In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Russell Shorto takes a long look at the Texas textbook controversy. Shorto comes to this journalistic party a little late, but his article is noteworthy both for its detail and for the way that he spins it out into a discussion of the “Christian nation” debate:
This year’s social-studies review has drawn the most attention for the battles over what names should be included in the roll call of history. But while ignoring Kennedy and upgrading Gingrich are significant moves, something more fundamental is on the agenda. 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.
Read Shorto’s entire piece here. Read an earlier here & there post on the controversy here.
