white paper Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? Dan Olinger, PhD Issues in Education WHITE PAPER Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? Contents On the Other Hand . 3 About That Hothouse Thing . 5 Conclusion 5 WHITE PAPER Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? Christian schools exist for a reason. Some reasons the secular companies’ larger advertising budgets are not worthy; for example, no Christian school often make it possible for them to provide free should exist just to generate revenue for the sup- materials in order to encourage a purchase. porting church or to serve as part of a larger empire- • For constitutional reasons, no Christian text- building program. The best reason, and the one at books appear on lists of state-approved materials. the foundation of the most successful Christian It seems to make sense for a school to use materi- schools, is obedience to the Scripture: specifically, als that are standard across the state, especially to help Christian parents exercise stewardship of for purposes of admission to secular universities.2 their obligation to disciple their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” as Paul puts • Some teachers argue that secular textbooks help it (Eph. 6:4 KJV). This involves inculcating into the them fight the “hothouse effect” of the Christian next generation a biblical worldview and the abil- school. They are concerned about being overly ity to live out that worldview in any sphere of life, protective and in the process shielding the stu- including all the standard academic areas. dent from meaningful interaction with the phi- losophies that he will be confronted with when Why Use Secular Textbooks? he leaves the hothouse. The secular texts, the ar- gument goes, provide an opportunity to help the A significant decision that Christian educators student learn what these opposing views say and face is whether to use Christian textbooks or secu- how to defeat them from the Scripture. lar ones. There are several apparent advantages to using secular texts: On the Other Hand . • There are many more major publishers of secular These are logical reasons for a Christian school to texts than of Christian. This makes sense, given choose secular textbooks. However, they do not that the nonreligious school market is exponen- completely answer the question. The real question tially larger than the religious one. In a free mar- is whether such materials, in the long run, will serve ket, more choices are a good thing. It is worth on balance as a help or an impediment to the fulfill- noting, though, that the range of choice among ment of the school’s mission: to produce students secular publishers is not as broad as it appears. who have a biblical worldview and can apply it in Over the past two decades, the K–12 textbook whatever area they are called to serve Christ. The publishing industry has gone through a period of “hothouse” argument comes closer to making that consolidation, with the result that the U.S. mar- point than the others, but there is more to consider. ket is dominated by just four publishers, one of them not actually a U.S. company.1 So will using secular textbooks be a help or a hin- drance in growing Christ-like character? Perhaps • Due to the economies of scale provided by the the first thing we notice in actual use is that if the larger secular market, secular textbooks are textbook disagrees with, or even argues against, the sometimes—but less often than most people philosophical underpinnings of the curriculum, it think—less expensive than Christian, and they will be inefficient for the teacher and ineffective for usually come with more trimmings—supple- the student. mentary materials and teacher helps. Further, 2 In 2005 the University of California decided to reject all 1 London-based Pearson PLC has subsumed Addison-Wesley, high school biology credits that involved the use of Christian Allyn & Bacon, Longman, Prentice Hall, Scott Foresman, biology textbooks. The justification for this decision was that and Silver Burdett; New York-based McGraw-Hill owns students who used those textbooks would not be prepared Glencoe, Macmillan, and SRA; Boston-based Houghton for science coursework in the UC system. Several Christian Mifflin owns Edmark, Edusoft, Harcourt, D.C. Heath, Holt schools in California sued the university, charging that the (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston) McDougal (Littell), Riverside, decision constituted religious discrimination. In 2010 the and Saxon math. With New York-based Scholastic (which U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the plain- owns Grolier), four publishers control more than 80% of text- tiffs. As a result, the University of California does not recog- book sales in the United States. nize the validity of Christian high school science textbooks. WHITE PAPER Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? Inefficiencies ambiguity, encouraging students to conclude that The teacher will have to take class time to correct there are no moral absolutes and that an action’s the inaccurate information, to counter the text- goodness or evil depends on circumstances or on book’s arguments, and to supplement it with argu- his own existential sense. A Christian text, which ments for the school’s position. There are times, of balances the two complementary truths that all hu- course, where students should and will read oppos- mans are in the image of God (and therefore wor- ing viewpoints in order to enhance their critical- thy of respect and capable of great good) and are thinking and evaluative skills, to understand an also fallen into sin (and therefore capable of great opposing view, and to strengthen their ability to evil) will provide a cohesive and stable moral foun- defend their own. But if the textbook is in general dation that will serve the student well when social opposition to the curriculum, the battle is never- mores have moved on. ending, and an unnecessarily high percentage of the class time will be spent on correction rather Comprehensive Problems than actual instruction. We should note that the problem of secularism extends far beyond just a few examples or specific Specific Areas areas. Our entire worldview is at cross purposes An obvious example of this problem is the use of with the worldview espoused in the current secular evolutionary textbooks in a science class; while it texts. The Scripture speaks of history as having a is certainly necessary for students to understand plan, as making sense. Secular history books cannot the evolutionary worldview accurately, the typical and do not acknowledge that, thereby missing the evolutionary book’s general underrepresentation main point of the entire field. The Scripture speaks and misrepresentation of biblical creationism will of us as creatures, owing allegiance to a sovereign require considerable time and effort for the teacher Lord. Secular texts emphasize the student’s rights of to counter. In fact, a good Christian textbook will self-expression and self-determination, often under likely give a more well-rounded and thorough pre- the aegis of a greater societal good, thereby placing sentation of the strengths and weaknesses of evo- the student directly on the side of what the Bible lutionary theory than a secular text. For example, calls the kosmos, the “world” as organized in oppo- most secular biology textbooks provide examples sition to God. The Scripture speaks of our mission of microevolution, which is indisputable and is ac- as evangelism and discipleship, doing all that we do cepted by most creationists, and then extrapolate for the glory of God; the secular text, again, misses from that directly to macroevolution, thereby as- the central point of our entire existence. How is a suming their entire premise. A Christian textbook teacher going to counter that with simple supple- will note the distinction between the two, thereby mentation? There are not enough hours in the day providing a more accurate presentation of evolu- to mount an effective remediation. tion than the evolutionary text does. And even if the teacher could accomplish that in A similar example is the discussion of sexual mo- the limited time allotted, why should he or she have rality. All books will take a position on the mo- to? Why can’t the textbook help in that all-impor- rality of various types of sexual activity, even if tant task rather than being an obstacle to be taught their position is that the subject is not a question around? of morality. It is particularly important that ado- lescents be given appropriately comprehensive and Ineffectiveness accurate information about sexual issues, including Insufficient agreement between the textbook and STDs, within a clear moral context.3 A secular text can provide no clearer moral foundation than the the curriculum is also ineffective for the student. prevention of suffering4 or some amorphous “so- Especially for younger students, whose critical- cial good.” In fact, in many secular literature texts, thinking skills are not yet well developed, com- the stories are chosen specifically for their moral peting assertions from multiple authority figures are unnecessarily confusing and even morally un- 3 Of course, this is easier when the parents and the school are healthy. To the young student, a textbook is as au- in agreement on these questions. thoritative as a teacher or even a parent, and such 4 This is Sam Harris’s approach in The End of Faith: Religion, authority figures should be in general agreement Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: Norton, 2004), about at least the core values with which the parents 170–71. and the school are trying to imbue him. Even older WHITE PAPER Are Secular Textbooks All That Bad? students, who can be expected to exercise criti- not with plants but with the souls of those in the cal thinking more adeptly, struggle unnecessarily image of God? when the basic thesis of the textbook contradicts the basic thesis of their parents or teachers.