Amphibian Evangelist

Religion, chocolate and the Value Question

It took approximately 2,073 Freddo Frogs to draw most of the school’s population out onto the basketball court.

Those smiling chocolate amphibians, along with a healthy number of Caramelo Koalas, were the faces of a fundraising extravaganza. Sacrificed for pieces of silver, they paid for barbeques and rather tragic Whitney Huston impersonators. Coins became flyers and amplifiers, playground slides that sent people careering from dizzying heights, and the florescent inflation of a jumping-castle. The organisers even provided show bags; that, for some bewildering reason, were mostly made up of face cream and panty-liners. Frogs and bears had been sold with love and care, in a beautiful strategy. Year 12s were the main targets, trailed by younger, box-wielding vendors as they desperately ran from class to class, leaving green and gold wrappers in their wakes. Chocolate was for pre-SAC fortitude; post-SAC comfort. Chocolate was always there: a sugar-cocoa barrier to the void left by stress and caffeine and cigarettes. Statistically, there is such a thing as final-year weight gain.

The result of those extra kilos and slight indigestion turned the front of our school into a blue-and-white swarming mass of humanity. They moved as one towards the castle, branching off to snatch a hygienic show bag, screaming and laughing. The impersonator… impersonated. “I believe the children are our fu-u-ture….” This part of the future jeered and joined in by turn.

Above their heads, higher than the slide, there fluttered a banner.

Jesus Loves You!

I looked at it. My tongue caught traces of frog around my mouth. I looked again, and it seemed that I’d finally managed to swallow some religion.

That my school allowed some of its students to raise money for a religious festival is, of itself, harmless. What disturbed me on many levels was seeing that banner. There was a feeling of coercion. Had any of us starving, hysterical year 12s known what we were really paying for? I myself had never heard the reasons for the massive fundraiser. It was strategy, again, of course. It’s hard to sell religion even for chocolate, as the valiant Jehovah’s Witnesses show us on a daily basis. Would you buy a frog with a hidden agenda? An amphibian body of Christ?

The question of disclosure is essential. The festival took place was a secular State school. This essay does not criticise itbecause of its affiliation with any particular faith. Hopefully the Lord does love us and besides, those feminine-hygiene gifts were both practical and thoughtful in a school full of girls. The disturbing element is simply the things left unsaid. The organisers slaved away for months, lugging heavy boxes around, under a cone of silence. What this writer would like to know when our school’s upcoming, “Praise Allah”, festival will be. Does the Baravghad Gita get a look in, or the Torah? Will there be a time when students wear school-funded black tee shirts that proclaim ‘The Old God is Dead?’

Regulations were relaxed for the college’s Celebration of Christ when technically, as a state school where secularism supposedly is a commandment by itself, there should not have been one. However, it being completely unfunded by school administration, the event was allowed. Is this an example of a much-needed openness towards all religion? Possibly, except that similar day encouraging belief in the Islamic faith, for example, would never be permitted. To do so would be enforcing religious values onto lovely, secular students. Plastering cheerful godly messages on walls, on the other hand, was simply an exercise in individual choice, tolerance and—when it came to the singer—endurance. Then again, Christianity does lend itself to catchy slogans. An Agnostic-Students Day wouldn’t be half so attractive: ‘Jesus May Love Me but I Am Not Going To Make Any Serious Judgements Until His Existence Has Been Definitively Proven! (Or Disproven!)’ just doesn’t cut it, somehow.

‘Values’ is a loaded word, particularly when used in Australia. We like the idea of having strong, definite values. It eases our overall identity crisis. At least it would, if we could only agree upon the type we espouse. We are a nation of borrowers, of adaptors. We borrow our anti-Terror laws from Britain, McDonalds and National Security from the United States. And we have, without doubt, taken many of our values from Christianity, adapting them with our own language of ‘fair go’. These comments are not intended as a critique of such values. Mr. Howard himself, fresh from exercising his right to worship with his Texan colleague, names Australia as what many people believe it to be, a Christian nation.

The problem here is that many people who believe these things are running our apparently secular educational institutions, often sanctioning—openly or otherwise—events such as the one that overtook my particular school in a bittersweet whirlwind. If the system would accommodate every other faith in such a way, then it would be fine and even admirable, but to allow one particular faith over others while existing under the banner of the state school system is both worrying and wrong. We have Family First in the Senate, courtesy of the Assembly of God. Evangelical church membership has been on the rise. A national increase in conservative thinking and politics appears to correlate with the rise in volume when it comes to talk of values, be they Christian or National. If our schools want to follow this trend, then the number of religious-based schools should also increase, leaving the remaining places open to either no religion at all or, conversely, all religion.

Children are the future, Whitney. We have the right to follow any religion we are lucky enough to find, or none at all. We like our secularism straight, either fully one way or the other, no religion held above or below the rest, and when we start school, we like to know what we are getting into.

Still, they were good show bags.