Comment - Scaring the living daylights out of little kids by threatening them with hellfire is a form of child abuse that should be punished by imprisonment. More
Mr O'Duffy says he was shocked by assemblies where pupils were warned of hellfire if they failed to heed the Christian message at the controversial school, which teaches biblical creationism alongside evolution.
More - "If assemblies touch on the terrible and eternal consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ they are acting as responsible warnings," (30 May 2003)
"I replied by saying how important it was to prepare pupils for state examinations, but I was cut short by a sarcastic and disturbing comment - 'What is the point of sending young people out into the world with 20 GCSEs when they're going to go to Hell?'" (9 Mar 2007)
Academy denies claims from job candidate
"Second (and this is the point with which I began) the mental abuse constituted by an unsubstantiated threat of violence and terrible pain, if sincerely believed by the child, could easily be more damaging than the physical actuality of sexual abuse. An extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is. And there is no doubt at all that many children sincerely believe it, often continuing right through adulthood and old age until death finally releases them."
Schoolchildren should be taught about the Christian views of hell and the day of judgment to keep them on the straight and narrow, according to a report published today presaging a return to fire and brimstone teaching.
The report by the Evangelical Alliance - the biblical wing of the Anglican and Nonconformist churches, which is the fastest-growing sector of Protestantism with around a million members in Britain - calls for a return to traditionalist beliefs in hell as a state of eternal damnation and punishment as the reward for sin and the rejection of Jesus. (15 Apr 2000)
Children 'should be told of hell'
The flames of hell, recently doused to a state of "nothingness" by the Church of England, are to be reignited.
The Nature of Hell, a 140-page report drawn up by the Evangelical Alliance, says that while biblical images of burning lakes should not be taken literally, they symbolise the horrors that are in store for people who reject Christian teaching. (4 Apr 2000)