Crosstalk: January 3, 2018

​A controversy has erupted in school district U-46 in Illinois. It deals with Islam and points to many warnings that have been brought up on Crosstalk in the past. Do you know what your children are being taught in public school? Many are being indoctrinated in Islam while at the same time, Christianity is being undermined. This program proves that this charge is not urban legend. In fact, in this instance, certain faith leaders are 'coming out of the woodwork' in support of Islam.

Two guests joined Jim to discuss this issue. One was Usama Dakdok. Usama is the president of the Straightway of Grace Ministry and speaker on the daily radio program, 'Revealing the Truth About Islam'. He's translated the Quran into English and has authored, 'Exposing the Truth About the Quran'.

The second guest was Jeanette Ward. Jeanette is a school board member in district U-46 in the region of Elgin, Illinois. She's been serving since 2015 and has two children in this district.

In 2016, the U-46 school board established a curriculum that Jeanette opposed. She described it as one that had a 'leftist' slant. The vote to approve was 6-1. On December 14th, her husband showed her what had been assigned to their elementary school daughter. Here are some quotes from the reading assignment (article) that required answering questions online:

'Jesus, Mohammed and the Hebrew prophets all describe the same god.'

'The god of the Old Testament can be both good and evil.'

'Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three of the world's major religions. While they have many differences, they all believe in the same god.'

Jeanette responded by taking screen shots of the article and then posted it on her board member page so that people would be aware of what was taking place.

In the 'firestorm' that erupted, 18 faith leaders protested. According to Jeanette, they weren't bothered by the article itself but instead took issue with her Facebook posting of the article. No clergy came to speak on her behalf. Usama shared his thoughts on this situation, most notably how the God of the Bible and the god of Islam are not the same.