Heard of the Good News Club? Sounds innocuous enough, but there’s more to it than uninformed parents of school-aged children might suspect.

The Good News Club is a program of Child Evangelism Fellowship Inc., which describes itself as “a Bible-centered … organization, composed of born-again believers whose purpose and mission are to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the Word of God, and establish them in a … church for Christian living.”

They also express their belief they are “called by God to make it our highest priority to present the Gospel so children may be saved and discipled in God’s Word.”

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting religious volunteers from operating clubs on school grounds infringes on the right to free speech. Since then, CEF has facilitated the systematic operation of Good News Clubs in K-12 schools across the U.S.

In these groups, children are given lessons and memory exercises based on centering their inherent sinfulness and unworthiness and establishing their only salvation rests in the possibility of being “born again” in the worship of Jesus Christ. The Oregon branch of CEF’s Lewis and Clark Chapter “serves the children” of Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook counties.

If you are a parent of K-12 children in these counties interested in learning more, journalist Katherine Stewart wrote a book about the Good News Club and CEF, and their practices are described on sites such as goodnewsclubs.info and others.

GARNET NELSON

Warrenton