"the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations." - C.S. Lewis
Are evangelical churches in Texas failing to adequately indoctrinate the children of the state where they have to rely of legislation that allows them to push their religious views into our public school systems? It has been my experience that faith is best served up to those willing to consensually assimilate religious scripture into their hearts and minds rather than making their case in the form of restrictive codes, such as the Ten Commandments
The Texas state school board has opened its public school classrooms for a curriculum, that consists of “teachings by Jesus, stories such as the parable of the prodigal son, readings from the Psalms, and a unit on the Golden Rule.” Though not mandated for all public schools, those often strapped for funds will likely jump on this wagon that offers up to a $60 incentive per pupil in the program.
A religious non-profit recently paid for and distributed some 1200 posters of the 10 commandments to Denton ISD. Texas Senate Bill 10 “requires public schools to accept privately donated posters of the Ten Commandments … and to display them in each classroom that does not already have one”. The commandments are all about forbidding specific behaviors, intended to mold each generation in how not to behave, assuming proper behavior was a given.
But we know that not all Christians practice what they preach and thus pass such misgivings on to their own children. This becomes even more egregious if such people are cultural and political leaders, for they have domain over the narratives that are spread throughout our private and public institutions.
Jesus the Nazarene, upon which the Christian faith is based, expressed his desire for his followers to follow the law of the Prophets in Matthew 5:17, but throughout that parable, that is more popularly known as the sermon on the mount, he also wanted them to go beyond the negative expressions of Mosaic laws, putting love and compassion in the forefront.
However, once the institution of the Church began cherry-picking scripture that served their political agendas, the example they set no longer encouraged exclusively the exuberance Jesus presented to the crowd that gathered on that Mount. Religious leaders demanded obedience to rigid rules like the Ten Commandments that were used as a cudgel to keep followers in line.
This appeals to those who search for solace in familial terms as Frank Rich laid out following the horrors of 9/11. It follows Plato’s parent-child analogy in his Crito. “In this formulation, the state is to the subject as the parent is to the child: as the child must obey the parent, so must the subject obey” (5)
This then is the appeal of Trump to evangelicals. But they failed to see where this egomaniac would lead them. He demands loyalty above all else as do the Christian nationalists and works to punish those who oppose him. He’s become a comical creature they are now forced to stay aligned with, lest they look weak to those whom they have drawn into this dysfunctional family.
Imposing their religious views into our schools sets the stage for a fundamentalist drive to convert our democracy into a theocracy where cruel punishments not unlike those the Church imposed in middle ages, which in turn led to the notorious Inquisition It’s hard to image our historical culture would fall for this, but where information for some relies more on feelings than facts, societies easily acquiesce for fear of public shame and ostracizing.
