Study: 16% of US High School Teachers Are Creationists. But Fake American History Spreads Unnoticed
Creationism, Creationism Everywhere
"Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science - and especially evolutionary biology - tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles. As a new UK documentary shows, the teaching of Creationism in schools is more than a US phenomenon: Creationism is an international phenomenon. The recent survey, as discussed in New Scientist Magazine, documenting the spread of Creationist ideas among American high school teachers is striking on several counts - because Creationist ideas have become so pervasive in American society and among American educators but also for the fact that the survey discussed in New Scientist--carried out by Michael Berkman, a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, and colleagues of Berkman's--was the first of its kind. Previous to the study no one had thought to conduct a clinically rigorous survey on the spread of Creationist ideas through the American educational system. Fake History: Christian Nationalism's Stealth Persuader There's another dubious type of belief spreading through the American educational system: fake US history. But, there has been no effort, comparable to the U Penn/Berkman (et al) study, to assess the spread of falsified American history even though Talk To Action broke the news, last year, that falsified American history, in the form of a bizarre re-interpretation of church-state separation constructed by Christian nationalist history revisionist David Barton, has been inserted into US Department of Defense JROTC curriculum taught in Junior ROTC programs in high schools across America. Another vector for the spread of fake US history is by way of Bible class curriculum being promoted in public schools (and written by) the National Council For Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. "History is powerful", writes Talk To Action Co-Founder Frederick Clarkson, and I have outlined how falsified versions of American history feed American Christian nationalism. Why is the teaching of accurate American history so vital ? Here's why:
In 2004, The Texas Republican Party platform declared the United States to be a "Christian nation". Christian nationalism is probably the driving ideology of the Christian right, and that ideology rests on a falsified version of history that tens of millions of Americans believe to be true.
As Frederick Clarkson, Co-Founder of this website, wrote in a recent Public Eye story entitled History is Powerful: Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters:
"The notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is a central animating element of the ideology of the Christian Right. It touches every aspect of life and culture in this, one of the most successful and powerful political movements in American history. The idea that America's supposed Christian identity has somehow been wrongly taken, and must somehow be restored, permeates the psychology and vision of the entire movement. No understanding of the Christian Right is remotely adequate without this foundational concept. America is splitting into two opposing political camps and one of those embraces a falsified version of American history, and that fake history has even become cited pervasively in Congressional debates. The consequences are not minor. One might have expected such government-sponsored lies from a totalitarian regime such as the former Soviet Union. But the United States government claims to foster the teaching of accurate history. At stake are the rights of minorities in America, the separation of church and state, and the preservation of religious liberty. In fact, pluralistic American democracy is itself at risk. America, and the American electorate is bifurcating, wrote political science professor Tom Schaller, in a recent Baltimore Sun editorial. Schaller makes this grim diagnosis:
America seems to be coming to the end of a period of partisan dealignment that began with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. The so-called vital center is collapsing." Which political camp, and which narrative of history, will exert more influence in America in the coming decades ? Church state separation has become badly eroded and breached over the past two decades. Consider - religious organizations that get federal funds to provide social services can now practice religious discrimination in their hiring practices; a new federal program launching this summer will literally install courts in churches; several billion dollars in federal domestic and international aid dollars have gone to promote failed "abstinence-only" sex ed programs advocated by the religious right. What has been behind growing support for such violations of church/state separation is the fact that millions of Americans, probably tens of millions, believe that the church/state separation principle is a fraud, a pernicious myth, and that the United States was founded, and intended, as a Christian nation. A substantial percent of Americans now believe that America was founded as a Christian nation, and they believe that in part because the flood of revisionist history, based on historical lies, fabrications and distortions, and misquotes and false quotes incorrectly attributed to America's founders, that has been written over the past several decades. Many of America's leaders, in fact, have come to believe in the "Christian Nation" myth and the precepts that myth has been built on have become, to a worrying extent, taught to American teenagers; through Bible class curriculum taught in hundreds of America's public schools, through homeschooling curricula and, through the JROTC program, to America's future military leaders. What view of history did recently resigned US Department of Justice staffer Monica Goodling, and her 150-odd fellow graduates from Pat Robertson's Regent University, hold ? Almost assuredly, they were taught, at Regent, that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. In fact, up to 1/2 of Americans may believe in some version of the "Christian nation" myth, and many of those Americans who do will also tend to believe the separation of church and state to be a pernicious myth. Fake "Christian nation" history is being taught in hundreds of American schools and American politicians across almost the whole breadth of the political spectrum seem to have forgotten that the United States was founded as a secular nation, and why America's founders chose to do so. Recently, hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens rallied in support of secular Turkish government but, as Frederick Clarkson and I have written about, at length, many of America's national political and religious leaders seem to have lost an understanding of what secularism, a core foundational principle of American government, is about. As more and more Americans have come to believe in falsified "Christian nation" history, the admixture of church and state in America has grown, and incidents in which minorities, Jews, Wiccans, atheists, and others, are persecuted seem to be growing more common [footnote 1]. The logic is simple ; if the US was founded as a Christian nation, minorities should simply shut up and get out of the way. An entire generation of American children growing up now is being taught a falsified, heavily politicized version of American history, and to the extent that we neglect to pay attention to that we will continue to be surprised to find, as with Monica Goodling and her cohorts today, partisan religious ideologues embedded in American government, warping our nation's agenda, for decades to come. Arguably, America is slowly splitting in to two diametrically opposing politically camps. Each camp has its sense of reality, grounded in its own understanding of history: One camp holds an orthodox historical interpretations of American history built up by historians over decades and centuries. The other political camp holds a view of American history that has been constructed, quite recently, by activists on the Christian right, from fake quotes and misquotes, lies, distortions and omissions and which holds that America was founded as a "Christian Nation", and that the separation of church and state is myth and America's true heritage has been stolen and the intent of the nation's founders thwarted by liberals and "secularists". That second view is a lot more common than many on the left believe: according to a 2002 Newsweek poll, 45% of Americans at that time saw the United States as a "secular nation", while 29% saw the United States as a "Christian nation" and 16% as a "Biblical nation, defined by the Judeo-Christian tradition".
It is a fair guess that those in the poll who saw America as a "Biblical nation" would also tend to agree, except for a small percentage of Jewish Americans, that the US was also a "Christian nation", and so Newsweek's poll indicated that Americans were almost evenly split. But the United States was founded as a secular nation in which church and state were intentionally decoupled ; the first government in history to expressly prohibit the use of religious oaths as a precondition for holding national political office. Almost 1/2 of America seems on the verge of forgetting those historical facts ; history is being overwritten by myth.
Historian Chris Rodda Explains Why David Barton and His Work Matter"Because the portrayal of history so affects current policy, some groups have found it advantageous to their political agenda to distort historical facts intentionally. Those particularly adept at this are termed 'revisionists.' "
footnotes David Barton is one of the principle architects of the Christian right's "Alternate" version of American history. See Barton's Wallbuilders website. See Frederick Clarkson's grimly funny Who's Secular Now ? quiz series for an example of the sorts of language politicians and religious leaders across the politician spectrum use in relation to the word and concept of "secularism" ; Clarkson's multi part quiz series demonstrates just how degraded and twisted American understanding of the principle of secularism, a foundational principle of American government, has become. For an example of where Christian nationalism can lead, see Jewish family flees Delaware school district's aggressive Christianity from Jews On First
Study: 16% of US High School Teachers Are Creationists. But Fake American History Spreads Unnoticed | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
Study: 16% of US High School Teachers Are Creationists. But Fake American History Spreads Unnoticed | 5 comments (5 topical, 0 hidden)
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