"A Christian Looks
At the Religious Right"
Public Education and the Religious Right
Mark Twain once said "the schools ain’t what they used to be and then again never was".
Public education has become the subject of much speculation and blame. William Bennett, former Secretary of Education and popular author, has stated that public education is finished in America. The rise of the school voucher movement across the nation and issues like school prayer and the hanging of the ten commandments in school hallways have placed public education in the national spotlight.
One of the most quoted reports of modern history is the often repeated survey concerning the top ten problems in public schools in modern America compared to the similar list a few decades ago. Supposedly the list years ago includes such issues as shirt tails hanging out and chewing gum in class. The current list was to include arson, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, etc. The truth of the matter, after researchers ran down the list, which had been quoted from the White House to local school board candidates, found it was based on a rumor. No such survey was taken. 1
A few years ago I took the time to sit and hear what was being presented at Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas regarding the needs of the modern family. The event featured many leaders in the Religious Right. Among them was Pat Robertson and radio talk show host, Marlin Maddox. Robertson and Rev. Maddox both told the audience that the United Nations was working secretly with public education to brainwash American children in the public schools to succumb to the secret new world order which would establish the antichrist. National Coalition rallies are often filled with vocal rejections of the idea of Outcome Based Education and the idea of having a National Secretary of Education. Tim LaHaye, in his often cited book on public education, believes that a secret society has been at work with public education attempting to destroy American culture. 2
At the Houston area meeting of the John Birch Society I attended, leadership hit upon the idea that public education was a bad idea. The group expressed sentiments that were active in the State Republican Party concerning the topic. Donna Ballard, who was on the State Board of Education in Texas is a case in point. Donna home schools her own children, much like our region’s one time Republican candidate for the Congress. The fact that Donna is a home schooler, similar to many other Christian Coalition candidates for school boards, is a cause for concern among public educators. The March 2, 1997 issue of the Houston Post cited an immigration lawyer’s charges of racism because Ballard objected to history books depicting Mexican cowboys. Recently the Christian Coalition held a national conference teaching candidates for local school boards how to win an election.
Christian Academies, thriving in the Old South, have competed with public schools since the integration of Southern schools took place in the sixties. They helped establish the concept of secret, hidden agendas that public school education would impose on innocent children. School vouchers offer a chance to get public money to run private Christian Academies. Louisiana Catholic schools have enjoyed receiving public funds for education for years. Recent Supreme Courts decisions have further eroded the wall keeping public education from becoming sectarian.
Billy Hargis, who bills himself as the founder of the Religious Right, has placed public education along side of demonic Communist networks. Hargis said, "The liberals have devastated the American education system. America’s 100-year experiment with government schools has been a shocking failure." 3
Hargis, like LaHaye, have ties with John Birch Society leaders who denounce public schools. Hargis proclaims, "...the forces of evil which control the schools are well entrenched. They are determined to control and intimidate our local school boards." 4
Another group with Bircher ties is the Reconstructionist movement. This peculiar branch of the Presbyterian church is a philosophical leader in the Religious Right with influential members on boards around the nation’s Religious Right agencies including Pat Robertson’s, James Dobson’s, and Jerry Falwell’s. Their Chalcedon Report recently stated, "The modern state is now trying to use the government school system to predistinate all citizens into good little socialists." 5
A group billing themselves as the Separation Alliance hosted a September meeting in 1997, proclaiming the need for the separation of school and state. Listed as speakers at the event were R.J. Rushdoony, founder of Reconstructructionism, and Jim Woodall of Concerned Women for America. Concerned Women for America is headed by Tim LaHaye’s wife. The John Birch Society magazine, The New American, bragged on the Separation Alliance claiming they have the backing of Ron Paul who is a Republican Congressman from Texas. Other Texas connections include David Barton who is on the National Platform Committee for the Republican Party. Barton is a national leader in the move to denounce the idea of separation of church and state. Barton advises that public education was set up in the nation to promote the Christian faith. 7
Some of his followers have gotten the message and in Fort Myers, Florida a group of board members has set up a curriculum to use the public school as a Sunday School class. 8
The best handle to grasp to understand Religious Right concerns about public education is the conspiracy theory. Religious Right activists thrive on the idea of a national conspiracy using public education. Tim McVeigh was executed for his alleged bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Tim adhered to many of the peculiar theories about dangerous secret cartels who actually ran the country. At our own local Christian coalition voter education drive for school board elections, several Coalition members arose to denounce the state mandatory test given to high school students. Because these tests were secret, (it is obvious why they are) Coalition parents feared they were part of a secret conspiracy being used to brainwash their innocent children. To the Religious Right, public education is a dangerous thing. They have given their willing support to defeating issues like school bonds and Robin Hood rulings on sharing public money. The schools definitely ain’t what they used to be.
Religious Right activists I have spoken with have a vast array of right wing viewpoints they want taught to children. They desire Joe McCarthy to be held up as a true American hero while they want Martin Luther King presented as a Communist fraud. The Texas State School Board is a case in point. Its struggle magnifies a national struggle of similar nature. Religious Right candidates have won places on the Texas board and are promoting voucher and charter school themes. One board member objected to a math book that used environmental issues to teach students. 9
In 2002 Texas board members objected to a social studies text book that depicted the lifestyles of Native Americans in an "anti-settler" position. Further objections to anti-environmental positions were expressed. 10
Many Texas newspapers fear the board will be doing more than changing a few viewpoints. They see the board as trying to rewrite American history. In 1994, criticism arose over a photo of a woman with a briefcase. Anti-public education leaders said this was anti-family values. 11
Bob Jones University textbooks say the 1954 Brown V. Board of Education ruling on desegregation was falsely decided. The Beka book on American history teaches grade schoolers that the Supreme Court has ignored our Christian heritage in recent rulings on church and state. 12
Citizens, not to mention Christians, ought to be concerned about what is presented as historical fact through these organizations.
Jerry Falwell, in his autobiography, wrote that public education should be done away with. Recent Religious Right messages are echoing the same sentiment. Democrats in Oklahoma said that Oklahoma Republicans "want to kill public education". 13
Dr. Robert Simonds of Costa Mesa, California wants Christians to abandon public education. He writes that "Christians must exit the public schools as soon as it is feasible and possible." 14
Simonds, a leader in the anti-public education movement, wants to turn churches into Christian schools to replace public ones. His views are not lonely amidst the fringe of the Religious Right.
Simonds has set a goal of 2010 as a date for Christians to abandon state run education. Earlier attempts placed the date at 2000. An "Exodus 2000" project got started in Killeen, Texas. It claimed to have had the backing of the ethics leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. It marched under the banner, "Let My Children Go". 15
Southern Baptists’ head of the ethics department has suggested that sending children to public schools is like sending them of to Children’s Crusades. The comparison calls up the image of sending innocent children off to be slaughtered by hordes of Muslims in the Crusades.
Catholic calls for vouchers and other government aid to their private schools is a consistent part of American history. They have joined in on some of the anti-public school emotionalism. Catholic Bishop, William Murphy, wrote that it is time to get the government completely out of running schools. 16
E. Ray Moore, founder of Exodus 2000, recently said that public schools are unconstitutional and unbiblical. He charges that public schools have dumbed down education as part of a conspiracy to keep the left in power by keeping an uneducated, dependent class." 17
Simonds, James Dobson and James Kennedy have fallen in line behind the "get public schools team". Simonds calls government schools indoctrination centers and compares them to Communism---a failed system. 18
The 2002 vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, T.C. Pickney, said, "We are losing our children by sending them to public schools". 19
T.C. is preaching to the choir with the South being stacked with private segregated academies seeking government funding.
Reconstructionists take the conspiracy theory further saying the state has a diabolical plot to transplant the Christian faith with a secular mind. The war between secular humanism and Christianity is being waged through public education, these theorists surmise. The logic concludes, "removing one’s children from the morally corrupt public schools". 20
The Religious Right’s version of reality is subject to challenge. U.S. citizens tend to support public education. Alumni from state universities have been advocates for school endowments. Private schools like Baylor University enjoy a huge alumni directory of financial supporters. (Baylor is a strong advocate for public education even though it does not receive state funds.) State Universities continue to receive huge backing from graduates. Certainly places like Bob Jones University had been ridiculed by modern public responses.
Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State reminds us of the trouble extremist types can cause public school students. He writes of a mother in Oklahoma whose house was burned down when she protested school-sponsored religious activity. One family was forced to leave North Carolina for protesting a Bible Class at the child’s school. One student in Mississippi was told to wear headphones if he didn’t want to be a part of daily prayer sessions. 21
It is a little known fact to the public that a Jewish family in Texas suffered threats regarding the Sante Fe prayer ruling.
Public school advocate and author Frosty Troy commented about the unjust criticism of an institution he loves. Frosty wrote of public school children. "One out of four comes from extreme poverty, are often born out of wedlock and many are abused, neglected, unwashed, unwanted and unloved. You won’t find these kids on the 700 Club or at D. James Kennedy’s Florida church or playing in the backyards of William Bennet or Lamar Alexander. They won’t profit from $114 million that poured in Focus on the Family last year, and they won’t be adopted by the childless Pat Buchanans." 22 Sadly, Frosty’s voice is being drowned by the powerful seas of Religious Right leaders who have vested their lives in debunking public education. Their revisionist history and thirst for control of public educators stands as a modern item for public educators to have to deal with.
Don Wilkey
October, 2002
1. Barry O"Neill, "History of a Hoax", Church and State, April 1994, pg.17
2. Tim LaHaye, The Battle for the Public Schools, Fleming Revell & Co., Old Tappan, N.J., 1983, pgs.58,68.
3. Billy Hargis, "Liberals Have Devastated America’s Public Schools",Christian Crusade, June 1997, pg.1.
4. Ibid. pg.14.
5. Jack Kettler, "The Church and Politics", Chalcedon Report, Aug. 1997, pg. 25.
6. "Private Education Champions", The New American, Feb. 3, 1997, pg. 33.
7. David Baarton, The Myth of Separation, Wallbuilder Press, Aledo, Tx., 1991, pgs. 46, 47, 92.
8. Lori Rosza, "Board Ok’s Bible Class for Schools", Houston Chronicle, 1997.
9. Frederick Clarkston, In These Times, Chicago, Ill. pg. 18.
10. Dan Oko, "Rewriting Texas Texts", Mother Jones, Aug., 2002, pg. 17.
11. "Texas Texbook Adoption", Network News, Summer 2002, pg. 1.
12. Robert J. Safransky, "Private School Texts Twist Little Minds", Oklahoma Observer, Aug.25, 2001, pg. 10.
13. "People & Events", Church & State, Aug. 1997, pg. 20.
14. "President’s Report", National Association of Christian Educators, Feb. 1998, pg. 1.
15. The Christian Alert Network, Killeen, Texas.
16. "People & Events", Church & State, Nov. 1997, pg. 17.
17. "People & Events", Church & State, Feb. 1998, pg. 21.
18. Editor’s Notebook, Oklahoma Observer, Dec. 10, 1998, pg. 5.
19. "Observerscope", Oklahoma Observer, Oct. 10, 2002, pg. 3.
20. Samuel Blumerfield, "The American Revolution Goes On", Chalcedon, Dec. 2001, pg. 15.
21. Barry Lynn, "Perspective", Church & State, Feb. 1998.
22. Frosty Troy, "Public School Values", Oklahoma Observer, Aug. 25, 1991, pg. 1.