the tindog coffeehouse

I spent this past weekend stuck in a hotel room in suburban Milwaukee. Exciting, right? I know, you’re jealous. But trust me, it wasn’t as interesting as it sounds. For one, it was raining and snowing (yes, snowing!) the whole time I was there. Second, it was Milwaukee. Unless you just have an unnatural fondness for Miller Lite or Laverne and Shirley, there’s really no reason to ever go there. I did, however, discover cheese curds, which I’m told are amazing, but to me they just tasted like, well, cheese. Which we have in Texas. Except we call it queso and dip our tortilla chips in it.

Anyway, I had gone up there to move one of our offices, which had to be done over a weekend. I finished up by mid-afternoon on Saturday, but my flight home didn’t leave till Sunday afternoon. So what do you do for 24 hours in suburban Milwaukee while it’s raining and snowing? You sit around in your hotel room trying to figure out how in the world you took such a wrong turn in life. That, and watch movies.

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A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that atheists, Jews, and Mormons know more about religion than Christians. In fact, out of 32 questions, atheists scored the highest with a score of 20.9 while white evangelical Protestants only scored 17.6. And Mormons and atheists scored just as strongly with questions specifically about Christianity.

Should we be at all surprised by these results? Not really. Many atheists tend to be more highly educated in general and trend toward the intellectual. Think college professors, scientists, and historians. Meanwhile, Mormons have a fanatical adherence to their religion, which uses (and distorts) the Bible extensively. So it’s not surprising that either of these groups would be well-versed in various religious teachings. The same can be said for Jews, who like Muslims tend to be more devout in their faith but also have a long history of religious oppression.

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Apparently, education is a popular topic this week. Yesterday, I mentioned the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act being debated in the U.S. House, which would give the Department of Education the authority to “develop” and “disseminate” high school curricula.

Today, the Texas State Board of Education begins debating social studies curriculum standards that would affect history, government, and economics classes in public schools for the next 10 years. And naturally, the debate isn’t without controversy.

One of the biggest questions is how much emphasis should be placed on the role of Christianity in history books. Critics argue that the Board is showing a clear Christian bias, including appointing conservative Christian experts to review current standards.

Some of the board-appointed reviewers are picking and choosing certain people and events from history to make an argument that America is a Christian nation, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College, a Christian school in Grantham, Pa.

“Students are not learning history. They are learning the facts about the past that suit some larger agenda, a cultural and political agenda,” said Fea, who has been following the Texas curriculum process.

“My best advice would be to respect the historians, respect the voice of historians,” said Fea, “and try to keep politics out of the teaching of history.”

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In keeping with this week’s “presidential exit interview” theme, I thought it would be good to take a look at President Bush’s interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden, which aired on Nightline earlier in the week.

The part of the interview that seems to be getting the most attention is when McFadden asks the President about his faith. While some of the answers are pretty good, there are a few that I disagree with.

Below are some of his responses and my comments on them. (And by the way, I’m sorry for the extremely long post here.)

Bush said he is often asked if he thinks he was chosen by God to be president.

“I just, I can’t go there,” he said. “I’m not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, ‘Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people.’ My relationship [with God] is on a personal basis trying to become as closer to the Almighty as I possibly can get. And I’ve got a lot of problems. I mean, I got, you know, the ego … all the things that prevent me from being closer to the Almighty. So, I don’t analyze my relationship with the good Lord in terms of, well, you know, God has plucked you out or God wants you to do this. I know this: I know that the call is to better understand and live out your life according to the will of God.”

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