Christianity is eroding in America and the nation's public education system is largely to blame, according to the co-author of the book "Crimes of the Educators."
In a recent WND interview, Alex Newman charged that the education establishment in America is "systematically destroying children's belief in biblical religion, in Christianity."
Newman noted a recent Pew Research Center report showing that while 78 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian in 2007, only 71 percent did so in 2014. He said this is an indication that Christianity in America is declining—slowly but surely.
The Pew report also showed that today's younger generations are successively less Christian than those before them. Only 56 percent of younger Millennials consider themselves as Christians while 85 percent of the older generation regard themselves as Christian.
Newman said it is incorrect to think that American public schools are secular or impartial towards various religions. Actually, the international journalist and educator said public schools in the U.S. are trying to force a religion on children, but it's not Christianity; rather, it is humanism.
Newman said the Humanist Manifesto could best explain what this religion of humanism is all about. It reads: "Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created."
The manifesto rejects most Christian beliefs as it calls for a "socialised and cooperative economic order" to replace the "existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society."
Newman said these humanist beliefs are now being taught in the classrooms of U.S. public schools.
Foreign religious beliefs have also infiltrated the U.S. public school system in recent years, he said. For example, last year reports said students in Madison, Wisconsin, were assigned to pretend they were Muslims, while students in Florida were instructed to recite the Five Pillars of Islam as a prayer and perform other Muslim rituals. Students in Tennessee were reportedly assigned to write the Shahada – the Islamic conversion creed.
Schools all over America are also promoting Buddhist meditation which is similar to prayer, Newman said.
At the same time, Christian practices are being curtailed. The Supreme Court has long declared that school-sponsored Bible reading is unconstitutional. Recently one Florida school system banned a Christian group from offering free Bibles on National Freedom of Religion Day. In 2013 an official at a California college ordered a student to remove or hide her cross necklace while working at a freshman orientation fair. One elementary school in Texas banned any mention of Christmas at a "winter party" held in December 2013.
"Any religion that doesn't have Christ in it is fine in the schools and is promoted in the schools," Newman said. "So what's going on here is really a war on Christianity."
