Did anybody catch the story on 20/20 Friday night about the 12 year old Jewish boy who was unknowingly converted to Southern Baptist without his parents approval?
I don’t always agree with the Southern Baptists, but 20/20 report painted them as rabid radicals, with complete disregard of personal rights, beliefs, and parental permission when making the major life changing decision of accepting Christ.
Did anybody see this? Check out this site http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000512_conversion_feature.html
THe reason I posted here is because I want everybody’s thoughts on this, and I have a feeling it will become a debate. I think the church was WAY out of line, and should leave their Evangelizing Efforts for people who are at least 18, and old enough to understand the huge change they are about to make. THat is a possibly life changing decision, and minors are not allowed to make most life altering decisions (the right to vote/statutory rape laws/marriage/etc etc) before they are 18 without parental consent.
Personally, I think the Baptist church had, at the very least, a responsibility to inform the boy’s parents about his decision. While I don’t think that faith can or should be forced or influenced onto anybody by someone else, the parents ARE responsible for the boy and his actions.
12 years old… hmmm… if he were 6 or 7, I’d say that the church would definitely want to require parental permission. If he were 15 or 16, he should be allowed to make his own decisions about religion. 12… that falls into a gray area. Like I said, the baptist church should have at least talked to his parents about his decision.
Personally, I don’t like 20/20… it’s like they’re trying to copy 60 Minutes but adding a bit more “Jerry Springer” to it… just an opinion.
Considering the abyssmal track record that both 20/20 and 60 Minutes have for unbiased reporting, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Southern Baptist Church had nothing whatsoever to do with the decision, or the boy’s parents pressured him into joining and then immediately withdrew him, or there was a clause in the boy’s grandfather’s will calling for him to convert to Southern Baptism at age 12. Once 20/20 or 60 Minutes decides to make a show where some person or group is the “bad guys”, woe be to any facts to the contrary.
Well, I read the article, and I think that “converting” the 12-year old is a bit of an excessive description of what happened.
It appears that after an adult “explained to him that he could accept Jesus as his savior and still be a Jew” he signed “a piece of paper accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.” It seems clear to me that having the kid sign the paper under false pretenses shouldn’t be counted as a “conversion” in anyone’s book, and is in all events a pretty despicable thing to do.
Although by the Baptists’ accounting, they may feel that they have “saved” a soul, but in my view they lose a great deal by this deception.
20/20 like most news shows are nothing more than sensationalism designed to sell ads. I don’t know what’s worse, how this overblown piece on “conversion” was scripted, performed, and edited or that you bought it hook, line, and sinker.
He wasn’t “converted” to nuthin. religion is a matter of faith, not signing papers. The act was meaningless.
Well, it is a fact that the SBC has, quite notoriously, made a point in the recent past of stepping up high-profile conversion efforts involving other religions. A couple of recent examples involved “targeting” Jews at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and carpeting SLC with people to try and convert Mormons. And then there was that ad they took out describing how the Buddhists were all going to hell.
What the heck are you all talking about? The church members tried to pull an underhanded trick on an impressionable kid. Pure and simple. Doesn’t make any difference who reported it. The leaders didn’t even try to deny what they were up to. They basically stated that if they didn’t “save” the 12 year old, he was going to hell. Well, it’s their right to believe as they wish, but to intervene in the parents role is inexcusable.
Had this been a troubled kid, with no parental supervision or guidance, maybe I’d feel diferently about it. But he was comfortable in his beliefs, until they got him away and confused him. The kid’s ok, but that doesn’t make what they tried to do ok.
As you can probably tell, this kind of crap annoys me.
Peace,
mangeorge
And who says there’s no accuracy in the news anymore!
Dr. J
I think this really says it all. My parents “converted” me to their religion and I didn’t have a say. Just because I didn’t have one before doesn’t mean I should blidnly follow their commands.
Yes, what the Baptists did is very unethical as centuries of religious stupidity has finally shown people that tolerance might be a good idea for once. They broke the very modern ideal of religious tolerance. In the end the kid signed, through coercion, a piece of paper, sooner or later he’s going to grow up and question both his religions (ethnic and converted) and decide if any of them work for him. He may become a Jew for Jesus or a buddhist or an atheist when he’s turns 18. Who knows.
Or he can become like me when he turns 18 and start worshipping himself.
I saw the piece on 20/20, and I have personal experience with the kind of Southern Baptists that were portrayed. “Rabid radicals with complete disregard for personal rights” is dead on.
When I was 12 years old I was a bit of a wild child. My parents were concerned about me, and about the public school system, so they enrolled me in a private school run by a Southern Baptist church. They had no experience with that church, (my father was an atheist, and my mother was raised in the RLDS church - pepperlandgirl, you’ll probably have heard of them, for everyone else, it’s a denomination similiar to the Mormons in some ways) and they had no idea that it was going to be any different than any other private school. What it was, really, was an indoctrination system for their church. There were mandatory bible classes daily, and mandatory chapel services once a week that lasted the entire morning. Shortly after school started, they had “Revival Week” that consisted of those services every morning, during which they showed what amounted to poorly produced horror movies depicting what would happen to unbelievers after the “Rapture”. (When I say horror movies, I am not kidding, these things were bloody and gruesome. The kids of that church were not allowed to go to the slasher movies that were popular during this time, so I suppose maybe this was their compensation.) After the films were shown, there was intense pressure to go down to the front of the chapel and be “saved”. I refused, so some of my classmates knelt in a circle around me and prayed for the redemption of my heathen soul. This was very frightening and unsettling stuff for a 12 year old child.
There were numerous other incidents in the semester I spent at this awful place. The regular classes were substandard. Some of the English lessons were taught using the Bible as reading material. The math classes covered the same material I had learned in 4th and 5th grade in public schools. Every single class began with a prayer, and used some kind of religious material for instruction. (Even “science” and “health” class) There was intense peer pressure, and even pressure from some of the teachers once they found out you weren’t what they thought a “christian” was. I could fill up a book with the horror stories of my experiences there.
This was not some small, cultish denomination either, at the time this was one of the largest churches in the medium-sized city I lived in. They were willing to do whatever it took to “save” people’s souls, they seemed to regard them as notches on their belts. I am not saying every Southern Baptist church is like this - I don’t know if they are or not. But some of them definitely are like they were portrayed in the 20/20 piece, and worse.
Vera
I spent the first twenty-one years of my life in the kind of situation that VeraGemini describes. The only real problem that I have encountered as a result is that it is difficult for me to relate to others when they talk about their upbringing, or schooling. I used to make things up, but I have grown more comfortable with my past.
None of what occured to me at the hands of Fundamentalist Baptists was of my choosing. Indoctrination probably will not hurt a person. After all, it is a free country. One may choose what he will when he is able.
I sometimes compare my upbringing to that of the Amish. I have found that it is easier for most people to relate to them (for some reason–better publicity?)
My parents would cringe, wring their hands, and get down on their knees to pray for my mortal soul, if they were to read this post.
I doubt very seriously that a child will be harmed with conversion to another faith. A greater chance of harm would be coercion to the faith of the parents, when a different choice had been made by the child. What should a person of faith do? Tolerance becomes much harder to practice when it involves one’s children IMO.
I hope that I have not strayed too far from the original posting.
So he signed a worthless piece of paper. So what?
I’m not a fan of the Southern Baptists (they’re a bunch of freaks), this can hardly be called an unknowing conversion.
20/20’s just trying to stir up some shit.
Pepper, I’m with Tracer, Daniel~, and Spooje. There’s nothing to debate here, babe. 20/20 is just trying to stir up some shit. The church in question, and the pastor in particular, was way out of line, ESPECIALLY in bringing this to the attention of the press. To me, that’s the unforgiveable thing, not that they got him to sign a paper, but that they took it to the media, crowing obnoxiously with triumph. Yes, some Southern Baptists actually believe that if a 12-year-old boy signs a piece of paper, he’s “saved”. Don’t worry about the kid, he’ll be fine. Signing a piece of paper hasn’t suddenly deprived him of his Jewish heritage, and in time, his folks will understand that, once the media attention cools off (as it will any minute now :rolleyes: ).
Remember, this is the “entertainment” industry we’re talking about here.
I think that there is some potential for discussion here, beyond the specifics of this story.
The SBC makes a point of being very vocal and very visible to the media on matter of social importance, particularly divorce and homosexuality. What, then are the implications regarding a body which presents itself as something of a moral arbiter or at least a morally guiding voice, yet makes a point of trolling for converts a) in a rather offensive manner among other religions and b) among minors?
What was the point? Did the Southern Baptist just want alot of media attention? Did they really think they were saving the boy’s soul by having him sign a peice of paper? Are they that desperate for members that they would resort to this underhanded trick?
If they really need more Southern Baptists then they should do as the Catholics do (maybe I should say “we” Catholics because that was the religion I was raised with) and just tell all their members that abortion and contraception are against the rules. Watch the Southern Baptists multiply!
Religion is a deeply personal thing. If this boy really believes that Jesus is his saviour, than there isn’t much his parents can do besides continue to be his parents. If that is not influence, then I don’t know what is.
Actually, I realize what I did. In the beginning I meant the debate to be whether or not 20/20 stepped over the line by critizing the Baptist Church too much. THen the OP changed into whether or not the Baptist Church stepped over the line by targeting children to be ‘saved’.
Both are valid arguements. I think 20/20 went too far, and I think the Southern Baptists need to be a bit more tolerant of other religoins, especially Jews, Buddhists, etc etc
20/20 went too far? Yeah, of course. The whole “Evil religion twists little boys’ soul!” angle gets 'em a lot more ratings than “Kid signs piece of paper.” My whole policy towards any sort of news show is to take everything with a grain of salt, at least. If something sounds interesting, I’ll probably actually look into it more. If it sounds like bunk, I shrug it off and watch some cartoons.
Do Baptists get a bit nuts about converting others? Oh yeah. My dad’s a Mormon, so I got to hear about the whole Baptist “campaign” to save Mormons in Utah. Of course, I’m sure that everything I heard was biased against the Baptists, but from what I understand, the Baptist church circulated a video to its members teaching exactly how one should go about saving the Mormons specifically. Also from what I heard, the campaign didn’t work too darn well.
Everybody thinks that trying to convert the followers of other religions is intolerant. On the other hand, if the SBs really belive that any non-Baptists will have their skin flayed off in the 9th circle of hell, isn’t it natural that they should try to convert others, especially 12 year old children. If they didn’t try, I would certainly question the sincerity of their faith.
Personally, if someone thought I was going to Hell, I’d be more insulted if they left me to burn then if they bothered me by trying to convert me, or even my children.