How Christian Were the Founders? - Part the First

Russell Shorto had an article in the New York Times Magazine last week that has been the topic of conversation for my friends and I this last week. It covered the efforts of certain conservative members of the Texas state board of education to propose changes to the social-studies curriculum guidelines. I encourage everyone to read it because this has been a story that I have been following for a while.

For those who are not aware, the Texas state board of education looks into revising one curriculum subject every year. Previously the focus had been on science, so the obvious battle was over the whole evolution/intelligent-design debate (I hate to use the term debate, but it is much nicer than my preferred word). The result was, at best, a marginal victory for science.

Now the subject to be revised is Social Science, which looks to be just as controversial. I’ll let you read the article to understand why this important to all of us (long to short – as goes Texas, so goes the textbook industry), but I did want to focus on a couple of issues that were raised.

The article states:

The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a “Christian nation,” they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.

I’ll get to whether or not this view has any validity in a second post, but I first wanted to address this past week’s primary discussion point.

Is this important?

For the sake of argument, let us say that the Founding Fathers were the devout, fundamentalist Christians that some contemporary conservatives seem to believe. Let’s say that they did intend this country to be established on Christian principles. What affect would that have us now? How would teachers address this in the curriculum?

To someone like me, the religiosity of the nation’s founders is an interesting historical footnote, but not very important for how we need to govern now. We, as contemporary citizens, look to these men and their philosophies for inspiration and guidance, but we also recognize that much has changed since their era, perhaps invalidating some of their beliefs. The framers of the constitution recognized the need for some form of institutional flexibility, which is why they allowed for amendments.

But many conservatives do not see things this way:

To give an illustration simultaneously of the power of ideology and Texas’ influence, Barber told me that when he led the social-studies division at Prentice Hall, one conservative member of the board told him that the 12th-grade book, “Magruder’s American Government,” would not be approved because it repeatedly referred to the U.S. Constitution as a “living” document. “That book is probably the most famous textbook in American history,” Barber says. “It’s been around since World War I, is updated every year and it had invented the term ‘living Constitution,’ which has been there since the 1950s. But the social conservatives didn’t like its sense of flexibility. They insisted at the last minute that the wording change to ‘enduring.’ ” Prentice Hall agreed to the change, and ever since the book — which Barber estimates controlled 60 or 65 percent of the market nationally — calls it the “enduring Constitution.”

A small incident, I suppose, but one that reveals the intentions of some of these board members. They want the views of the Founders to be dogma.

Of course, if you are going to teach something as dogma, you better make sure that it fits your belief system. As one of the guys on the Chariots of Iron podcast said, “I’m fine with theocracy ... as long as I get to be God. Otherwise ... ”

And now you see why it is so important to these conservative Christians that their students believe that "the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts."

But, as I will address in one of my next posts, I believe their premise to be faulty.