Christian History Text Books & Marriage Equality

[infooverload]

How do you think Christian history books will portray the history of marriage equality? I was bored earlier today and I thought about how history can be manipulated to fit the authors world view. I am wondering how the history of marriage equality will be constructed in Christian materials going forward.

[Trynn]

Yanno, I grew up going to Christian (Seventh Day Adventist, specifically) schools. I don't remember learning about marriage equality or homosexuality at all. I went to public school for 7th grade, and I very dimly recall POSSIBLY seeing a picture of the gay rights movement, which started in the 70s. But that was not in history class, as we didn't have a textbook for that, so I don't know where I stumbled across it. I might just be confused: maybe I saw the picture in a library book or something.

Anyway, until high school, at least, this just was not talked about in the Christian schools I went to. I actually thought the word "gay" meant "happy" as late as 1999.

Even in high school, I don't remember it being talked about too much, at least, in the school subjects themselves. (Sermons were another story.) The only time marriage was talked about was either in senior bible class or senior health class (taught by the same teacher, so it's hard to remember clearly). I know for sure and certain being homosexual wasn't an option, but I can't remember if it was talked about, even in the context of, "it's wrong, don't do it."

I know I grew up in a different era, but I could definitely see it as being something that Christian textbooks just don't address, at least not for a while. After a good couple of decades I could see Christianity (the part that hasn't already) catching up with the mainstream and then maybe including it, but I would be surprised if that didn't take a good century to accomplish.

[VooDooChild]

I can't speak for the History texts, but Christian science texts (Apologia, specifically) certainly hint at one man one woman crap. Evolution's also a LIE!!11!

[crazyforkate]

I assume they'll pretend gay people don't exist.

[salex]

I assume they'll pretend gay people don't exist.

We work around the country and some of our clients in TX--who otherwise seem pretty well versed in the ways of the world--always make some sort of gay reference when they hear we are going to California/San Francisco AND have apparently told my husband that "there aren't gay people in TX."

Which seems pretty unlikely. They don't talk about it with me (you know, girl and all) so I've never had the chance to mention that my gaydar goes off as often or more often in TX as it does in California.

Not that I would. No need to piss of a client when my clients are my bread and butter.

[sweet_slytherin]

The closest I got to that subject when I went to the Christian school was a short mention of how after World War II women didn't want to give men their rightful jobs back, which led to the rebellions of the 1960s, or something to that effect. Luckily for me I went to public school soon after.

[debrand]

I think that Christianity will adjust to allow same sex marriage and the people who are against it will be seen as ignorant or backwards. People will wonder how anyone would think it was antiChristian for people in love to marry just because they are gay.

[louisa05]

I had the unfortunate experience of teaching history in a Christian school. Textbooks were from A Beka Books which is part of Pensacola Christian College. No mention of homosexuality in any book I taught from --of course, they were incredible outdated. This was mid to late 1990s and the world history text I had was from 1986 while the government text was from 1982.

Some gems that probably provide a clue as to how they would treat the topic:

*The government book regarded Prohibition as the greatest period in American history and claimed that crime dropped, families were more religious, marriages were more stable and it was basically utopia. Except for the Catholics who were getting drunk on communion wine (never mind that it was not until after Vatican II that the people could routinely have wine at communion).

*The second greatest thing in the history of American government was McCarthyism.

*There are "unofficial" requirements for being president in the U.S. in addition to the constitutional ones. They are that a potential president be male, white, Protestant, happily married and have two or more children. My pointing out to students that there had been one Catholic, too many unhappy marriages to count, and several presidents with less than two children also got me written up.

*The world history textbook opened with an explanation of the division of races: red, yellow, black and white with accompanying stereotypes. I was written up yearly for skipping that racist chapter.

*The French Revolution was a Christian triumph because it "weakened the hold of Catholicism" on France. If you've read any history of the French Revolution...well, you know then.

*Apartheid was the only thing standing between "democracy" and communism in South Africa. Unfortunately, according to the book, some people objected to it on "the grounds of 'human rights'".

*Alexander the Great "prepared the world for Christ". I was never sure how that one made sense at all. The teacher's text suggested having students write an essay about that topic. I'm not sure how they could have logically come up with a reason for it to be true.

*Greek & Roman mythology was essentially left out of their social studies and lit curriculum lest the students believe in false gods. Because I don't know about all of you, but when we read the Odyssey in high school, I built an altar to Athena at my house.

*Harry Truman was a communist. This based on the long term division of Korea which they claim was his intention all along.

I have so much more. But hopefully that will help anyone so inclined figure out how they might treat marriage equality.

[DifferentGurl]

In my old Christian text book, it said that the Bill Clinton administration was evil because it promoted homosexuality.

Also, louisa05, my Christian textbook was from A Beka Books. Some of the things mentioned in your textbook seemed to be what my textbook had. This included the Apartheid stuff ( seriously, the Mandela government was bad but the old government was good? It was ok for the old government to have Apartheid as long as it was democratic? ) and how Alexander the Great prepared the world for Christ.

What was the name of your history book ( if you can remember )? Mine was called "World History through a Christian Prospective".

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

I had the unfortunate experience of teaching history in a Christian school. Textbooks were from A Beka Books which is part of Pensacola Christian College. No mention of homosexuality in any book I taught from --of course, they were incredible outdated. This was mid to late 1990s and the world history text I had was from 1986 while the government text was from 1982.

Some gems that probably provide a clue as to how they would treat the topic:

*The government book regarded Prohibition as the greatest period in American history and claimed that crime dropped, families were more religious, marriages were more stable and it was basically utopia. Except for the Catholics who were getting drunk on communion wine (never mind that it was not until after Vatican II that the people could routinely have wine at communion).

*The second greatest thing in the history of American government was McCarthyism.

*There are "unofficial" requirements for being president in the U.S. in addition to the constitutional ones. They are that a potential president be male, white, Protestant, happily married and have two or more children. My pointing out to students that there had been one Catholic, too many unhappy marriages to count, and several presidents with less than two children also got me written up.

*The world history textbook opened with an explanation of the division of races: red, yellow, black and white with accompanying stereotypes. I was written up yearly for skipping that racist chapter.

*The French Revolution was a Christian triumph because it "weakened the hold of Catholicism" on France. If you've read any history of the French Revolution...well, you know then.

*Apartheid was the only thing standing between "democracy" and communism in South Africa. Unfortunately, according to the book, some people objected to it on "the grounds of 'human rights'".

*Alexander the Great "prepared the world for Christ". I was never sure how that one made sense at all. The teacher's text suggested having students write an essay about that topic. I'm not sure how they could have logically come up with a reason for it to be true.

*Greek & Roman mythology was essentially left out of their social studies and lit curriculum lest the students believe in false gods. Because I don't know about all of you, but when we read the Odyssey in high school, I built an altar to Athena at my house.

*Harry Truman was a communist. This based on the long term division of Korea which they claim was his intention all along.

I have so much more. But hopefully that will help anyone so inclined figure out how they might treat marriage equality.

:lol: Oh totally. They had to ban Greek mythology at my high school because people started sacrificing their pets to the gods. :roll: :cray-cray:

[ADoyle90815]

I think that Christianity will adjust to allow same sex marriage and the people who are against it will be seen as ignorant or backwards. People will wonder how anyone would think it was antiChristian for people in love to marry just because they are gay.

That's true, and some churches like the Mormon church will eventually deny that they ever denied same sex marriage or fought against it. After all, the Mormon church already denies its racist past, as well as the real reason for polygamy.

[thoughtful]

I'm pretty hard to shock, and very little about what humans can do surprises me any more, but that level of lying for Jesus their agenda is really mind-bogging. :shock:

[ElphabaGalinda]

They're probably going to not mention teh gays at all. They're usually all freaked out about teachers mentioning that some people are gay because that's "indoctrinating the kids" so they probably won't want their kids to know being gay is a thing, because they think then their kids might "adopt the lifestyle"

[Arete]

OK, I really, really, REALLY have to know how Alexander the Great prepared the world for Christ. I will even read the half assed explanation these "Christian" textbooks gave if any of you guys who have read them remembers. :pray:

That is both so stupid and embarrassing I think my brain just blushed.

The real problem with Greek mythology? If you get exposed to it, you will always think of Justice, Wisdom, and Victory as....... :shifty: women. :shhh:

[louisa05]

In my old Christian text book, it said that the Bill Clinton administration was evil because it promoted homosexuality.

Also, louisa05, my Christian textbook was from A Beka Books. Some of the things mentioned in your textbook seemed to be what my textbook had. This included the Apartheid stuff ( seriously, the Mandela government was bad but the old government was good? It was ok for the old government to have Apartheid as long as it was democratic? ) and how Alexander the Great prepared the world for Christ.

What was the name of your history book ( if you can remember )? Mine was called "World History through a Christian Prospective".

That was the one. Obviously, you had a way newer edition. In regard to the Apartheid issue--my first problem with that was that calling a country where roughly 80% of the population had no voice in government a "democracy" seemed a bit inaccurate. Also, I was teaching from this text after Apartheid was dismantled and South Africa had not become a Soviet satellite as the text predicted.

As to the other poster's question about how Alexander may have "prepared the world for Christ", I think it was something about spreading a common culture that made it easier to evangelize in the period of the early church. Without getting into a giant historical discussion, to me it seemed a misdirected idea. The Roman Empire actually contributed more to setting up the evangelization of Europe than Alexander who was dead centuries before Christianity emerged. But these texts tried to turn everything into something about Jesus. My students knew that, too. By tenth grade, they were well conditioned that they didn't need to really understand anything because when in doubt they could write some babble about Jesus and it would always be right. Trouble for me was that I didn't grade that way and was constantly butting heads with students, parents and admins over it.

[DifferentGurl]

That was the one. Obviously, you had a way newer edition. In regard to the Apartheid issue--my first problem with that was that calling a country where roughly 80% of the population had no voice in government a "democracy" seemed a bit inaccurate. Also, I was teaching from this text after Apartheid was dismantled and South Africa had not become a Soviet satellite as the text predicted.

As to the other poster's question about how Alexander may have "prepared the world for Christ", I think it was something about spreading a common culture that made it easier to evangelize in the period of the early church. Without getting into a giant historical discussion, to me it seemed a misdirected idea. The Roman Empire actually contributed more to setting up the evangelization of Europe than Alexander who was dead centuries before Christianity emerged. But these texts tried to turn everything into something about Jesus. My students knew that, too. By tenth grade, they were well conditioned that they didn't need to really understand anything because when in doubt they could write some babble about Jesus and it would always be right. Trouble for me was that I didn't grade that way and was constantly butting heads with students, parents and admins over it.

Wow...it really is a small world after all. I've been wanting to do a thread about the b*ll sh*t moments in the textbook, but you're post pretty much said a good portion of it. Do you think I should still make the thread. There are plenty more snark worthy stuff in the book.

[klavierspieler]

OK, I really, really, REALLY have to know how Alexander the Great prepared the world for Christ. I will even read the half assed explanation these "Christian" textbooks gave if any of you guys who have read them remembers. :pray:

That is both so stupid and embarrassing I think my brain just blushed.

The real problem with Greek mythology? If you get exposed to it, you will always think of Justice, Wisdom, and Victory as....... :shifty: women. :shhh:

They based it off the "spreading of a common culture" as an earlier poster said and off the spreading off the Greek language. Because the New Testament was written in Greek, and that way as soon as it was written it could be spread throughout the world without needing to be translated. And missionaries could travel all over the world without needing to learn a new culture or a new language. :? I grew up on the Abeka curriculum too, and then went to PCC for one year and worked at Abeka while I was there.

I would also add that most of Abeka's textbooks glossed over civil rights for blacks, if they even mentioned them at all. The only times I recall the Civil Rights movement being mentioned was to lament over how horrible it was because of the Black Power movement being just a gang of terrorizing thugs or some such shit. So I have no doubt that the subject of marriage equality will be skipped entirely for most grades and maybe only mentioned long enough for them to wail about the end of the world for the upper grades.

[formergothardite]

Wow...it really is a small world after all. I've been wanting to do a thread about the b*ll sh*t moments in the textbook, but you're post pretty much said a good portion of it. Do you think I should still make the thread. There are plenty more snark worthy stuff in the book.

I had forgotten all about Alexander preparing the world for Christ. :lol:

[louisa05]

I would also add that most of Abeka's textbooks glossed over civil rights for blacks, if they even mentioned them at all. The only times I recall the Civil Rights movement being mentioned was to lament over how horrible it was because of the Black Power movement being just a gang of terrorizing thugs or some such shit. So I have no doubt that the subject of marriage equality will be skipped entirely for most grades and maybe only mentioned long enough for them to wail about the end of the world for the upper grades.

The government book strongly implied that the 14th Amendment was unnecessary.

And the grammar workbooks as late as the 1999 editions frequently used the words "negro" and "colored" to refer to African-Americans in sentences for exercises.

[formergothardite]

We used both A Beka and Bob Jones and if I remember correctly we were taught that fire breathing dragons were real, the Trail of Tears was really a good thing because Native Americans got saved, and whole lots of other really crazy stuff. Slavery wasn't made out to be that bad of a thing. I do not remember civil rights being mentioned at all, they must have glossed right over that.

[alchemy]

I was subjected to Accelerated Christian Education for a few years and I don't recall any mention of homosexuality in the curriculum, but that was back in the 80s, things might have changed a lot since then.

Considering ACE's view of apartheid

"Although apartheid appears to allow the unfair treatment of blacks, the system has worked well in South Africa .... Although white businessmen and developers are guilty of some unfair treatment of blacks, they turned South Africa into a modern industrialized nation, which the poor, uneducated blacks couldn't have accomplished in several more decades. If more blacks were suddenly given control of the nation, its economy and business, as Mandela wished, they could have destroyed what they have waited and worked so hard for."

I don't expect any better in their treatment of homosexuality.

[iheartchacos]

I remember when Hairspray came out and my fundie-lite group was allowed to go. All the kids had a sit down and explanation of the mom character was really a man and it was an abomination and something becoming more common/accepted in the world. We were not to fall for the hype - gay people need our prayers to point them back to god.

[formergothardite]

I remember when Hairspray came out and my fundie-lite group was allowed to go. All the kids had a sit down and explanation of the mom character was really a man and it was an abomination and something becoming more common/accepted in the world. We were not to fall for the hype - gay people need our prayers to point them back to god.

I was raised always hearing that Fried Green Tomatoes was an evil, evil, evil movie. They were rather vague about what was evil in it, but the message was clear, never watch it. I had no idea what the movie was about until it came on tv this week and I finally watched it. It is pretty obvious the two main characters are lesbians even though it is never clearly stated. That and the other lady becoming all independent and them killing a guy and cooking him without it being seen as a bad thing is probably why we were told to never watch it.

[julie paradox]

To be fair, this is an extract from a book in my possession:

Christianity rapidly spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, helped by the presence of a common language, good trading networks and transport routes, and the extensive presence of Romans who respected and were interested in Judaism.

-from chapter 1, The essential history of Christianity, Rev Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes 2012

(proper titles from proper universities)

... and the geographic extent of the southern Roman Empire had a lot in common with Alexander's.

[crawfishgirl]

We work around the country and some of our clients in TX--who otherwise seem pretty well versed in the ways of the world--always make some sort of gay reference when they hear we are going to California/San Francisco AND have apparently told my husband that "there aren't gay people in TX."

Which seems pretty unlikely. They don't talk about it with me (you know, girl and all) so I've never had the chance to mention that my gaydar goes off as often or more often in TX as it does in California.

Not that I would. No need to piss of a client when my clients are my bread and butter.

Strange. Houston has a lesbian mayor (Annise Parker), who's done a great job, and was re-elected in 2011. According to Wikipedia, it's the largest city to have an openly gay person in the role. I remember that during her initial campaign, her orientation wasn't a big issue except among the extreme right-wing - I never heard anyone mention it or care about it otherwise.