School of Lies

WHEN DID YOU realize your textbooks lied to you?

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was homeschooled by my mother, the wife of a conservative Christian pastor. I didn’t think too much about my education until the 2016 election when I became increasingly alarmed by the enthusiastic support white evangelicals gave to Donald Trump. When Trump ascended into office, riding in on the phrase “Make America Great Again,” my memory was pricked. I had heard all this before.

To check it out, I obtained two history textbooks that I had used growing up. In 1999, when I was a sophomore in high school, 1.7 percent of the U.S. population was homeschooled. By 2012, the percentage had doubled. When I was homeschooled, there were three prominent curriculum producers for Christian homeschooling: Abeka Press, Bob Jones University Press, and Accelerated Christian Education. Abeka remains the most popular. Officials at Abeka, according to the Orlando Sentinel, would not say how many textbooks the company sells or release the number of schools that use their curriculum, but said that “it is safe to say that millions of students” have used the materials.

I was one of those millions. In rereading my textbooks, I was shocked at the blatant distortions. According to these texts, America was a wilderness until discovered by white European Protestants. The “Natives” rejected God and therefore weren’t blessed. The Constitution and Founding Fathers were all but sacred. The Civil War was unfortunate because it splintered our once great nation, taking God’s blessing away. Slavery was wrong, yes, but it wasn’t that bad because it helped make America what it was. The modern age is rife with problems (including public housing, welfare, and more), most of them stemming from “humanists” and “liberals.”

Beneath these repeated themes is the persistent pressure on the reader to take America back, to return to America’s political roots, to make America what it once was. And that America, pre-Civil War, most certainly used to be great, in the eyes of these textbook writers.

Scholars call this brand of belief “dominion theology.” Dominionists train conservative Christians to be leaders of a world uncorrupted by the evils of modernity and liberalism and to affirm that America was founded upon a biblical morality that is supreme above all others.

IT’S UNCLEAR whether Donald Trump was aware of how effective a dog whistle “Make America Great Again” would be to a conservative Christian base. By one account, Trump has been fascinated at the seemingly unshakeable support from a group that used to stand for traditional morality and family values. It turns out that the strongest value among this segment might be the one still not taken seriously enough: the dream to “return” to an America where white conservative Christians are in charge.

In light of the U.S. political landscape today, the twisting of history in my textbooks is glaring. The way the texts praise Confederate generals for holding Bible studies for their slaves. The way they blame Martin Luther King Jr. for his own death. The setting up for a culture war where conservative Christians are battling to reclaim what was once theirs. Thanks to textbooks like those I was raised on, many people continue to believe the United States is on the right track.

I was lied to, as were millions of other children. Until we take seriously the dominionism underlying much of conservative Christian teaching of history, the U.S. will remain under the sway of people who believe it is a God-given premise that white, land-owning Protestants should oversee our world. Until the lie is unearthed, white evangelicals will continue to follow anyone who promises to make America “great” again.