c. 2007 Religion News Service

School Issues New Guidelines on Preaching in the Classroom

KEARNY, N.J. (RNS) In response to allegations that a high school history teacher told students they belonged in hell if they did not accept Jesus, school officials will start a new training program to ensure that educators understand legal boundaries about voicing personal religious beliefs in the classroom.

Kenneith J. Lindenfelser, an attorney for the Kearny Board of Education, said the training will include all public school teachers and could begin as early as February.

“The new board policy reiterates the law between church and state, and that any violation will be dealt with strictly,” Lindenfelser said.

The new policy arose in response to charges by Kearny High School junior Matthew LaClair that his history teacher, David Paszkiewicz, spent the first few days of the school year preaching instead of teaching.

LaClair met with the teacher and his principal, Al Somma, to complain.

The student submitted audio tapes he secretly made in class, on which Paszkiewicz told his students they belonged in hell if they rejected Jesus, that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark and theories of evolution and the Big Bang weren’t scientific.

The district, citing confidentiality of personnel issues, has refused to discuss specifics of the corrective action it has taken against Paszkiewicz.

But board president Bernadette McDonald said in a written statement that the school typically follows a course of action that could include “discussion, instruction, monitoring, individual improvement plans, evaluations and, if deemed appropriate, disciplinary measures.”

_ Rose Duger

Baptist Professor Offers Her Version of Dismissal

(RNS) A female professor of Hebrew denied tenure at a Southern Baptist seminary says she was told by the seminary president that her gender was the reason for her dismissal.

Sheri Klouda, who is now at Taylor University in Indiana, was denied tenure at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Oklahoma pastor and blogger Wade Burleson, writing Jan. 17 on his personal blog, accused Southwestern President Paige Patterson of gender discrimination. The next day, T. Van McClain, chair of the seminary’s board of trustees, released a statement in which he said Burleson’s blog entry was “filled with inaccuracies.”

Klouda has since agreed with Burleson’s version of events. “I suppose there could be inaccuracies in the entry, but with regard to me and what happened at Southwestern, Wade’s version of events is accurate,” Klouda said.

Klouda said that 10 days after Patterson became seminary president in 2003, he assured her that her job was safe. “He made some pretty grim statements in press conferences following his appointment,” Klouda said, “but he told me in a meeting that I would not lose my job because of my gender.”

On June 7, 2004, Klouda said, she was told by a school administrator that Patterson would not recommend her for tenure.

“It’s no secret that the issue was my gender,” Klouda said. “When I wasn’t assigned any classes for the fall semester of 2006, Patterson encouraged me to tell my students that the decision was based on his views and convictions about women teaching men. He believes the local church is a paradigm for the school, and in the local church, women may not be in leadership.”

Klouda said she did not grant permission for Burleson to post the information on his blog, believing it “wasn’t the best place to address this issue.”

McClain refused to comment directly, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters. However, in a written statement, he said Burleson’s blog was inaccurate in saying Klouda had been approved unanimously by the trustees, or that trustees were not fully informed about Patterson’s decision.

_ Greg Horton

Queen Elizabeth to Visit Pilgrims’ Church, Jamestown Settlement

LONDON (RNS) Queen Elizabeth II will visit Amsterdam next month to mark the 400th anniversary of a church with loose ties to the Pilgrims, and is also set to visit Virginia to mark the first Anglican settlement at Jamestown.

The queen and the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix will visit Amsterdam’s English Reformed Church on Feb. 5. The parish belongs to the Dutch Reformed Church but was established for English expatriates and has been staffed by Scottish clergy.

Although the church has a stained-glass window commemorating the Pilgrims, its links to the Pilgrims _ who moved to Leiden, another Dutch city, before setting sail for Plymouth on the Mayflower _ are rather tenuous. Both the Pilgrims and members of the church were English, but theological differences kept them apart.

Over the past two years the Amsterdam congregation has raised about $767,000 for urgent structural repairs to the church, one of the city’s oldest buildings.

In May, Elizabeth and Prince Philip are scheduled to visit Jamestown, Va., for the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is also scheduled to mark the anniversary, in festivities on April 26.

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Southern Baptist Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. (RNS) “I witnessed in the ICU the urgency and desperation of those in deep medical crisis. I was struck by the fact that I drive by hospitals all the time _ even enter to visit friends and church members _ without praying for those unknown to me who are suffering deep and potentially life-ending crises. Some suffer great pain and mental anguish. I will not make that mistake again.”

_ R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writing in a column for Baptist Press about his recent hospitalization, which included time in an intensive care unit.

KRE/LF END RNS