The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today
The Lord Is Not On Trial Here Today is a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary that tells the compelling personal story of the late Vashti McCollum, and how her efforts to protect her ten year-old son led to one of the most important and landmark First Amendment cases in U.S. Supreme Court history - the case that established the separation of church and state in public schools.
The case is little-known by the contemporary American public, yet the McCollum decision continues to have important ramifications for current conflicts over the role of religion in public institutions - from displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings to student-led prayers at public school graduation ceremonies.
The Constitution is not self-executing; until there are disputes about its meaning, it is largely ignored. It usually takes an incredibly brave, courageous person to step forward and dispute some part of the Constitution, often resulting in terrible consequences for the individual and/or their family. Yet most of us know nothing of those struggles. They just become names in a law book. The McCollum case is a perfect example.
We just assume, for instance, that there is separation of church and state in public schools because the First Amendment says so. But that's not the reason. The reason is because someone fought for it.
Directed by: Jay Rosenstein
the non religion described below is a religion. One way or another all men worship something or some one. Like it or not, the non believer won't be in Hell 5 minutes and they will believe the horror of their mistake.. Is it really worth it to defy the existence of God?
Amazing woman, super courageous. We all owe her a debt of gratitude.
We should bring the lord on trial every minute of the day in the of those innocent children who were butchered in the name of God.
Well be held accountable
When you get off track, over time one becomes more lost. It's bad enough to be in error but to drag others down with you is troubling. Not only did they cheat themselves out of the free gift of salvation but have confused several generations into missing out as well. More over we'll be held accountable for that. A compounding punishment.
As a christian Love and Care of Heavenly Father will do whatever is invisible. So it upright the hidden treasure for Christian.
So it starts as tiny infractions and ends up where we are. Today children are taught nothing in school. How much better off we are.
She was protecting her child and thank you for demonstrating the reason...bigotry... the history of Christianity. Her son already made his decision not to go to class and was being harassed for it abusive sheep. Join us or we'll hit you over the head with a Bible. Yeah. No thanks. Religion doesn't have to be that way.
forgive
religion is mind poison
Thomas d'Aquinas, later made a saint answered his critics thusly;
'For those who believe (in God), no proof is necessary.
For those without belief, no proof is possible'.
Absolutely, Church and State must be separate. To quote Jesus, "render unto Caesar that which is Caeser's ..." Look what happened to us in Ireland !
This stupid woman sacrificed her sons on the alter of her personal beliefs rather than give them the chance to attend religious classes with their school friends and have the opportunity to form their own opinions about religion. Now she is shocked - shocked! that her son's become alienated at school. My personal beliefs? I know there is God but no one can really know him based on the writings of elderly jews 2,000 years ago.
There's not much good in being called something you're not. Calling America Christian when the reality is far different is confusing at best and deceptive at worst. There is a beauty and hope and power and reality to Christianity that is not seen or known when people fight to be called Christian. The name should follow the reality.
Christians seem to always be on the side of hating. Haters they are and haters they stay. They really should be Jews and stick with the Old Testament which is all about a hater god because the New Testament's message of love is totally wasted on them. What a strong woman to stand against haters. Wow, now if only humanity was filled with people like her.
if those people were real christians and were bible believers they would pray for her instead of attacking her and her children they were no christians only by name
hmmm..... does anyone think there's any harm in kids reading "Thou Shalt Not Kill" as they enter school everyday? I know this all sounds like a good idea on the surface, but it actually began an era in which the government has been tasked with declaring what we should and should not do - The Offense Police. No where in the constitution do i read "....has the right never to be offended." And so fast forward to today, we've become a police state! The problem wasn't in the content, it was in the way it was forced and delivered. Asking the courts to control other's behavior doesn't seem to be how a democracy should exist. There's too many unintended consequences that adversely affect all of us as a whole when the courts make such decisions because the Court has no mechanism with which to deal with the many nuances that all of us as human have. We've lost the awareness and freedom of what it means to allow give and take and the importance of never allowing outside people or things to dictate my happiness. Now we're in a world where Victimhood is a badge of honor. If I was teaching this as a lesson, I would ask folks to name 3 things that could have been done, in retrospect, that would have more favorably solved the issue besides going to court. It's called effective conflict management and the court system is to be used in the most serious of instances and when all other attempts have been exhausted. Otherwise, we all lose in the end and our democracy begins to look more like an Oligarchy.
I just found a great show on Hulu that took 6 episodes before introducing a fantastic loving homosexual couple and then introduced Christians as hateful. With Hollywood setting the modern compass of societies, it is amazing that anyone is still a Christian because Hollywood hates them - not to mention colleges filled with anti-God rhetoric. It turns out that God has never proven himself to someone without faith.....instead, He rewards faithfulness with supernatural events. So while the world confuses the media with science, several of us are seeing supernatural intervention that our pragmatism cannot write-off as coincidence.
oQ & willymayshayes,
The site is called Top Documentary Films, not Top Science Documentary films. Some of us appreciate a variety of knowledge from a wide arena of experiences & some of us aren't so narrowly minded. Some of us also wish to be informed, not just entertained.
All knowledge is useful to some degree, you just don't know that yet, so stop complaining & eat your vegetables...
What a credit to us all this woman was (not). Nobody in their right mind would put their child in a public school today if they want them to have a good future.
So, lets see how this affected public schools today. I see the free public school system not teaching students a damn thing. All you see is a majority of African American kids getting educated in public schools, and we see the affect that has. I see people graduating and still can't read or write. They have no moral base, or money. Colleges don't want students who are pushed through the public school system.
That woman is sitting in a dark corner of hell right now wishing she would have had a drinking problem back in the 40's
hey, Hollywood -- instead of all those sequels, prequels, superheroes and video game movies, how about a thrilling tale about Vashti McCollum and her quest for equality for all? or do you think we're all too stupid to appreciate such a story.
Being Human means having the ability to think and rationalise. Being human also means that we can imagine and invent as we have done with religion. Reality is different for different people because the arrival at a perception is a journey that starts from birth and that journey is different for each one of us. The perception of truth is nothing more than majority thought. When this is challenged it becomes problematical because beliefs and 'truths' are revealed in a different light. The world is changing and governments, religious institutions, the media and people of influence are continuously driven by power and the control it gives them. For some of us, we are saddened that society has yet so far to travel before attaining a state where critical and rational thought dominates each mind instead of religious and political doctrine and a culture largely manufactured by the media. The American Constitution's First Amendment recognises this and I think it is amazing for what it represents and the intellect that developed it. I also think it is amazing that a nation that can have such a wonderful underpinnings continues to do what it can to deny the brilliance of thought upon which it is founded.
Everyone please calm down and stop religion bashing...soon Obama will impose his "New World Order" where religion doesn't exist, law doesn't exist,freedom doesn't exist...and we will all be nothing but branded sheep. And he has us to thank...because of our ignorance and inability to tolerate and respect one another.
-Standing Applause-
Why are people focusing their verbal attacks on Christianity? What about islam? They are beheading children and now they have moved on from that to burying children and women alive because they do not want convert to islam.
yo i look at alot of these religious documentaries and ive noticed a serious bias when it comes to the descriptions. the ones that are anti religious have an epic summary whereas the pro-religious videos seem to always have descriptions that are borderline hateful. i really don't want someones personal opinion when im trying to see what a video is about...annoying
Man, I'm an Atheist and the post on this thread are seriously harsh. Let's stop Christian bashing... everyone has the right to believe whatever they want to believe. I'll let you be if you let me be.
7:51 "One Nation Indivisible." No "under God" anywhere to be found.
Brainwashing your kid into any religion is a form of child abuse….i am very glad that my parents did not put me through the fear of hell. What a horrible thing to put your children through. There is no such thing as a Christian child or Muslim child, children are innocent and its only when adults corrupt their minds usually through fear that they start being mean to other kids who don't believe in the same crap their parents do.
This woman is an inspiration. Thank you, Vashti McCollum for your hard work.
Religion is the root of all evil, what a horrible way to treat someone who smart enough and logically thinking enough to protect her kids from the "religious" mind disease. You do not see Atheists knocking on peoples doors trying to spread their opinions, but they do get treated outcasts if they dare speak out against religion(even killed)
and now we have moral depravity, and twerking. hormones in milk, children having sex at age 10. and thats just the beginning.
We need Jesus Christ, so very much. Open your heart
The constitution guarantees the freedom of practice of all religion but most important provides protection for individuals against all religious groups .That's what I think the founding fathers had intended.May all Gods bless America,Canada and Romania and may all poor and uneducated people be protected from all churches .
That woman is a true hero.
Well, I got some good news for everyone. We have done a good job of getting Christ out of American schools and government for awhile but was it worth the effort? Our future has a thousand year date with Christ on the earth as its government and center of teaching. We had a real chance at the beginning of America to get a small taste of that future glory but we opted out. I can turn on the evening news and see what we opted for instead, so I look forward to the day the earth will be ruled with real righteousness, truth, and understanding.
Rodney these words are as relevant today as they were back then! And yes it's not the LORD God who is on trial it's rather the peoples themselves and who have taken of invention and have set themselves above Him!
One might infer to this decision as the day America began its decline for it is written in Exodus 19:6 concerning the correct decision analysis which should have been made available in argument concerning "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"!
Exodus 19:6
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
It is apparent people have not learned their lesson since this ruling. Some wish to continue nibbling at this ruling hoping to weaken it for their own ideological empowerment.
As they say, freedom is not free, it has to be guarded every day.
Jesus in Church, not Schools.
Moderators: Clicking on the names of posters no longer brings up their previous posts. Is something wrong with disqus?
This is a really unbelievable story, but I don't know why I'm surprised. I remember thinking as a kid that the idea discussed here was the reason all the kids were going to hell because of their heathen parents.
Nice pagan-influenced Maypole dance at 13:20 or so. Most Christians don't even realize how pagan they actually are.
The Supreme Court deserves a lot of credit also.
An excellent documentary that explores the nuances of integrated society, and the impact that one individual can have when they stick to their guns. I really like how it exposed how McCollum was used for alterior motives by those for, and against her position. I also like the exposure of the simplistic connections, (atheist/communist) which are continuously used today to divide, and conquer the populace as a whole. (man vs woman, black vs white, republican vs democrat, capitalist vs communist, etc.)
In my opinion, the treatment of her son was lost in the rhetoric, as was the importance of the decision. Personally, I don't have a problem with the teaching of religion in public school, as long as it is by choice, and not as a prerequisite course,(theological studies) and more importantly, that it is not brought into the science class as a competing theory. Contrary to popular belief, science and spirituality are not in conflict, and anyone who insists otherwise, is implying disparity where none exists.
The fact that we separate "religion" from State is the math that defuses the false power of false concepts of "god"
Good doc, happy to see the story behind the stories. Like women's reproductive rights, I thought freedom of and freedom from religions was a finished debate in schools. It is not, school boards hide out from anyone who wants to talk about prayer in school, or science classes, evolution or climate science. God knows (pun intended)what is going on in (various kinds of) religious schools (in Canada, also funded by the public). Who cares about truth anymore? We have a Prime Minister in my country who doesn't 'beleive' in climate change, he 'believes' in the love of his cat, who he pets through photo ops (his family won't stand next to him is my guess), funny his 'photo cat' is always a kitten, some weird kinda science going on over there.:)...who has energy to fight, what battle lines to choose? Pipelines, fracking, acid rain, de-forestation, nuclear power, clean air and water, oceans , wildlife of land, air and sea, plants/seeds and species extinction,(inadequate research of GMOs), education, housing, fair wages, a disintegrating middle class ...seriously?...and now I have to find time to defend the laws we already have to keep fanatical religious crazies out of schools? HELL, the 'insane' are running our countries!! (Whoa...as i feel myself falling off my soap box...how is it i can get soo angry so fast...scary sometimes). Anyway- yep, if you have not researched this story before, it is worth the view for background - sadly it may also remind you of how far we have NOT come since then.
I'm glad Vashti McCollum lived long enough to tell her story. She stands as one of those obscure yet major figures in the struggle for true religious (or anti-religious) freedom--besides she was also a good-looker.
Someone needs to get up again and make it fresh in the minds of church and state that religious views will not be tolerated in schools and end this 'teach the controversy' crap.
Religions are free to have private and sunday schooling teaching their own brand of belief just as atheists are free to advocate nonbelief. Anything in the public domain however, belongs to everyone regardless of religion and must remain unbiased towards one or the other, teaching only the facts and leaving the beliefs or non beliefs up to the individual.
Rome fell because they got lazy and let slip their most important rights.
Why is the wide world of logical reason and sanity does ANYONE want religion to be taught in school. School is for empirical research and practical learning. It's not for practicing beliefs.
I will never understand the importance of spreading the word. Keep it to yourself please!