By Chinedu Onyejelem

Efforts by a small Christian group in the USA to assist disadvantaged children this Christmas are facing opposition from humanists who claim ulterior motives are behind the initiative.
Operation Christmas Child is promoted by the North Carolina-based Christian Samaritan Purse group, and involves volunteers collecting small gifts that are then freely distributed, along with Christian literature texts, to public school children in need.
The project is strongly opposed by the American Humanist Association (AHA), which accuses Christian Samaritan Purse of trying to convert children to Christianity through the back door.
The secularist group confirmed to Metro Éireann that it is “defending local humanist families in Douglas County, Colorado, who object to their children participating in Operation Christmas Child during public school hours.
“Operation Christmas Child’s mission is to convert children to Christianity, and they use children in public schools to put together gifts that will also include religious tracts. We successfully stopped this practice at a public school in South Carolina last year.”
The AHA said its legal director David Niose has warned publicly that “pressuring students to participate in religious programmes in their public schools flies in the face of the separation of church and state” enshrined in the US Constitution.
“Public schools can encourage charitable giving but must remain neutral on religion and shouldn’t participate in proselytising programmes like Operation Christmas Child,” added AHA executive director Roy Speckhardt.