[RSCT] The Guardian (UK) 7/23/09: Christian right aims to change history lessons in Texas schools

[Rick Kisséll]

Christian right aims to change history lessons in Texas schools

by Chris McGreal in Washington
The Guardian (U.K.)
7/22/09



	
			The Christian right is making a fresh push to force religion
onto the school curriculum in Texas with the state's education board
about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there
would be no United States if it had not been for God.
Members
of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state's
history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who
says he is fighting a war for America's moral soul, want lessons to
emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.
Opponents
have decried the move as an attempt to insert religious teachings in to
the classroom by stealth, similar to the Christian right's partially
successful attempt to limit the teaching of evolution in biology
lessons in Texas.
One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a
Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the
curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written
with God in mind including that "there is a fixed moral law derived
from God and nature", that "there is a creator" and "government exists
primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual".
Barton
says children should be taught that Christianity is the key to
"American exceptionalism" because the structure of its democratic
system is a recognition that human beings are fallible, and that
religion is at the heart of being a virtuous citizen.
Another of
the experts is Reverend Peter Marshall, who heads his own Christian
ministry and preaches that Hurricane Katrina and defeat in the Vietnam
war were God's punishment for sexual promiscuity and tolerance of
homosexuals. Marshall recommended that children be taught about the
"motivational role" of the Bible and Christianity in establishing the
original colonies that later became the US.
"In light of the
overwhelming historical evidence of the influence of the Christian
faith in the founding of America, it is simply not up to acceptable
academic standards that throughout the social studies (curriculum
standards) I could only find one reference to the role of religion in
America's past," Marshall wrote in his submission.
Marshall later
told the Wall Street Journal that the struggle over the history
curriculum is part of a wider battle. "We're in an all-out moral and
spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American
history is right at the heart of it," he said.
Dan Quinn of the
Texas Freedom Network, which describes itself as a "counter to the
religious right", called the recommendations "troubling".
"I
don't think anyone disputes that faith played a role in our history.
But it's a stretch to say that it played the role described by David
Barton and Peter Marshall. They're absurdly unqualified to be
considered experts. It's a very deceptive and devious way to distort
the curriculum in our public schools," he said.
Quinn says that
the issue is likely to lead to a heated political battle similar to the
one in which the religious right tried to force creationism onto the
curriculum. While it wasn't able to inject religious theories in to the
classroom, the Texas school board did make changes to teaching designed
to undermine lessons on evolution such as introducing views that the
eye is so complex an organ it must have involved "intelligent design".
"I think, as there was with science, there's going to be a big political battle," he said.
Social
studies teachers will meet shortly to consider the panel's views and
make their own recommendations to the board of education which has the
final say. The board is dominated by conservatives who appointed Barton
and Marshall to the panel.
Other states will be watching what
happens in Texas carefully as the religious right campaign seeks new
ways to insert God in to the classroom after the courts limited the
extent to which creationist theories could intrude on the teaching of
biology. But religion is not kept out of schools entirely. Many
children recite the pledge of allegiance in class each morning which
includes a reference to the US as "one nation under God".
The panel made other recommendations.
Barton,
a former vice-chairman of the state's Republican party, said that Texas
children should no longer be taught about democratic values but
republican ones. "We don't pledge allegiance to the flag and the
democracy for which it stands," he said.
And while God may be in, some of those he influenced are out. 

According
to a draft of guidelines for the new curriculum, Washington, Lincoln
and Stephen Fuller Austin, known as the Father of Texas after helping
to lead it to independence from Mexico, have been removed from history
lessons for younger children.
There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas. 

According
to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed
by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863
emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the
constitutional convention.






	





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