School Insists 9/11 Had Nothing to Do With Religion

A 9/11 tribute in New York City.
A 9/11 tribute in New York City. (Reuters)

Back when I was in school our English teacher would give us vocabulary words, things like "conundrum" or "extraordinary."

Well—the vocabulary list at High Mount School in Illinois is causing a bit of a controversy.

Their list included words like "jihad, Islam, Muhammad," and "Koran," according to the reporting of the Bellville News-Democrat.

One mom told the newspaper she flipped out, shocked that her 12-year-old daughter's public school history class was teaching Islam 101.

"She said, 'What's Koran mean?' and I flipped out," Rachel Seger said. "I said, 'Excuse me?' and I looked at them and I said oh my God."

Superintendent Mark Halwachs said the lessons on Islamic vocabulary words was all about teaching tolerance. Get a load of what he told the newspaper about what happened on September 11th, 2001:

"It wasn't a religion that did that. It was bad men that did that."

Well, I hate to break it to the superintendent, but the radical Islamic extremists were not hollering "Jesus Saves" when they flew the jetliners into those buildings.

The superintendent explained that it's important to teach the difference between a "large group and a fanatical faction."

"I think you have to take moments like that and use them as teachable moments," he told the newspaper. "You have to look at the age group and your students, and to me you can talk about different things in the world and teach about tolerance."

However, the school district's definition of tolerance does not seem to include in-depth, theological discussions about Christianity.

"You can teach about religion, you just can't...endorse or support a religion over another," he told the newspaper. "You can't say (Jesus) is the one and only, or he's the best; you can explain about and teach about the religions of the world."

Sounds to me like the folks at High Mount School need to add another word to their vocabulary list—indoctrination.

Todd Starnes is host of "Fox News & Commentary," heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is The Deplorables' Guide to Making America Great Again.


To contact us or to submit an article, click here.


Get Charisma's best content delivered right to your inbox! Never miss a big news story again. Click here to subscribe to the Charisma News newsletter.

Charisma News - Informing believers with news from a Spirit-filled perspective