Like an ominous musical accompaniment, we hear constant warnings today about “Christian nationalism” and “fundamentalism.” We should fear these forces, especially their incursion into education. Indeed, as the Los Angeles Times wrote this week, this phenomenon threatens to “destroy” our schools and transform them “from democracies to theocracies.”
Because if students heard anything about God, they might get the crazy idea that government is not their supreme power.
LA Times horror
Times reporter Michael Hiltzik begins his article by quoting Clarence Darrow of Scopes “Monkey Trial” fame: “Education has found itself endangered by the same root that has always hindered it: religious fanaticism.” Hiltzik then recounts the court history of a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution in schools, which is very interesting and seems very fair. But then Hiltzik tones down the impact, arguing that “fundamentalism” is rearing its menacing head again.
“Oklahoma's reactionary State Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters recently mandated that the Bible be taught in all elementary and middle schools and that an actual copy of the Bible be placed in every classroom along with the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” Hiltzik wrote. “'These documents are essential to the well-rounded education of Oklahoma students,' he ordered.”
Is teaching the Bible “fundamentalist”?
Hiltzik would also not like this passage: “The most important job in this country, or any country, is to raise and educate our children,” it begins. “I don't think we emphasize enough the need to instill in our children a moral code that we should live by.” What's that?
“The fundamental basis of the laws of this nation was given to Moses on the mount,” the quote continues, “and the fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the book of Exodus and the teachings of St. Matthew, Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough today.”
Ah, the “fundamentalist” who made the above statement was 1950 Democratic President Harry Truman.
His predecessor, the Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt, also trumpeted the Bible.
Reality: Teaching the Bible in schools and posting the Ten Commandments have been extremely common for most of U.S. history and are as American as apple pie.
And, although I won't repeat the arguments here, it is not at all unconstitutional to do so.
“Left-wing fundamentalism”
Hiltzik also dislikes “laws that stifle discussion of race and gender in the classroom,” two topics prioritized by the left. Given this, some might rail against “left fundamentalism” in schools (and elsewhere), but it would be an unfair accusation to assert its existence.
Leftism has no, or very few, underlying principles.
According to Merriam-Webster's second definition, “fundamentalism” is “a movement or attitude emphasizing strict and literal adherence to a set of fundamental principles.” But leftism (or its de facto synonym, liberalism) is more of a process than an ideology: a process that constantly seeks change without being guided by principle, a movement toward moral anarchy. That is, at least until the process gives those in power total control.
But if there is one immutable principle of leftism, it is that God does not exist and humans are merely a cosmic accident.
A corollary of this would be that the highest power would be the largest government.
A secondary consequence is that the government becomes the ultimate lawmaker.
Enter evolution — in its godless form.
Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
We've gone from a country where evolution sometimes wasn't even taught in schools to one where it must be taught and intelligent design (ID) is banned from classrooms. (Hiltzik points to a 2005 court decision on the latter.) But why?
Remember the exam question where you had to choose which element of a group was out of place? Let's try one here:
Math, history, English, geography, evolution — which ones aren't? Now some might say it's part of science, but even if that's plausible (i.e., as a possible means by which God created complexity), it's a discipline. Why insist on teaching it? Are we trying to create a nation of paleontologists?
Thomas Nagel, professor emeritus of law and philosophy at New York University and a self-identified atheist, has some ideas. In his 2008 essay, “Public Education and Intelligent Design,” he warns that denying intelligent design “avoids important questions about the relationship between evolution and religious belief.” He later adds:
It has been common from the beginning to present the theory of evolution by random mutation and natural selection as an alternative to deliberate design to explain the functional makeup of living organisms. The evidence for this theory is considered to be evidence that there is no purpose in the causes of the development of life on this planet. This is not just the theory that life evolved over billions of years and that all species descended from a common ancestor. Its defining element is the assertion that all of this occurred as a result of the appearance of random, purposeless mutations in genetic material, which in turn gave rise to heritable variations in reproductive fitness, and then natural selection. This replaces design by proposing an alternative.
In other words, critics claim that ID sends a theological message, but traditional evolution sends a non-theological message; it trespasses into theological territory.
Will children be taught the “science” of evolution?
And what about calls to “follow the science”? Will our children be taught in evolutionary classes that there is no explanation for how chemicals “gained life” (spontaneous generation) and, incredibly, had the will to continue living and become more complex? Will they be taught that Bill Gates has said that DNA is like a software program, far more complex than anything we have ever devised? Will they hear famous cosmologist Fred Hoyle say that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintelligence is tinkering not just with physics but with chemistry and biology as well”?
If not, we can conclude that our schools are indeed infected, an infection that is neither Christian nor fundamentalist.
Note: In the following interview, a prominent ID advocate discusses the evidence for God embedded in living cells.
