It’s undeniable that Christianity has had an impact on American history. How we teach about that while respecting the separation of church and state is a legitimate – and important – question.
Some states are going about it wrong. In Oklahoma, Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters wants to flood public schools with Bibles and teach Christian Nationalist propaganda instead of actual history.
Texas’ approach is equally problematic. AU Lead Policy Counsel Nik Nartowicz and AU Texas chapter leaders warned the State Board of Education back in August that a proposed new, optional elementary curriculum “favors Christianity over other religions and includes lessons that present Christianity and the Bible as true and appear designed to proselytize students.” More recently, The New York Times reported it has been under fire from scholars of religion and history, who call it simplistic and misleading.
Consider this passage from The Times story: “In a fifth-grade unit on racial justice, students would be taught that Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists relied in part ‘on a deep Christian faith’ to “guide their certainty of the injustice of slavery.’ But they would not be taught that other Christians leaned on the same religion to defend slavery and segregation.”
There are several problems here: For starters, it’s unclear that Lincoln was a Christian. Scholars hotly debate his religious views even today. As a young man, Lincoln expressed skepticism of Christian doctrine. Later in life, he attended Presbyterian churches but never officially joined any.
Furthermore, it’s unclear that Lincoln had moral qualms about slavery. His main goal was preserving the union, and he once stated, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
But the biggest problem with the Texas curriculum is that it tells only half the story. The implication is that Christians led the fight for the abolition of slavery. Many did, but plenty of Christians in the Confederacy used the Bible to bolster their belief in slavery, pointing to passages that support the practice and advise the enslaved to accept their lot.
This pattern continued into the modern era. During the Civil Rights era, advocates of integration quoted the Bible and were inspired by leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But segregationists used the Bible to support their views, and racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan brazenly claimed to the Christian.
The simple truth is that over the course of human history, the Bible (and other religious texts) have inspired some people to oppose injustice, lift up the downtrodden and fight for equal rights. But those same religious tomes have led others to wage war, hate their neighbors, slaughter innocents and create mayhem.
Teaching this “warts and all” legacy requires a sophisticated approach. It’s not always easy to thread the needle, but with proper training by experts, teachers can learn to do it. Christian Nationalists aren’t even interested in trying. They want to whitewash our history and offer a version of events where the Bible is always used for good, and Christians uniformly stood on the side of righteousness.
This “happy history” isn’t history at all. It’s yet another attempt by Christian Nationalists to propagandize young people. It must be resisted to the hilt.
