Religion

Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly To Ban Advanced Placement U.S. History | ThinkProgress

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Oklahoma makes Arizona seem reasonable (at least for now!). There is a new bill in Oklahoma intended to defund AP U.S. History. Conservatives complain that students are taught only a negative view of America.  Apparently they want students to be indoctrinated in a patriotic history that ignores what actually happened!

From Think Progress: “Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher (R) has introduced ’emergency’ legislation ‘prohibiting the expenditure of funds on the Advanced Placement United States History course.’ Fisher is part of a group called the “Black Robe Regiment” which argues ‘the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists.’ The group attacks the ‘false wall of separation of church and state.’ The Black Robe Regiment claims that a ‘growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.’”

Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly To Ban Advanced Placement U.S. History | ThinkProgress.

apush

The First Victims of the First Crusade – NYTimes.com

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Reflecting on the current religious violence Susan Jacoby turns to the history of the Crusades for insight. But it is not the Christian conflict with the Muslims that she finds most useful; instead she turns to the Crusades first victims: the Jews. To Jacoby, the Christian attack on the Jews “highlights several elements analogous to the actions of modern terrorist groups. These include attempts at forced conversion; the murders of women and children; and the imposition of financial penalties on coerced converts who try to remain in their homes.” From this comparison she concludes: “What we actually see today is a standard of medieval behavior upheld by modern fanatics who, like the crusaders, seek both religious and political power through violent means. They offer a ghastly and ghostly reminder of what the Western world might look like had there never been religious reformations, the Enlightenment and, above all, the separation of church and state.” You can read the entire article at The New York Times:

The First Victims of the First Crusade – NYTimes.com.

CRUSADES

History News Network | President Obama, the National Prayer Breakfast, and Slavery

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Obama’s recent remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast about the connection between Christianity and slavery may have been provocative given the setting (a setting that is of dubious constitutionality, I might add!), but they were not incorrect.  As the historian Joshua D. Rothman points out: “So vital was Christianity to the southern defense of slavery that some historians have estimated that ministers penned roughly half of all proslavery literature in the decades after 1830, though it was hardly only ministers like Baptist leader Richard Furman who one might have heard state that ‘the right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures.’ Secular politicians drew upon such arguments as well. Jefferson Davis, for example, claimed that slavery ‘was established by decree of Almighty God’ and was ‘sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation,’ while his contemporary, South Carolina Senator James Henry Hammond, blasted opponents of slavery by arguing that ‘the doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants’ and that ‘man cannot separate what God hath joined.'” Read the entire article here:

History News Network | President Obama, the National Prayer Breakfast, and Slavery.

Obama-at-2015-National-Prayer-Breakfast

No, America Has Never Been a Christian Country — Why Does the Myth Persist? | Alternet

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I think we all know why the myth persists. This might be wishful thinking but maybe Peter Manseau’s new book One Nation, Under Gods will persuade some who are not familiar with the history that this is not a Christian nation. Here is an excerpt from Laura Miller’s review of the book:

“The Pilgrims might have all called themselves Christians, but some differences among them were seen by their theocratic leaders as profound threats to the spiritual survival of the community. Both Williams and Hutchinson were cast out and created communities of their own. There was literally never a point in the history of the colonies or the U.S. when all or most Americans genuinely shared the same faith. ‘The true gospel of the American experience,’ Manseau writes, ‘is not religious agreement but dissent.’”

No, America Has Never Been a Christian Country — Why Does the Myth Persist? | Alternet.

One Nation, Under Gods Masseau

Weighing up the evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’

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Some of you might find this essay by Raphael Lataster interesting.

Weighing up the evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’.

there was no Jesus there is no god

The Great Confrontation of 2012: David Barton and the Evangelical Historians

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Warren Throckmorton, author of Getting Jefferson Right, calls out the Christian Right for supporting David Barton when they know that his work is not credible.

“The awareness of Barton’s systematic distortion of the nation’s founding is well known at the highest levels of the Christian political right and yet many such groups continue to promote Barton as an exemplary historian.  Because the Christian right is aware of the problems but continues to feature Barton as an historian, the ‘great confrontation of 2012’ has turned into the ‘great cover-up of the present.’”

Read the entire article at http://www.patheos.com:
Getting Jefferson Right

In Seven States, Atheists Push to End Largely Forgotten Ban – NYTimes.com

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The fact that these religious tests still exist is shameful given that they are discriminatory and banned by the Constitution (see Torcaso v. Watkins). Thanks to Laurie Goodstein for reminding Americans of the existence of these religious tests in Maryland, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Goodstein writes in The New York Times that “there has been no political will to rescind these articles. “Which politician was going to get up and say, ‘We’re really going to clean this up’?” he said.”‘ Continue reading at:

In Seven States, Atheists Push to End Largely Forgotten Ban – NYTimes.com.

states with religious tests

History News Network | The Genius of American Evangelicalism

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I’m not sure I would call it “genius” but Matthew Avery Sutton’s explanation for the success of Evangelicalism is enlightening. It explains a lot!

History News Network | The Genius of American Evangelicalism.

american evangelicals

History News Network | Letter to My Friends: Why We Can’t Expect to Win a Religious War in the Middle East

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William R. Polk’s great advice at the HNN that we unfortunately won’t follow:

“Adding up these points, I argue that the more they are attacked, the stronger the salafis become.  Even if we kill their leadership, cut off their supplies of arms and food and overwhelm their followers, we cannot destroy their movement.  I believe that the history of religious movements proves two things:

The first it that, religious wars are never “won.” That is the “bad news.”

Second, the “good news” is that even violent, radical, ugly religious movements “mature.”  That is, they are forced by their followers and even by some of their leaders to become “civilized.”  This is a process, slow to be sure, we can see in all radical movements.

Thus, what we need to do, in my opinion, is to ease our pressure to enable internal changes — those that are beneficial to them and to us — to take place.

Admittedly that is a long-time strategy.  It is far less popular than attacking:  most people love war, soldiers like to win glory and promotion and arms dealers want to sell their goods.  So our leaders may not have the strength or the courage to try a long-term strategy, but I think it is far and away the most likely to accomplish our objectives.”

Please read his entire post at:

History News Network | Letter to My Friends: Why We Can’t Expect to Win a Religious War in the Middle East.

isis flag

The Texas State Board of Education Approves Misleading Textbooks

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In 2010 the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) approved controversial curriculum standards for social studies at all grade levels in the public education system. (The New York Times) These standards put textbook publishers in the difficult position of choosing between established scholarship, which would risk the rejection of their products by the SBOE, or conforming to the ideologically-driven curriculum standards in order to sell their materials.

texas-textbooks

It seems that many of them chose to compromise their standards and incorporate the misguided curriculum standards into their textbooks and supporting materials. The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) hired ten scholars in relevant fields to review the forty three proposed textbooks in history, geography, and government. [1] The full reports and a handy summary of the results from the TFN study can be found on their website (TFN). They found that many of the textbooks were misleading, inaccurate, and ideological. As one of the reviewers, Emile Lester, declared it is “[a] triumph of ideology over ideas.” However, they note that the problems in the textbooks “arise from the flawed and biased curriculum standards.” [2]

On November 21 the SBOE approved almost all of the social studies textbooks. But it is not all bad news. According to TFN, the biased depictions of Muslims, Affirmative Action, the Civil War, and climate science were corrected.

The bad news is that the misleading presentation of the role that Moses, and Christianity in general, played in the foundations of the US government remains in the textbooks. In his examination of seven textbooks, Emile Lester found that five “too often focused on controversial and vague claims backed by little or no discussion of evidence concerning the religious influences on the Founders.” [3] Here are some examples from the five problematic textbooks:

Continue reading →