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Conservatives have dominated the elections in Texas and thus they control what is said in class. Two points need to be made however. First, unless history in classes is very different then when I went to high school, little will be taught in high school history classes period and virtually nothing will be remembered but the bare bones. High school students simply are not that interested and when they are its in the basiics.
I am reminded of a movie that came out in the mid-seventies. John Adams was complaining to someone that future generations would picture George Washington and Benjamin Franklin standing together. Washington would strike the ground and a horse would appear. Then the three of them, Washington, Franklin, and the horse would go on to win the revolution themself. I think he got it basically right That is as far as most Americans remember history, high school students most of all.
Secondly, if control of teaching institutions (including colleges) really mattered politically then liberals would run the country. Obviously it does not work that way. Indoctrination through classes is vast waste of time, people get their values elsewhere. Texas many think is about to see democrats return to dominance (due to Hispanic and african-american voters primarily, a pretty socially conservative group) so the socially conservative values did not work well
Conservatives have dominated the elections in Texas and thus they control what is said in class. Two points need to be made however. First, unless history in classes is very different then when I went to high school, little will be taught in high school history classes period and virtually nothing will be remembered but the bare bones. High school students simply are not that interested and when they are its in the basiics.
I am reminded of a movie that came out in the mid-seventies. John Adams was complaining to someone that future generations would picture George Washington and Benjamin Franklin standing together. Washington would strike the ground and a horse would appear. Then the three of them, Washington, Franklin, and the horse would go on to win the revolution themself. I think he got it basically right That is as far as most Americans remember history, high school students most of all.
Secondly, if control of teaching institutions (including colleges) really mattered politically then liberals would run the country. Obviously it does not work that way. Indoctrination through classes is vast waste of time, people get their values elsewhere. Texas many think is about to see democrats return to dominance (due to Hispanic and african-american voters primarily, a pretty socially conservative group) so the socially conservative values did not work well
I think you make good, well-conceived thoughts but I think you may underestimate the impact that indoctrination in schools actually makes.
Whether you agree with, disagree with, or are indifferent of, schools make a large impact especially as nationalism, capitalism v. communism, and the history of U.S. intervention (especially as WWII is concerned). I really do believe that this type of formal inclusion of a popularly-cited Christian meme could be very impactful. Besides, many of their parents already cite this type of misinformation.
Christianity was one of the defaults in colonial American society (though they were fussy about the brand when it came right down to it), and it would be unlikely that many people would have identified as something else...in the relatively small cities and villages of the time being different, noticably rejecting the social norms would have been far more unwise than in our type of society. That said, attending church, and being involved in church affairs provided access to social networking and an opportunity to have influence and a public reputation.
Also many of the American founders were steeped in the then popular intellectual vogue for all things Roman, and it shows in their oratory, and like the Romans they ostentatiously cited God as being on their side (in place of the gods.)
Beyond the public sphere, in their personal lives, what were their personal beliefs and their personal standards by which they measured their conduct - after all, the devil can quote scripture to his own purposes. It is probably only by reading what personal correspondence of theirs we may have, things never intended for the eyes of any of but close friends perhaps...and not autobiographical stuff intended to impress the world...that we would know.
Despite his fulsome references to the deity in his public utterances, George Washington, for example, appears to have become less and less involved with formal religious practice once he was out of the public eye, and his conduct was even reproved by the minister of the church he and his wife attended. And in those of his statements that touch on religion he seemed not concerned with Christian triumphalism.
And unlike France, for example, where the state church was a huge, wealthy landholding organization thoroughly involved with a repressive government, the Angican church in the colonies was not possessed of such immense lands and wealth, and its influence in many colonies was secondary, or counter-weighted, by the large number of adherents to non-Anglican denominations. Thus, wholesale anti-Christianity did not come to the fore in the American revolution, and the place of the Anglican church was easily dealth with in the aftermath of the successful rebellion.
It seems obvious that most of the founders were at least nominally Christian, and that Christian (i.e. Protestant) religiousity was a basic part of colonial society and its culture. But it does not appear as if Christian triumphalism was an intended part of the new republic; rather it looks as if most of the founders drew back from the idea of including such intentions in the fabric of the country.
In the government of countries in which followers of Islam held power that religion was given a place of preeminence, and a small number of other religious belief systems, considered inferior but tolerable, were allowed to exist and practice with restrictions. This is road that the U.S. founders on the whole were at pains not to create in regard to the Christian religion.
It is a woefully sad comment on America today that there appear to be many Christians who wish to abandon that decision and to emulate what was the traditional Muslim policy.
If the conservatives want to give Christianity credit for our rebellion against Britian then it's germane (pun intended) to note that the British and Tories were just as Christian as the Rebels.
It is a woefully sad comment on America today that there appear to be many Christians who wish to abandon that decision and to emulate what was the traditional Muslim policy
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I concur.
I'm just happy my youngest only has one year of high school left to go. His school in New England is very liberal leaning, which is as annoying as those that are very Christian leaning.
Much has been written about the religiosity of the founders, especially in recent years, when there has been an attempt to rewrite history and portray the founder's "intent" as something they did not. True, some of them were devout, church-going Christians, but many were deists, believing in a creator, but denying that God took an active part in earthly affairs. Some of them leaned heavily toward Unitarianism, which rejects the doctrines of the trinity and the divinity of Christ.
The terrible European religious wars and the religious persecutions of the American colonies were still fresh in the minds of these men. Fortunately for us, they decided to keep religion and state separate. The best test of what the founders thought about religion is to read the actual words of Franklin, Jefferson, Paine, Madison, et al. A good book on the shaping of our constitution is Leonard Levy's "Original Intent and the Framer's Constitution." As Levy implies in his book, there was no original intent.
I think you make good, well-conceived thoughts but I think you may underestimate the impact that indoctrination in schools actually makes.
I will have to respectfully disagree. Having spent much of my life in or around educational systems I don't think indoctrination has any signficant effect. If it did then the communist systems of Eastern Europe (to cite mearly one example) would not have fallen. Because their school indoctrinated people 24/7 for more than forty years. And it had no effect at all.
If the views of teachers in US schools had any real effect, the country would be signficantly more liberal than they are. The curriculum is even less important - its too easy to avoid. Most of all in high school.
The founders were personally more religious than often imagined. And the system they created allowed religious influence to play a signficant role. It could hardly be otherwise in a society deeply christian. But for the most part churches had limited influence on the federal government. Their real influence was in areas like Blue laws - which in the south lasted until the 1960's. Except to some extent on slavery, on which they were divided, churches never saw issues important enough to get involved in during the period where they were dominant influences.
The US Civil Rights movement was a rare exception in which churches did play a key role, but at the individual church level rather than in any united form.
The founders deliberately did not create an official Christian state, but I would suspect that most of them were anticipating a state which was dominated by Christians, marked by the celebration of Christian holidays, had laws which generally conformed with Christian morality, and that into the indefinite future the majority of the population and the majority of the elected officials would be Christians.
But they wisely refused to grant that defacto situation, legal status.
John Walmsly mentioned the memory of the religious warfare of the 17th Century and I think it evident that this was very much on the minds of the founders. Along with that recollection, was the behavior of the British while they occupied New York City during the revolution years. With the exception of the Anglican churches of New York, all other religious structures were taken over by the army and turned into barns, stables, storehouses or barracks. After the British evacuated New York, the former church owners and congregations returned to find their buildings completely trashed.
That was an instructive lesson in the behavior of governments with singular state religions.
The founders were men determined to create a society where no one enjoyed any special legal status as a consequence of birth or membership in the "correct" religion. The first part was diluted by the retention of slavery, but the second part got solid backing in the form of the first amendment.
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That is as far as most Americans remember history, high school students most of all.
