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Louisiana should leave New England out of its Christian-supremacist laws
By adamg on Sun, 12/29/2024 - 9:52am
J.L. Bell, who studies and writes about pre-Revolutionary New England, discusses a Louisiana law (currently stayed during a lawsuit) that requires public schools to display a copy of the Ten Commandments - and a "context statement" that refers to the 17th-century New England Primer, a reader for young students, as proof Christianity has always been a part of American public education.
Except, as Bell writes, the primer was meant for homes and private schools, not the New England colonies' public schools.
That book contained the Ten Commandments not because they were universal but because it served the particular religious faiths that had adopted the Westminster Catechism. Those Commandments weren’t displayed on their own because the authors of that catechism thought children wouldn’t understand them correctly that way. And that textbook wasn’t created for American public schools but for home and private education.
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Facts are not important ….
… when you’re doing the Lord’s work.
Slightly off topic but can we please get those smug well heeled con artists and cult victims with the racks of nutty pamphlets out of the T stations and off busy crowded sidewalks?
The Plymouth Pilgrims
fled from the combination of Church and State in England.
Weddings in Plymouth were performed by the civil authorities for exactly this reason. And they didn’t celebrate Christmas, while we’re at it.
The Puritans outlawed
The Puritans outlawed Christmas.
Well ...
Yes, the Pilgrims, also known as separatists, fled persecution by the Church of England. But they were soon overtaken here by the Puritans, who were just fine with combining church and state - they didn't want to break away from the Church of England, they just wanted to "purify" it.
They proved to be as violent and bloody in their beliefs as what they were fleeing - see Goody Glover, the Salem witch trials and the Boston martyrs - three Quakers hanged in Boston for the crime of being Quakers.
The New England Primer was written under the Puritan regime, not in the Pilgrim colony.
And if I remember correctly...
...the Separatists fled south to what we now call Rhode Island, where they found religious freedom, affordable rents, coffee milk, and jai alai.
Rhode Island
Is also where William Blackstone fled (on his white bull) after inviting the Puritans in their failing attempt at a settlement in Charlestown (because no fresh water) over to his side of the harbor on the Shawmut peninsula and then they drove him nuts and he had to get out of this town.
Blackstone was a loner
When things got too crowded for him, he moved to what is now called the Blackstone Valley.
The Separatists and the Puritans
...really disagreed only on whether they wanted to be part of the Church of England. Both groups were strict Calvinists, and more or less agreed on all the important things, such as sola scriptura, predestination, and a congregational form of church governance.
The Separatists settled the Plymouth colony; the Puritans settled the Massachusetts Bay colony. When Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard, was discovered not to believe in infant baptism, he was fired and exiled to Duxbury, which then belonged to the Plymouth colony.
After the failure of James II's Dominion of New England in 1688, Plymouth became part of Massachusetts. I think Dunster was dead by then.
The Puritans...
...named the principal river in their new colony after King Charles I, and then, after cutting his head off in 1649, continued to call it the Charles River. They must have loved that dirty water.
Not just the Puritans…
Whoever was running Boston in the 1850’s seemed just fine with mandating certain religions in public schools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_School_rebellion
They didn't celebrate Christmas, so...
...they invented Thanksgiving to take its place.
My understanding is that Christmas wasn't commonly celebrated in New England until well into the eighteenth century. Nor was Easter, and for the same reason: they were old pagan festivals that had been wrapped in a Christian veneer in late Roman times, and had no basis in scripture.
The Puritans thought rejecting all religious traditions not founded in scripture was a good idea until someone late in the eighteenth century noticed that nowhere in the Bible is there any mention of a Holy Trinity. Oops!
That's why today if you drive through any Massachusetts town, you'll likely find a First Church or First Parish which will either be United Church of Christ or Unitarian Universalist, depending on whether or not its congregation decided to keep the Trinity or throw it out as unscriptural.
Nothing
Religious or political should be included in a class room. And yes, that includes rainbow flags, BLM signs, etc.
Let’s focus on learning, not indoctrination of any personal beliefs, including religion, politics or one’s sexual preference.
Alrighty then
Sure, religion is an important part of history and modern life. But there are ways to teach it that are not indoctrination. So, yeah, discuss the role of religion in the Revolution.
But forcing the Christian reading of the Ten Commandments (Louisiana sure as hell isn't going to post the version found in the Tanakh and never mind the Louisianans who are neither Christian nor Jewish)? Ignoring the fact that Jefferson and other founding fathers didn't have the same views on religion as today's white supremacists - to the point that they made separation of church and state part of the First Amendment?
That's indoctrination.
Don’t conflate
Teaching history and touching on religion to teaching religion or any other personal beliefs.
Sure
I'm not. Louisiana is.
We have rainbow flags in every school
How is that different than posting the Ten Commandments on a class room wall?
Teaching about religious events or civil right movements in history isn’t the same.
You know this.
No, we don't have it in every school
But in any case, you left off Black Lives Matter banners, too.
If you're unable to see the difference between acknowledging civil rights, which we still have, at least until Jan. 20, and forcing your religion down people's throats (because make no mistake, there is one specific type of religion here, one focusing on a wrathful "Christian" God out to smote one's un-American enemies, Sermon on the Mount be damned, and never mind that's not even the viewpoint of most Christians), I don't know what to tell you. Maybe move to Arkansas.
It’s about tolerance vs intolerance.
Civil rights which are guaranteed by our constitution versus oppressive religious hoo ha being used to browbeat children.
Religion is not the cause but the excuse
Intolerance can be seen in atheists as much as in believers. Scripture tends to be a mirror in which the believer sees what he or she wants to see and disregards the rest; hence, for instance, Republicans who ignore everything Jesus says in the Gospels about helping the poor and loving one's neighbor, but insists that Christ prescribes specific gender roles and promotes gun ownership.
I disagree about atheists being as intolerant…
…. as the religious. It’s only recently that atheists can really come out of the closet in many cultures. Still not safe in some others. Even in cultures that are tolerant to varied religions, the religious often find common ground with other believers but see atheism as a a common threat.
As a result of having experienced intolerance, I find atheists aren’t so willing to perpetuate it themselves.
In my own experience I’ve been verbally abused and attempts made to shame me for not attending church or participating in religious rituals. Fortunately for me most off the religious I know are respectful and don’t proselytize. Yet I have never once seen an atheist try to bully a religious person. Most just prefer to change the subject if it becomes uncomfortable because there are lots of religious people out there far less secure in their beliefs than atheists who will lash out as a result. You never can tell.
Ever heard of the Militant League of the Godless?
It was an officially sanctioned organization in the Soviet Union during the 1930s, dedicated to rooting out religion wherever it reared its head.
It was disbanded by Joseph Stalin in 1943 after he made a deal with the Russian Orthodox Church, allowing it a modicum of tolerance in exchange for the Church's support of the war against Nazi Germany.
Never heard of it.
That’s the best you can come up with?!!
I think you proved my point.
Should we tolerate intolerance?
That's what the Right has twisted the question into. If black lives matter, then surely Nazi lives matter, so goes their logic.
> How is that different than
> How is that different than posting the Ten Commandments on a class room wall?
Far be it from me to describe conservatives as a bunch of unprincipled grandstanding jackasses, but it's funny how they'll claim to be interested in upholding the original intent of the writers of the Constitution, while also regularly forgetting the words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion".
Wait
Are you suggesting there's more to the US constitution beyond the first few words of the 2nd amendment?
It's really the last few
It's really the last few words of the second that people get distracted by
Hey let's be fair to gun
Hey let's be fair to gun owners, the majority of them own guns for a good reason: it makes them feel big and strong and less afraid of the world.
The MA constitution said it more clearly
Part the First, Article XII:
The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.
Funny how all these "display 10 commandments" folks
... never bothered to read them or live by them.
Every society has its underlying beliefs and values
Ours is built on the contradictory notions of free markets, in which every dollar has a vote, and democracy, in which every person has a vote. It is also founded on Christianity, which is opposed to both. Nowhere in early Christianity do you find democracy -- an invention of pagan Athens -- nor free markets. Disciples followed teachers; worshippers followed bishops, which is a corruption of the Greek word -- episcopos -- for supervisor. Slaves obeyed their masters; wives obeyed their husbands, and everyone gave to Caesar what was Caesar's.
And if Jesus in the desert rejected Satan's offer of all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for a bit of worship, his followers three hundred years later were glad to accept that offer, making Christianity the official religion of the same Roman empire that tortured Jesus to death. And they have never looked back.
Interestingly, "A Complete Unknown" has a scene...
...showing Pete Seeger in court facing charges for singing the subversive song "This Land Is Your Land."
Don't know about you, but I'm grateful that Massachusetts public schools indoctrinated kids with songs like that in the '60s.
(Great movie, btw)
Uh, not exactly
Seeger was charged with/convicted of contempt of congress, for refusing to name names during HUAC testimony. IRL, the song he asked to sing at his sentencing wasn’t “This Land” but “Wasn’t that a Time”. I also loved the movie but it’s not a documentary.
Although Guthrie’s “This Land” is a beloved gradeschool memory for many, most teachers specifically excluded the politically provocative verses.
https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm
Right you are.
I definitely fumbled on the details ..thanks for setting the record straight.
There is a Soviet song very similar to "This Land Is Your Land"
It is called "Wide is My Motherland": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_is_My_Motherland
Wait a second
If you belong to a religion or political party that has a hard stance against queer or Black people existing, that seems like a you-problem that could easily be solved. Inclusion and neutrality means exactly that - not that you get to voice hatred and exclusion and cry "but muh rights."
Do you also want public schools to remove signs that say to use an indoor voice, tidy up supplies after using a space, or remind kids how to solve conflicts constructively? Or are these OK as long as they don't imply that queer and Black kids are included in measures of decency that we're teaching?
Religion and politics have shaped every aspect of our world
How, then, can we leave them out of the classroom? To do so would reduce history to little more than a list of dates and names. Art, music, and even science cannot be truly appreciated in a vacuum.
There are aspects of
There are aspects of Christianity and Judaism that are transcendent and humanist and far more profound - even if, or especially if viewed through a secular lens- than the dominant regime of base, corrupt idolatry that creates alienation, anti-Americanism and gives capitalism a bad name by not checking it with morality. Of course religion shouldn’t be shoved down people’s throat and there absolutely should be a separation of church and state and no established religion, but we get so carried-away attacking religion that more often than not we are attacking and undermining reason and morality, which sets us on a bleak and degenerate path.
blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah
Attacking religion? Oh do I have some tidelands to sell you! Yes. Religion is soooooo attacked that it is trying to ignore the constitution and institute theocracy.
If you lived here for very long you might remember how the Catholic Church thought it ran Massachusetts - banned in Boston much? Meanwhile, pedophile priests were shielded from prosecution in the name of ... something. It certainly wasn't reason or morality.
Since when does religion equal reason and morality anyway? Lol.
"Banned in Boston" wasn't the Catholics
It was the New England Watch and Ward Society, which, unless I misremember, were Yankee Protestants.
Yep
From the Wikipedia article:
Comstock? Why yes, the same guy who gave us the law that will be used in an attempt to ban medical abortions and contraception.
But don't worry: Catholic leaders were just as excited about censoring things as the Watch and Ward Society; in fact, they sort of took over from the Watch-and-Warders when that group began focusing more on organized crime than books:
Smut!
"As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my aunt Hortense,
to be smut it must be ut-terly without redeeming social importense"
-- Tom Lehrer
I think the very idea of religion undermines reason.
Isn't that kind of the point of faith?
Exactly.
Which is why I’m always dumbfounded when people I know who are in the sciences profess some sort of belief in miracles and the supernatural.
Religion does not undermine reason
Religion is founded on both revelation and reason. How else can one explain all the bickering over the centuries about the doctrine of the Trinity or the filioque clause?
It's worth pointing out that every logical system is founded on arbitrary assumptions; there is no such thing as "pure" reason that doesn't rest, at some point, upon the equivalent of the back of a giant turtle.
> Religion is founded on both
> Religion is founded on both revelation and reason
If you take a barrel of sewage, and add a spoonful of wine, you have a barrel of sewage.
If you take a barrel of wine, and add a spoonful of sewage, you have a barrel of sewage.
"Only half the foundation is imaginary" is not the impressive argument you think it is.
Religion is not, however, sewage
Religion is a tool. So is science. The two tools were invented for different purposes. While each is useful for the purpose for which it was invented, neither tool works in place of the other.
Would you cut weeds with a hammer? Or drive nails with a sickle?
Christ on a cracker!
The only reason being undermined here that I can see is your very own.
Nonsense
What's wrong, Frelmont? Were you terribly disappointed when the war on Christmas failed yet again to materialize?
Religion, and in particular Christianity, is absurdly privileged in this country. The so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" of 1993 created a false framing in which religion was under attack, and used it to further establish the culturally and politically dominant status of Christianity. It does not sit well with the rest of us when the most privileged claim to be the most oppressed.
And who deserves the credit? And who deserves the blame?
And William Jefferson Clinton is his name, hey!
(My apologies to Professor Lehrer and the great Lobachevsky)
Nailed it in one
Yes, he signed it, along with DOMA and other things that should never have become law. He also went to those bible-banging "Congressional prayer breakfasts" and pretended to "fellowship" with a bunch of people who hated his guts as much as he hated theirs. What's your point?
The proper way to study religion
...is to start with the questions: why was it invented? and why does it persist even in modern secular times?
Religion is a uniquely human phenomenon. You will not find the names of God etched on the surface of Mars, but only in human hearts. Nowhere in the universe but on this particular rock, among members of our species, does it exist. It is, after all, we who create God in our image, to help us come to terms with our mortality and our place in a vast, scary universe. "Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me."
Back in the day
...there was a fascinating debate in a Usenet group about whether you could be a good Jew and simultaneously an atheist. The argument was made that Jews are nowhere commanded to believe anything, only to obey laws and commandments.
As a non-Jew, I had nothing to contribute to this debate, but it was very interesting.
Interesting idea.
I know a few people who are atheists and don’t do Passover, etc. but identify as ethnic Jews. One also celebrated all the high holidays and possibly kosher too. I don’t remember.
I have another friend who became an atheist as an adult but still cherishes her Catholic childhood and happy times in church. She experienced no abuse. She says she’s glad to be free of the hypocrisy and other nonsense but misses the community sometimes.
Louisiana: They don't ban books, but...
They do restrict access at libraries for minors:
https://lailluminator.com/2023/06/30/louisiana-governor-signs-bill-restr...
I wonder how they would handle Founding Father Thomas Jefferson's Bible?
https://www.history.com/news/thomas-jefferson-bible-religious-beliefs
Interesting article about Jefferson. Thanks.
They must just go into denial of its existence. Or claim it’s a communist forgery or Islamist plot or something.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
...is the oldest written constitution in the world in current use. It was written by John Adams, enacted in 1780, seven years before the federal constitution, and has been heavily amended since then.
Part the First, Article III reads:
As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.
Yep, the original constitution was a Protestant document
Massachusetts lawbooks used to be filled with such stuff. For some reason, legislators just HATE actually rescinding laws that have been overturned by court decisions, referenda and the like. But you may recall how, in 2017, the state legislature finally got around to formally repealing a whole host of laws, still technically on the books, that made contraception and abortion illega,l just in case the new administration were to try what it looks like it will actually try this time.
That depends...
...on whether it is Trump or Elon Musk calling the shots. I doubt Musk cares about such things, and I've a feeling he would happily reshape America into a libertarian autocracy, as contradictory as that may sound.
I think a lot of Trump voters are going to be unhappy to see the end of their Social Security and Medicare benefits, though.
Legislative reform
Legislative reform is tedious, unsexy, non-attention-getting work. Unless your constituents have more than average brain cells, it gets you nothing at reelection time, so it's just not a priority for legislators.
Oh, the G word...
The argument that the founders (or some of them, at least) were Christian men, and therefore we are and should be a "Christian nation", is specious. Chip Berlet (who is a devout Christian fwiw) once said that there were plenty of bibles in Philadelphia at the time that the US Constitution was written, and if the founders had wanted our government to be based on the bible, they could have done so. They chose otherwise, for good reason. Your comments in this thread make it obvious that you'd like to retcon this bit of history, but...nah.