Christian school principal slams Greta Thunberg as a 'little girl with mental problems', urges students not to believe her
Sixteen-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg from Sweden, who has taken the internet by a storm ever since she delivered her moving and emotional speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit last month, was called "a little girl with... mental problems" by the principal of a Christian school in Australia.
In a newsletter written on September 26, a copy of which was obtained by ABC, Rodney Lynn, head of Coffs Harbour Christian Community School, told parents and pupils that "your world's future is in the hands of God, not in the predictions of a little girl".
Although Lynn refrained from mentioning Thunberg by name, it was more than clear whom he was referring to as he kept calling her "a little girl from Scandinavia" who was promoting "doomsday waffle talk".
"No one knows when the final wind up of the world will be," he wrote. "Jesus said no one, only the Father God, knows about that day or hour."
Lynn further urged people not to listen to the views of the teen who gave birth to a global movement after she started a one-person school strike in her country. He said she was a "little girl with self-declared various emotional and mental problems that she thinks give her a special insight into a pending doom".
"My life experience has taught me that the doomsday predictors are just attention getters," he wrote in the newsletter. "Do not be afraid. Your world's future is in the hands of God, not in the predictions of a little girl and false prophets."
This was not the first time that Thunberg has had to face criticism from conservative leaders and religious figures. On September 25, she took on her haters, accusing them of distracting people from the environmental crisis plaguing the world today.
"The haters are as active as ever — going after me, my looks, my clothes, my behavior, and my differences. They come up with every thinkable lie and conspiracy theory," she wrote in a string of tweets. "It seems they will cross every possible line to avert the focus since they are so desperate not to talk about the climate and ecological crisis. Being different is not an illness and the current, best available science is not opinions — it's facts."
She added: "I honestly don't understand why adults would choose to spend their time mocking and threatening teenagers and children for promoting science when they could do something good instead."