Lawrence Davidson on the problems with the Texas Board of Education’s effort to institutionalize a fundamentalist form of Christianity through public schools.
By Lawrence Davidson
TothePointAnalysis.com
I have been thinking about folks who are into one or another messianic worldviews. This can be a secular or religious search for what is really a false sense of certainty. Either way that need for certainty requires one to think that history is foreordained and a belief in holding the secret to correctly predicting mankind’s future. The United States has several versions of this obsession, among them Christian Fundamentalists and Christian Nationalists.
You can describe these fundamentalists and nationalists as Christian absolutists. That is, anything the Bible (preferable the King James version) says is absolutely true. You can trace their communities back to 18th century America, but here I want to concentrate on the the early 20th century.
In the first half of the 20th century, the fundamentalists were, by default, both politically and socially influential. This was because in many sections of the country (particularly the South) it was taken for granted that a Biblical interpretation of history and morality was self-evident.
Many state legislatures, governors, town mayors and councilmen (not a lot of women in office), followed this creed (at least in public). However, this broad influence eroded in the multicultural and secularizing environment of evolving large urban centers.
That change came to the surface in 1925 because of an event in Dayton, Tennessee. There, a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating a Tennessee state law by teaching human evolution in a public school. While he was ultimately convicted and fined, the trial of Scopes was a turning point in public opinion.
In those multicultural urban areas (then growing economically dominant), the Scopes trial seemed a demonstration of Christian fundamentalism’s superstitious and anti-modern character. In the decades following, many of the nation’s Christian fundamentalist communities became more insular — seeking to isolate themselves from the corrupting effects of a growing secular society.
Inspiring the Christian Right
This insularity lasted into the late 1970s. At that point an energetic Baptist minister/televangelist named Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority. The assertion of morality here was based on the assumption of the fundamentalist creed that it knew God’s mind. The “majority” assertion was an attempt to make Falwell’s movement appear larger than it actually was. In any case, Falwell was a talented organizer and the movement did grow, aligning itself with various conservative social causes.
Falwell threw his support behind the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and indeed helped Reagan become president in 1980. The movement would inspire what is now the multifaceted Christian right.
In turn, the Christian right found another political hero in Donald Trump. On Trump’s coattails a slew of social reformers of Christian persuasion came to office. And so, today we are faced with not only Christian fundamentalists but also a parallel Christian nationalist campaign hoping to politically capture the entire country and universalize the religious creed that seemed to go into decline after the Scopes trial.
For someone of a secular background, someone who believes in the efficacy of science to explain the world, Christian fundamentalism is an escape into fantasy. Actually all religions are such an escape, though those that do not have messianic and proselytizing characteristics are a safer, more individually centered variety. The American brand of Christian fundamentalism is, however, something else. It is on a “mission from God.”
The Texan Example
Want an example? Let’s take a look at Texas.
In June, the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education voted 9-to-5 to approve a required reading list for public school students that includes Bible stories.
There will also be a new social science program with Christian-inspired lessons on how the “meaning” of the stories link to examples of great literature and U.S. history. This will be introduced in a state that already requires copies of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms.
Is this an effort to institutionalize a fundamentalist form of Christianity through the mechanism of public education? There are over 5 million public school students in Texas.
Here are some examples of those Bible stories:
— At the elementary school level emphasis will be put on adventure stories wherein good guys appear to overcome bad guys, such as David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den and the story of Moses. Then, in the fifth grade, there is a transfer to the New Testament with passages about Jesus somehow made compatible with the prior stories.
—Middle school students in the sixth and seventh grade will be required to take up Jesus’ teachings. The example given by the school board is the Sermon on the Mount.
—At the high school level the emphasis goes back to the Old Testament where students will read, among other passages, the story of Adam and Eve and the Book of Job (I wonder how the teachers will rationalize that one). In an effort to show how this is all culturally relevant, the new approach requires that “these selections will be paired alongside works like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and books by Charles Dickens.” I think it would be fun to pair Jonah in the belly of the whale (“great fish”) with Moby Dick.
Here are a couple of questions to ask:
Except as a disguised proselytizing tool, does any of this make sense? Approximately one-third of the public school students in Texas are not Christian. They are Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and a fair number of Jews — not to mention a handful of closet atheists. As one interviewed teacher observed, “I can say all day long, ‘Well, we’re teaching a theme, we’re teaching symbolism,’ but they’re hearing, ‘This is a Bible story. We’re talking about [somebody else’s] God.’”
What percentage of the country’s educated population actually believe the rationalizations given in support of this curriculum? Rationalizations such as, “Supporters of the changes have argued that Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation’s founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.” In fact, most of the “Founding Fathers” were deists.
And, in 18th century America, Judeo-Christian belief and the Bible were used to support slavery. That would not change until the abolitionists came along in the 19th century — a generation past the time of the “founding.”
It is claimed that “these timeless works, including Biblical passages, have shaped American culture and history, and have influenced generations of thinkers, leaders, and citizens.” Well, is that a good or bad thing? If these “timeless [religious] works” were seen as so positively influential and convincing, why was there always a constitutional barrier between church and state?
The answer is that the “Founding Fathers” were well aware of the bloody history of European states fused to one religion or another. It continues today in several Muslim countries as well as in Israel. Obviously this is a history unknown in the “great” state of Texas.
Question of Constitutionality
Finally, is any of this constitutional? Well, the U.S. Constitution forbids (in the so-called Establishment Clause of the First Amendment) the federal government from “creating or officially favoring a national religion, and from overly entangling itself in religious matters.”
According to a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940, (based on the 14th Amendment which established the supremacy of federal law) that disestablishment of religion applies to all state governments. The Texas move, on the face of it, would seem to be an effort, through its control of public education, to establish a brand of Christianity as the religion favored by the state. Hence, it is unconstitutional.
Will the Trump administration fulfill its role as defender of the Constitution in this case? The Republicans, who control both the Texas state legislature and the Board of Education, are all Trump supporters. In the last presidential election, Trump carried the state with a 13.6 percent majority.
Given Donald Trump’s dismal record of enforcing the Constitution along progressive lines, the chances are pretty good that he will do nothing to enforce the “Establishment Clause.” This puts the president himself in conflict with the Constitution, and not for the first time.
Perhaps the most important point to consider is that historically, fundamentalists and absolutists (be they of the religious or secular variety) have always had a disastrous impact on society whenever they attain power.
This apparent inevitability stems from (1) their hard-core belief that they have a mission to direct history in a preset direction (2) and in carrying out that mission, they suppress those who disagree particularly when the dissenters get close to majority status. As far as I know, there is no historical example of fundamentalists and absolutists in power operating in a way that is compatible with democracy.
It is the power of the U.S. Constitution that can hold at bay the nation’s Christian fundamentalist attempt to rule. How long will that last? These ideologues now have a president who caters to their ambitions, and they are likely to prosper as long as he does. Thus, if Trump ever conspires to overturn the Constitution, the Christian fundamentalists can be expected to back him.
This is what happens when you know no history or have been raised to replace real history with myth. The Texas State Board of Education has taken the first step in that direction.
Lawrence Davidson is professor of history emeritus at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He has been publishing his analyses of topics in U.S. domestic and foreign policy, international and humanitarian law and Israel/Zionist practices and policies since 2010.
This article is from his site, TothePointAnalysis.com.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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