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Christian textbooks

• Miseducation

A reporter glances at a science textbook used in Christian education:

I pick up from her desk a booklet bearing the word "science" on its cover and open it at random. "I'm certain that you will be very interested in learning about God's creation of Earth for human existence. In his loving kindness our Heavenly Father has provided for all your needs from His earthly creation," reads the first paragraph I see.

Divine and rule

Richard Evans Lee
August 28, 2005 •
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First, welcome back! I missed you. As to "Christian" textbooks, I read one of the recent creationist books for adults some years ago, and I noticed something peculiar: in the subjects I didn't know very much about (paleontology, geology), the book was pretty persuasive. But when it got to things I knew about (biology, physics, chemistry) it was clear that not only was the textbook wrong, it was deliberately deceptive. For instance, they presented the "tired light" theory without mentioning that no one but a bunch of cranks ever believed it (for instance, where does the energy go?) They note that results from carbon dating have differed as the science matured, but somehow never got around to saying that almost without exception, objects that we re-dated were given earlier dates than they'd been given previously. And of course they explain how the origin of life must be thermodynamically impossible but mysteriously "forget" to say that unless you extinguish the Sun, Earth is not a closed system. I'm certain that the same kind of books have been written for and given to children. Giving a child a book like that is morally equivalent to tying that child up in a closet and starving him.

Posted by: Rev. Bob | August 28, 2005 11:31 AM

Thanks. It startled me yesterday when I realized how long I'd gone without posting here. I've had a similar experience with just plain general reference books. If I know something about the topic I find a suprprising number of errors. So I won't even have a nonspecialist encyclopedia in my house.

Posted by: Richard | August 28, 2005 11:35 AM

How do you feel?

Feel free to share your feelings about Christian textbooks. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted. This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard

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