Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Texas Tribune reports:
Speaking to state lawmakers last month, Rocky Malloy argued that putting unlicensed religious chaplains in schools could prevent youth violence, teen suicide and teacher burnout. And he rejected concerns that school chaplains might use their access to recruit kids to Christ.
Chaplains “are not working to convert people to religion,” Malloy, the head of the National School Chaplain Association, told the Senate Committee on Education. “Chaplains have no other agenda other than to be present in relationships, care for individuals and to make sure everybody on campus is seen and heard.”
What Malloy didn’t mention was that, for decades, he has led another group that promotes school chaplains as a tool for evangelism. Malloy is the founder of Mission Generation, which had been open about its desire to proselytize in schools.
Religion News Service reports:
The Texas Legislature has passed a bill that would allow schools to employ chaplains in addition to school counselors, with Republicans overriding objections by Democrats to send the proposal to the governor’s desk.
The bill will permit school districts to hire chaplains who, unlike school counselors, are not required to be certified by the State Board for Educator Certification. A version of the bill already sailed through the state Senate last month.
“I worry that this bill will lead to Christian nationalists infiltrating our public schools and indoctrinating our students,” Democratic Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, told Religion News Service. The chief sponsor of the bill in the House, Rep. Cole Hefner, refused to amend the bill to bar proselytizing,
A key supporter of a push to allow unlicensed chaplains to be placed in schools has rejected concerns that they might use their access to recruit kids to Christ.
But for decades he’s led a group that promotes school chaplains as a tool for evangelism.https://t.co/9Yd6WF3qn9
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) May 20, 2023