Katherine Stewart’s new book The Power Worshippers describes the hostility of evangelical Christians to public schools. I reviewed her book along with two others in the New York Review of Books. One of the most interesting insights in her book is that white evangelicals at first tried to mobilize public opinion to protect the tax-exempt status of segregated private schools and universities. When that didn’t work, they found another issue that did: abortion.
But they have never given up on their goal of public funding for religious schools that were free to discriminate and the elimination of public schools.
Last year, no one mentioned “critical race theory.” This year it has become an all-purpose cudgel with which to bash the public schools.
CRT has been used to accuse the public schools of “indoctrinating” students. Like “indoctrinating” them to believe in human equality, justice, and the dignity of all people? CRT has become a rallying cry for those who say that schools teach “socialism,” which is ridiculous unless you happen to think that programs like Social Security and Medicare are “socialism” (ask those who make this claim if they are willing to give up either of those benefits). If any schools “indoctrinate” their students, it is the religious schools seeking vouchers.
Here is the sort of stuff that is being used to organize and provoke outrage among white evangelicals.
Public schools are meant to unite us as a diverse people, to teach us to be good citizens, and to prepare our children for the future. Whatever is taught should be based on fact, in history and in science, not faith or theology.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You gotta love complaints about “indoctrination” coming from religious schools.
Must be they have no mirrors.
“Said the Religious Fundamentalist”
The public schools indoctrinate
It’s really an enigma
I can’t believe they’ve so much faith
In unsupported dogma
Ha, ha, ha! While I do not agree that all churches are a leech on society, your mirror comment makes me think of the one monster that never has a mirror around. Privatization: suck the life blood out of the public school system.
It is unfortunate that the Roman Catholic Church has allied with right wing evangelicals to pick the bones of public education. They should be tending to their flocks instead of getting involved in politics.
Thank you for being willing to expose the narrative that crafts Comey Barrett as an evangelical Christian when the public understands the evangelical Christian segment as exclusively protestant.
All of us who believe in democracy should want to break down the wall that protects politicized right wing Catholics, allowing nationalist Christians, perceived to be exclusively protestant, to be put forth as the sole threat.
Pope Francis’ close ally, Antonio Spadora wrote about the U.S., “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism”, updated 2/2021, posted at La Civilta Cattolica. “Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to evangelicals.”
The preceding quote provides proof that Catholic Church leadership recognizes the alliance that commenter, retired teacher, identifies and, it provides proof that they understand the public makes a distinction between evangelicals and Catholics.
For powerful influencers to quell criticism of right wing Catholics, replacing it with the narrative that evangelicals operate in isolation of the other large segment of voters, politicians, politicized state Catholic Conferences and national organizations from the other major conservative religion does a disservice to the nation.
… but you have to create the parishioners if you want to keep skimming off massive tithing
Ha! Yes. Vampires don’t.
BTW, despite what you see in the movies, don’t date vampires. What a mess! You have to keep changing the sheets.
It’s hard to date vampires, anyway.
Don’t they live thousands of years?
Dating vampires and other frightful things can be quite remunerative.
But yeah, I know what you mean. Living all those thousands of years makes them bored and cynical. Every time a mortal opes his or her mouth, the v knows what he or she is going to say.
One would think that all that cynicism and rapaciousness would disqualify them from office or from the leadership of large corporations, but the opposite seems to be the case. A curious phenomenon.
But maybe radio carbon dating would work.
Yup. Just send a piece of hair or some fingernail clippings to one of the labs specializing in this.
So, yes, SomeDAM. You need a lab to date vampires. It’s not like they have rings of the kinds that trees have, though they have lots of rings, typically, or Challenge Coins, like Trump, who is proud of his history of slithering into various organizations.
I don’t think finger nail clippings and hair wouldn’t work because they are constantly being renewed (in particular, the carbon 14)
But maybe the vampire’s teeth, although probably not the fangs which would probably be contaminated with very recent c14.
I suspect that vampire dating may not be strightforward — or even straight.
They wouldn’t be able to see themselves in the mirror even if they looked!
True that!
But this IS what is happening in public schools right now. The new SEL (Grit and Growth mindset didn’t work!) is alive and well in schools. On paper it doesn’t look too bad, but in practice it is a nightmare for students, teachers and families. I don’t know who is developing this curriculum, but this large scale social experimentation on children, tweens and teens is wrong! I didn’t leave “the Left”, the Left left me and I can’t go right because “the Right” aren’t right (so I don’t have a political party anymore). The Evangelicals….well, they are trying to hold on with all their might and grasping at anything to keep them afloat.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/07/22/critical-race-theory-defined/8045511002/
When I was a child in parochial schools run by Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, our church’s position was that we ourselves fund our own denomination’s excellent school system in order to be independent of government control and be able to teach our own religion and values as we wished. We also believed in paying taxes to support public education for the rest of the population, as that’s essential in a democracy. I don’t know whether this was a consensus among church leaders, but it certainly was preached in my church. There was a purge by fundamentalists in the 1970s of “liberals” (really more accurately “moderates”), and now things are very different! I can’t help thinking that the decline in membership of mainline Protestant churches has meant some parochial schools cannot now compete without taking government money. So the corps of experienced teachers trained in the parochial system are attracted to religious and other charter schools. And Diane’s so right, parochial schools really try to indoctrinate children. In our case, they were intent on keeping children from learning about evolution. This hurt those like me who loved science.
You are onto the reason for fundamentalist angst. Declining church membership is running a parallel path with declining church contributions. Even the people who go do not support the church as was the case 50 years ago. Fundamentalists see this as a crisis of faith. This angst bleeds into the national civil religion. They see the history of the US as a grand vindication of Protestantism and its individual mandate. Appeal to this angst and you will glean a lot of votes.
In the last couple of days, Pope Francis addressed what he sees as a problem, the rise of Latin masses- a hijacking of former Popes’ writings to serve their own purposes
Instead of the universal mainstream media attempt to shield American leaders of the Catholic Church and many of its largest and best-funded organizations from links to right wing politics, they should understand, what they are doing may tamp down charges of anti-Catholicism, but it doesn’t serve democracy nor a long-term free press.
It is important for Americans to know that in 2020, the conservative Catholic majority on SCOTUS rendered verdicts that advanced their religion and undercut democracy. In the Biel v. St. James Catholic school case, religious school employers were granted the right to be exempt from civil rights employment law. In the Espinosa v. Montana case, taxpayers were forced to fund religious schools.
A second understanding that Americans should have is that state Catholic Conferences aggressively promote school choice legislation in state capitols, some alongside of the Koch network. At least two executive directors of state Catholic Conferences publicly took credit for the school choice legislation in their states.
Research found there are parishes that generate more money from education vouchers than from worshippers.
The 3rd largest U.S. employer is Catholic organizations. Their ranking was made possible by taxpayers.
The righties are in overdrive with their usage of the words communism and socialism. It’s like a flock of crazed parrots on steroids, LSD, cocaine, quaaludes, methamphetamine, opioids, booze and high-fructose corn syrup. Actually more like robot zombies from the bowels of some volcanic vent hole.
All of the above and it’s like Homer Simpson trying to read Edward Witten
Not just Homer Simpson. Pretty much anyone would have trouble making heads or tails of Witten’s papers. They are impenetrable to all but a very small cadre of scientists and mathematicians.
But I suspect yours may be the only comment on the entire internet that refers to Homer Simpson and Edward Witten in the same sentence.
Probably a lot of comments referring to Einstein and Homer Simpson, but most people!e have never heard of Witten.
Not the only comment any more, however.
That makes 3 now.
And really, there were actually two (yours and my first reply) when I said yours was the only one.
I take that back. I said in a single sentence, so it’s only two.
From the Denver Catholic website, 10-12-2020, “Although it may sound Christian, socialism is rooted in dangerous ideas.” Condemnation of socialism is amplified by the conservative religious.
The Denver Catholic site article that follows the one disparaging socialism is titled, “Dressing like a Catholic”, which features an attractive woman dressed modestly. From the article, “Reclaiming our culture for Christ is a big ask…nothing should be left out of how we live as Christians…allowing faith to guide our choice in clothing…exploring Catholic femininity…we need to dress with dignity to guard our own purity and that of others…”
If the article seems like it was written by a person from a specific demographic group, the assumption would be correct.
Let’s ponder where people learn that they have the right/obligation to tell others to behave in a way that they themselves interpret to be aligned with their own religion.
You shouldn’t be talking about the tRump’s rump like that!
Hey now, let’s not go talking about the tRump’s rump like that!
The rump? You mean the part typically facing the TV cameras, with the orange clown make up on it and the tuft of yellow troll doll hair on top of it? The part constantly spewing ——-?
Imagine that you believe the tripe that fundamentalists do. Hell. Satan. A 6,000 year ago Creation. That all who do not adopt your beliefs will be brutally punished not for a moment or a day or six months or sixty years but ETERNALLY. The most important things, by far, for a child to “know” are that tripe. So, of course, you would be vehemently opposed to schools that don’t serve up tripe hourly.
I’d believe in Satan
I’d believe in Satan, too
An oft repeated point of view
If God were watching every move
And telling me “I don’t approve”
While Satan says “I understand”
“I empathize, so hold my hand”
“Despite the promise to forgive”
God banished me to Hell to live”
LOL
Well, the descendants of Adam and Eve obviously all deserved to have to labor throughout their lives and then die and most of them suffer eternal torment, for their parents way back then did a REALLY terrible thing. You won’t believe how terrible it was. They ate a piece of fruit they weren’t supposed to.
It is seldom mentioned, but the real sin was that Adam partook of the Fruit of the Loom.
The cherry, to be more specific.
Adam’s Apple
Eve was the apple
Of Adam’s eye
Now we grapple
With sin, thereby
excellent, SomeDAM!
I do hope Satan, should he exist, turns out to be more like the Peter Cook version.
Capital punishment of everyone forever is evidently not sufficient punishment for eating a fruit you weren’t supposed to.
Sins of the Apple
The Apple sins
Are quite extensive
Including screens
Quite oft offensive
With cracks when dropped
And colored lines
And photos cropped
And other signs
Like speaker that
Has lost its tone
I can’t afford
A brand new phone!
Doubtful that the forbidden fruit was an apple. I like to think it was a fig.
I bet it was a fignewton of God’s imagination.
Forbidden fruit was a fig”
It figures that it was a fig
Cuz apples weren’t round
It’s not to say that they were square
But just not in the ground
“Just not on the ground”
Forbidden Fruit was a fig(2)
A figment of God’s imagination
That Adam ate an apple
Cuz apple wasn’t within the nation
Where Adam did his travel
Wrong again. God created everything in twos or sevens!
Jeeze, SomeDAM! Clearly, you did not go to one of the great Christian K-12 fundamentalist madrasas with which we soon shall have replaced all our failing public schools.
Ever since the early 1990’s, social brainwashing has been going on in corporate-run charter schools across our nation because the corporate/Republican right-wing perspective is woven into every lesson that children are taught. Tens of thousands of corporate brainwashed charter school students have grown up into Trump voters and Republicans, and tens of thousands more are in the pipeline. Democratic Party support of charter schools is self-defeating, but Democrats can’t wean themselves from the campaign money they get from the charter school industry.
“At this point in our history, everyone needs to understand that anything done to support the public school movement is simply accelerating the advance of socialism in the USA.”
–From the second piece linked to by Diane, above
Would that there were any truth whatsoever in this. LOL.
Hey, Conservatives: Socialism! Ha! Scared you!
Socialism, defined: worker ownership of the means of production.
I know, it’s pretty scary to imagine the workers at the local Put-Put Mini Golf owning the Put-Put Mini Golf!
Ofc, the term is typically used now for social programs that alleviate the miseries of the poor.
Gosh, that’s pretty scary too, huh? A world without misery. How miserable that would be!
LOL.
Look, Repugnicans. Everyone can see how things work in Denmark or Finland, for crying out loud, at least everyone with a brain can. Soon, your ilk will be history, the long nightmare from which we have awakened.
workers at the local Put-Put Mini Golf owning the Put-Put Mini Golf!”
That’s an example of the workers owning the means of Put-Put-ion
“Listen. I believe in the Social Safety Net. No, really I do. Hear me out. But in my church, we were raised to believe that people had to achieve this on their own, not through handouts. In the other direction–with Socialism–lies disaster. Give workers ownership of the means of putpution, for example, and how would anything get done? Let’s be frank about this. There were be no one there to tell workers what to do, and they would spend all their time putting, and nothing would get done. We would all starve.”
–Mitt Romney, sole surviving member of the “Moderate” Wing of the now Repugnican Party
The natural affinity of certain religious thought and tyranny begs some serious study. Hitler got support from rural Lutheran areas. The Medieval Church found its Kings irresistible.
And yet, Lutheran minister Bonhoeffer famously opposed Hitler at the expense of his own life, and Medieval opposition to the church establishment was constant, if unable to effect real change until the political stew of the reformation.
Much to unpack.
Yes! Thank you Roy, whom I nominate for the role of Historian Magister, under the great historian and leader of our ReRheeformation, aka, The Resistance, Dr. Diane Silvers Ravitch!
This is something one can do, for example, in high-school American history and American literature classes studying the Puritan Era and its long-term consequences, for good and ill, for the country to come–the Untied States of America!
If I remember Stewart even gave a shout-out to Diane. The political leadership on the right has no problem aligning with the most vile parts of religiosity in speech, legislation and court appointments . Proud supporters of White Christian Nationalism . The Democrats on the other hand are sadly too spineless or complicit to even use language, no less legislation. They defend a woman’s right to chose while they lose the fight, forgetting the axiom that the best defense is a good offense . If you are going to be accused of using the IRS politically when you are not, perhaps it’s time to do it.
Here in NY there is Cuomo, who was pushing a camouflaged voucher scheme taking the form of tax credits. When it came to closing NYC schools at the start of the Pandemic, Cuomo’s position was he’s the boss(he’s always the boss) probably costing hundreds if not thousands of lives by delaying the lock down by 4 or 5 days. Doing so as the virus was spreading to up to 2 million NYC residents (the real Cuomo Covid scandal ). Yet when an Orthodox Jewish Cult starved the East Ramapo Public School District of funding Cuomo was almost silent for 6 years . Finally having to sign a bill pushed by the progressives in the legislature to give the state override powers a few weeks ago. Makes you wonder whether it was the abuse scandal.
Where is this guy when you need him.
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
Two hundred years later he is nowhere to be found as all language from the Democrats is cloaked in inoffensive nonsense meant not to offend a religio-fascist movement. .
What reason do we have to believe that Democratic “leaders” like Cuomo would not actually use the IRS to go after progressives?
Lets rethink that. Has the power of the State been used very successfully to go after the left from say 1886 on , Whether that be the Labor Movement ,the Socialist Movement ,the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti War Movement going back to WW1, the Anti Globalization Movement, the repression of Occupy Wall Street and the Black Lives Matter Movement. Almost all with Federal assistance.
Are you asserting that if the IRS went after 501C3s, Churches included for willfully violating their tax exempt status. . The left would have to worry about some form of retribution from the Right including Right leaning Democrats that has not already been far worse. Roll the tapes of the NYPD last summer in Democratic NYC. I did say “complicit”.
???
SomeDAM Poet
Short version: Your Position is that the shoe will be on the other foot. Mine it has always been there.
Religio-fascist network funded by wealthy and vile libertarians who would let people die in the gutter like feral dogs.