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A Letter from a Senior Devil on Texas
The Texas Board of Education, the nation's second largest purchaser of public school textbooks, is revising its K-12 social studies curriculum and deciding how to characterize religion's influence on American history. Three consultants have recommended emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and civic virtue of religion. As America's children go back to school, how would you advise the Texas board? How should religion be taught in public schools?
While installing some operating software, I found a version of the following letter accidentally embedded with the instructions. The importance to the topic of the Texas Board of Education decision is obvious, and since I had no way to contact the author I decided to pass it on to you. Why a software company has access to infernal e-mail is a question that I will leave to their representatives at Wolfram and Hart. The e-mail follows:
From: Alcibiades
To: Baalette
Subject: Texas Bible Decision
Sometimes the attitude of you junior devils fills me with worry about our future success. Your delight in the decision of the Texas Board of Education to teach the Bible for a year is understandable, but superficial. We can usually rely on politicians to muck things up, but this decision is a decidedly mixed bit of work for our general policy.
Of course, you hope that the same schools that have made that sickening saint Shakespeare stultifying or absent altogether in their curriculum will be able to do the same for the Bible. Your plans to get our "religious" friends to volunteer to teach the classes, especially those most likely to turn off high school students, is acceptable, but lacks imagination.
May I suggest that a better strategy is to get administrators to drop this new requirement on an already overburdened and underpaid teacher struggling with yet another demand from an out-of-touch legislature?
Such a policy can do two things at once. It will give us a bad class on the Bible (almost as good as no class!) and one less altruistic teacher.
Given our long-term strategy of making education as ineffectual as possible, placing the Bible in schools may do to religious comprehension what we have done to mathematical literacy.
However, you have grossly underestimated the danger of the class. First, it has students reading an important book that is part of their heritage. Surely, many of them whose minds are numbed by consumerist entertainment will be turned off, but it will present quite a few students with exposure to ideas.
How many hedonists have we lost by an unfortunate exposure to Jane Eyre? Our near total replacement of great texts with textbooks has been a great victory on this front. We might lose a student to reason if he meets Plato's Socrates, but what tempter has ever lost a soul to a textbook?
What will happen to our work in Texas if people start to understand their heritage? We have played up the bad parts, but what if will happen they come to see the religious side of someone like John Locke? What if they read the good bits of the Bible, the parts that formed their nation, as well as the parts that we have made difficult?
Don't forget that just this summer a group of such students in Houston were caught in an art gallery actually understanding and enjoying classical art. If this sort of thing spreads, demonic heads will roll. Make sure your head is not one of them.
If they must read the Bible, let me suggest three strategies.
Encourage the teachers, especially the Christian ones, to try to make the Bible relevant and cool. Talk should center on students' felt needs and not the text. Get your teachers to show many videos. Nothing has done us better service than to teach Americans to avoid pursuit of beauty for being cool. Endless, meaningless consumption is the inevitable and (to them) frustrating result.
Don't forget that the up-to-date teacher is always hopelessly dated and will turn off more students than the eccentric (how I hate them!) who might show them something authentic and real. Don't forget the rich harvest gained when we turned Their youth pastors into hipsters.
Never overlook the sin that damns them and provides Our Father Below a good sneer.
In dealing with this class, by all means encourage the notion that the interpretation of the Bible is only academic when critical of the Bible. In other words, try to get our people in Texas to propagate the idea that the only fair readers of the Bible are the people who hate it. Play up the fact that most Texans are Christians.
Few will make the logical error that this means it is likely true, but many can be convinced to make the opposite error that it this indicates that Christianity is likely false!
Do not worry that we have adopted the opposite strategy to dealing with discussions of science and ethics in public schools. There our policy is to suggest that the only person fit to teach science textbooks is the one who agrees on every essential point with the textbook and majority opinion.
Remember the rule we have pounded into them: where people siding with Our Father Below are the majority, they reflect a hard won consensus, where the majority of people side with Him, they are the complacent dogmatists.
Our work in reducing critical thinking protects us. Shout the word "theocracy" in the minds of Americans and your work is almost done. Many really will believe that a government like that of Iran is just around the corner if students read the Bible in a literature class. If only that were true!
Finally, by all means encourage dogmatic attitudes during Bible reading. A great ally is the Christian who will read the Bible in school as if he is in Church. Encourage by all means an inability to read the Bible like any other book. The fact that it has survived for centuries without his pious protection will not occur to him since his school has taught him little actual history. Put him in a class with a dogmatic secularist and our safety is assured.
Make the class like one of those delightful television programs where people shout at each other and a little bit of Hell will be unleashed on earth.
There is nothing more dangerous to us than a Christian or an atheist who follows an argument where it leads. Next to a really holy man, the most dangerous person to us is anyone who will allow best evidence to guide their thoughts. Your tendency to think those who disagree with them agree with us is irritating.
Those who are not openly for us are always in danger of discovering "God" and us. The reaction to such discoveries is rarely favorable to our Cause. Any great love or any reason is always favorable for Them. Better a lukewarm "Christian," by far, than a thinking secularist who will calmly follow the evidence where it leads.
Remember, however, that these students are reading and thinking critically about a book that matters to their heritage, and discussing issues of importance. None of this is good for us and may do great harm.
Remember that we are not here to educate them, but entertain them. Hell will not be filled with those who thought too much, but with those who amused themselves to damnation.
Texas can be a dangerous place for us. Make sure as a secondary strategy to play up stereotypes about the state as much as possible. Outsiders will feel better about having their students read textbooks instead of real books through their bigotry, and some Texans are sensitive enough to such things that they will change their views.
Never overlook the tools of ethnic, cultural, and racial stereotypes. Other departments down here have worked hard to create them and their use almost always results in sin.
In the future, please make sure to continue our policy of discouraging reading, critical thinking, and discussion of issues actually relevant to their lives in government schools.
Your lack of diabolical imagination is, perhaps, a sign that the Demonic Educational Board has adopted our policies for human education and is thus impeding our own program. I will need to have words with your trainer about this issue.
I hope to see better things from you in the future or Demonic Resources will be getting a note for your file.
Alcibiades
Associate Department Head for Texas:
Department of Counter-Intelligence
United States Lowarchy
(With apologies to C.S. Lewis and his brilliant "Screwtape Letters.")
By
John Mark Reynolds
|
September 3, 2009; 4:13 PM ET
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Posted by: justillthen | September 8, 2009 2:30 PM
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Anyone invested in a contentious belief system cannot easily be balanced and unbiased in the discourse of that subject. It goes against human nature, often. What fool would think that these conservative Christian advisers would give any kind of balanced perspective on historical Christian influences? And the destructive Christian influences, would they get a read?
Christians that claimed the New World were ruthless to the Native American populations they encountered from the get go. Europeans found ways to be barbarous to a level that surpassed accusation against the Ignoble Savage. Imported barbarity that they had fused with religious ferocity and fervor. Do we teach what our Christian ancestors did in the name of Jesus?
I am for Truth. Though I am certain that these Texas Fundamentalists believe they are the mouthpieces of Truth, I know this is false. The Causal Nature of the Creator may be Unity itself, but this Playground He manifest that we are living in is anything but Singular and Unified. There are innumerable ways to reach God, as many ways as the limitless nature of this planet and it's inhabitants.
I hate deceitful spiritualists more than most others. It is better to be a politician that lies to get what he wants. We expect him to do that. We have some naive aspect within our own desire for spiritual realization, however, that leaves us vulnerable to con men and ruffians with a heavenly voice.
They should just have a nut and say they want to teach Evangelism, epicenter Austin, to spread as required reading across this great land...
I've clearly got an opinion on the subject.
Sorry for the small amount of responses to your essay. You did quite some work with it.
Thank you,
Justin
Posted by: justillthen | September 8, 2009 2:28 PM
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Thanks for the comments. I hope we can all agree that education . . . open Socratic education on all topics, including religion, is good for our kids!
Posted by: johnmarkreynolds | September 8, 2009 2:09 AM
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No insult intended with my comment: "...if not out of the ordinary box." I had meant to say that it seemed a bit out of the ordinary for Mr. Reynolds, and was appreciated.
Posted by: justillthen | September 5, 2009 6:49 PM
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A nice change-up for a response to the question of the week. Mr. Reynolds displays some humor and sarcasm that is refreshing, if not out of the ordinary box. One of the main issues that I have with this piece is the though is that the inferences that it makes goes back to the same old, same old. One suggestion that it makes is that education as it stands is corrupted, and that inclusion of Bible based curricula would purify it, or at least be some kind of God infused Light that could change the future generations into the Good....
I do not trust those who are vested in archaic and faith based philosophies to truthfully display those belief systems, just as I would not trust a business major to truthfully represent business, or an advertising executive to give a unbiased version of all the products that would serve a specific purpose.
I personally believe in the spiritual essential nature of Life, but do not believe as literal any of the various and contradictory versions of that spiritual nature that are presented by the worlds religions.
Though it could be a reasonable argument that the education system should teach the value and impact of religion on humanity and society, it is a dangerous, even treacherous area to step into rife with issues and obstacles. It should never be entrusted to those with vested conflicts of interest.
Though I do not agree altogether with the erasure of reference to religion in education that is blamed on liberal factions, I am far more comfortable with that stance than inclusion of historical accounting of only particular and specific versions of religious involvement that is written by believers. One never gets and accurate historical accounting of truth there, as we all know, and in fact one gets storytelling and myth building by that form.
That is the essence of biblical writing, after all, and we see how well that has worked. Though not based in truth, it is taken for it by those that need a blueprint to believe.
We MUST do better for our children than attempting to prop up as valid and accurate truth what science and observable nature is continuing to whittle down. It is lamentable that religion clutches desperately to the falsehood that it's Sacred Texts are Literal Truth. Allowance of Truth makes the transitions of Knowledge easier and more congruent.
When the Bible, (read here Qu'ran, Gita, Tanakh,...), is recognized by even the faithful as the storytelling that it is many God loving and believing folk will have a great loss of Faith. That will not serve well the future and may be a greater threat to humanities' focus on the spiritual than fundamentalist acknowledgement that the Bible, etc., is human written and conceived.
Posted by: justillthen | September 5, 2009 5:26 PM
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A thought from nonWormwood here. Whose first testament would be taught? The Tanakh is hardly the same as the OT. These are texts, my dear sir, not DNA.
Also, surprise, surprise. This is not a Christian country, does not have, never did have a state religion. Teaching the role of Christianity in certain literary, artistic periods, political periods is essential. Some of its contributions, however, were morally nauseating as every educated person knows.
If we were to teach Religion, per se, many possibilities, all of them salutary, would arise. But all religions would have to be included and TAUGHT on THEIR OWN TERMS. At the same time, the doubts and doubters that were coextensive with the their development would require equal time. Agnosticism and atheism would have to be considered in depth. There are words for all of the foregoing: intellectual honesty.
Posted by: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | September 5, 2009 4:17 PM
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Daniel ITLD,
The key here is C S Lewis' "Screwtape Letters", which pioneered the idea of letters from a minor devil.
I think John's post here is very well written, even though I'm not quite sure about what I think about the content. I enjoyed reading it, at any rate.
Posted by: arminius3142 | September 5, 2009 1:26 PM
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Sorry Daniel, but the questions are often quite similar and I thought this might be some fun.
Posted by: johnmarkreynolds | September 4, 2009 11:04 PM
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This is a little creepy, if you ask me.
Posted by: DanielintheLionsDen | September 4, 2009 5:30 PM
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Hello John Mark,
Yes, I agree with that ideal.
As with many things in life, manifesting and perfecting our ideal of life with the changeable nature of the thing, (and us!), makes for the challenge. Some say the devil is in the details, (though I hear he is in Texas...). Perhaps the devil is in the paradox between our dreams and desires for our lives, and the often uncooperative nature of life around us agreeing to support our dreams and desires.
Most "heartland" Americans would not be content with a professed socialist, for instance, teaching anything in schools, much less government. Would any university hire Schilling to teach corporate financial management? Perhaps, these days.
Con men have an angle, and like fishermen they lead their quarry toward their mouth. It can be challenging to find individuals in positions of power that are unbiased, (essentially), and focused on the balance and betterment of their charges. These individuals are worth their weight in gold, but they are usually the most underpaid ones. It is the louder mouths and most collectively recognized ones that are compensated, and corrupted by the fame and limelight.
Most special interests out there pushing for legislation or "reform" of current policy are less interested in the betterment of the whole than with their own betterment, and the advancement of themselves and their kind.
As I said, I do not believe in fundamentalist dogma, and I do not believe in fundamentalists goals. I am not against the education of religion in public schools, but under strict guidelines. I am convinced that those guidelines would be crossed rapid fire, to the detriment, (perhaps) of the students and of education.