In the sixties, the biggest fear the South had was the election of a Catholic president who would take advice from the Pope in Rome. We obstinately stood for separation of church and state and demanded some assurance from the Democratic candidate that he would follow the “law of the land” as we understood the concept of the two spheres of God to be. And he did. On several occasions. He was elected the 35th President of the United States and served until his assassination in November 1963. And although there are a gazillion conspiracy theories surrounding his assassination not one suggests that it was his stance for continuing the separation of church and state that led to his death — which, in a way, demonstrates just how ingrained into our culture, how well accepted, this idea of separation of church and state had become. JFK was not challenged, in life or death, on this idea.
John F. Kennedy knew what it meant to have “the finger of suspicion” pointed at him. In a speech to the Ministerial Association of Greater Houston, September 1960, he elaborated upon this major concept. “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed,” he told the assembly and indeed the whole USA, “in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew — or a Quaker — or a Unitarian — or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim — but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.” Rather uncanny, don’t ya think, that we today are living in such a time, ripped by not just one national peril but by several, and still his words ring true for us. But at the time, we in the South were greatly relieved, and even more so were the Baptists who had embraced the incident that led the Danbury Baptist Church to insist on a way to protect their religious freedom. Jefferson’s response, the letter in which he referred to the two spheres of church and state as having a wall between them, established a practical understanding of just how religious freedom for all was to be protected. Our mythology then was to be grateful to Jefferson who had made an idea in theory via the 1st amendment into a de facto policy. Yet how ironic that now some 200 years later it is these Baptists that have had a change of attitude regarding that separation. Now they, like a number of denominations that have benefitted in the past from this distinction, want to tear down this wall and in so doing will tear down centuries of history that have served as the fabric of our founding, and they will rewrite history to connect their views with the past…or more aptly, use their ideology to diminish the past.
This is especially disconcerting when you also take into account the recent movement by the Texas State Board of Education as chaired by Don McLeroy, a member of Cedar Creek Baptist Church, who has often been criticized for pushing his religious views onto the public sector, especially in education. Under his leadership, the Texas SBOE acted to rewrite the history textbooks to reshape the thinking of 4.7 million Texas school children, to reshape the attitudes of coming generations to look favorably upon these new views coming from both the conservatives and religious right.
China, btw, did this in 2006.
China’s textbook revision began in Shanghai, and it began with a revision in history. “When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise,” wrote Joseph Kahn in “Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books,” an article that appeared in the September 1, 2006 issue of The New York Times. “The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization,” Mr. Kahn continued, and in a later paragraph pointed out that the old textbooks had not changed in the last 25 years of market-oriented reforms. “They were glaringly out of sync with realities students face outside the classroom. But critics say the textbooks trade one political agenda for another.” These, too, were the concerns of the SBOE in Texas, which sought to align their own students with the realities they face outside the classroom by downplaying Jefferson’s role in the founding of our country and by renaming our economic system “free enterprise” and our government structure a “constitutional republic.” Democracy is out, it seems, as it has been in China since its existence, but unrestrained capitalism or “free enterprise” is in — in both places.
The history, both in China and Texas, will no longer focus on national identity but on political and economic goals, less on events and more on cultural movements. So in China, where capitalism doesn’t need democracy to thrive and Mao has been downplayed, J.P Morgan, Bill Gates, and the New York Stock Exchange are noteworthy; and in Texas, where Thomas Jefferson has been booted out and Phyllis Schlafly and Joseph McCarthy have been ushered in, McCarthyism and movements that deny women equal rights are praised. If this is the way of the future in both east and west, can you imagine a time when the two have exchanged places ideologically?
And when that happens, does it mean that the wall of separation between church and state that has been our staple of religious freedom will no longer be recognized, like Thomas Jefferson’s place of influence in the founding of our country? “Free enterprise” can do a lot toward removing a face from history, it seems – in any country – and also a lot to muddy the waters between a government ruled by tyranny and a government ruled by a democracy….
and when those 4.7 million Texas school children become adults, they may not notice that Mount Rushmore is missing a face.
Tags: JFK and freedom of religion, separation of church and state, Texas textbook controversy, Where's Mao? Chinese Revise History Books
