The larger battle, however, is in history standards commit-
tees, which determine the specific historical material the
students will be expected to learn. 13 What will a successful
student of history know when he finishes his K–12 educa-
tion? What will he be able to do? What attitudes will he
evidence? How will he make his decisions? As the stan-
dards committee makes these determinations, it is setting
the course for future textbook development since textbook
publishers will seek to conform to the standards and thereby
raise the likelihood that a given state will adopt their text(s).
WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING OVER?
At the heart of the controversy is what the study of history
is all about. History is not simply the reciting of a series of
events in chronological order or the memorization of facts.
A historian seeks to discover the meaning of history—to
identify causes and effects, 14 trends, and bases for success
or failure. That means that he has to interpret the events as
well as describe them. More fundamentally, he has to define
success and failure; he has to base his telling of the story on a
moral foundation. 15 That is at its core a religious task, a theo-
logical one. 16 It should be no surprise that attempts to teach
history in an allegedly nonreligious system are chaotic, with
varying factions doing battle for their own perspectives.
Perhaps a couple of examples, culled from a previous
Renewanation Review article written by my colleague, Dr.
Bryan Smith, will help illustrate this point.
McGraw-Hill is a leading publisher for public schools. The
following is an excerpt from their first-grade social studies
textbook. It’s how they teach Thanksgiving Day.
“A long time ago, Pilgrims came to live in America. Their
lives were very hard. They had trouble growing enough food. A
group of Native Americans helped the Pilgrims. They showed
the Pilgrims how to grow new crops. The Pilgrims wanted to
thank the Native Americans for their help. They invited the
Native Americans for a special meal. This day became known
as Thanksgiving Day.”
Anything missing? From
this account, a child learns
that the Pilgrims were
giving thanks to Native Americans, and God had no place in
the celebration. 17
And from a seventh-grade world history textbook, “Much
of the terrorism in the Middle East is aimed against the West.
One reason Middle Eastern terrorists have targeted Western-
ers can be traced to the Western investment in the Middle
East oil industry. ... This industry brought wealth to ruling
families, ... but most citizens remained very poor. They often
blamed the West, especially the United States, for supporting
the ruling families.”
Dr. Smith evaluates this view: This suggests that if we even-
ly distribute the wealth in that region, strife and warfare will
disappear. That’s how you think if you’re a secularist. Anyone
who thinks that way is not living in the real world. In the real
world, people are religious, and their religious beliefs play a
central role in how they view the world and how they behave. 18
In short, the controversy over history standards is a
conflict of worldviews. On one side is naturalism, which
says that humans exist by random chance, that we are
self-determiners, that we can define our own values, and
that if we do it right, we can continue to evolve our social
and governmental structures into utopias. On the other side
is the Judeo-Christian view, based in English common law
that drove the thinking of the American Founders.
BRINGING THE BIBLE TO BEAR
So what is a biblical worldview? How does it inform our
study of history? How much freedom does it give us in
the setting of standards and the consequent selection of
textbooks? A biblical worldview begins with the follow-
ing concepts:
• There is a God who is the Creator of all things.
• God’s will is the standard of right and wrong.
• God is telling a story in history; it has a beginning,
middle, and end; it makes sense. He is sovereign, work-
ing out His will in “the affairs of men and nations.” 19
• Humans are responsible for their decisions and
actions. They are expect-
ed to think and
behave in ways
25