Supporters rally for O.C. history teacher
About 300 former and current Capistrano Valley High students rallied Wednesday in support of a teacher accused of making anti-Christian statements in the classroom. Boosters of James Corbett, an Advanced Placement European history teacher, lined both sides of the street in front of the Mission Viejo campus, chanting “support free speech” and holding signs that read, “He Made Us Think,” “Irish Catholic Supports Dr. Corbett” and “Who Would Jesus Sue?” The 90-minute rally came a week after student Chad Farnan, 16, and his parents filed a lawsuit alleging that Corbett had violated the student’s constitutional rights by making “highly inappropriate” and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.
One of the things that’s always greatly troubled me about Fundamentalist Christians is their collective aversion to anything resembling critical thinking. It’s as if they’re so threatened by the thought that children might actually want to reflect on their spirituality that they simply cannot stomach even the possibility that they might be exposed to differing points of view. The “Jesus said it…it’s in the Bible…that settles it” mindset is nothing of endlessly frightening, because it betrays a truly disturbing and unquestioning penchant for blind obedience.
Education differs from indoctrination in that, at least in it’s purest form, education is about opening the mind to alternatives. It’s about giving people the information with which to evaluate the world around them and make intelligent, informed decisions about what they want to think and believe in and how the want to live their lives. How many of us can point to teachers in our lives who convinced us to look at something differently, thereby changing forever some aspect of our lives? Behind most great minds, behind most great thinkers, are teachers who provided them with tools and ideas with which to explore and evaluate issues both philosophical and practical.
Perhaps Dr. Corbett is guilty of being somewhat undiplomatic. The term “Jesus glasses” is the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of an already-enraged bull. Christian absolutists don’t take kindly to having their absolute conviction questioned. Yes, Virginia, truly these are the folks who put the “fun” in “Fundamentalism”.
At the heart of the Farnans’ lawsuit is a tape recording from what they said is a class lesson Corbett taught Oct. 19. The lawsuit notes that Corbett told students that “when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can’t see the truth,” and that religion is not “connected with morality.”
Many of those attending the rally didn’t deny that Corbett often uses such phrases during lectures to emphasize a point.
“He’s all about opening people’s minds,” said Rachel Evans, a former student of Corbett’s who recently graduated from UCLA with two music degrees. “It’s hard to teach European history without being somewhat critical of organized religion. But aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes? Isn’t that why we study history?”
Shawn Heavlin-Martinez, a Capistrano Valley sophomore, is enrolled in the class Farnan had been attending until he filed his lawsuit. Shawn, a Quaker, said he had not been insulted by any of Corbett’s remarks regarding organized religion.
“Everything he says about religion is relevant to what he teaches,” he said.
Ali Coyle, a senior who took Corbett’s class two years ago, said the attacks on Corbett had been “surprising and frustrating” for many of his former students. Coyle came to the protest carrying the “Irish Catholic Supports Dr. Corbett” sign.
“For hundreds of years the church was corrupt, and that has to be discussed,” she said. “I was never offended by what he said, and I’m an Irish Catholic.”
Others rallying on Corbett’s behalf included his daughter Quinn, who declined to comment.
And then there are those Christian absolutists who see what Corbett teaches as confirming that Christians are a persecuted, picked-upon minority who suffer the privations of what others see as merely the exercise of free speech.
The problem here is that these folks are living proof of EXACTLY what Corbett is teaching his students. “Putting your Jesus glasses” on may be a somewhat impolitic phrase, but the phenomenon he decries is absolutely true. When you unquestioningly plug into the “Jesus said it…it’s in the Bible…that settles it” mindset, you’ve forfeited the right and the ability to think critically to authority figures who are quite happy to tell you what to do, how to think, and who to demonize.
Corbett’s detractors completely ignore the reality that some students may be challenged to take a look at their faith, and in the end may decide to cling to it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, because it involves an individual making informed decisions about their values and their beliefs. If you feel so strongly about your faith and your beliefs that it can’t stand up to honest, critical examination, then what do you really have except an example of a thoroughly indoctrinated mind?
I’m sick to death of former DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener and Christian despot Wiley S. Drake, who’s built his career on spreading the propaganda that Christians are a persecuted special interest group. To Wiley’s way of thinking, Christians have the absolute right to demand the suppression and destruction of those who happen not to share his narrow, fear-based, ignorant bastardization of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The “it’s time we Christians fought back” attitude only serves to demonstrate how much Wiley and those who think like him fear the power of honest reflection and examination as opposed to reflexive, knee-jerk obedience to authority.
Wiley Drake and his ilk are as much about Christianity as Jeffrey Dahmer was about vegetarianism. His argument is all about ignorance, indoctrination, and the death of critical thinking in our public schools. In the end, it’s about power, control, and blind obedience.
….and Jesus wept…..
Somewhere, Josef Goebbels is smiling….
Lord, save us from your followers….
