(RNS) — In case you missed it, last week the Ohio House passed “The Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” which aims “to permit teachers in public schools and state institutions of higher education to provide instruction on the influence of Judeo-Christian values on history and culture.” The bill was introduced to honor Kirk, who was assassinated in September. According to GOP State Representative Gary Click, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Kirk’s understanding of the connection between American history and Christianity was what he “was killed for.”
As you might imagine, objections have been raised by the usual suspects.
“This is state-sponsored religious indoctrination dressed up as history,” harumphed Annie Laurie Gaylor, president of the FFRF Action Fund. “Lawmakers should be ensuring Ohio students receive an honest education about the diverse influences on American democracy — not mandating they be spoon-fed a Christian nationalist fairy tale.”
In fairness to Gaylor, the bill does seem a bit one-sided. Stating that its purpose is to encourage “instruction on the positive impacts of religion on American history,” it offers a list of teachable subjects that might have been taken from a lecture by evangelical pseudo-historian David Barton.
Such as: “Benjamin Franklin’s appeal for prayer at the constitutional convention and the hiring of chaplains that followed.” (The convention ignored Franklin’s appeal, and Congress did not hire chaplains until two years after it was made.)
And: “The influence of religion on the United States Constitution, as evidenced by the exclusion of Sunday from the allotted time for the president to sign or veto a bill and the dating of the Constitution according to the birth of Christ.” (But no mention of the Constitution’s prohibition on religious tests for office.)
In fairness to the bill’s proponents, on the other hand, it recommends that Ohio’s students learn about “(t)he history of the concept of the separation of church and state dating back to its religious origins with Roger Williams.”
The topic doesn’t exactly accord with the views of Barton or of Kirk. Here is Kirk’s understanding of the connection between American history and Christianity in that regard.
And, again, there is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication. It’s a fiction. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists. It’s derived from a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention. Of course, we should have church and state mixed together. Our Founding Fathers believed in that. We can go through the details of that. They established, literally, a church in Congress.
I guess the bill’s sponsors missed that episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show.”
As for me, I’m totally behind the bill’s declaration in its preamble that “(a)n accurate and historical account of the influence of Judeo-Christian values on the freedom and liberties ingrained in our culture is imperative to reducing ignorance of American history, hate, and violence within our society.” The challenge is to determine how that influence worked.
Consider the letter Kirk mentioned above in which Jefferson claims the Constitution built “a wall of separation between Church & State” (i.e. the federal government). It came in response to a letter from the Danbury Baptists protesting their state’s legislating on behalf of religion by imposing a church tax (under which they could have their payments go to support their own churches). “Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty,” they wrote.
But what about the Know-Nothings who by bullet and ballot attacked Roman Catholics on the grounds that they represented a threat to religious liberty in America? Or the mob that lynched Joseph Smith on the grounds that Mormons did the same? Or the Southern preachers who insisted that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible and that the abolitionists were atheists?
Personally, I’m inclined to see Judeo-Christian values on the side of the Danbury Baptists and against the Know-Nothings and the lynchers and the slavery apologists. You may disagree. The point is, if students are to be provided with accurate and historical accounts, the full impact of religion on American history has to be encouraged. How else to determine the influence of Judeo-Christian values?
Perhaps the Ohio Senate, as it takes up the House bill, will amend it accordingly.