Frank Turek’s latest radio show podcast discusses Obama’s assertion that Christian schools are divisive.

Let’s start with a news story from the Daily Caller, and then we’ll review the podcast.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama suggested that religiously-affiliated and denominational schools are at the root of The Troubles, the ethnic, religious and nationalist conflict that seems to perpetually afflict Northern Ireland.

Obama made the chastising remarks in front of about 2,000 mostly young people at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on Monday, the Scottish Catholic Observer reported.

“If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden — that too encourages division and discourages cooperation,” Obama lectured.

[…]Monday’s statement is not the first time Obama has suggested that religion is a dangerous crutch.

In 2008, when he was running for president, Obama criticized unsophisticated Americans in “small towns in Pennsylvania” and the Midwest for their attachment to Christian religion and firearms.

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” Obama famously declared, according to The Huffington Post.

I’m sure that he has no problem with Maddrassas and secular-leftist public schools, though.

Anyway, on to the podcast, and let’s see what Frank Turek makes of it.

The MP3 file is here.

Topics:

• Obama’s point: he thinks that religious schools encourage division rather than cooperation
• The point is NOT that he wants to shut down Christian education
• His point is, though, that teaching religion in schools is a source of segregation and division
• Obama toured Muslim countries, but he didn’t say a word about Muslim schools being divisive
• In Ireland, the violence is not in accordance with Christianity
• We should not judge a religion by actions that are inconsistent with that religion
• George Washington: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
• You can see how morality has degraded, for example in public schools, as society has become more secular
• Our human rights and freedoms are in fact rooted in a Creator, and government should recognize that
• Instead of being critical of religion, Obama should have emphasized the unity of Christian denominations like Thomas Jefferson
• In order to be right with God, the essential thing is to believe that Jesus’ death is an atonement for human sinfulness
• We should not lose sight of what we have in common with other denominations and how important those common points are
• Augustine: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
• The most important question for humans to ask “Does God Exist?”, because it determines whether there is meaning and purpose
• The question cannot even be asked or debated in public (government-run) schools
• Problem: how can our education system be sound if we do not and cannot investigate life’s most important question?
• The answer to the question “Does God exist?” is assumed to be NO in our public / government-run school system
• Why do parents who are forced to pay thousands of dollars for public schools go on and spend thousands more on private school?
• It’s because everyone knows that it’s worth the money to send children to private schools, they learn more there
• The President’s comment: denominational schools cause divisions, is itself divisive
• Jesus himself says that Christianity will involve some appropriate divisiveness: e.g. – Matthew 10:34-38
• See 1 Corinthians 5, Obama himself would be expelled from the church for claiming to be Christian while excusing sexual immorality

Then there is a period of people calling in and discussing the topic with Dr. Turek.