Beyond
the Pledge of Allegiance:
Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public
Square
Excerpts of
"Objections to ‘A Message of Ancient Days’ "
Excerpts of Houghton Mifflin's textbook denigration of Christianity for the 6th grade
I. TEXT ACCUSES CHRISTIANS
Page 464
Tacitus shared the Roman view that Christians should be convicted (death)
for their "hatred against mankind." No examples of hate are given, our children
are just left hanging with that thought.
Page 472
"Finally, in A.D. 284, the army declared Diocletian emperor.
Diocletian then ordered the persecution of Christians
in the hope of making the gods look with favor upon the empire once again.
However, he also used more direct means to restore order."
A "more" direct means to restore order than persecuting Christians? So persecuting Christians is a direct means to restore order? "Finally?"
II. TEXT BLAMES CHRISTIANS FOR THE FALL OF ROME:
Page 480
The textbook puts Christianity at the top of the list for reasons of "The Cause of the Fall"
"Christians were more devoted to their faith and to the church than to the Roman state."
Did it matter as they fed us to the lions if we were devoted to Christ or Rome? On pg 466 it quotes Pliny as saying not to hunt us down, but to kill us if we’re Christian. Then it says,
"As the above exchange shows, Romans did not generally seek out Christians for punishment. In fact, Christian settlements existed in North Africa for 100 years before the first Christian was executed."
WHAT does North Africa have to do with it, it’s clear across the sea! The textbook just gave all kinds of hideous ways they torturously killed Christians. The textbook actually appears to excuse the abuse, because it states,
"Some Christians were even put into an arena to fight lions as entertainment for Romans. Later Christian writers attached great importance to these events. They used the events to reinforce the suffering endured by Christians who remained faithful to their beliefs. However, historians do not believe that many Christians were actually sent to the lions. Overall, most Christians lived in peace until the AD 200s."
How many Christians fed to the lions does it take before other Christians feel terrorized? So, Christians should just stop their whining? They just gave us grisly details of Nero’s killing of us, then it says,
"Nevertheless, Nero’s treatment of the Christians was unusually harsh. For the most part, the Roman state ignored the early Christians. Before AD 64, most of the persecution suffered by the Christians came at the hands of other Jews."
They must have meant the Pharisees and Paul of Damascus who converted to Christianity? I never heard that Paul tortured us as the Romans did. And now we’re blamed for the Fall of Rome??? We didn’t do anything, we were just not devoted? And the TEXTBOOK states,
"Why did the empire fall? Historians do not have one answer.
Still, these factors played an important part."
Christianity is then listed first out of six. Then it whines about how hard it is to be a historian. Yet we should keep quiet about being tortured?
The title of the whole Christian Lesson is: "Christianity and the Fall of Rome." I had assumed these were put together because of the time frame covered, I did not realize at first that the title was meant to place blame!
The textbook talks about Rome being attacked by various Barbarians, but then it has a long special insert on page 478 "Understanding Barbarians" which seems sympathetic and suggests Romans should have embraced those bent on slaughtering them. It says,
"Groups also tend to feel threatened by people who are different from themselves. The Romans felt threatened because they didn’t understand the culture of the barbarians. As the barbarians continued to move into the empire, the barbarians became a more direct threat. They invaded Roman cities and drove out Roman leaders."
This is so similar to the liberal left attitude to embrace nations that are clearly out to destroy us, and blame Americans in the process. The Romans did not feel threatened because they didn’t "understand" the barbarians, they felt threatened because they were being slaughtered!
Right after 911 happened, America was shocked to learn that public school teachers told students it was America’s fault we were attacked because we don’t "understand" Islam. This is incredibly interesting because another reason cited for the "fall of Rome" (Christianity was #1) is #5. "Moral decline - For centuries, the Romans had been proud of their military strength. During the Pas Romana period, though, many Romans took more interest in leisure activities than they did in protecting the empire from invaders. When the empire needed Roman’s military skills again, these skills were no longer sharp. The Romans didn’t want to join the army. #6. "Military defeat - The Roman army was no longer strong enough to defeat the barbarians and lost battle after battle."
I never did find where the textbook really explains how Christianity is the #1 reason listed for the fall of Rome.
III. TEXT CLAIMS GOD IS DEAD
Page 111 "America Will Be"
Highlighted in a fancy block, with a font one might find in the Bible, is a short clip of a famous poem taken out of context. Dumped in the center of a section about Christopher Columbus, a man of faith, the 5th grade textbook states:
"They sailed and sailed as winds might blow;
Until at last the blanched mate said,
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say-"
He said; "Sail on! Sail on! And on!"
Joaquin Miller, from "Columbus"
Why are 10-year-old children reading a dressed up verse stating God doesn’t know about men dying and that God is gone? The poem in context shows Columbus to be a man of faith, but this twisted EXCERPT deceptively conveys the opposite and is all the school children read, stating God is dead and would not know! Houghton Mifflin doesn’t state "God is gone" but it cleverly conveys that belief by quoting others.
IV. TEXT ATTEMPTS TO REDUCE JESUS TO HUMAN LIMITATIONS
The Christian Unit states that Jesus’ tomb was discovered empty. His disciples believed he rose from the dead. It convinced his followers that Jesus was the (m)essiah. (pg 318) Sort of by default it seems. Why would an empty tomb alone convince his followers that He was the Messiah? If I was a child I might laugh that Christians have based everything on just an empty tomb. No mention of Jesus’ return, miraculous appearances, spending 40 days with them, and his ascension to heaven as seen by hundreds, or the documented hundreds of Christians who chose martyrdom rather than deny what they saw...which was not merely an empty tomb. Why did the textbook purposefully omit Jesus' ascension?
V. HIDDEN MESSAGES IN ROLE PLAY
In the Jewish section, the ONLY imagination practice I could find was to imagine they are with the Jews when they were conquered and forced to live away from their homeland. (pg 314)
In the Christian section, the ONLY imagination practice was to imagine being in the buried catacombs of the dead Christians. (pg 469)
The symbolism of that, putting Christians, the body of Christ, back in the tomb is outrageous.
JUDAISM UNIT
(Please forgive my presumption to speak for the Jews, I am not a Jewish scholar, but I did receive help from a Rabbi).
I. TEXT DENOUNCES THE PROPHETS:
When Jeremiah wades in, the textbook states,
"The prophets were not fortune tellers
who predicted the future.
Instead they preached a message about
how the people should act in the present."
Jeremiah, Danial, Isaiah, etc., gave EXACT prophesies about the future. False prophets were stoned to death if they prophesied wrongly just one time. It was that important that the people not be misled by false prophets.
The textbook states:
"However, by accepting the prophets’ explanation
for the disaster,
the Jews could keep their faith in God and survive exile." (pg 311)
The Jews had faith because they knew God! Not because any prophet attempted to explain away their circumstances. Unbelievably, Houghton Mifflin is giving alternative atheist reasons for Jewish faith!
"Then in 540 BC, the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great
took control of Babylon." (pg 311)
Did the textbook "historian" know that Isaiah prophesied more than 140 years earlier, that Cyrus, a Persian ruler would overthrow them? (Isaiah 44:28) Isaiah named Cyrus by name. And yet the textbook claims prophets could not predict the future, taking the opportunity to invalidate Judaism to impressionable children.
II. TEXT THROWS OUT GENEALOGIES:
"Many people lived together in Canaan….
Gradually they came together as a people and were called Hebrews."
The first named "Hebrew" was Abraham in Genesis 14:13. God mandated the Israelites stay clear of other nations. But the foundation of Hebrews was Abraham. This was so important that the Jews painstakingly kept lineage records for centuries. Hebrews did not "come together as a people" and name themselves. Even when Esau, son of Isaac, intermarried, his offspring were named "Edom." Genealogies were so carefully kept that Jesus can be traced all the way back through Israel and Judah.
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