Bibles in public schools? Be careful what you wish for!

September 22, 3:49 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

Previous Next

5 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Dallas Libertarian Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

It's hard to pick up a print publication or punch up a pixel posting without running into an article about someone demanding religion in public schools.

When they say religion they mean, of course, the Christian religion. This is, after all, they argue, a Christian Nation.

So the questions libertarians and other thoughtful thinkers need to ask are:

1. Really?

2. Which Christian religion?

Taking the second question first, let's rhetorically grant Christians their fondest wish and render religion unto the public schools.

Headline: "Texas schools required to offer Bible course beginning this
school year" - Doug Blankenship, Columbia Evangelical Examiner
(AP photo)

The problem then becomes, whose brand of Christianity gets turned into the Sacred Syllabus? Will students be steeped in the teachings of turning the other cheek or taking an eye for an eye? Will they learn about a loving Savior or become versed in a vengeful Divinity?

Maybe rightwing religionists can make common cause with the liberal left and inaugurate a Christian Sex Education course to teach the kiddos about sex in the Bible, seeing as how it's bursting at the seams with rape and adultery and prostitution and fornication and masturbation and incest and homosexuality and wife swapping and bestiality and orgies and everything else imaginable except online porn and phone sex and sexting which the poor Biblical Times populace just didn't have access to.

Still want religion in public schools?

Or maybe they can create a civics class centered on the endless marauding and murdering and mayhem in the Good Book. There's sacrificing of animals and smiting of foes and cutting off of heads and plucking out of eyes and chopping off of hands and stoning of women and slaying of newborns and burning of whores and killing of Egyptians and executing of Sabbath breakers and the list goes on.

Still want religion in public schools?

And certainly history class should include the history of Christianity, how people were wantonly slaughtered during the Crusades and slaughtered during the witch hunts and slaughtered during the power grab for the wealth of the Knights Templar and slaughtered during the religious wars between Protestants and Catholics.

Still want religion in public schools?

As for that first question...

America may be mostly a nation of Christians but it is not a Christian Nation. It is, at least on paper, a nation of free individuals.

Besides all the Old World Christians America is a nation of European Jews and Asian Buddhists and Middle Eastern Muslims and millions who mark the box on their government mandated questionnaires as Other, Agnostic, Atheist, or None.

Yes, it was predominately Christians who settled America.

There were the Spanish Catholics who built forts and missions from Florida to California while slaughtering and enslaving the "Indians."

There were the Frenchies and the Brits who not only fought the "French and Indian War" to determine who would control North America but whether Catholic or Protestant Christianity would prevail.

There were the Pilgrims who carved out their colonies in Massachusetts in places like Salem and began burning their own women as "witches."

While it may upset true believers who claim that America is a Christian nation, few of the folks who penned the founding parchments of this country, such as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, and corresponded with one another about "building a wall of separation between church and state" called themselves Christians. While "God" appears in these documents the names "Jesus" and "Christ" do not. That's because most of the key country creators were Deists.

Being Deists meant they believed that God created humankind, endowed them with free will, and then sent them on their merry way to do their own thing without the Creator's constant incursions.

A Christian Nation being forced upon everyone from the religious right can become the same kind of ugly, intrusive, stultifying, imprisoning experience as the Welfare State being forced upon everyone from the liberal left.

No wonder there's a culture war.

Those who call themselves Christian libertarians understand this. They keep their belief within their own private churches and church schools and homes and home schools where it belongs, understanding that forcing their ideals on others is both un-Christian and un-libertarian.

Still want religion in public schools? Still want public schools at all?

Be very very careful what you wish for.
 

(Read the Reed interview at The US Report)