Editor’s note (06/11/219): Group Publishing, Inc. has deleted its initial public statement and released an update to its controversial “Roar” Vacation Bible Study. Read about it here.
Editor’s note (06/09/2019): Group Publishing, Inc. has published a response to concerns about its “Roar” VBS curriculum. Read it here.
A Christian company that claims it is “trusted by thousands of churches,” has been criticized for its 2019 Vacation Bible School lessons that require elementary-age students to pretend they are slaves and mimic an African dialect with “clicks.” The Vacation Bible School curriculum also refers to Africa as a country.
“As I have been prepping for each day of @GroupVBS ‘Roar’ this week, I have been *horrified* to find: 1) having children play at being slaves (while being yelled at and told that they’re worthless slaves); 2) a reference to Africa as a *country*; [and] 3) leaders and kids asked to mimic and mock a click language by making up ‘new names’ in their imitated language,” Leanne Masters tweeted on June 6. Masters is a Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“I know that after this, I’m going to be having my church take a hard and critical look at ordering from this company in the future,” Masters added.
“Also, for the record, I edited the heck out of it for my church. These are lessons we cannot be teaching our children,” the PC(USA) pastor wrote.