[lbo-talk] Texas school board drops Jefferson, adds Calvin

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Mar 16 15:17:49 PDT 2010


Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
> This is really problematic. Certainly Calvin was The Man for Protestant
> religion in America, and certainly Jefferson and others were reacting to
> Calvinism, but to simply replace Jefferson with Calvin and Aquinas (whom you
> all know I adore) seems to me not unlike replacing Copernicus with Ptolemy.
> The analogy may be too big, but the point is I think about right. And
> anyway, why not instead of Calvin, Jonathan Edwards?

I had a friend who had taught high-school english before he came to Michigan. He told of teaching Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God one day and working hard at making the spider metaphor vivid. I think he said it was a rather warm day. Anyhow, a girl in the front row suddnly leaned forweard and vomited over his shoes.

Enoguh Calvin in the high schools and we might prduce a cultre as secular as that of France or Italy.

And can you imagine Aquias taught by the average teacher willing to teach in Texas?

Carrol



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