by Doktor Zoom
You know the drill by now: Every Sunday, we visit Christianist America, where Jesus delivered the Constitution to George Washington but now Christians are somehow a persecuted minority. This week’s travelogue comes courtesy of World History and Cultures In Christian Perspective, 2nd Ed. (A Beka Book, 1997), a 10th-grade history text which the publisher’s website says “stands on the conviction that God is the Creator of the world and the Controller of history.”
You get a good sense of World History’s agenda from the table of contents. “Asia and Africa” are dealt with in the first 6 chapters — “The Middle East” and “Egypt” each merit their own chapter, because Bible, duh. And then the entire history of these two continents, which account for 75% of the planet’s population, is polished off within 40 pages, in chapters imaginatively titled “Other Asian Cultures” and “Other African Cultures” (Actual section heading: The Dark Continent. This is not inside ironic quotes). Most chapters and sections have the bland, utilitarian headings of any high school text — but then there are the subtle reminders that this is a fundamentalist Christian textbook:
- Rome: Preparation of the World for Christ
- Unbelief and Revolution in 19th-Century Europe
- Concepts in History: Why Communism Kills
- Twentieth-Century Liberalism; Retreat from Authority and Responsibility
- Concepts in History: Environmental Extremism READMORE