Rev. Clay Nelson wants to put a stop to Bible study in schools because it violates the students’ human right to “freedom of religion”.
From here:
An Anglican leader is urging state schools to ditch the Bible in Schools programme as he believes it is trying to create a loophole around the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
St Matthew in the City Reverend Clay Nelson has joined the atheist run-Secular Education Network in a bid to get the religious education programme out of the country’s primary and secondary schools.
Nelson said the programme is an imposition on the human rights of children as it restricts the freedom of other religions which is protected under the Bill of Rights.
“The biggest reason is the issue of human rights,” Nelson told TV ONE’s Breakfast.
“We believe in freedom of religion and to have Bibles in public schools is in an imposition on the religious freedom of others. To have religious freedom you have to have freedom from the religion of others.”
In the video below Clay declares that he is a “non-theist”, doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and doesn’t believe any of the historic creeds; his faith, he says, thrives on “uncertainty”.
Oddly enough, he still insists on calling himself a Christian; nevertheless, as Kierkegaard pointed out, it doesn’t matter how many times you call a cow a horse – it remains a cow.
…and still he’s a Rev.!
I’d love to follow up on that wonderful quote from Kierkegaard, but I can’t find it. Do you know the source?
No, I read it years ago but for the life of me can’t remember where.
A kind soul emailed me the origin of the reference: it’s from Kierkegaard’s Journals and he used it to illustrate the folly of calling Denmark “Christian”.
You can find it here.
Many thanks.
Gordon, Here is a very similar quote (which I put on my website, Affirming The Faith, some while ago): “You can sit in a garage all day and call yourself a car, but that doesn’t make you one nor does it make your pronouncements about either cars or garages scientifically accurate” – Creation scientist Tom Willis, when asked about the many Christians (Catholic and Protestant) who are “perfectly at ease” with evolution; “Take me to your leader”, New Scientist (London), 22 April 1999, p. 42.
That’s uncomfortably close to the Duke of Wellington’s quote about his nationality (he was born in what is now the Irish Republic, but considered himself thoroughly British): being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse.
Pingback: Anglican Priest Joins Atheists Calling for End to Bible Study in School « Fr Stephen Smuts
Funny things happen in NZ. if this wasn’t serious, it’d be one of them
I listened to most of the video,(as much as I could before vomiting), of this poor, lost man’s self-serving, non-sensical, rambling, and heretical oration. According to this wolf in sheep’s clothing,(a wolf without teeth, but a wolf none the less), he is not a disbeliever or heretic, he is just a man asking questions.
Here’s a question he could ask of himself; “Seeing as I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, where can I go for phychiatric help?”
I am a tyro when it comes to things ecclesiastical, but I do believe a Bishop who would leave this man as a vicar of Christ’s children, is even more balmy, mis-guided and evil then this man is.
To me there is only one reason that this is so, that they are determined to destroy their church, destroy the Church of Christ, and worse than that, destroy the faith of His children.
“They” may be well on the way to destroying their own church, (perhaps the Unitarians or Scientologists will take them in), but I’ve got news for them, they will never destroy the Church of Christ, nor the faith of those who believe upon Christ Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and honour Him by knowing His word, and obeying His commandments.
This fellow should know that Anglican clergymen have worn the clerical collar with a sense of separation between themselves and the secular world for almost two hundred years. I believe it is an obsenity that he has the ignorance and audacity to wear the clerical collar, and as he feels the secular world is of no difference than the Kingdom of God, he should rip it off and put on a Che Guevara T-shirt with an appropiate obsenity on it.
May God have mercy on his soul.
No, they will not destroy the church of Christ, but many church buildings are being bought and turned into mosques.
Rev Nelson is Edina Monsoon (Ab Fab).