The Hypocrisy

Texas has passed a law making the Bible mandatory reading in its public schools. As we talked about yesterday, there's plenty in the Bible that can be informative without being religiously-specific. That is, we can read the Bible to understand the historical perspective of those who founded our country without requiring our children to become Christians or even, necessarily, suggesting the idea. 

Still, there are cries against what some believe will be obvious "indoctrination" - you just want to make all of our kids Christian. 

Don't look now, but the hypocrisy is showing.

If you haven't been paying attention, there have been battles over book bans for many years now. Decades. It's picked up a lot of steam lately as religious parents and conservative parents push for books with certain content - LGBTQ content or sexual content in general - to be removed from school and public libraries because they are introducing our kids to concepts that these parents disagree with or believe should be left to families to discuss or...whatever. 

And those in support of these books push back and say, "It's not indoctrination. It's just a book. It's just an idea and kids should be allowed to be aware of all kinds of ideas, not just the ones their parents agree with." 

So on the one hand, we have a segment of the population pushing for freedom of information, for the unhindered availability of all kinds of content in the marketplace of ideas, even for young children...

...and then they cry foul when we introduce the Bible into that marketplace. 

Because you can't indoctrinate our kids like that. 

If this is going to be the argument, then it's time for us to address it head on. 

Why is it that some folks believe that kids can read books with cultural concepts and not be persuaded by them in a meaningful way...but those same kids cannot read books with religious ideas and similarly not be persuaded? 

Perhaps they understand that the truth presented in the Bible is so powerful that it presents a challenge to those cultural narratives they are trying to push without restriction. Perhaps they are afraid that the more that children read the Bible, the less they will be willing to entertain culture's nonsense. Perhaps they are afraid of raising true critical thinkers in an age where power is wielded through volume and not reason. 

Whatever the case, the person who says the Bible has no place in schools, in libraries, in the hands of children has no ground to stand on when they argue against a parent who feels the same way about, say, Nineteen Minutes. Either you believe the marketplace of ideas is open to all content...or you're a hypocrite.

At the same time, for those excited about introducing the Bible, I don't think you can believe the Bible is authoritative and true and powerful...and support banning other content for not being in line with it. If the Bible is as powerful as you believe it is, its content will cast shadows on all other content and it will be easy to see what is legitimate and what is not. So if you support the Bible but still want The Fault in Our Stars banned, you are also a hypocrite. 

There is no easy solution here, except, of course, that there is - we encourage our young people to read everything. We open the marketplace of ideas and trust what's powerful, authoritative, and real to win out. We teach critical thinking and encourage open conversation and ask our teachers to put things into proper context for our kids - tell them where it came from, how it has impacted our society, what it means to those who fight for it. 

As a Bible-believing Christian, I'm not afraid of that. In the honest marketplace of ideas - in the agora - we point to the unknown God and make Him known, just like Paul did. We don't have to tear down the other altars. We don't have to destroy the other gods. We don't have to refute the other ideas. We just have to make this One known.