So I posted a while back about The Australian Christian Lobby’s prayer for prejudice in Victoria and one of the things I listed was their lobbying for an increase to the funding for School Chaplains (known as “Chappies”). I quoted the Australian Psychological Society in saying this was dangerous: how right they were. In this post I’ll give you an example of the concerns I have about the organisation in charge of the majority of chaplains placed in schools: inability to safeguard children.
Not only are these skygod worshipping quacks completely untrained and unqualified to counsel children (which is a separate matter and not to be confused with this particular “Chappy” and SU Qld’s response to that): they are almost exclusively all employed by one organisation: Scripture Union and almost exclusively Christian (98% or so).
Oh yes, let this guy empart his wisdom to our children on causes of floods
This organisation has the following mission:
Aims:
As a worldwide organisation working with the churches, SU aims:* to make God’s Good News known to children, young people and families
to encourage people of all ages to meet God daily through the Bible and prayer,so that they may:
* come to personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ
* grow in Christian maturity, and
* become both committed church members and servants of a world in need.
Now what sort of organisation is SU Qld then in addition to being a blatantly evangelical mob who are leaching off hundreds of millions of tax dollars?
Example of spreading the word..
Well, they’re the type that doesn’t care too much if it employs child predators it seems. Apparently if they’re a Scripture Union Chaplain trying to seduce a 12 year old boy over msn it’ll do what Churches have always done with child predators: wait a while for the fuss to die down and shuffle them on to the next place. You know how it works: if you are truly sorry and ask Jesus for forgiveness then it’s ok right?
From the articles we learn about Chappy Jocelyn Hook:
The female chaplain of Golden Beach State School has today been removed from her job over her suggestive online chats with a 12-year-old boy.
Jocelyn Hook’s employer, Scripture Union Queensland, announced this afternoon that the married mother of three would not be allowed to work at any school “for the time being”.
Ok, so it’s “for the time being” then huh? What exactly did she do pray tell? *cough*
The move followed revelations by the Daily about the chaplain’s behaviour, in which the father of the boy said he was disgusted that Mrs Hook had kept job despite the SU ruling she had behaved inappropriately.
“We have decided to remove Jocelyn Hook from school chaplaincy duties,” SU chief executive Tim Mander said.
“The recent publicity and the publication of her name, her photo and the name of her school has made her chaplaincy role untenable at this time.”
Again the “at this time” type comment. Hmm.. Smacks of EVERY COVER UP the various churches have carried out over the years!
It's ok, "after a time" you can shift them on to somewhere else.
So what about the father who discovered this dodgy behaviour:
The father of the boy, now 13, said his son eventually became uncomfortable with some of Mrs Hook’s online comments, contained in dozens of logs between September 21 and December 30 last year, only to be told: “Trust me, I’m the chaplain.”
and
The father is disgusted over Scripture Union’s contention that Mrs Hook’s behaviour was improper but not predatory and, as such, less worrying.
“I do wonder if this would be brushed off with such a limp wristed answer if the chaplain had been male and he’d been talking to my 12 year old daughter,” he said.
The MSN Conversations of Chappy Joce
And the dodgy MSN conversations, so you be the judge of whether this was a text book case of grooming, or as SU Qld asserts:”The investigation found that although the chaplain’s behaviour was inappropriate, her behaviour was not predatory in nature”.
I currently teach Primary Ethics to kids aged 10-12 and no way on Earth would I (or any other sane adult) be:
- chatting with 12 year old students over msn without parental approval and a damned good reason to do so (I can’t really think of any)
- discussing “hickeys” and then inviting over for a swim
- inviting other people’s kids over for a swim (full stop!) and then offering rewards
These chats read like something directly out of the course all Primary Ethics teachers have to do on “Shining the light on Child abuse” except the scenario is not the dodgy uncle, but a dodgy Chaplain.
You take a look..
Excerpts of MSN exchanges last year between Golden Beach State School chaplain Jocelyn Hook and the then 12-year-old boy.
Mrs Hook’s user name is “Chappy Joce” or “Joce”.
September 28 (messages relate to a date the boy went on)
(2.50pm) Chappy Joce: So… got pash rash!
(2.50pm: BOY: wut?
(2.50pm) BOY: u got a pash rash?
(2.51pm) Chappy Joce: No you do
(2.51pm) BOY: no i dont
(2.51pm) Chappy Joce: Sure I bet u do.
September 29
(10.00am) Chappy Joce: wondered if you were hiding any hickeys
(10.00am) BOY: what?
(10.01am) Chappy Joce: bet u dont know what a hickey is hey… must be gettin old
(10.01am) BOY: i dont kno what a hickey is at all.
(10.02am) BOY: do i want to kno what they are?
(10.02am) Chappy Joce: love bit
(10.02am) Chappy Joce: you know… big read sucky mark on your neck?
(10.46am) Chappy Joce: wanna come over for a swim today?
(10.46am) BOY: umm… not really.
(10.47am) Chappy Joce: fine then!
(10:48am) Chappy Joce: i will let you use my pink laptop and msn
(10.48am) BOY:…
(10.48am) Chappy Joce: if you can’t bear to be away from melissa for that long
(11.27am) BOY: i dont wanna swim, so mum says i hav to stay home
(11.28am) Chappy Joce: just that chattin with melissa is more important! oh well u r a big boy and can take care of yourself
(11.28am) BOY: lmao (laughing my ar.. off)
(11.28am) Chappy Joce: behave… no dancing naked on web cam
(11.28am) Chappy Joce: hehe
(11.28am) BOY: i dont hav a webcam..i dont like them
December 30
(7.49pm) BOY: ? ill have a look thru the list of games on wikipedia
(7.49pm) Joce: crash of the titans
(7.49pm) BOY: ah yeah
(7.50pm) Joce: spank u… i mean thank you
(8.23pm) BOY: mums about to go to ur place now
(8:23pm) Joce: ok thx i better put some clothes on then lol
(8.24pm) BOY: lmao dnn2k (did not need to know)
(8:24 PM) Joce: dnn2k huh
(8:24 PM) BOY: do not need to know
Hrm..
Christopher Hitchens was right… Religion poisons everything.
In reply to your first little witty caption — did you even bother to click through to Gavin Hudson’s profile? I’m guessing not, otherwise you would have seen that he’s not a chaplain, or even a chaplaincy supporter. He’s an atheist and, like you, is just trolling the SU QLD page to post inflammatory comments.
Holy hate and disdain batman… I think you need a hug Nathan.
Danny: I’ve encountered Christians who have said that the Qld flood is punishment for Atheists. Someone taking the piss is indistinguishable from the views of a rather scary number of people, e.g. like these nuts.
You either believe god is responsible or has power over all things in the world or you don’t buy into the Christian religion, it’s as easy as that. You can’t have an all powerful, all seeing, responsible for creating the universe god who doesn’t have the power to stop a flood (or just not make one)..
So I can see how people start looking for reasons for god’s wrath (like scapegoating the usual suspects: gays, unbelievers, abortions, science, reason, logic).
In answer to your question: I don’t go clicking on everyone’s profile to see if they’re silly enough to leave it public..
ucantblamem: I’ll trade you the hug for restoration of secular schooling..
I don’t know that we ever had “secular” schooling (i.e. exclusive of religion). When the government took over the running of education in the late 19th century they didn’t outlaw religion in schools. As I understand it freedom of religion and religious activities in schools is actually written into our constitution.
So according to Scripture Union: “The recent publicity and the publication of her name, her photo and the name of her school has made her chaplaincy role untenable at this time.”
Oh, it was the PUBLICITY that made her role untenable. Not her ACTIONS?
… Next thing they’ll be blaming the kid.
[...] up item Funny how in the previous post: Trust me, I’m the chaplain I had Danny Allen imply that only people trolling Christians would make such assertions: In reply [...]
ucantblamem: Well, they specifically took out the term “secular” in the QLD education system due to interference by christian lobby groups.
At the federal level and constitutional level it is supposed to be secular. SRE time was the limit of where religion could interfere.. No teachers were to preach or do bible studies etc.. Now we’ve got govt employees in the form of Chaplains embedded in every aspect of the school making it impossible.
I’d say when I went through (prior to this recent Chaplains rubbish) it was secular (SRE time didn’t permit ethics/secular options, but a relatively small percent of time really which has now been rectified).
It was my son at the centre of the chaplian issue quoted in this blog.
I can tell you now, Scripture Union handled this so badly it should be criminal. They still stand by the chaplain involved, and she was never fired or dismissed. In fact, in conjuction with Education Queensland, we were told that the chaplain would still be allowed to work in the school – including dealing with my daughter. It wasn’t until the media got involved that any kind of action was taken, and even then the chaplain was only removed because the Federal government withdrew funding for the position – since restored though.
It highlights the double standards and protectionism that surrounds the whole chaplain program, and should be a wake up call for every parent to be vigilant of the unqualified and untrained people that are put in positions of authority over our children.
And to head off any claims of sour grapes, we moved our children to other schools and have nothing but positive things to say about the chaplains in those schools – maybe the difference is that these chaplains are qualified and experienced and not just ‘friend of a friend’ job placements? I still oppose the chaplains being used as counsellors as a cheap way for EQ to save money.
[...] Australia (so we’d save $222m from the budget recently announced) and stop me from having to complain about the dodgy NSCP mobs (e.g. Scripture Union, Access Ministries) that run this tax funded religious [...]
[...] would not be there to convert by stealth, preach about nonsense (or in one instance at least of a chaplain grooming children).. No, they’re there to help without [...]
And thanks to Andrew Barnett for a suggestion on Twitter about the garden idea. It’s a fantastic idea.
As an Agnostic on the issue of chaplins in schools, I think in todays western culture counselors should be the professionals employed by schools. I believe that all religion should be talked about in schools but not practiced. Chaplins in schools creates an inbalance, for example, if we use chaplins why not Rabbi, Imam or witch doctors. The argument that we are a mostly christian society is no reason to be putting “biased buddies” into our school system.
@nat3ds: I don’t think anybody really argues against a more balanced and comparative religions class, but I do worry about having a full-time religious person on staff at a non-religious school. It just seems to be a conflict of interest for mine.
But that’s me. I’m an anti-theist (as well as atheist) for a reason.
[...] sure you read Nathan’s blog on the incident. GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]
How about a dose of reality on this ? I read this article tongue in cheek and realizing how easy it is as a mother to react with a backlash to chaplains in schools. However, no article has mentioned the relationship, let’s say friendship, that the mother of this boy had with the Chaplin who is being torn a new one, or the fact that the aforementioned mother was present at the pc when some comments were made and even typed a few (to the boy, pretending to be the chaplain) thinking it was funny, and had several swims in the pool herself ! With and without her children I believe ! How about a little context before someone is hung out to dry as a predator … Be over cautious it the best way to keep our kids safe, but don’t be blinded by half truths. While this chaplain was being crucified (pardon the pun) other very real predators were abusing children, I hope this weighs heavily on the hapless mother of that poor boy who was sadly portrayed as a victim of abuse… What an awful question mark on his future most victims never recover fully, let’s hope implied abuse is not the same for his sake.