{"id":43963,"date":"2024-04-09T17:18:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=43963"},"modified":"2024-04-09T17:19:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:19:05","slug":"florida-pastor-cancels-private-schools-autism-awareness-week-calls-it-demonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/04\/09\/florida-pastor-cancels-private-schools-autism-awareness-week-calls-it-demonic\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida pastor cancels private school\u2019s Autism Awareness Week, calls it \u2018demonic\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lead Pastor Matt Baker at Trinity Christian Academy in Palm Beach County, Fla.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A private school\u2019s lead pastor canceled Autism Awareness Week, calling the recognition of the disability \u201cdemonic\u201d in an email sent out to parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Media spoke with Andrea Gallik, who has two children who attend Trinity Christian Academy in Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallik\u2019s kindergarten son has Level 2 Autism Spectrum Disorder and she said after receiving Pastor Matt Baker\u2019s email, her \u201cheart stopped beating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019ve known, the school has been wonderful with him,\u201d Gallik said. \u201cAnd so this take on it was really upsetting. It really, truly broke my heart to be a parent of a child with autism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker\u2019s email, which read the following:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe word \u2018Christian\u2019 means \u2018Like Christ,\u2019 and it was given to the followers of Christ because they acted just like Jesus. Remember those bracelets from the 2000s that asked, \u2018WWJD?\u2019 If Jesus Christ led Trinity, would HE have an Autism Awareness Week? Of course not! Why? Because anything that exalts itself above the name of Christ should be brought down. Also, anything that teaches our children to have their identity in anything other than Christ is idolatry and demonic. Let me repeat myself just so I am not quoted out of context: any philosophy, teaching, or program that teaches our precious children that their identity is found in anything other than Christ is idolatry and demonic. Period.\u00a0 The world, in its rejection and hatred of Christ, often devises programs such as \u2018Autism Awareness\u2019 (and cultural figures like the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, etc.) to get the benefits of His teachings (compassion, kindness, feeling love, and self-worth) without acknowledging Jesus as the ultimate authority and the source of all life. These initiatives imply that Jesus alone is insufficient, and we fail to recognize just how deeply they have permeated into our daily lives as Christians. As a result, we have \u2018a form of godliness but deny its power (2 Timothy 3:5).’\u201d\u00a0<\/em> Trinity Christian Academy\u2019s Lead Pastor Matt Baker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallik said she feels like the pastor \u201cdidn\u2019t understand what the acceptance and awareness week was truly meant to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just so my son can feel special,\u201d Gallik said. \u201cIt\u2019s also to teach other young students maybe not to be nervous or scared around autistic kids. And if we teach them a little more, then they\u2019re going to have a gracious heart towards them. And instead of dealing out of fear, they\u2019ll be able to say, \u2018oh, well, I learned this,\u2019 and they\u2019ll have a heart to show, you know, kids with autism grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said her kids will finish up the school year and will \u201cnot be returning\u201d to the private school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallik said a teacher\u2019s aide at the school, Heather McKay, who also has an autistic son who attends the private school, was fired after sharing Baker\u2019s email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida\u2019s Voice reached out to McKay for a comment but did not receive an immediate response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallik said her son was aware that the school would not be recognizing Autism Awareness Week and the six-year-old boy said he \u201cthinks he doesn\u2019t belong in his school now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mother said she told her son \u201cThat\u2019s not it,\u201d and they will celebrate him in other ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallik said she and her husband attended the parent-teacher fellowship meeting last week in hopes that the pastor would \u201cwant to speak to anyone that was bothered by the email,\u201d but she has not heard anything from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said her message to Baker is that she asks he \u201crethinks and reframes his ideas on being proud to be autistic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said that he thought we were like placing autism over Christianity, none of the parents there feel that way. None of us were trying to do that. We just wanted to show acceptance,\u201d Gallik said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she believes the church and the diagnosis of autism \u201ccan coexist with grace and peace and love\u201d and her family is praying for the pastor. She clarified she is \u201cnot coming from a place of anger,\u201d but her family is \u201cjust really hurt\u201d by the pastor\u2019s words and decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A private school\u2019s lead pastor canceled Autism Awareness Week, calling the recognition of the disability \u201cdemonic\u201d in an email sent out to parents. The Media spoke with Andrea Gallik, who… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[8095,8094],"class_list":["post-43963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-calls-it-demonic","tag-florida-pastor-cancels-private-schools-autism-awareness-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43965,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43963\/revisions\/43965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}