Penn historian tears apart Christian nationalist claims: 'A past we never had'

11 July 2024

Christian nationalists have been applauding a new GOP-sponsored Louisiana law mandating that the 10 Commandments (specifically, a King James/Protestant version) be publicly displayed in all classrooms in public schools. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed to aggressively fight the law, arguing that it is anti-First Amendment and an egregious attack on freedom of religion.

The U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, according to the ACLU, promises freedom of religion but is quite emphatic in declaring that government has no business favoring one religion over another.

The Religious Right, for decades, has been repeating the talking point that liberals waged war on the American family when they took religion out of the United States' public schools. But University of Pennsylvania historian Jonathan Zimmerman, in a Philadelphia Inquirer column published on July 8, argues that their claim is contradicted by actual U.S. history.

"In earlier eras," Zimmerman explains, "religious instruction wasn't nearly as common as (Republicans) say. And when it did happen, it was promoted by political liberals as well as conservatives. You're unlikely to hear that from Republicans in Louisiana — who recently pushed through a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in all classrooms — or in Oklahoma, where the GOP superintendent of education ordered schools to teach the Bible in grades five through 12."

Zimmerman adds, "They've got their story, and they're sticking to it."

The Louisiana law, the Penn scholar notes, claims that the Ten Commandments "were a prominent part of American public education for more than three centuries." But according to Zimmerman, "they weren't."

"True, as the law notes, the Ten Commandments were included in the New England Primer and McGuffey's Reader in the colonial period and in the 1800s," Zimmerman notes. "But James Madison never claimed that 'the whole future of our new nation' rests upon 'the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the principles of the Ten Commandments,' as the measure also says."

The historian points out that in response to an 1896 questionnaire, Nevada's school superintendent wrote that "there is not one school in the State where the Bible is read." And when 26 California school districts responded to that same questionnaire 128 years ago, 19 of them reported no reading of the Bible.

"Religious instruction is not as traditional as many of us suppose," Zimmerman emphasizes. "Now is the time to remember that history, rather than reinventing a past we never had. That's the only way to create a more just and fair future for all Americans, no matter what faith they might practice."

Jonathan Zimmerman's full Philadelphia Inquirer column is available at this link (subscription required).

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