Historical Comment

There was an interesting article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine this week about how the state school board down in Texas is going about re-writing the history curriculum for their public schools. Not too surprisingly, much of the effort is being hijacked by religious zealots bent on distorting the historical record with regard to the role religion played in the founding of this country. There's little dispute about how central religion was to individuals and communities throughout the states (nee colonies), but to suggest there was some kind of broad consensus that it be incorporated into the federal system is ludicrous.

Given the preponderance of attention devoted to issues like property, contracts and commerce in first motivating, then shaping the Constitution, it seems highly dubious that any of the founders were anxious to mix those inherently worldly, materialistic concepts up with any kind of spiritual dogma. Another way to think about this is to recognize that the broadly defined Christianity that was so elemental in the culture of the early republic made its formal institutionalization in government and law not only unnecessary, but also unwanted, as it would invite interference in ecclesiastical matters by forces (like Congress) that had no predisposition to respect or even recognize the primacy of local customs over national (or powerful factional) concerns. It's pretty clear that men like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, et. al. were smart enough to recognize that fact.

One can only guess that those who would rewrite this history are doing so not because they have some kind of new information or insight into the faith of the founding fathers, but because they hope to create some phony a priori justification for their own selfish, contemporary will to power. It's truly a sad commentary that, at least as far as Texas and its schoolbooks are concerned, they very well may get their way.