Magazine Explores Religion of the Founders and Texas Social Studies Curriculum

The New York Times Magazine (in a preview of Sunday's Magazine) has posted a long article titled How Christian Were the Founders? The article's author, Russell Shorto, explores that question largely through the prism of the recent review of the state's social studies curriculum by the Texas State School Board. Shorto writes in part:

The one thing that underlies the entire program of the nation’s Christian conservative activists is, naturally, religion. But it isn’t merely the case that their Christian orientation shapes their opinions on gay marriage, abortion and government spending. More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians and according to biblical precepts. This belief provides what they consider not only a theological but also, ultimately, a judicial grounding to their positions on social questions. When they proclaim that the United States is a "Christian nation," they are not referring to the percentage of the population that ticks a certain box in a survey or census but to the country’s roots and the intent of the founders.

... Maybe the most striking thing about current history textbooks is that they have lost a controlling narrative. America is no longer portrayed as one thing, one people, but rather a hodgepodge of issues and minorities, forces and struggles. If it were possible to cast the concerns of the Christian conservatives into secular terms, it might be said that they find this lack of a through line and purpose to be disturbing and dangerous. Many others do as well, of course. But the Christians have an answer. Their answer is rather specific. Merely weaving important religious trends and events into the narrative of American history is not what the Christian bloc on the Texas board has pushed for in revising its guidelines.

Many of the points that have been incorporated into the guidelines or that have been advanced by board members and their expert advisers slant toward portraying America as having a divinely preordained mission.... The language in the Mayflower Compact — a document that [Don] McLeroy and several others involved in the Texas process are especially fond of — describes the Pilgrims' journey as being "for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith" and thus instills the idea that America was founded as a project for the spread of Christianity. In a book she wrote two years ago, Cynthia Dunbar, a board member, could not have been more explicit about this being the reason for the Mayflower Compact’s inclusion in textbooks; she quoted the document and then said, "This is undeniably our past, and it clearly delineates us as a nation intended to be emphatically Christian."

[Thanks to Rabbi Michael Simon for the lead.]