Focus on the Family reports on an outrage in New Hampshire after a high school student was assigned to read a book that insulted Jesus:
Focus: The parents of a New Hampshire high school student are speaking out after learning that an assigned book included derogatory statements about Jesus. The author called him “a wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.” Roger Greer has more
Greer: Dennis and Aimee Taylor objected to the book, which is part of their son’s personal finance class. Conrnerstone Action’s Ann Marie Banfield.
Banfield: This has nothing to do with personal finance.
Greer: She says the parents are going through the proper course of action.
Banfield: They should have some sort of say over what reading material goes into that school and what a child is required to read.
Greer: Banfield says this is the result of outcome-based education.
Banfield: It focuses on changing values, attitudes and beliefs in the students.
Greer: She says this book very likely would already have been removed if it insulted any other group.
The book in question is “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich which examined the impact of welfare reform on the working poor.
And reading it was apparently so traumatic that the Taylors’ son now has to be homeschooled:
Some New Hampshire parents are upset after finding out a schoolbook refers to Jesus as a “Wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist.”
The book in question is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, written by Barbara Ehrenreich. The account of working minimum-wage jobs was assigned to students at Bedford High School’s personal finance class.
Ehrenreich makes this reference to Jesus Christ after attending a tent revival meeting:
“But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse. The living man, the wine guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist is never once mentioned.”
Aimee and Dennis Taylor’s son was so upset at the passage in the book about Jesus that the 16-year-old wanted to be taken out of the school. His parents tried to convince him to stay, but he is now being home schooled.
“He told us the language in the book was horrible,” Aimee argued in front of the School Board. “If there was a movie about this book and they stayed faithful to the book and used the same quotes, he would be too young to see the movie,” her husband added.
Taylor believes the book is Anti-Christian, delivers a drug promoting message and uses obscene language.
The relevant passage reads:
It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth.
