History News Network | Why No One Remembers the Peacemakers

December 13, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

This December 25 will be the hundredth anniversary of the Christmas Truce that occurred during World War I. An event worth celebrating! Usually most “outbreaks of peace,” as Adam Hochschild points out, are not celebrated but “the anniversary of this one is being celebrated with extraordinary officially sanctioned fanfare.” The fact that this event “did not represent a challenge to the sovereignty of war” and is receiving significant support from European governments and the Football Association [soccer] explains why this particular event (and not other peace promoting events) will be celebrated. While Hochschilds supports the celebration of this event he thinks that we should celebrate peace and peacemakers more often. He suggests:

“Perhaps when the next anniversary of the Iraq War comes around, it’s time to break with a tradition that makes ever less sense in our world. Next time, why not have parades to celebrate those who tried to prevent that grim, still ongoing conflict from starting? Of course, there’s an even better way to honor and thank veterans of the struggle for peace: don’t start more wars.”

History News Network | Why No One Remembers the Peacemakers.

History News Network | Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution

December 12, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Juan Cole writes: “We know what the Founding Fathers believed. They believed in universal rights. And they believed in basic principles of human dignity. Above all, they did not think the government had the prerogative of behaving as it pleased. It doesn’t have the prerogative to torture.”

Read the full article at:

History News Network | Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution.

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

December 10, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

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:

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

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

December 8, 2014December 8, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

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.

History News Network | The Genius of American Evangelicalism

December 8, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

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.

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

December 5, 2014December 7, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

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.

South Korea Joins the Textbook Wars

December 3, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

From the Chicago Tribune: “President Park is trying to reinstate her father historically,” Lee Jun-sik, a professor at the Yonsei University Institute for Korean Studies in Seoul, said by phone. “A government textbook would tout the achievements of conservative governments and boost views that conservatives need to extend their power as long as possible.”

S. Korea opens new front in E. Asian textbook wars – Chicago Tribune.

The Texas State Board of Education Approves Misleading Textbooks

December 1, 2014 / Debbie / 1 Comment

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.

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 →

The Declaration of Independence: Founded on Judeo-Christian Principles? Book Review (Part II): Thomas Jefferson: Roots of Religious Freedom by John Harding Peach

November 24, 2014 / Debbie / Leave a comment

The Declaration of Independence has become a sacred document for the Religious Right because they believe that it supports their claim that the United States is a Christian nation. John Harding Peach is no exception. In Thomas Jefferson: Roots of Religious Freedom, Peach claims that the Declaration is an expression of Judeo-Christian principles. The only evidence Peach provides for this assertion is an excerpt from an online essay written by Bo Perrin. Who is Bo Perrin? He is a minister and conservative blogger. Who needs an expert when you can find a random blogger to support your desired conclusion! The fact that Peach relies on a person with no expertise on the subject is enough to make his claim dubious, but just for fun let’s see what Bo has to say.

Bo makes his argument in a commentary for the American Heritage Project, a blog site run by Bo and created for the purpose of “Defending the Biblical Foundation of the Declaration,” to celebrate the Declaration on the Fourth of July 2011. It is a brief hagiographic piece touting the Judeo-Christian foundations of the revered document. There are many historical inaccuracies in his narrative, which is clearly ideologically driven. While there are many factual errors in the posting, I’ll focus solely on the claims related to the religious implications of the Declaration.

The first piece of evidence that Bo finds in the Declaration to support his claim comes from the statement: “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Claim: Bo insists that the “Creator” mentioned in the Declaration “is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” and that “[t]he only possible way to make the term Creator mean anything other than the God of the Bible is to rip the Declaration from its historical moorings.”

Continue reading →