Bartholomew's Notes

Education news from Texas, via Agape Press (link added):

The Texas State Board of Education has severed ties with the National Association of State School Boards [NASBE] whose policies, says the Texas group, “continue to gravitate to liberal left.”

According to NASBE’s website:

The National Association of State Boards of Education is the only national organization giving voice and adding value to the nation’s State Boards of Education. A non-profit organization founded in 1958, NASBE works to strengthen state leadership in educational policymaking, promote excellence in the education of all students, advocate equality of access to educational opportunity, and assure continued citizen support for public education.

NASBE was particularly offensive to Republican board member Terri Leo, who argues that:

NASBE holds to the notion that the phrase “separation of church and state” accurately summarizes the Bill of Rights — even though the phrase does not appear in any founding American document and was used by Thomas Jefferson 11 years after the Bill of Rights was passed. Leo says the Texas Board of Education voted not be associated with an organization that chooses to perpetuate a myth.

Leo does not bother to explain why Jefferson’s interpretation of the Bill of Rights should be seen as so off-base as to constitute a “myth”, and the propagandists at Agape are not about to raise questions that would probably not occur to its credulous target readership. But there are other complaints:

Leo says she and her nine Republican colleagues oppose NASBE’s effort to encourage state boards to implement a bullying policy that has a special victim category for homosexuals.

…Citing a third policy area of disagreement, Leo notes that NASBE supports comprehensive sex education — while state law in Texas advocates abstinence-only sex education. On top of that, she says, “the Republicans on this board and the majority of Texans support” that law.

There is also another area of disagreement, which Agape does not note: Leo is also bitterly opposed to science, for religious and ideological reasons. As PZ Myers at Pharyngula noted a year ago, in a lament over Texas education:

It must be sad and hard to be a textbook in Texas.

Last year, the school board was trying to cut evolution out of them.

The year before, they were removing references to pollution, global warming, and overpopulation.

Oh, and now the phrase “married partners” is not to be used, because it’s too general and could include gay couples.

…There’s a name that keeps coming up in all of these dreary efforts to send Texas spiralling back in time to the Middle Ages, as if it were Bruce Campbell, only without the cool, and this time he’s fighting on the side of the Deadites. The name is Terri Leo.

Around the same time, I noted her dishonest quote-mining of Texas physicist Steven Weinberg in her attempt to have pseudo-scientific “alternatives” to evolutionary biology included in science classes.

Withdrawal from the NASBE is another move in the campaign by the notoriously theocratic Republican Party of Texas to recreate education in its own image; but with the state’s huge textbook market, the damage is likely to spread nationwide.

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*Hello to visitors from Pharyngula

(Corrected – see comments, and thanks to Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

The InterVarsity Press reports* on its role in propagating Intelligent Design materials:

The book Darwin on Trial, by University of California-Berkeley Law School professor Phillip Johnson, was published by both InterVarsity Press and Regnery Press in 1991. Two years later InterVarsity Press exclusively published the paperback version, and went on to publish five more titles from Johnson as well as two books by William Dembski. These books, along with Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box (published by The Free Press), have positioned Intelligent Design as a logical alternative to the perceived shortcomings of naturalistic evolutionary theory.

In other words, the movement has been promoted in the main by an evangelical Christian publisher, with a bit of help from wingnut outfit Regnery and one other publishing house. The Free Press is an imprint of Simon & Schuster – but Behe’s pre-publication reviewers hardly offered much of an endorsement: Robert Shapiro thought his conclusions were wrong but that book was provocative and so worth publishing, while K. John Morrow thought it was nonsense and sent a section to Russell Doolittle (a clotting expert) who was even less impressed. Behe himself claims that publication got the go-ahead after a review from Michael Atchison, but, as the ACLU of Pennsylania noted a month ago, Atchison never saw the manuscript and his “peer review” was a ten minute phone call with the editor, in which he said he thought Behe’s ideas sounded interesting (Two other reviewers are currently unidentified. For some reason, the InterVarsity report fails to note William Dembski’s The Design Inference, which at least had Cambridge University Press backing).

However, lack of support from mainstream scientists is no bar to success:

InterVarsity Press Publisher Bob Fryling can tell that Intelligent Design has suddenly become a hot topic. Sales of the four main ID books quadrupled between June and September of this year. The books are Intelligent Design and The Design Revolution, both by William Dembski, plus Defeating Darwinism and Darwin on Trial, both by Phillip Johnson.

ID proponents famously argue that their position is not a religious one; design can be inferred by scientists who are not biased, but that does not mean the designer is God. Their main publisher, however, is less interested in this distinction:

“The debate over beginnings reflects fundamental issues of how we understand the nature of humanity, our purpose in life, and our relationship with God,” said Fryling.

And there’s more on the way:

Next March InterVarsity Press will publish a book on Phillip Johnson, edited by William Demski [sic], called Darwin’s Nemesis.

One dead Victorian scientist who travelled the world to develop a theory that has become the keystone of biology, versus…a California lawyer (By the way, Dembski should not be too upset; elsewhere on the page his publisher does manage to spell his name correctly).

InterVarsity does, though, recognises that ID is controversial even among Christians (and not just Young Earthers):

While the debate has helped the bottom line at InterVarsity Press, it is a sensitive subject among the Christian professors that InterVarsity works with on the nation’s college campuses. There are Christian scholars on both sides of the Intelligent Design debate. “We have done the right thing to play a role in encouraging discussion of ID,” says Faculty Ministry director Stan Wallace. “It fosters conversation about a fault line within higher education.”

The lack of non-Christian scholars on both sides of the debate (besides Jonathan Wells of the Unification Church) is not commented on. Wallace apparently has a background in the philosophy of science, and he explains that

Many scientists, based on their training, do not accept conclusions that are not explained fully and only by physical causes…But other scientists reject Methodological Naturalism. They are open to considering that whatever can’t be explained by natural causes may be explained scientifically by non-natural causes, and still count as scientific theory, much as psychologists and sociologists appeal to the choices people make to explain some phenomena. “For scientists who embrace Methodological Naturalism, Intelligent Design is a non-starter,” Wallace says. “To them it’s just wrong headed. But those who reject Methodological Naturalism believe Intelligent Design theory makes sense of much of the data.”

This, of course, fits with the new definition of science recently adopted by the Kansas School Board. But, just like them, Wallace does not explain how non-naturalistic science should actually work as a practical method. Here’s my (hopefully) helpful definition, the Unwritten Rule of Non-Naturalistic Scientific Method (which I first posted back in January):

When observing any phenomenon, the scientist should first of all consider how it could be explained as evidence for an action by God, angels, or demons. However, a supernatural interpretation should not be given when even a poorly-informed lay-person could reasonably say that such an explanation is “silly”.

*Report is also featured on ASSIST.

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Two weeks ago the US State Department produced its annual Report on International Religious Freedom. Countries singled out for particular concern (“CPCs”) were Iran, China, North Korea (which has also just been the subject of another report, and now a UN Resolution), Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Burma, and Vietnam, but a number of other nations also received criticism. Reactions to the report are now coming in.

From the CPCs themselves, not much has been heard, although China has made a predictable response. Xinhua reports:

China firmly rejects, with strong displeasure, accusations from US State Department of its national religion policy, [Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman] Liu [Jianchao] said.

…When asked to comment on this report, Liu told a regular press conference that the report posed unreasonable criticism of China’s religious policies, trampled the norms of international relations and interfered in China’s internal affairs.

Liu said China protects its citizens’ religious rights in accordance with its law, and all ethnic groups and people across the country enjoy religious freedom. “Chinese people have a say in this matter,” Liu noted.

Liu urged the United States to stop its “intervention” in China’s internal affairs in regards to religion, to “face up” to its own domestic problems of religious freedom, and to take more actions conducive to promoting China-US mutual understanding.

Russia is also unhappy. Moscow News summarised the report’s findings on the country and its neighbours shortly after its publication:

The report cited in particular societal discrimination and antagonism against Muslims in Russia, legal obstacles that work to the disadvantage of such nontraditional groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and an increase in both anti-Semitic incidents and the harassment of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians.

The report also said concerns remained about Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus.

Russian officials and religious leaders who enjoy a close relationship with the state have offered critical responses. Over to Interfax:

‘I have analyzed the U.S. Department of State report am sure that one-sided information from Russia was used for compiling this document’, metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate said at a press conference at Interfax on Tuesday.

…According to the metropolitan, protest groups and sects were major source of research by the American analysts. ‘None of the compilers asked the Russian Orthodox church or the traditional religions of Russia for information, and we have got what protest groups and sectarians wanted’.

(Kirill was one of the leading campaigners against the “Beware Religion!” art exhibition that led to criminal charges last year, and which I blogged on at the time). Kirill’s line was echoed by a government official:

“The Russian Foreign Ministry is bewildered by the persistence with which the U.S. State Department is trying to label this country as a nation allegedly having problems with guaranteeing religious freedoms,” [Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail] Kamynin said.

Kamynin also invoked the recently-revealed secret CIA prisons to suggest the report was intended to shift attention from this “touchy matter”. Russia Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar (a close Putin ally; the two even give each other medals) was a bit more positive, but not much:

In short, experts from the State Department have done a great deal of work on collecting and processing data, while their analytic work wholly deserves praise. Nevertheless, I am surprised with the conclusions deducted from this analysis. If the dynamics are so positive and if, in a period of 15 years, Russia has grown from a dictatorship of aggressive atheism to become a state that realizes the need to restore religious spirituality and provide thousands of religious communities with religious freedom – then it is hard to understand why, in its analysis, the State Department depicts our country as ‘unfavorable’. I believe this conclusion is made due to some kind of inertia in thinking, since, while recognizing the many positive changes, we are still being considered from a position of times past. This is, of course, not Russia’s problem

Meanwhile, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports on the Israel and Occupied Territories section, which

expands its criticisms of Israel’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jewish denominations, and places Israel on notice that the United States is monitoring its treatment of other minorities, including “messianic Jews” and faiths practiced by guest workers.

…Lengthy passages in the report expand on the alleged discrimination, looking at the status of non-Jewish spouses of Jewish immigrants; allegations of discriminatory funding in favor of Orthodox schools; and the state of efforts to legislate civil marriage. Such allegations of discrimination have circulated for years in Israel, but previous reports hardly addressed them.

(I noted a particular campaign against Messianics here)

The report is praised by Reform Rabbi David Saperstein, who heads the Religious Action Center in Washington:

“The State Department is trying to lay down more consistent standards in these areas and to hold friends and allies to the same standards as it holds other nations,” he said “It’s hopeful that this will make Israel sit up and take notice when it sees the international community so deeply troubled.”

On the other hand, the report is also accused of letting some countries off lightly (links added):

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended earlier this year that the State Department cite Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan as “countries of particular concern.”…But in its annual report last week, the State Department made no change to its list of the most serious violators of religious freedom.

[Chairman of the Commission Michael] Cromartie said the State Department’s finding that Turkmenistan had made significant improvements in religious freedoms in the past year was particularly distressing to rights advocates. He said most religious activities in Turkmenistan are under state control. And Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, he said, continues to cultivate a personality cult that has become an enforced quasireligion for the Turkmen people.

John Hanford, the State Department’s Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, defended the decision:

“In Turkmenistan, presidential decrees and amendments to law resulted in the registration of new minority religious groups and the release of a number of prisoners. And just recently, the government conducted a first-ever roundtable with representatives of religious minorities. Nevertheless, serious problems remain.”

US Congressman Chris Smith, who chairs the House Human Rights Subcommittee (and who was largely responsible for the legislation which led to the first report in 2001), thought that the section on Vietnam could have been stronger, despite the serious concerns raised. The AP noted his reaction when the report was released (link added):

On Vietnam, where the State Department found improvements, Smith disagreed, particularly on the way the government treated Montagnard Christians.

The religious situation has deteriorated, he said, and the arrest and sentencing of Vo Vanh Thanh Liem (Nam Liem), a leading figure of the independent Hoa Hao Buddhists, was an outrage.

But what’s going to happen? Christianity Today reports:

Seven years after vowing to punish countries that restrict religious freedom, the U.S. government announced sanctions against the tiny African nation of Eritrea. The September 23 announcement represents the first such action the U.S. has taken under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).

…White House officials opted to negotiate with leaders of Saudi Arabia and Vietnam before deciding on whether to impose sanctions…State Department officials plan to continue to speak with Saudi leaders and issue a statement by late March.

Simon Henderson, a conservative scholar with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, surveys the report and ends on a pessimistic note:

There remains the danger that the annual State Department report will become a dead letter, serving as a goldmine of information only for academic researchers, and that the Religious Freedom Commission will become increasingly frustrated by its powerlessness. The longest section of the 2005 report’s executive summary lists U.S. actions to advance international religious freedom in the CPCs and several other states. That list reflects time and energy invested by U.S diplomats but also suggests a triumph of form over substance.

UPDATE: Lawrence Uzzell, of International Religious Freedom Watch, also notes the report’s shortcomings, in an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor:

The State Department’s annual reports on topics such as religious persecution, with their country-by-country surveys, get far more attention from the alleged persecutors and their victims than from Americans.

Unfortunately the department’s latest report, released this month, tends to confirm the view that Washington is reluctant to tell the truth about its own allies – or even countries with which it would like to be allies.

UPDATE 2: Amnesty International has a new report highlighting persecution in Eritrea.

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ASSIST Ministries reports that the Promise Keepers are making headway outside the USA:

NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS (ANS) — Hundreds of Bahamian men and boys (and dozens of women) gathered at Nassau’s historic Clifford Park on Friday night, November 11, for the opening night of “The Bahamas Awakening,2 a cooperative effort between local Bahamas-based ministries and churches and the U.S.-based ministry to men Promise Keepers.

…The Prime Minister of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, the Right Honourable Perry G. Christie saluted the organizing churches, the Bahamas Awakening organizing committee and Promise Keepers for their work on building up and encouraging the spiritual strength of The Bahamas’ men. Representatives from churches and governments around the Caribbean also attended.

The emphasis was, as ever, on repentance for sin, the need for fathers to take more responsibility, and the importance of living according to divinely-ordained gender roles:

One of the most well known voices in global Christianity is Myles Munroe, who addressed his Bahamian countrymen on the topic “Discover Your Unique Design. “You can’t let your manhood be defined by culture. Proverbs tells us that many are the plans in a man’s heart, but God’s purpose is more important than our own plans. That’s where we find true satisfaction.”

Munroe is a prosperity gospel preacher, whom we’ve seen before on this blog; he’s also a prominent Christian Zionist (and a major ally of Ron Wexler on the new Ten Commandments Commission). ASSIST also notes PK inroads into the country:

At Her Majesty’s Prison men worked for three days on renovating a building to be used as a pre-release training facility. On Thursday, November 10, PK president and CEO Tom Fortson and VP for Advancement George Fisher visited the prison along with other local ministers for an “inside-the-yard” event.

…Among the most respected women on the island is Deputy Prime Minister The Honourable Cynthia Pratt, who spoke at a women’s luncheon along with Florida businesswoman Bernadette Claybourne and Toni Fortson, wife of PK president Tom Fortson.

Claybourne is the wife of Broward Times publisher Keith Clayborne; her own company, Behold His Glory, Inc., produces religious-themed bedding.

The issue of Christian manhood is one that has vexed the Christian Council of the Bahamas for a long time, particularly in relation to homosexuality and the presence of gay holiday-makers. This last issue was used to pressure Prime Minister Christie last year, as the Nassau Guardian reported at the time:

Pastor Lyle Bethel of Grace Community Church challenged Prime Minister Christie to overturn the pro gay-cruise position recently put forth by Minister of Tourism Obediah Wilchcombe and keep with the anti-gay cruise position he affirmed while in opposition.

He said while Mr Christie was visiting his church, shortly after then Prime Minister Ingraham had insulted church leaders by calling them hypocrites as a result of their stance on gay cruises, he asked what the position of a PLP [Progressive Liberal Party] government would be on this issue. “Perry Christie said to me ‘Lyle, my government will be against gay cruises.’ Now I’m wondering how far that has gone, because I read where Minister Obie Wilchcombe suggested that we were open to this.” “I want to call on the Prime Minister to be reminded of the that conversation in Grace Community Church yard, that his government is going to be opposed to this.”

Munroe was also part of that campaign:

He said the only thing keeping The Bahamas from a homosexual onslaught was the preamble to the constitution, which declares that The Bahamas shall have an abiding respect for Christian values. “They (homosexuals) know that, but we know that too,” said Dr Munroe.

Munroe warned of “national judgement” if homosexual visitors were accommodated.

Back in 1998, Perry’s predecessor Hubert Ingraham had stood up to the country’s religious right on the same subject, stating that he had

been chilled by the vehemence of the expressions against gay persons made by some in our newspapers and over our radio talk shows.

…I believe that the hysteria being created by certain individuals against gay persons visiting The Bahamas and who represents themselves as the leadership of the Christian Council, is becoming irresponsible. I believe that the hysteria is, as is usually the case with hysteria, unfounded. It is also un-Christian.

Ingraham had the advantage that he was not seeking re-election in 2002 (although he has just recently returned to the leadership of the Free National Movement); Perry Christie, in contrast, has the Christian Council as a major ally. An op-ed in the Bahamas News from 2003 gives more details:

Since the PLP came to power on May 2, 2002, some pastors have taken a new approach to deliver their message. Since the infamous “If you ain’t PLP get out of my church,” speech , some pastors have gotten bolder with their directives. Even if government officials are in the congregation, stern warnings are given. The attitude now is that we will make you or break you!

…In fact, some politicians are so intimidated by religious opinion that they will not make a decision without consultation. The big joke in the Bahamas today is that the Honorable Cynthia Pratt is not the Deputy Prime Minister, but a flamboyant pastor who lives in a million dollar house…

And now with the huge resources of the Promise Keepers entering the scene, conservative religion and gender politics is likely to be an even greater force.

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The Muslim News carries a report derived from BBC Monitoring about the recent massacre in Jordan:

Russian experts see Israeli, US links in Jordan blasts, Lebanon murder

The “expert” on the Jordan bombs is Member of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Shamil Sultanov. Sultanov believes King Abdullah (“who, by the way is half-English”) may be behind the bombing “to strengthen his personal authority”, but also that (square brackets in original):

…the second theory I adhere to is the Israeli connection. Abu-Mazin [Mahmud Abbas], the leader of the Palestinian National Authority, is seriously ill. And many believe that his Fatah party may not win with such a leader, that it will definitely not win the parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in the next few months. So for a very large number of players – for the Americans, for Israel, for Sharon, for the Egyptians – [Palestinian Minister of Civilian Affairs Muhammad] Dahlan would be the optimal player and politician to replace Abu-Mazin. In that sense, these explosions, and in particular the murder, as a result of one of the blasts, of Bashir Nafi, the Palestinian National Authority’s military intelligence chief in the West Bank, is, from my point of view, a clearing of the way for Dahlan.

Sultanov’s analysis was broadcast on Russian Mayak radio on November 11. This was the day after the BBC reported that al-Qaeda in Iraq had claimed responsibility; a development the interviewer felt no need to challenge his “expert” with.

Unreported, however, is the tiny detail that Sultanov is a member of the far-right Rodina (“Motherland”) political bloc. They’ve featured on this blog before; it was a Rodina parliamentarian, Alexander Krutov, who was behind the notorious petition which demanded the banning of Judaism back in January. Finnish analyst Inna Rogatchi described the bloc thus:

The only difference of Motherland block with a grass-root neo-nazis in Russia is that its leadership has been covered with a scientific titles, they are present themselves as doctors of science in different areas… there is hardly anyone in Russia who is mislead on the real stand of Motherland block – their speeches are quite clear and presents their views in full. The real problem is that too many of the Russian people, especially those aged between 45 and 55, seems to share this stand.

A short profile of Sultanov is available from the US-Russia Business Council:

Syltanov, Shamil Zagitovich

Affiliation: Rodina

DOB: May 16, 1952

Shamil Sultanov is currently a member of the Committee on International Affairs. He is a member of the analytical group the Association on Foreign Policy, the Party of Islamic Renaissance and the editorial board of the newspaper Unity. Prior to his tenure in the Duma, Mr. Sultanov worked in the Research Center on International and Interregional Economic Issues. In 1995, he became a member of the National Council of United People of Russia. A journalist and a political scientist, Mr. Sultanov has served on the editorial boards of several magazines and newspapers and is the author of numerous books and publications. Shamil Sultanov graduated from the international journalism department of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Here’s a bit more from Sultanov the “political scientist”, via an interview with the Kavkaz Center:

On September 11, 2001 Osama Ben Laden announced that he had nothing to do with the terrorist acts, and that these attacks were conducted by the right wing, who are against the sway of Jewish bankers. There is a good trustworthy chance that he really did not participate in these terrorist acts, but due to some reasons (maybe secret services played a certain role in it), he to a certain extent funded the American fundamentalists. So, there must have been some contacts with terrorists, if you take into account financial capabilities of the Saudi millionaire.

According to Pravda, Sultanov also believes that the West is plotting to break up Russia by 2015, and that

…The West wants to remove Putin and his team from power. They want to put their puppet on top and get Russia ready for sale.”

As we’ve seen before – keeping in with Putin tends to be a very good career move. Especially if you have no other talents than those of the demagogue.

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Once again, Charisma editor J Lee Grady astonishes with his willingness to display the dirty linen of neo-Pentecostalism. Recently it was American pastors demanding excessive remuneration for preaching in Europe; this time it’s sex (parentheses in original):

At one charismatic megachurch, staff pastors successfully convinced all their wives and female staff members to get breast implants. (I wonder: Was this discussed at a staff meeting?)

A church in California (known for its revival meetings and prophetic ministry) recently imploded after members learned that several men in the church had been having homosexual affairs with the pastor, who was married.

A leader with an international following (who wears the label of “apostle”) recently informed his leaders that men of God who reach his level of anointing are allowed to have more than one sexual partner. Then his own son offered his wife to his father out of a sense of spiritual obligation.

As ever, no names are named, although Grady does a J’Accuse on Clarence McClendon, a pastor who ditched his wife for another woman, and on Bishop Earl Paulk (an ally of the UK’s Bishop Mike Reid, whom we’ve seen before), who married McClendon to his mistress a week after the divorce came through.

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While conservative Christians celebrate the establishment of ID Creationism in Kansas high-schools (although suffering setbacks in Dover and Minnesota), there is also some action on another front on the war over education, as the Associated Press reports (links added):

A public meeting is Thursday in Odessa as the Ector County Independent School District seeks input about a Bible elective class…A committee of 13 people — mostly teachers — will study what the curriculum should be used.

The teachers will choose between two options: “The Bible in History and Literature”, by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, and “The Bible and Its Influence”, by the Bible Literacy Project.

Curiously, “extra security” will be provided. The teachers involved were listed in an earlier report from the Midland Reporter-Telegram (via Biblical Theology weblog).

Back in April, Agape Press reported that Odessa was all set to go with the NCBCPS syllabus, but since then the NCBCPS has come under heavy fire. At the time of the report, I noted the complete absence of serious Biblical scholars connected to the project and the presence of some notorious cranks (there was also an endorsement from Chuck Norris, for reasons that eluded me). Biblical scholar Mark Chancey soon after wrote a devastating critique of the syllabus, exposing sectarianism, plagiarism and gross academic incompetence (including an urban myth that NASA had confirmed the sun stopping in the sky for the benefit of Joshua’s army). In good old-fashioned American style, the NCBCPS retaliated by calling Chancey “far left”, before quietly making some revisions. Chancey reviewed the new version, but was still dissatisfied:

…Though it claims that it has been reviewed by “primary scholars,” not a single one with a full-time academic position is named. Similarly, it continues to rely heavily upon popular-level (rather than scholarly) resources written primarily from a conservative Protestant perspective. Some of these resources are idiosyncratic, such as the writings of Robert Cornuke, who claims to have identified the biblical Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia.

…In addition, there are still problems in content. For example, discussion of Jesus’ last week reflects a problematic harmonization of the Gospels, and the consideration of the dating of the Exodus is still murky. “Action Statements” for the Dead Sea Scrolls still imply that the view that the Dead Sea Scrolls directly link Judaism and Christianity is more widespread than it actually is (very few scholars hold this position) and that the scrolls prove that the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible is equivalent with the “original text.” Some typographical and factual errors remain.

Chancey also notes the continued involvement of David Barton, a pseudo-historian who advocates a tendentious and politicised “Christian America” reading of history:

Most troubling is the fact that the new curriculum still clearly reflects a political agenda. Like the old version, it seems to Christianize America and Americanize the Bible. It continues to recommend the resources of WallBuilders, an organization devoted to the opposition of church-state separation, and it still advocates showing that group’s video, Foundations of American Government, at the beginning of the course. This video, narrated by the founder of WallBuilders, David Barton, argues that the Founding Fathers never intended for church and state to be separated and that America has descended into social chaos since devotional Bible reading and prayer were removed from public schools. The curriculum’s disclaimer that the video is just “one perspective” and “one historian’s viewpoint” (page 11) that should be balanced with other perspectives does not alleviate the problem, especially since no other perspectives are even discussed. Despite the curriculum’s characterization of Barton as a historian, he is neither an educator nor an academic. He is a political activist who is highly influential on a national level. Foundations of American Government is not an educational video; it is political propaganda. Another Barton video with similar content, America’s Godly Heritage, was banned from classroom use in Herdahl v. Pontotoc County School District (N. D. Miss. 1996).

(One critique of Barton’s claims can be found here).

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League took issue from a Church-State angle:

“This wholly inappropriate curriculum blatantly crosses the line by teaching fundamental Protestant doctrine,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The text relies solely upon the King James Version of the Bible and hews to a fundamentalist reading, especially of New Testament passages. This is the primary flaw in the curriculum — that it advocates the acceptance of one faith tradition’s interpretation of the Bible over another.”

Agape Press has now also re-entered the fray, by offering an uncritical piece about Christian author Berit Kjos. Rather than defend the absurd NCBCPS syllabus, Kjos instead goes on the attack against the Bible Literacy Project, by postulating a conspiracy theory:

A Christian author alleges a new curriculum put out by the Bible Literacy Project spreads communist ideals.

But one Christian author, Berit Kjos, warns that several board members of the Bible Literacy Project have ties to the Communitarian movement, which she describes as an attempt to blend all religious beliefs and create a different society where the individual is de-emphasized in favor of the community or state. “That agenda,” she contends, “is being implemented through this curriculum.”

Kjos says the purpose of the Bible Literacy Project’s new course is “not to teach people about the Bible or to make students biblically literate. Rather, she asserts, is objective is to train people “to set aside what the first head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Brock Chisholm, called ‘poisonous certainties’ — the ‘certainties’ that keep them from embracing all other religions as being equal.”

Kjos’s evidence? The syllabus allegedly asks students to consider whether “Adam and Eve received a fair deal as described in Genesis”, and in a discussion of the Book of Daniel it mentions the “‘so-called’ end times”, thus undermining Biblical prophecy. Of course, by beginning with “A Christian author alleges”, Agape provides a bit of distance between itself and Kjos, but since no opposing view or criticisms are offered, one gets the strong impression that Agape concurs.

So who is Kjos? Christian Worldview Network provides a profile:

Berit Kjos is a respected researcher, the author of many books and magazine articles, and a concerned parent (and grandparent) who has extensively studied religious trends, today’s social changes, the roots and branches of the United Nations, the rising worldwide management system, and – most alarming of all — the transformation of the church.

Kjos first became aware of New Age and occult influences in our society at a 1974 conference on holistic health. As a registered nurse, she was interested in methods of healing, but soon discovered that the occult powers found in New Age methods brought bondage instead of true healing. As a parent, Kjos became aware of similar New Age influences in education. She began to monitor the schools for classroom programs that taught occultism and New Age spirituality, then began to share what she learned with other parents and teachers.

…Her articles have appeared in magazines such as Virtue, Moody, Servant, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Conscience. Kjos has also written numerous Bible study guides, booklets, and devotional.

Kjos has been interviewed several times on The 700 Club, Point of View (Marlin Maddoux) Bible Answer Man, Beverly LaHaye Live, Crosstalk and Family Radio Network. She has also been a guest on “Talk Back Live” (CNN) and other secular radio and TV networks.

Kjos also has her own website, Crossroad; many of her claims are debunked by Pagan Protection. However, Kjos sniffs out the New Age in not just neo-Pagan or secular environments – she also accuses other Christians, particularly prominent evangelical leader Rick Warren:

In September 2005, Pastor Warren was invited to speak at the United Nations and at the Council of Foreign Relations — two powerful organizations determined to unify the world under a new set of social rules and systemic controls.[5] Both pursue a peaceful transformation that would stifle the “divisive” truths of the gospel and conform Christian beliefs to UNESCO’s Declaration on the Role of Religion. Both recognize the need to draw churches into their worldwide network of partners and servers.[6] Both realize that Rick Warren — a most magnetic Pied Piper for their transformational agenda — can serve their grandiose purposes well.

Of course, this fundamentalist anti-UN “end times” paranoia is old hat (and figures prominently in Tim LaHaye’s work). But why hasn’t Agape Press also reported on Kjos’s views about Warren, if her opinions about the Bible Literacy Project are of such value? (She’s not a fan of JRR Tolkien or CS Lewis, either, by the way). Or when faced with careful scholars whose work appears to threaten fundamentalist dogmas, does Agape just fall back on anyone with a good line in defamation, hatred and fear-mongering?

UPDATE: More paranoia here, from Dennis Cuddy. Cuddy shockingly reveals that the Bible Literacy Project’s document on teaching the Bible in the context of the First Amendment was in part penned by someone who had previously worked for the ACLU, and who once consorted with a Wiccan! And worse, other members of the Project’s board of advisors apparently support gun control!

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Back in February, I reported on a church service at Porter Memorial, Kentucky which was doubling as a military recruitment event.

Now fast-forward to today, to All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, via the LA Times:

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

…In his sermon, [Rev. George F] Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991’s Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that “good people of profound faith” could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, “Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster.”

UPDATE: Ted Olsen of Christianity Today thinks the church’s regular pastor, Ed Bacon, has been playing the media and that “there is no chance—zero—that All Saints is going to lose its tax-exempt status over this sermon.” Olsen makes a good case, and so I’ve added a question mark to the title.

(Tipped from The Revealer)

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Haaretz reports on the first anniversary of the new “Sanhedrin” in Israel, which this blog has been following for a while:

When the “new Sanhedrin” was established in Tiberias a year ago, hardly anyone took it seriously. The 71 rabbis who came to the northern city 1,660 years after the original Sanhedrin (the assembly of 71 ordained scholars that was both supreme court and legislature in Talmudic times) held its last meeting there, were welcomed by many in the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox sectors with smiles tinged with derision.

…the initial impression was that this was another effort by the Jewish Leadership movement within the Likud, an effort that had a Torah-oriented, halakhic-messianic slant and was striving for a revolution in the government.

However:

A year after its establishment, it is impossible to see the new Sanhedrin as the domain of the extreme right wing alone: at a large gathering in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood Tuesday, Rabbi Adin Even Israel Steinsaltz, a well-known Talmud scholar who is much esteemed in Torah circles, both in the ultra-Orthodox world and in the national-religious sector, came forward as the president of the Sanhedrin…The fact that the new Sanhedrin also includes many rabbis affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox stream, added to the fact that they are not among the best known and leading rabbis in that sector, endows the effort with another unusual dimension that distances it from being another “extreme right-wing” venture.

I’m not sure about that – the presence of “many rabbis affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox stream” might just as easily signify that they have become enamoured of extreme right-wing ideas, rather than that they are acting as a moderating force. And the report’s author has to concede that Steinsaltz’s position is somewhat tenuous anyway:

It is hard to know how long Steinsaltz will last as president of the new Sanhedrin. At the public session held on the first anniversary of the apparent reestablishment of the ancient institution, he appeared to be fighting internal opposition.

This public session was at a synagogue in Jerusalem, and although participants appeared to acknowledge the current limitations of the Sanhedrin, the desire for theocracy was as evident as ever:

Hillel Weiss, who also has become one of the ordained members, says, “The goal of the new Sanhedrin is to become a source of authority for the Jewish people, and this is contrary to the accepted position of the left that the state of Israel is the source of this authority…”

I noted Weiss’s railing against the Supreme Court in a previous entry; Steinsaltz seems to be reluctant to follow such a politicised line. However, despite all the complaining, the report does note the following:

In its first year, the new Sanhedrin initiated a dialogue with the Ministry of Education over the Bible and Scriptures curriculum…

Study of the Bible is mandatory for Jewish children in Israel. An article from 2003 by Israel Idalovichi and published in Religious Education notes the following:

The Orthodox establishment [in Israel] advocates policies that support a growing and more vocal commitment to Jewish religiosity. For adherents of Jewish Orthodox culture, the Holy Scriptures are of paramount value by virtue of their being a work of divine design. For the Orthodox, the problem is that the study of the Bible-rather than canonical commentaries-might suggest that there is more than one way to the Jewish religion.

In other words, the Orthodox want not just the Bible to be taught, but their particular interpretation of it. Idalovichi studied the attitudes of Bible teachers, and concluded:

The religious bible teachers are committed to their principles but they exhibit great flexibility and adaptation to the social, moral, and democratic principles of secular society…Jewish religious fundamentalism enjoys a far broader and vociferous platform in the media and among political…than in the classroom, at the hands of public school teachers. Even such a problematic subject as bible studies appears to serve functional and pragmatic needs, and motivations for its presence in the Israel school curriculum are driven by pragmatic values, not only religious passion.

But with a theocratic group now “in dialogue” with the Ministry of Education, how long before “religious passion” takes centre stage?

(Tipped from Christianity Today Weblog)

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