by Well, not really, but this Onion News Network video clip satirizes the absurdity of many of the ongoing disputes about “balancing” public school curricula.
Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming
This clip would be very funny if it weren’t so sad. It’s sad because, like all good satire, it’s based in truth. When the Texas School Board rewrites its curriculum to include country music as an important cultural movement, demonize the U.N., emphasize the state’s rights side of the arguments leading up to the Civil War, and so on — primarily at the urging of presumably good-hearted but seriously misguided religious people — humor seems a better response than despair. It’s also sad because it captures the cultural influence of the Left Behind phenomenon. As the Left Behind website asks:
“Are you ready for the moment of truth?
- Political crisis
- Economic crisis
- Worldwide epidemics
- Environmental catastrophe
- Mass disappearances
- Military apocalypse”
And this in turn is sad because it detracts from the authentic teaching in Christianity and other religions that there is a purpose to the ordering of life and society in this world — an ordering that implies final Divine judgment of evil. Many Biblical texts, such as 2 Peter 3, warn that the reality of final judgment is not a trifle. I would argue, in fact, that the reality of final judgment is one of the basic reasons why “law” and “policy” truly matter.
Is the basic premise of your post that they are wrong? If so, what would you say if you agreed with their view of history?
Yes, it really is a shame that in Texas such pedagogical and curricular decisions get made by nonspecialists whose views are informed by, among other things, their religious and political values. Everywhere else such matters get decided by religiously and politically neutral experts acting entirely objectively.
But Steve — we aren’t radical postmodernists here, right? We have reasonable confidence that some things are true, and reasonable confidence that some things aren’t true. So, yes, IMHO the opinions of professional scientists and professional historians ought to merit significant weight in public education.
Have professional scientists and professional historians settled that country music isn’t an important cultural development, that the UN is to be celebrated rather than criticized, or that differing views about states’ rights weren’t an important factor in causing the Civil War? I assume that Texas isn’t incorporating creationism into the curriculum (even on a “balanced treatment” basis, as Louisiana tried to do). That would offend the professional scientists, but the judiciary would listen to the scientists and stop the Texans from doing anything as outrageous as that.
Steve — I don’t think you appreciate the dynamic underlying what happened in Texas, maybe because you haven’t had inside involvement with Christian fundamentalism. This is not just an effort to bring some balance here and there, or to ensure that religious perspectives have a proper place at the table. There is an underlying metanarrative that combines young earth creationism, the “Christian America” mythology, strongly libertarian social and economic views, and chiliastic eschatology.
You’re correct that creationism wasn’t part of the recent changes to the social studies curriculum, but intelligent design creationism is certainly part of the overall package. My understanding on this particular issue in Texas is that some amendments questioning evolution proposed by conservative Don McLeroy were narrowly defeated last year. Now, I anticipate some push back here: is “evolution” itself “proven” as a metanarrative? No, particularly when we get into the metaphysical implications of common descent. But common descent itself is one of those facts, I would argue, that any epistemically virtuous person must recognize to be true. The competing metanarrative of folks like McLeroy purports to question the empirical facts of common descent, using claims that have been refuted over and over and over again (e.g., “there are no transitional fossils”).
Maybe you can’t appreciate how pervasive and seductive this metanarrative is unless you’ve lived under it (as I have). The claim within this metanarrative isn’t just that presumed “expert” opinions should be subjected to critical analysis. The claim ultimately is that the “experts” are, whether knowing or unwittingly, part of a pernicious end-times conspiracy. The claim isn’t always or even often stated so starkly, but nevertheless, that is the claim. Like all conspiracy theories, it is at its heart an epistemological claim, because there can be very little agreement with those enmeshed in the conspiracy even with respect to observed facts.
I am not, of course, suggesting that this claim is explicit in the Texas curricular standards. I’m also not suggesting that the public in Texas lacks the power to elect school board members who hold such views.
But I am suggesting that there must be some core of public truth common to both religious and non-religious people. Part of that core, I would suggest, includes a number of observed facts that refute the Christian fundamentalist worldview (though not by any stretch the broader Christian worldview): biological evolution over deep time is a fact, and the U.S. was never a “Christian Nation.”
I know you’ve written on this really difficult epistemological issue, Steve — I just ordered your most recent book — and I’m well aware of how thorny this issue quickly becomes. I might also suggest, for example, that Christians (including Mormons) who hold chiliastic eschatological views tend to lack some classically democratic virtues — particularly a hope in the power of the democratic process to produce change. There is an impassable gap between Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and the Left Behind novels, isn’t there?
Perhaps this means some of those classical democratic virtues are based on false assumptions. In fact, it seems to me that any religious belief that involves a final consummation of history brought about by God (including my own Christian Reformed / amillennial view) at some point rubs against the grain of democratic virtues. I’m honestly not sure what to do with that in the context of public schools that were founded primarily to instill democratic virtue.
Well, there’s a lot more here than I can respond to, or than I have the competence to respond to, because it’s true: I don’t know the Texas school people, so I don’t know if they are laboring under the particular worldview and conspiracy theories that David describes, and in fact, I haven’t even read a single Left Behind book. The perhaps inappropriate saracasm in my comments (for which I apologize)reflects my impatience with the pervasive phenomenon in which academics and many media people routinely treat traditionalist religious folks, Tea Partiers, Kansans, Texans, etc., not with any sort of respect or genuine engagement or even comprehension, but instead with a sort of condescending, hand-wringing, sometimes borderline-hysterical disdain. Maybe because my own views and connections are closer to the traditionalists’ than many academics’ are, I find this posture alternately amusing, annoying, and alarming. But I imagine that if I were to talk with some of the people David describes, I would find some of their views pretty kooky.
I’m not sure I fully appreciate the tension David describes between traditionalists’ providential worldview and democratic virtues. And I’m not too worried about creationism creeping into the Texas curriculum. Sure, Texas might decide to, say, put a warning in biology books that “evolution is only a theory.” Not to worry. Some lonely federal judge will rush forward to claim his day of fame by writing a pretentious, rambling, Moby Dick-length opinion explaining in indignant terms why the warning is unconstitutional. (Oops, more sarcasm. Sorry.)
A connection between millennialism and lack of faith in democratic process is an interesting idea. As David seems to recognize, a more general connection can be drawn between belief in goods coming from God or in a later life, including justice, happiness and life itself, and lack of faith in/reliance on human means to achieve or fully appreciate those goods in this life. There’s certainly some danger there, at least from the point of view that takes our efforts about these things to be important. In terms only of consequences in this life (putting aside the point of whether millennialism and so on are true), any such danger gets weighed against the help such views can provide for people in extreme circumstances, in need of hope, or whatever other goods can come from such beliefs. Having watched Mormons close up, and knowing their history, it seems the millennial focus has helped provide some extraordinary motivation, for better and worse.
And then there’s also the question what the true story is, regardless of its effects, which David also seems to raise. Do people believe in millennialism because they find it attractive or because there’s a good case for it in the Bible? If the latter, the debate within Christianity would turn more on exegesis than practical concerns.
Steve represents well the mixed reactions I suppose many of us have to the school board story and the responses to it. On the one hand, the clips I’ve seen of the board meetings have made me squirm, but then when people make fun of the board members that makes me squirm too.
I should have mentioned what might be of more direct interest to David that Mormons are as involved in politics and seem as hopeful about it as other groups. Opponents of Prop 8 in California and many non-Mormons in Utah wish Mormons were less involved! More generally, conservatives tend to be more involved in politics than liberals, if I understand the survey data, and that more active group seems to include the folks most likely to be fans of the Left Behind series.
There’s also a strong current among conservative Christians, including Mormons, that elevates the Declaration of Independence to quasi-scripture, an inspired document that represents God’s will for this country and all people. I wouldn’t be surprised if fans of the Left Behind series were even more gung-ho about the principles of the Declaration, as they understand them at least, than most others.
Sanpete said: I wouldn’t be surprised if fans of the Left Behind series were even more gung-ho about the principles of the Declaration, as they understand them at least, than most others.
I respond: True, and I’ve always found that bizarre.
I think “as they understand them” is key here, because I don’t think there’s much acknowledgment of what Jefferson’s philosophy was really all about. And, there’s a basic lacuna in that subculture / worldview concerning the U.S.. Even when I was a kid, it confused me when the “prophecy” preachers would come to church and identify the Biblical Gog and Magog (China, the Soviet Union, and/or the EU, depending on what was in the news) without explaining where the U.S. fit in.