Texas’ curriculum overhaul would add Christian history lessons and Bible readings across all grades
The Republican-led State Board of Education is weighing plans to weave Christianity into classroom instruction more directly than ever before, asking teachers across nearly every grade level to teach and test students on a broad swath of Christian history and biblical figures.
Conservative proponents of the proposed overhaul say the changes are designed to help students better understand how religion has shaped the country’s culture and foundations. But experts say the lessons are at odds with the historical record or inflate the role of Christianity in major events.
The new standards, which the SBOE initially approved in April, would require students to read more than a dozen passages directly from the Bible and make connections between Christianity and major historical events.
Building that understanding would begin as early as kindergarten, where students’ lessons about the Pilgrims would now include that their motivation for coming to the U.S. was “to advance the Christian faith.” High school lessons would ask students to identify religious influences on the American banking and economic system.
In the third grade, the proposal calls for Texas students to identify the Bible’s Abraham and Moses as historical figures, though scholars generally view them as legendary or mythical figures without direct archeological evidence of their existence. Presenting them as on par with Benjamin Franklin or George Washington could complicate students’ historical reasoning skills.
In other cases, the standards leave out important context, the historians said. In the sixth grade, students would be required to learn about connections between Christianity and the abolitionist movement, but not that slave owners used the Bible to justify their position.
Second graders and high schoolers would learn about the so-called Black Robe Regiment, which the board proposal describes as a group of colonial pastors who preached about freedom and served in the revolutionary forces.
Carté, who published a book about religion and the American Revolution, said the concept is “completely bogus.” There is no historical evidence to suggest the existence of any such group, and clergy at the time were profoundly split on whether to support the revolution, she said.
“It’s certainly not a term used by historians,” Carté said. “They are making it up.”
The term appears to have been popularized by David Barton, an evangelical activist and former vice chair of the Texas Republican Party who served as an advisor on the board's social studies overhaul. It has been primarily used in some modern-day evangelical circles as a rallying cry for pastors to become politically involved, Gillis said.
His WallBuilders organization, along with other conservative organizations, has argued against the separation between church and state, emphasizing that faith can and should be integrated into public institutions.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politic...267379.php
There really should be a blog called "History for Christians" to teach Christians about how wrong they are about history.
The Republican-led State Board of Education is weighing plans to weave Christianity into classroom instruction more directly than ever before, asking teachers across nearly every grade level to teach and test students on a broad swath of Christian history and biblical figures.
Conservative proponents of the proposed overhaul say the changes are designed to help students better understand how religion has shaped the country’s culture and foundations. But experts say the lessons are at odds with the historical record or inflate the role of Christianity in major events.
The new standards, which the SBOE initially approved in April, would require students to read more than a dozen passages directly from the Bible and make connections between Christianity and major historical events.
Building that understanding would begin as early as kindergarten, where students’ lessons about the Pilgrims would now include that their motivation for coming to the U.S. was “to advance the Christian faith.” High school lessons would ask students to identify religious influences on the American banking and economic system.
In the third grade, the proposal calls for Texas students to identify the Bible’s Abraham and Moses as historical figures, though scholars generally view them as legendary or mythical figures without direct archeological evidence of their existence. Presenting them as on par with Benjamin Franklin or George Washington could complicate students’ historical reasoning skills.
In other cases, the standards leave out important context, the historians said. In the sixth grade, students would be required to learn about connections between Christianity and the abolitionist movement, but not that slave owners used the Bible to justify their position.
Second graders and high schoolers would learn about the so-called Black Robe Regiment, which the board proposal describes as a group of colonial pastors who preached about freedom and served in the revolutionary forces.
Carté, who published a book about religion and the American Revolution, said the concept is “completely bogus.” There is no historical evidence to suggest the existence of any such group, and clergy at the time were profoundly split on whether to support the revolution, she said.
“It’s certainly not a term used by historians,” Carté said. “They are making it up.”
The term appears to have been popularized by David Barton, an evangelical activist and former vice chair of the Texas Republican Party who served as an advisor on the board's social studies overhaul. It has been primarily used in some modern-day evangelical circles as a rallying cry for pastors to become politically involved, Gillis said.
His WallBuilders organization, along with other conservative organizations, has argued against the separation between church and state, emphasizing that faith can and should be integrated into public institutions.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politic...267379.php
There really should be a blog called "History for Christians" to teach Christians about how wrong they are about history.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
