Commentary
On May 20, 2021, then-Attorney General William Barr gave an amazing speech on the erosion of religious freedom and its implications for our society.
“Up until the 1970s or so, the instruction received in the public school system openly embraced Judeo-Christian beliefs and values, and most certainly was not hostile to, nor fundamentally in conflict with, traditional religious beliefs. ... This is when the left embarked on a relentless campaign of secularization intent on driving every vestige of traditional religion from the public square. Public schools quickly became the central battleground. ... It was secularization by subtraction,” Barr said.
“Yet even as the schools were forcibly secularized, the notion of moral instruction did not simply go away. The rich Judeo-Christian tradition was replaced with trite talk of liberal values—be a good person, be caring. But there was no underpinning for those values. What passed for morality had no metaphysical foundation. It is hard to teach that someone ought to behave in a certain way unless you can explain why. ... When you take away religion, you have left a moral vacuum.
“Now we are seeing the affirmative indoctrination of children with a secular belief system and worldview that is a substitute for religion and is antithetical to the beliefs and values of traditional God-centered religion. ... One of the main justifications for the common school movement was that they would be institutions to effectuate the melting pot—to promote our common identity, to promote a solidarity based on being an American. But now the schools have taken on the opposite mission of separating us, of teaching unbridgeable differences, of dividing us into many different identities destined to be antagonistic. It is all the more alarming and bizarre that the new state-sanctioned ideology challenges the very legitimacy of the nation itself—to the point of attacking its founding documents, principles, and symbols.”
In my new book, “Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story,” I examine how we, as a nation, have gotten to this point that Barr describes.
Much of the current social discord we’re experiencing is the result of either complete ignorance of our past and how our government works—as I document with the woeful statistics of historical and civics knowledge of many Americans—or the blatant ideologically driven revisionism and academically dubious teaching of our history by individuals, such as the late Howard Zinn of Boston University, whose 1980 book “A People’s History of the United States,” a socialist reimaging of American history, became a version of the Bible for many on the left.
Zinn openly admitted his agenda, stating that his goal was to denounce Western civilization in order to convince students to reject it. His desire was to invert all the political structures of America, past and present, a task requiring him to defame the Founders and many other American leaders and institutions, as well as upend the social and moral foundations of our country.
A classic example of Zinn’s philosophy at work is his treatment of the Pilgrims, who gave us the Mayflower Compact, the document upon which our Declaration of Independence and, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution are based—guaranteeing us the freedoms that we enjoy today. Instead of celebrating this, Zinn condemned it and portrayed the Pilgrims as practitioners of genocide.
But here’s the truth about the Mayflower Compact, as recorded by numerous respected historians.
On Nov. 11, 1620, the Pilgrims, along with others who came along for the journey, arrived on the Massachusetts shore after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a leaky and overcrowded ship rife with disease, with the hope of coming to a new world where they could freely practice their faith and exercise their rights of conscience. They had no intentions of engaging in cultural genocide.
Once they arrived in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims and others realized that they needed a system of government for their new home. They created the Mayflower Compact, which recognized people derived their right to self-government from God and not man. It was the first attempt at self-government on the North American continent—an attempt that has been successful for 400 years.
While the document used Christianity as its base and stated that all colonists should live in accordance with the Christian faith, it was also a pluralistic document meant for the good of both Christians and non-Christians alike to be able to govern themselves and live in harmony with each other. It stated that the colonists would create and enact “laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices” that would allow the colony to thrive, and they would create one society and work with each other, rather than in opposition to each other because faith informs good government for all.
In 1820, at the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth, the orator Daniel Webster spoke of the great legacy given to all Americans by the Pilgrims, encouraging the Americans of that day to offer future Americans “some proof that we have endeavored to transmit the great inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of public principles and private virtue, in our veneration of religion and piety, in our devotion to civil and religion’s liberty, in our regard for whatever advances human knowledge or improves human happiness, we are not altogether unworthy of its origin.”
In fact, the legacy Webster described is exactly the principles put to paper by Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as Webster went on to talk about how the values of the Pilgrims were instrumental in laying the foundation upon which our nation was built. Those foundations were self-government, private property, Christian morals, industry, and religious liberty. Webster went on to denounce slavery as a “shame” against the heritage bequeathed by the Pilgrims.
But sadly, thanks to the efforts of Zinn and others who have rewritten American history, our nation has departed from the ideals of the Mayflower Compact and, subsequently, our nation’s other founding documents. We’ve denounced those who gave us the freedoms we enjoy—most importantly, religious freedom.
As author Jarrett Stepman has written, “It is impossible to separate America from its profoundly religious, mostly Protestant Christian origins as some modern, mostly left-wing historians have tried to do. Efforts to purge Christianity and religion from American public life are not true to our nation’s heritage.”
By trashing our nation’s Judeo-Christian principles that led to the freest nation on earth, Zinn and other leftist academics have moved us from e pluribus unum (one from many) to a philosophy of everyone out for him or herself, as it pits one group against another—and it ends up infecting all levels of our educational system and eventually our entire society. It isn’t a coincidence that the increasing attacks on religious freedom and freedom of conscience have occurred, given the blatant disrespect for both being taught to our nation’s children in our schools.
The result is a polarized America, in which discourse is impossible and unity seems a distant dream. To restore that dream means that those of us who love America and know its real story must arise from our slumber of indifference and take action.
As I concluded in my book, “Pushing for more civics and history is not enough. If schools continue to teach the wrong civics and history, the problem will just get worse. Rather we must push schools to teach the right civics and history; courses grounded in balanced historical fact and moral analysis designed to teach students how to respond charitably and ethically to difficult questions of our own time.”
The battle to overcome this darkness is daunting, but by shedding light, we can overcome that darkness. As our Founding Fathers wrote, only a moral, righteous, and virtuous people can be free. If future generations are going to enjoy the freedoms we’ve cherished, we must return to the moral framework that made these freedoms possible in the first place. Once our moral foundation is rebuilt, America’s house can once again stand strong and united.
If we’re to preserve our freedom, if we’re to live civilly with each other, and if we’re to truly be the United States, instead of the divided states, we must teach future generations our true history and heritage, such as the real story about the Mayflower Compact, as well as provide them with the education they need to be capable, responsible citizens.
That’s what I want every young American to know again: America is an exceptional nation founded on religious liberty, personal responsibility, and respect for our fellow citizens. It isn’t a country founded on oppression, hatred for others, and self-interest. No other nation has a system of government based on upholding the dignity of the human individual. If we lose that concept, we'll lose our nation and all the freedoms we have come to cherish.
But to maintain that concept, we must rededicate ourselves to the teaching of history—true, verifiable, factual history, with all its glories and tragedies. We need not fear teaching the ugly truths about America alongside the beautiful ones, because America’s founding vision is pure and her ideals are noble. Our failures don’t change that.
Every young American needs to learn the story of a nation with a glorious vision of unity, freedom, and dignity for all. Our story isn’t straightforward. It isn’t all good. But at least so far, it isn’t a tragedy. And if we can restore a common love of our nation—the kind of love that seeks to make her into her best self—it need not become one. That’s why I wrote the book and hope that many will read it so that we will take the needed steps to restore our common heritage, fill our nation’s moral vacuum, and protect our freedoms for our children, grandchildren, and countless generations still to come.
