Project Blitz
The theocrats are sneaking bible study into public schools via bullshittery.
Bible classes in public school could become increasingly common across the United States if other states follow Kentucky’s lead in passing legislation that encourages high schools to teach the Bible.
The bible is a historical document and a literary work, or rather a collection of literary works, and it’s also a religious text. It could be taught in public schools under the first two categories but the third one doesn’t belong there.
Activists on the religious right, through their legislative effort Project Blitz, drafted a law that encourages Bible classes in public schools and persuaded at least 10 state legislatures to introduce versions of it this year. Georgia and Arkansas recently passed bills that are awaiting their governors’ signatures.
Among the powerful fans of these public-school Bible classes: President Trump.
“Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible,” Trump tweeted in January. “Starting to make a turn back? Great!”
Trump is illiterate, so his opinion on the subject is worthless.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonpartisan advocacy group organizing opposition to the state laws, takes a dark view of Project Blitz. The organization coordinated a statement signed by numerous religious groups that oppose Project Blitz’s efforts — including the Union for Reform Judaism, the Hindu American Foundation, Muslim Advocates, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church.
Leave religious proselytizing to the professionals.
When I was in Great Books class in my senior year of high school, the teacher responded to a coordinated parental protest over her use of The Communist Manifesto by substituting the book of Matthew. The parents couldn’t have been happier. That’s because they never sat in on the class!
We read it as a work of literature, and although this was a class in a very conservative, very religious town, and many of the students in the class were super religious, the text was not read in a religious context, as a true document, or in any way pertaining to religion. We examined the literary aspects of the work. At the end, most of the students, based on out of class discussions, were no longer willing to endorse the text as a historical, truthful document, but regarded it as a work of literature.
The parents should have let us read The Communist Manifesto. She would have approached that the same way – in a sense of literary criticism, not in a matter of true doctrine.
Blitz is, as older readers will know, short for Blitzkrieg, and the last person to launch one came to regret it.
Aka it’s German for lightning.
But yeah, why the theocrats think this is a good resonance to have is kind of…funnytragicweird.