LA Times Misses Fake US History Tie in To TX Bible Class Bill

Posted by Bruce Wilson at 7:34 PM on April 16, 2007.

Check it out: Chuck and Geena Norris are really into the NCBCPS Bible class course curriculum.

OK, cool... But, do they know it contains falsified US history ?


Well, before you judge Chuck and Geena too harshly, consider that the LA Times, which just wrote a story on the Texas bil that's soon coming up for a vote and would force Texas high schools to offer elective Bible classes, doesn't seem to know that the course curriculum the Texas bill favors contains fake US history either. Why hold Chuck and Geena Norris up to a higher standard than the one set by the LA Times ? The LA Times is a fairly decent paper, and if it's oblivious, well then ; Chuck and Geena have a right to be oblivious too !

As Chuck might say ; here's the facts, M'aam. Just the facts.


In an article for the LA Times, LA Times staff writer Lianne Hart covers the bill, by Texas State legislator Warren Chisum, soon to be voted on by the Texas state house, that would mandate elective Bible classes in Texas. Chisum's bill can be viewed as part of a national push for Bible classes in public schools that was promoted recently by Time Magazine, a push that has enjoyed the colorful support of martial arts icon Chuck Norris.

But, while the LA Times notes the concern of the Texas Freedom Network over possible lack of qualifications among teachers who might teach elective Bible classes should the bill get voted into Texas law, the LA Times missed the central source of the controversy swirling around the bill ; the fact that Warren Chisum's bill favors curriculum, from The National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools, that has been proven to contain fake US history.


Fake US history ? Well yes. Last March 31, 2007, historian Chris Rodda, author of Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternative Version Of American History, began a multi part analysis of the historical lies, fabrications, and distortions to be found in the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public School ( NCBCPS ) curriculum for Bible classes in public schools that, according to the NCBCPS is now being used in hundreds of American public school districts nationwide.

Wrote Rodda, in her kickoff piece for the series:

Three weeks ago I began writing what has now turned into an ongoing series of pieces on the revisionism of American history by the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools (NCBCPS). In the first three pieces, I took a look at some of the historical revisionism that appears on the NCBCPS website, as well as the lies used by NCBCPS advisory board member David Barton to promote the curriculum on his WallBuilders LIVE! radio program.

When I wrote the first three pieces in this series, I had not yet seen a copy of the NCBCPS curriculum itself. The delay in getting a copy was due to what appears to be a deliberate effort on the part of the NCBCPS to prevent the wrong part of the public from examining this public school curriculum. As I discovered when I went to the NCBCPS website to order a copy, there is no direct way to order one. The ordering process seems more like a screening process, designed to prevent the actual content of the curriculum from falling into the hands of someone like...ummm...ME.

But, where there's a will there's a way, and I did eventually manage through other means to obtain a copy.... a quick glance was all it took to confirm that the printed curriculum contains not only the lies from the NCBCPS website and David Barton's radio program that I noted in my previous pieces, but many more -- including six of the misquotes that appear on Barton's own Unconfirmed Quotations list, among them the infamous James Madison Ten Commandments misquote. What, exactly, is NCBCPS advisory board member Barton, whose advice to the readers of his website regarding these quotes is to "refrain from using them until such time that an original primary source may be found" advising the NCBCPS on?

Chris Rodda is now into her seventh installment in the ongoing series, each of which explores various examples of historical revisionism from the NCBCPS and within the NCBCPS Bible class curriculum:

Previous articles in this series on the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools:

The Influence of the Ten Commandments on American Law - According to the NCBCPS - 4/12/07

More Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum - 4/5/07

Historical Revisionism in the NCBCPS Curriculum - 3/31/07

Barton Revises History to Promote the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/24/07

More Historical Revisionism from the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/18/07

Historical Revisionism from the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools - 3/10/07

Now, in the LA Times story, LA Times writer Hart covers a study, by Texas Freedom Network and Southern Methodist University Bible scholar Mark Chauncey, that criticizes Bible classes currently taught in 26 Texas high schools, and Hart also notes Warren Chisum's recent circulation, in the TX State legislature, of a memo suggesting the Evolution is a Jewish Kabbalistic conspiracy. Those aspects of the story were previously covered in detail by Talk To Action.


According to a February 12, 2007 Texas Freedom Network press release:

House Bill 1287 by state Rep. Warren Chisum makes the Bible the textbook for such courses, an approach favored by the North Carolina-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS). That provision would eliminate competition from a nationally marketed textbook from the Bible Literacy Project, as well as other curricula. The provision is similar to controversial legislation the NCBCPS helped draft and win passage for in Georgia last year.

A 2005 analysis of the NCBCPS curriculum, also by Mark Chauncey, that can be found on the Texas Freedom Network website reveals much that is controversial about the NCBCPS curriculum. But the worst aspect of the NCBCPS course curriculum, which rises above religious partisan issues, is that the curriculum has been proven, through the meticulous and exhaustive research of historian Chris Rodda, to contain a falsified treatment of American history.

That's the real story.

Tagged as: texas, bible classes, chuck norris, ncbcps

Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.