- Only ten percent of Africans can read or write, because Christian mission schools have been shut down by communists.
- "the [Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."
- "God used the 'Trail of Tears' to bring many Indians to Christ."
- It "cannot be shown scientifically that that man-made pollutants will one day drastically reduce the depth of the atmosphere's ozone layer."
- "God has provided certain 'checks and balances' in creation to prevent many of the global upsets that have been predicted by environmentalists."
- the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda.
- "Unions have always been plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created."
- Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win was due to an imaginary economic crisis created by the media.
- "The greatest struggle of all time, the Battle of Armageddon, will occur in the Middle East when Christ returns to set up his kingdom on earth."
If you are like me, then you are probably shocked by the statements above. However, these are being taught to many home-schooled students (and probably many in private religious schools also). They are all contained in textbooks put out by Bob Jones University Press. Bob Jones University is an ultra-right-wing and ultra fundamentalist university.
I have no problem with religion being taught to home-schooled students, or students in private religious schools, but this goes beyond the teaching of religion. It is propaganda (lies) being taught as history, government, and science -- and it is guaranteed to produce adults that are ignorant of the truth in those subjects.
Students should be taught the truth, even when it contains facts that we don't like, or make us uncomfortable. There's a lot of our history that I'm not happy with (Salem witch trials, slavery, genocide and mistreatment of Native Americans, etc.), but I don't want those things covered up. Education should be a search for the truth -- not an effort to propagandize people into believing comfortable lies.
My sister home-schools her son. Of course, my sister is not a Christian. She does it to provide a great education for her son -- a luxury few people have. I was helping her just this evening prepare a lesson on the changing poetry of Elizabethan theater -- especially between Marlowe and Shakespeare. It's great stuff for an eleven year old.
ReplyDeleteMy sister says that I am wrong to complain about home-schooling. She's in southern California and everyone she knows does what she does. But the fact is that most people home school because they are afraid that their children will be exposed to the truth -- not that they will get a poor education. In particular, they are afraid their children will learn that Christianity is just a religion like hundreds of others. I wish we taught comparative religion in our public schools, but the Christians would rebel, "How can you suggest that Christianity is just a religion?! It is The Truth (TM)!"