheaton College formally organized Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) at a meeting in Los Angeles, California.[8]

Thereafter, CEF's Home Bible Class Movement spread rapidly. For example, by 1946 there were 968 Home Bible Classes in Southern California alone.[9] At first, CEF encouraged instructors to use Bible lesson materials printed by the Scripture Press.[9] In March 1942, CEF launched Child Evangelism Magazine, each issue of which included a full children's Bible lesson with colored flannelgraph cutouts.[9] Over the next 15 years, CEF developed an entire series of lessons,[10] organized it into a 5-year curriculum cycle, and renamed the home study bible class the "Good News Club."

Overholtzer touted the fundamentalist credentials of his organization in his short 1955 biography entitled The Children's Home Bible Class Movement:

1. The organization was to be fundamental, of course, thoroughly interdenominational, but by individuals and not churches.
2. It was to cooperate with every fundamental organization but to be utterly independent.[9]
3. Every city and town was to have an organization affiliated with state, national, and finally and international organization.
4. A fundamental statement of faith was to be adopted and enforced.[9]

Good News Club lesson book author Ruth Overholtzer, wife of J. Irvin Overholtzer, also expressed her enthusiasm for "the fundamentals" in her autobiography. Describing her experience of being a college student of fundamentalist leader and Biola dean Reuben Torrey, Ruth wrote: “How could any of us who had the privilege of hearing this author at eleven a.m. each weekday morning teaching from his own book, ever, the rest of our lives, be ‘foggy about the fundamentals’? I was a blotter soaking up great Bible truths.”[9] Ruth credited Torrey's instruction with providing the formative content of Good News Club's lessons: "the great doctrines of the Bible which I had studied under Dr. Torrey began to form themselves into simple doctrinal lessons for children."[9]

After its Milford victory, CEF began an initiative to move Good News Clubs from neighborhood homes into public elementary schools. It launched an "Adopt-A-School" program to recruit evangelical "church partners" to open clubs in public elementary schools and train their volunteers.[11] In 2002, only about 1000 out of nearly 4800 clubs met in public schools.[12] By 2011, over 3500 out of nearly 5000 clubs met in public schools.[4] CEF reports that it "hopes to one day have a Good News Club in every elementary school in America."[4]

Criticism

Good News Club has been criticized for making inroads into public elementary schools that blur the distinction between church and state, for its fundamentalist character, and for masking its goal of proselytizing children. Since its 2001 Supreme Court victory, CEF has filed and won dozens of lawsuits against school districts that resisted opening up its classrooms or communication channels (e.g., flyer distribution programs) to Good News Club. During the Bush administration, the Justice Department worked closely with CEF on many of these cases, filing amicus briefs at both the trial and appellate levels.[13]

In 2012, journalist Katherine Stewart published The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, describing the local controversy that erupted when Good News Club came to Seattle's Loyal Heights Elementary School and chronicling what she learned as an undercover reporter at CEF's triennial National Convention in 2010. Separately, Stewart has reported on complaints by parents of children of other faiths being warned, by their Good News Club classmates, that they may go to hell,[14] and of Good News Club's teaching, as an object lesson on obedience, of I Samuel 15:3's divine imperative to "attack the Amalekites" and "put to death men and women, children and infants."[15]

References

  1. ^ "Good News Club". Good News Club, Inc. of Northumberland County. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ a b "Child Evangelism Fellowship Shares Gospel With 12.1M Kids in 2011". Outreach Magazine. 8/2/2012. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help) Cite error: The named reference "Outreach" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Good News Club". Child Evangelism Fellowship. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  4. ^ a b c "CEF Celebrates 10th Anniversary of US Supreme Court Ruling". Child Evangelism Fellowship. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) Cite error: The named reference "3560 Clubs" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ Stewart, Katherine (2012). The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-843-7.
  6. ^ "CEF 5-Year Curriculum Cycle: 2012-2017" (PDF). Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  7. ^ "International GNC Cycle". Child Evangelism Fellowship. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  8. ^ a b Rohrer, Norman (1970). The Indomitable Mr. O. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Child Evangelism Fellowship Press. pp. 73–79, 93–105. Cite error: The named reference "indomitable" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Overholtzer, J. Irvin (1955). The Children's Home Bible Class Movement. Pacific Palisades, California: International Child Evangelism Fellowship, Inc. pp. 9, 11, 18, 19, 29. Cite error: The named reference "HBCM" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  10. ^ Overholtzer, Ruth (1990). From Then Till Now: Reminiscing with Mrs. O. Warrenton, Missouri: Child Evangelism Fellowship Press. pp. 44–45, 110–115.
  11. ^ "Adopt a Public School". Child Evangelism Fellowship. Retrieved 9/4/2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  12. ^ Townsend, Tim (12/15/2002). "The New After-School Activity: Evangelism". The New York Times. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Religious Discrimination in Education". Department of Justice. Retrieved 7/4/2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  14. ^ Stewart, Katherine (5/7/2009). "Reading, Writing, and Original Sin". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  15. ^ Stewart, Katherine (5/30/2012). "How Christian fundamentalists plan to teach genocide to schoolchildren". The Guardian. Retrieved 9/4/2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
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