School Bans Church Official After Atheist Student Accused Him Of Promoting Christianity

SALEM, Ore. (CBS Seattle) – A church youth mentor is no longer welcome at an Oregon school after a student accused him of promoting Christianity and insulting her because she is an atheist.

Straub Middle School principal Laura Perez told the Salem Statesman-Journal that Tim Saffeels, the Salem Heights Church director of student ministries, made the students uncomfortable.

“I decided that I’m not going to allow him in because to me there was a breach of trust there,” Perez explained.

Eighth-grader Shelby Conway wrote an email to the principal asking that the volunteer not come back. Conway claimed Saffeels asked students about their religious beliefs. When she told him she was an atheist, according to her email, he told her that atheism is “wrong,” “bad,” “stupid” and “evil.”

“I was very uncomfortable and personally offended with the way he was speaking to both me and other non-Christians around the lunch room,” Conway went on to write. “I request that we keep things like this, such as pastors and religious speeches, in places where they are welcomed, such as churches or religious schools.”

Another eighth-grader, Sarina Keightley, backed up the accusation: “He said imagine this scenario. All of us are in a van and we’re driving somewhere and we get hit by two drunk drivers and we all die. What happens next?”

Saffeels defended himself, saying he sat down with a student who belonged to the same church, when other students started asking him about religion.

“I wasn’t in any way trying to force any of those things,” Saffeels argued. “They actually did literally ask me ‘Who is Jesus?'”

Seizer-Salem School District policy prohibits volunteers and visitors from promoting any religious beliefs.

Saffeels stated he volunteers at schools to build relationships with students, not to promote Christianity, and argues he didn’t violate school policy because he wasn’t the one who brought up religion.

“Since they instigated that, they’re asking my personal opinion,” he said.

Perez promised to revisit whether to allow Saffeels back into Straub Middle School after the end of the school year.

“I want to make sure that we’re doing what we can to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” she explained.

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