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February 14,2010

How Christian Were the Founders?By RUSSELL SH OR T0

LAST MO NTH , AWEEK before the Senate seat of the libera l icon Edw ar dM Ke nn e* fe ll in to Republ icanhand s, h is legacy suffered ano ther b low that w as perhaps just as damaging, if less not iced . I t happe nedduring what ha s become a n annu al spectacle in the cul ture wars .Over two days. mo re than a hund red people - Christ ians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors;people out f i t ted in everyth ing from bu siness su i t s to mi l i tary fa t igues to tu rbans to basebal l cap s - t reamedthrou gh t he halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Tex., wait ing for a chance to sta nd before t hesemicircle of 15 high-backed chairs whose occupa nts ma de up th e Texas State Board of Ed ucatio n. Eachpet i tioner had three m inutes to sa y h is or h er p iece ."Please keep Cksar Chavez" was th e messag e of an elderly Hispanic ma n with a floppy gray mustach e."Sikhism is the f i f th-largest re lig ion in th e world an d sh ould be included in th e curr icu lum," a womandeclared .Following th e appeals from the publ ic, the m emb ers of what i s the m ost influent ial s ta te board of educat ionin the count ry, and one of t he mos t pol it ical ly c on se ~ ~a t i ve ,ubmit ted thei r own proposed chan ges to thenew social-studies curriculu m guidelines, whose ado ption was the subject of all the at ten tion - uidelinesthat wi ll affect s tuden ts arou nd th e country , from kinde r-drte n to 12th grade, for the next 10 year s. Gail Lowe- who publ ishes a tmice-a-week newspap er when sh e i s not grappl ing u i t h d i l i s ive educat ion i ssues- s theoffic ia l chaimroman, but the meet ing was dom inated by a nothe r m emb er. Don McLeroy, a sma l l , \ .igorousm a n u i t h a shiny pate an d brist l ing m ustache, proposed a me ndm ent af ter ame ndm ent o n socia l issues to thedocum ent that team s of professional educ ators had drawn up ove r 12 months, in what \vould have to bedescribed a s a single-handed display of archconservative polit ical strong -arm ing.McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the b i r th-cont ro l p ioneer , be included because she "a nd her followerspromo ted eugenics ," that language be inserted abo ut Ronald Reagan 's " leade rship in restoring nat ionalconfidence" following J i n ~m j . a r t e r ' s p res idency and tha t s tuden t s be i n s t ruc ted to " desc r ibe t he causes andkey organizat ions an d indiv iduals of the cons enat iv e resurgence of the 1 980s and igg os, including Phyl li sSchlafl l, the C ontract With America , the Heri tage F w sd at io n , the M oral Majori ty and the Nat ional Riflei ~ ~ s o c i a t i o n . "The injection of pa rt isan poli tics into education went SO far that a t one poin t anotherKepublican board mem ber burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperat ion , "Guys, you ' rc rewri t ing h istoryno)\.!" Ne\rertheless, most of McLeroy's proposed a me ndn lcn ts passed b l a show of hand s.F inally. the board considered an a men dme nt to requi re s tudents to evaluate the cont r ibut ions of s igni ficantAm ericans. The n am es propo sed included ' l 'hurgood Mar shall , Hil lyGraham , N ewt G ingrich, MTilliaill EBuckley Jr . , Hillary Kodham Clinton an d Edw ard Kennedy. All passed m ust er except Kennedy, who was


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voted down.This i s how his to ly i s mad e - r ra ther , horv the hue and cry of the present and n ear p ast gets lodged in to thelong-term cul tura l me mory or e lse i s a l lowed to quie tly fade in to a n inaudible whisper . Publ ic educat ion hasalways been a bat t leground between cul tura l forces; one reason th at Texas ' school -board mem bers f indthemselves at the very cente r of th e battlefield is, not s urprisingly, money. The state 's $22 bil l ion educationfund i s among the largest educat ional endow ments in the count ry . Texas uses som e of that m oney to buy ordistribute a staggering 48 m ill ion textboo ks annually - which ra the r s t rongly incl ines educat ional publ i shersto ta i lor thei r products to f i t the s tan dard s d ic ta ted by th e Lone S tar S ta te . Cal ifornia i s the largest tex tbookmarket , but besides being bank rupt , i t t en ds to be so specif ic abou t what k inds of informat ion i t s s tuden tsshould learn tha t few other s ta tes fol low i t s lead . Texas, on the o th er h and, was o ne of the f i rs t s ta tes to ad opts ta tewide curriculum guidel ines , back in 1998, and the guidel ines i t came u p wi th (which ar e referred to a sTEKS - ronounced " teaks" - or 'Texas Essential Knowledge a nd Slulls) were clear, broad an d inclusiveenou gh tha t many other s tate s used th em as a model in devising their own. And rvhile technology is changingthings, tex tbooks - r in ted or onl ine -are s ti ll the backbone of educat ion .'The cultural roots of the Texas showdow n may be said to da te to the late 198 0s, when, in th e wake of hisfai led presidential effort , th e Rev. Pat Kobertson fou nded th e Christ ian Coali t ion part ly on t he logic tha tconservati\ ,e Christ ians sh ould focus their energies at th e grass-roots level . On e strate gy m7as o putcandidates fonvar d for s ta te an d local school -board e lect ions - Robertson 's pro tkgk, Kalph Ree d, once sa id ," I would ra ther have a thous and school-board members tha n one president and no school-bo ard mem bers"- nd Texas was a beach head. S ince the e lect ion of two Chris t ian conservatives in 2 00 6, there are now sevenon the Texas s ta te board w ho are q ui te open abo ut the fact that they vote in concert to advance a C hris tianagenda. "They do vote as a b loc," Pat Hardy, a board mem ber w ho considers herself a consen.a t iveRepublican but w ho s t and s apart f rom t he C hris tian fact ion , told me . "They work consciously to pull on emore vote in wi th them on an i ssue so thcl ' ll have a majori ty ."This year 's socia l -studies review has drawn the most a t tent ion for the bat t les over what nam es should beincluded in th e roll call of history. But while ignoring Kennedy an d upgrading Gingrieh ar e significant moves,som eth ing m ore fundam en ta l is on t he agenda . The one th ing tha t under li e s t he en t i re p rog ram of t henation 's Christ ian co nser vati \~e ct ivists is, naturally, rel igion. But i t isn ' t mere ly the case that their Christ ianorienta t ion shapes thei r opin ions on gay marriage, abort ion and governm ent spending. More e lemental ly ,they hold that th e United S tates was foun ded by devout Christ ians an d according to biblical precepts. Thisbelief provide s what they con sider not only a theological but also, ul t imately, a judicial gro undin g to thei rposi t ions on social quest ions. W hen they procla im that th e Uni ted S ta tes is a "Chris t ian n at ion ," they ar e notreferr ing to the percentage of the populat ion that t icks a certa in box in a survey or census but to the count ry 'sroots and the in tent of the founders .The Chris t ian " t ru th" abou t America 's founding has long been taught in Chris t ian schools , but not beyond.Recently, however - erha ps out of i re a t what they see as an aggressive , secular , l ibera l agenda inWashington and perh aps a lso because they sense an o pening in the bat t le , a sud den weakness in the l ines ofthe secularis t s- om e activ is t s decided that the t ime w as r ight to t ry to resh ape th e h is tory tha t chi ldren inpublic schools s tudy. Succeeding a t th is would help th em toward thei r u l t imate goal of reshaping Am ericansocieQ.As Q-n thia Dun bar, anoth er C hris tian act iv ist on the Texas board , put i t , '" l'hc phi losophy of th eclassroom in one generat ion lv il l be the phi losophy of the gove rnment in t he next ."


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Im et Don McLeroy last Novembe r in a dental office - hat is to say, his dental off ice - n a professionalcomplex in th e Brazos Valley city of Bryan, not fa r from th e spraw ling cam pus of Texas A&M University. Thebuzz of his hygienist at work so und ed throug h th e thin wall sep arating his office from th e rest of th e suite.McLeroy makes no bon es about th e fact that h is professional qual i ficat ions have nothing to do wi theducation. "I 'm a d entist , no t a historian," he s aid. "But I 'm fascinated by h istory, so I've read a lot ."Indee d, dentistry is only a job for McLeroy; his real passions ar e his faith and t he sta te board of education.He has been a m em ber of the board s ince 1999 and served as i ts chai rman f rom 20 07 unt i l he was demotedf rom that ro le by th e State Senate last May because of concerns over his religious views. Until now th oseviews have s tood McLeroy in good stead wi th the c onst i tuents of h is d is t r ic t , which mea nders f rom Houstonto Dal las an d beyond, but he i s cur rent ly in a heated re-election bat t le in the Republ ican pr imary, whichtakes place March 2.McLeroy is a robust , cheer ful and inexorable m an, whose personali ty i s perhaps Qpif ied by the f ram ed le t terT on th e ~va l l f h is o f e, which he e arn ed as a "yell leader" (Texas A&M nomen clature for cheerleader) inhis unde rgradu ate days in the late 1960s. "I consider myself a Christ ian funda men talist ," he anno unce dalmost as s oon a s we sa t down . He also identi fies h imself as a young-ear th creationist who bel ieves that theear th was created in s ix days, as the book of Genesis ha s i t , less than lo ,o oo years ago. He \vent on to explainhow his Chr is t ian perspect ive both governs h is work on th e s ta te board a nd guides h im in the cur rent ef for tto adjus t Am erican-history textbooks to highlight the role of Christ ianity. "Textbooks are mostly the pro ductof the liberal establ ishment , and they ' re wr i t ten ~ i i t hhe idea tha t our re lig ion an d ou r l ib er v are in confl ic t,"he said . "But Chr is t ianity has ha d a deep impact on ou r system. 'l'he men who wrote the C onst i tu t ion wereChristians who kn ew th e Bible. Ou r idea of individual r ights comes from th e Bible. The W estern developm entof the free-market system owes a lot to biblical principles."For McLeroy, separat ion of church and sta te i s a myth p erpet rated by sec ular liberals . "There are two basicfacts about m an," he said . "He was created in the image of God, and he is fallen. You can't appreciate thefounding of our country wi thout realiz ing that th e founders understood that . For o ur k ids to not know ourhistory, tha t could kill a society. That 's why to m e this is a huge th ing.""This" - he Texas board 's moves to br ing Jesus in to Amer ican his tory - as d r a~ vn nger in p l aces f a rremoved f rom t he board me mbe rs ' const i tuencies . (Samples of recent b log headl ines on the topic: "DonMcLeroy W ant s Your Children to Re Stupid" and "Can We Please M ess With Texas?") The issue of Texas'influence is a touchy one in education circles. With som e parents an d educa tors elsewh ere leery of a r ight-wing f if th colum n invading the ir schools, people in the multibil l ion textbook ind ustry try to play dow n th estate 's sway. "I t 's not a given that Texas' curriculum tra nslate s into oth er states," says Jay Diskey, executivedirector of the school division for the Association of American P ublishers, which re prese nts m ost of themajor com panies. But Tom Barber , who worked as th e head of social s tudies a t the three b iggest textbookpubl ishers before runn ing his own edi tor ia l compa ny, says, "Texas was a nd st i ll i s the mo st im por tan t andmo st influential state in the c ountry ." An d Jam es K racht, a professor at Tex as A&M 's college of educationan d a longt im e player in th e s ta te 's textbook process, to ld m e f lat ly , "Texas governs 46 o r 47 s ta tes ."Every year for the last few years, Texas has put on e subject area in i ts TEKS up for revision. Each year hasbroug ht a different controversy, and D on Mc1,eroy has been at th e center of mo st of them . Last year , in i tsscience re-evaluat ion, the board lunged in to the evolution/creationism/intelligent-design ebate . The


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consen-ative Christ ian bloc wanted to requ ire science teachers to cover the "stren gths an d weaknesses" of thetheory of evolution, language they used in the past as a tool to weaken th e rationale for teaching ev olution.The bat t le m ade headl ines across the country; u l t imately , the seven Chr is tian conservat ives were unable topul l anothe r vote thei r way on th at specif ic point, but the f in ished document nonetheless a l lows inroads tocreationism.The fallout from tha t f ight cost McLeroy his posit ion as cha irm an. "I t 's the 21st centu ry, and th e rest of theknown w orld accepts the teaching of evolution a s science and creationism as religion, yet we contin ue to havethis deba te here," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedo m N etwork, a watchdog gro up, says. "So th eeyes of the nation w ere on this body, an d people saw how ridiculous they appe ared." The State Legislaturefelt the r idicule. "You have a point of view, and you're using this bully pulpit to take t he rest of the statethere ," Eliot Shapleigh, a Democrat ic s ta te senator , adm onished McLeroy dur ing th e hear ing that led to hisous t e r. McL eroy r emains unbowed and ta lked c h e e r~ l lyo me about how, confronted wi th a s ta temen tsupp orting th e validity of evolution that was signed by 800 scientis ts , he had proudly been able to "stand u pto the exper ts."

The idea behind standing u p to ex per ts i s that the scient if ic establ ishmen t has bee n wi thholding informat ionfrom t he public that would sh ow flaws in the theo ry of evolution and tha t i t is guil ty of wh at M cLeroy calledan "intentional neglect of othe r scientif ic possibil i ties." Similarly, the Christ ian bloc's notion this year t obring Christ ianity into the coverage of Am erican history is not, from the ir perspective, revisionism bu t ra theran unto\-ering of t ru th s that ha\.e been suppressed. " I don ' t know that w hat we ' re doing is redef ining the roleof religion in America," says Gail Lowc, who becam e cha invom an of the board a fter McLeroy was ouste d an dwho is one of the seven consen.ati\re Christ ians. "Many of us recognize tha t Judeo -Chris t ian principles werethe basis of our country an d that ma ny of our founding docum ents had a basis in Scr ipture .As \ce try topromote a bet ter unde rstanding of the Const itu t ion, federal ism, the separat ion of the branches ofgovernme nt , the basic r ights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, I think i t will becom e evide nt to stu den ts thatthe found ers had a religious motivation."P le nv of people disagree with th is character izat ion of the founders , including som e who a re c lose to theprocess in Texas. "I t hi nk t h e e ~ i d e n c endicates that t he founding fathers d id not in tend th is to be aChr is t ian nat ion," says Ja m es K racht , who served as an exper t a d\ is er to the boa rd in th e textbook-reviewprocess. "Thcy definitely believed in so me form of separa tion of church a nd s tate."There is, howei.er , one sl ightly awkw ard issue for hard-core secularists who would com bat what they see as aChrist ian w hitewashing of American history: the Christ ian actilrists have a certa in am ou nt of history on theirside.IN 1801,A GROUP of Bapt is t ministers in Da nb uq , Conn. , wrote a le t ter to the new president , Thom asJeffers on, congratulating him on his j ictory. They also had a fhvor to ask. Baptists were a minor i ty group ,an d they fel t insecure. In the colonial per iod, there were two rnajor Chr is t ian fact ions, both of ~ ~ h i c heri\.edfrom England. 'The Congrega tionalists, in New England , had evolved from the Pu ritan s ett lers, and in theSouth an d middle colonies, the Anglicans came from the Church of England. Nine colonies developed sta techurches, which ivere supp orted f inancially by the colonial gove rnm ents a nd whose p ower wa s woven in withtha t o f t he go~ ie rnment s .Other Chr is t ians - utherans, Bapt is ts , Quakers - nd, of course, those of othe rfai ths were mad e unwelcome, if not persecuted outr ight .


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There was a re lig ious e lement to th e Amer ican Revolut ion, which was s o pronounced that you could just aswell view the event in religious as in poli tical term s. Man y of the fou nders, especially the Sou ther ners , wererebell ing simu ltaneous ly against state-churc h oppre ssion an d English rule. Th e Connecticut Baptists sawJefferson - n ant i -Federal is t who was bi tter ly oppose d to the idea of establ ishmen t churches - s a f r iend."O ur consti tution of governm ent," they wrote, "is not specif ic" u it h regard to a gu aran tee of religiousf reedoms that would protect them . Might the president of fer som e thoughts tha t , " like the radiant beam s ofthe sun," would she d l ight on the in tent of the f ramers? In his reply , Jef ferson said i t \+'as not th e place of ' thepresiden t to involve himself in religion, an d he expressed his belief that the First Amendm ent 's clauses -that the governnlent must not establ ish a sta te re l ig ion ( th e so-cal led e stab l ish~ nen t lause) but a lso that i tmu st ens ure the free exercise of religion (what becam e known a s the free-exercise clause) -meant , a s f a r a she was concerne d, that the re was "a wall of sep arat ion betiveen Ch urch & State ."This l i tt le episode, culmina ting in the famo us "wall of separa tion" meta pho r, highlights a nu mb er of pointsabo ut teaching religion in Am erican history. For one, i t suggests - s the Christ ian activists main tain - owthoroug hly the colonies were shot through with religion an d how basic religion wa s to the cau se of therevolut ionar ies . The per iod in the ear ly- to mi d- I~ O O S,alled the G reat Awakening, in which populistevangelical preach ers challenged the ma jor denom inations, is consid ered a spa rk for th e Re\lolution. And ifre lig ion inf luenced dem ocracy then , in th e Second Great Awakening, decades la ter , the democrat ic fervor ofthe Revolution spread through the two mainl ine denom inat ions and resul ted in a massive grow th of the sortof popu list c hurche s tha t typif3i American Christ ianity to this day.Christ ian activists argue tha t Ame rican -hist ov textboo ks basically ignore religion - o the point tha t theydistor t h is toq outr ight - nd mainl ine rel ig ious his tor ians tend to agree ui th the m o n th is . " In Amer icanhistory , re lig ion is a l l mrer the place, and wherever i t appears , you should te ll the s tory an d d o i tapprop riately," says Martin Marty, eme ritus professor at the University of Chicago, past pres ident of theAmerican Academ y of Religion an d the American Society of Church History a nd pe rhap s the unofficial deanof American religious historians. "The goal should b e natu ral inclusion. You co uldn't tel l the s tory of th ePilgrims or the Puritans or the D utch in New York without religion." Thou gh conservatives would arg ueoth em ise , Jam es Kracht said the absence of re l ig ion is not par t of a secularist agend a: "I don't th ink religionhas bee n purposely tak en o ut of U.S. history, but I do think textbook companies have been caut ious indiscussing religious beliefs an d possibly gett ing in trouble ui th som e groups."Som e conservatives claim that earlier generation s of textbooks were frank in prom oting Am erica as aChr is tian nat ion. I t m ight be m ore accurate to say that textbooks of prel iou s eras por t rayed lead ers asgeneral ly noble , wi th s t rong personal nar rat ives, undergi rded by fa ith a nd pat r io t ism. As France s FitzGeraldshowed in her groundbreaking 1979 book "Amer ica Kexised," if there i s one th ing to be s aid abou t Amer ican-history textboo ks through the ag es it is tha t the narrati1.e of the p ast is consistently resh aped by presen t-dayforces. Maybe the m ost str iking thing ab out c urren t history textbooks is that they have lost a controlI ingnarrati1.e. America is no longer portrayed a s one thing, one people, but rath er a hod gepod ge of issues an dmino rit ies, forces and struggles. If it were possible to cast the con cerns of the Christ ia n conservatives intosecular terms, i t might be said tha t they f ind th is lack of a throug h l ine and purp ose to b e dis turbing an ddangerous. Many others do as well , of course . But the Chr is t ians have a n answer .Thcir answ er i s ra ther speci fic . Merely weaving im por tant re lig ious t ren ds a nd e vents in to the nar rat ive ofAmerican history is not wha t the Christ ian bloc on the Texas boar d has pus hed for in revising i ts guidelines.


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Many of the points that have been incorporated in to the guidelines or that have been advanced by boardmem bers an d thei r exper t advisers s lant toward por t raying Amer ica as h a ~ i n g divinely preordainedmission. In th e guidelines - which wi ll be subjected to fur ther ame ndm ents in March a nd the n in May -eighth-grade his tory s tud ents a re asked to "analyze the im por tance of the Mayf lower Compact . theFun dam enta l Order s of Connecticut a nd th e Virginia H ouse of Hurgesses to the grow th of represen tativeg o ~ ~ e r n m e n t . "uch ear ly colonial texts have long been included in sum ey courses, but why focus on these inpar t icular? The Funda men tal Orders of Connect icut declare that the s ta te was founded " to maintain a ndpreserve th e l iberty an d p u r iv of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus." 'The language in the Mayf lower Compact -doc um ent tha t McLeroy an d several others involved in the Texas process are especially fond of- escribesthe Pi lgr ims ' journey as being " for the Glory of God and advancement of the C hr is t ian Fai th" an d th us inst il l sthe idea that Amer ica w as found ed as a project for the spread of Chr is tianity . In a book she wrote two yearsago, Cynthia Llunbar, a boa rd m em ber, could not have been m ore explicit abo ut this being the reason for theMajf lower Compact ' s inclusion in textbooks; she quoted the docum ent an d then said , "This is undeniably ourpast , and i t c lear ly del ineates us a s a nat ion in tended to be emphat ically C hr is t ian ."In th e ne\v guidelines, s tud ents taking classes in U.S. government are asked to ident i@ t radi t ions thatinforilled America's found ing, "including Judeo -Christ ian (especiallj . biblical law)," and to "id en tif j heindividuals whose principles of law and go ~~ er nn le ntnst i tu t ions informed the Amer ican foundingdocum ents ," amon g who m the? include Moses. The idea that the Bible and M osaic law provided foundat ionsfor American law ha s taken root in C hrist ian teaching abou t American history. So when Steven K. Green ,director of the C enter for Religion, Law a nd Democracy a t Willamette U niversit?. in Salem , Ore. , testified a tthe board meet ing last mon th in opposi t ion to the board 's approach to br inging re l ig ion in to h is tory , warningthat th e Suprenle Court has forbidden publ ic schools f rom "seeking to impress upon stud ents the impo r tanceof par t icular re lig ious values through the cur r iculum," an d in the process said th at the founders "did notd r aw o n Mosa ic l aw, as i s men t ioned in the s t andards , " several o f t he board m embe r s seemed dumbst ruck .Don Mc1,eroy insisted i t bras a legit imate claim, since the En lightenm ent took place in Europe , in a Christ iancontext . Green cou ntered that t he Enl ightenment had in fact developed in opposi t ion to re l iance on biblicallaw an d said he h ad don e a lengthy study in search of Ainer ican cour t cases that referenced Mosaic law. "Therecord is basically bereft ," he said . Nevertheless, biblical law an d Moses re main in the TEKS.The process in Texas required tha t writ ing tea ms , mad e up mo stly of teachers, d o the actual \cork of revisingthe cu r r icu lum, ~v i t hhe aid o f exper ts who were appointed by the board . Two of the s ix exper ts the bo ardchose are well-known advocates tor conservative Christ ian ca uses. One of th em , the Re\. . Peter M arshall , sayson the W eb site of his organization, Peter Marshall Ministr ies, that his work is "dedicated to helping torestore America to i ts Bible-based found ations throug h preaching, teaching an d writ ing on America'sChrist ian heritage and on Ch rist ian discipleship an d re\- ival .""The guidelines in Texas were seriously deficient in bringing ou t the role of the Ch rist ian faith in thefounding of Amer ica ," Marshal l to ld me. In a docum ent he prepared for the team th at was \ \ ~ i t in ghe neuguidelines, he urged th at new textbooks mold ch ildren's impressions of th e foun ders in particular \ lays : "TheFounding Fathers ' b ibl ical ~v or l d\ i ewaught them that hum an beings were by nature sel f-centered, so the!believed tha t th e supe rnatu ral influence of the Spir i t of God was neede d to free us from ourselves so that r1.ecan care for our neighbors."Marshal l a lso proposed tha t chi ldren be taught th at the separat ion-of -powers not ion is " rooted in the

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Founding Fathers ' c lear understanding of the s infulness of man," so that i t was not safe for one person t oexercise unlimited power, an d that "the discovery, sett l ing and foundin g of the colonies hap pene d becau se ofthe biblical w~orldview~sf those involved." Marshall reco mm ende d that textbooks p resen t America'sfounding a nd his toiy in ter m s of motivational stories on them es l ike th e Pilgrims' zeal to bring the Gospel ofJesu s Chr is t to the nat ives.On e recurring them e durin g the process of revising the social-studies guidelines was the desire of the boa rdto s t ress the concept of Amer ican except ional ism, and the Chr is t ian bloc ha s repeatedly emphasized th atChrist ianity should be portrayed a s the dri\, ing force behin d wh at mak es America great . Peter Marshall ishimself the auth or of a series of books that recount A merican histo iy with a stro ng Christ ian focus and t hathaxe been staples in Chr is t ian schools s ince the f i rs t one was publ ished in 1977. (He to ld me tha t t hey havesold more th an a million copies.) In these history books, he employs a decidedly unhistorical ton e in whichthe guiding han d of Providence shap es America's stoiy, start ing with the voyage of Christopher Colum bus."Coluinbus 's hear t belonged to God," he assures his readers , and he notes that a par t icular event in theexplorer's l ife "marke d the turning point of God's plan to use Colunlbus to raise th e curtain on H is newPromised Land."'I'he o the r nonacadem ic ex pert , David Barton. is the nationally kn own le ader of WallBuilders, whichdescr ibes i t se lf a s dedicated to "present ing America's forgot ten his tory a nd heroes, wi th an emphas is on ourmoral , re lig ious and const i tu t ional her i tage." Bar ton has wr i t ten a nd lectured on t he Fi rs t Am endmen t andagainst separa tion of churc h an d state. He is a controversial f igure who has arg ued that the U.S. income taxan d the capi ta l-gains tax sho uld be abol ished because they i io la te Scr ipture ( for the Bible says, in Bar ton 'sreading, " the more prof it you mak e the mo re you are rewarded") an d who p ushe s a C hr is tiani ty- f i rs t rhetor ic .Wh en the U.S. Senate invited a Hindu leade r to open a 2007 session with a praye r, he objected, saying: "InHindu [sic] , you have not o ne God, but many, many, many , many, many gods. And cer ta inly that w as neverin the m inds of those who did the Const i tu t ion, d id th e Declarat ion when they ta lked ab out Creator ."In his reconlmendat ions to th e Texas school board, Bar ton wrote that s tude nts should be taught th efollowing principles which, in his reading, derive directly from the Declaration of Indep end enc e: " I . There i sa fixed mora l l aw d e r i ~ e drom God and na tu re. 2. There i s a Creator . 3. The Creator g ives to m an cer ta inunalienable r ights. 4. Gov ernm ent exists primarily to protect G od-given r ights to every individual. 5. elowGod-given r ights an d mora l laws. government is directed by the co nsent of the governe d."A thi rd exper t , Daniel L. Dreisbach, a professor of justice, la\ \. and society at American University tvho ha swri t ten extensively on Fi rs t Amen dment i ssues, s t ressed, in h is recom menda t ions to the guidel ine tvri tersabou t how to f rame the rex.olutionary per iod for s tude nts , that t he foun ders w ere overwhelmingly Chr is t ian;tha t the deistic tenden cies of a few - ike Jefferson - vere an anomaly ; and tha t i~ l os t m er i cans in the e r awere not just C hrist ians but that "98 percent o r more of Am ericans of Europea n desc ent identif ied withProtestant ism."If the f ight between the "Chr is t ian nat ion" ad~ rocatcs nd mainst ream thinke rs could be focused on to a s ingleelement , i t would be the "wal l of separat ion" phrase. Chr is t ian th inkers l ike to point out that i t does notappe ar in the Const i tu tion, nor in any othe r legal docum ent - et ters that presidents wr i te to thei rsup po rters are not legal decre es. Besides which, after the ph rase left Jeffers on's pen i t m ore o r lessdisappeared for a cen tury and a half - nt i l Just ice Hugo Black of the S uprem e Cour t dug i t ou t of h is to q 's


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dustbin in 19-17.t then slowly worked i ts way into th e American lexicon and A merican l ife, helping to subtlymold th e way we think ab out religion in society. To conservative C hrist ians, there is no separatio n of churchan d sta te , an d there never was. The concept , they say, is a modern secular fic t ion. There i s no legaljustif ication, therefo re, for disallo~\ring rucifixes in gov ernm ent buildings o r school pra yer.David B ar ton reads the "church and sta te" le t ter to mean that Jef ferson "believed, a long wi th th e otherfounders , that the Fi rs t Ame ndm ent had been enacted only to prevent the federal establis hme nt of a nationaldenominat ion." Bar ton goes on t o c la im, " 'Separation of church an d state ' currently mea ns alm ost exactlythe o ppos ite of wh at i t originally m eant." That is to say, the founders w ere all Chris t ians who conceived of anat ion of Chr is t ians, an d the p urpose of the Fi rs t Am endmen t wa s merely to ensure tha t no s ingle Chr ist iandenominat ion he e levated to th e role of s ta te church.Mainst ream scholars d isagree, sometimes vehemently. Kandall Baln~er, professor of American religioushistory a t Barna rd College an d writer of the docu men tary "C rusade: The Life of Hilly Gr aha m," told me:"David Bar ton has been o ut there spreading th is l ie , f rankly , that the found ers in tended Amer ica to be aChrist ian n ation. H e's been very effecti1.c. But the logic is utterly screwy. He says th e p hrase 'sepa ration ofchurch a nd sta te ' i s not in the Const itu t ion. He 's r ight about that . But to make tha t argum ent work you wouldhave to argue that th e phrase i s not an accurate su mm ation of the Fi rs t Am endm ent . And 'Thomas Jef ferson,who p enne d i t , thoug ht i t was." (David Barton declined to be interviewed for thi s art icle.) In his testim ony inAust in , S teven Green \vas chal lenged by a board m emb er wi th the fact tha t the phrase does not appear in th eConst i tu t ion. In response, Green pointed ou t that m any const i tu t ional concepts - ike judicial review an dseparat ion of poue rs - re n ot foun d 1-erbatim in the C onsti tution.In what am ounts to a n in-between perspective, Ihn iel Dreisbach -who wrote a book called "Thomas,Jefferson and t he Wall of Sepa ration Between Chu rch a nd State" - rgues that th e phrase "wall ofseparat ion" has been misappl ied in recent decad es to un fa i r l ~ est r ic t re lig ion f rom enter ing th e publ icsphere . Mar t in Mar ty , the Universi ty of Chicago eme r i tus professor , agrees. "I th ink 'wal l ' is too h e a ~ yme tapho r ," Ma~ - ty ays. 'The re 's a t rend now away f rom i t , and I go along wi th th at . In textbooks, we ' removing away f rom an unthinking seculari ty ." The public see ms to agree. Polls on som e specif ic church -stateissues - overn me nt financing for faith-based organizations a nd voluntary praye r in public schools -consistently show m ajorit ies in favor of those p osit ions.'Then too, the "Chr is t ian nat ion" posi tion t r ies to t rum p th e whole debate about s eparat ion of church andstate by por t raying the era of the na t ion 's founding a s awash in Chr is t ianity . David Bar ton a nd others pepperthei r argume nts wi th quo tat ions, like one in which Jo hn Adams. in a le t ter to Jef ferson, refers to Amer icanindep ende nce as having been achieved on "th e general Principles of Christ ianity." But others f ind just a smany instances in which one or a nothe r of the found ers seems clearly wary of re l ig ion.In fact , the foun ders were rooted in Ch rist ianity- hey were inher i tors of the ent i re E uropean C hr is tiant radi t ion - nd at the sam e t ime they were s teeped in an Enl ightenmen t ra t ional ism tha t was, if not opposedto re l igion, determined to establish separate spheres for fa ith an d reason . "I don ' t t h ink the founder s wou ldhave said they were applying Chr is t ian pr inciples to governmen t ," says Richard Brookhiser, the conservativecoluinnist an d auth or of books on Alexander Ham il ton, Gouverneu r Morr is and George Wa shington. "Whatthe) said was ' the laws of natu re and n ature's God."They didn't say, 'We pu t ou r faith in Jes us Christ . ' "Martil l Marty says : "The) had to invent a new, broad \%a y.Was hington. in his writ ings, makes scores of


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different references to God, but no t one is biblical. He talks instead abo ut a 'Grand Architect , ' deliberatelyavoiding the Christ ian term s, because i t ha d to be a rel igious language tha t was accessible to all people."Or, as Hrookhiser ra ther succinct ly sum marizes th e point : "The founders were no t a s Chris t ian as thosepeople would l ike them to be, though the), weren 't as secularist as Christopher Hitch ens would l ike then1 tobe."THE TO WN O F Lynchburg , Va., was founded in 1786 a t the s i te of a ferry crossing o n wha t would la ter becal led the Ja m es River. During the Civil War, i t was a Confederate supply post, and in 1864 it was the s i te ofon e of the last Co nfederate victories. In 1933,Jee_rv F al w l l was born in Lynchburg , the so n of a som et imebootlegger. In 1971- n a n era of pot smoking and war protests - he Rev. Jer ry Falwell inaug urated LibertyUniversi ty on one of the ci ty 's seven hil ls. It was to be a trainin g grou nd fo r Christ ians a nd a bul\vark againstmoral re la tiv ism. In 2004, three years before h is death , Falwell completed an other dre am by founding theLiberty Uni~rersi ty chool of Law, whose objective, in the w ords of the universi ty 's curren t chan cellor, Je rr yFal\vell Jr . , is " to trans form legislatures, courts , com me rce and civil gove rnm ent at al l le~re ls."

I visi ted the law-school building in late fall , with the re mn ant s of Hur rican e Ida tur ning the B lue KidgeMou ntains s b l i n e in to a ser ies of sm udges. 'l 'he bui ld ing 's cr i sp , a linost mi l itari s tic a tmos pher e bespeaks aserio usne ss of pur pose ; an d th e fact that i t hou ses, as on e of i ts trainin g facil it ies, the only full-scale replica ofthe U.S . Sup rem e Court cha mb er points to the school' s ambi t ions.I had come to s i t in on a guest lec ture by Cynthia Dun bar, an ass is tant law professor wh o com mutes toLynchburg once a week from her h ome in Richmond, Tex. , where she i s a practic ing lawyer as well a s amem ber of the Texas board of educat ion . Her presence in both w orlds - ubl ic schools and the courts -suggests the connection between th em tha t Christ ian activists would l ike to deep en. 'l'he First Am endm entclass for th i rd-year law studen ts that I watched Dun bar lead neatly merged th e two com pon ents of theschool 's program : "lan yerin g skills" and "the integration of a Christ ian worldview."llu nb ar began the lecture by discussing a national day of thanksgiving that Gen. George M'ashington calledfor after the defea t of th e Brit ish a t Saratoga in 1777- howing , in her reck oning, a religious base in theth ink ing o f t he cou n t v ' s founders . I n developing a l ine of legal reasoning tha t th e future law yers in her classmight use , she wol-e her way to two S upre me Court cases in the 196os, in both of which t he co urt ru led thatprayer in public schools was unconst i tu tional . A s tude nt quest ioned the re levance of the 1777 e ~ ~ e n to thecourt rulings. because in 1777 the countrq. did not jet have a Cons ti tut ion. "And \$.hat did we hav e at th att ime?" Dunb ar asked. Answer: "The Declarat ion of Indepen dence." She then d iscussed a legal practice cal led" incorporat ion by reference." "When you have in one legal docu ment reference to anoth er , i t pul l s themtogether, s o that they can ' t be ~riewe d s separate an d d is t inct," she sa id . "So you can not read the C onst i tu t iondist inct from the D eclaration." And th e Declaration famously refers to a Creator a nd gr ound s i tself in "theLaws of N ature an d of Na ture's G od." 'Therefore, she said , the religiosity of the foun ders is not onlyestabl ished an d rooted in a foundat ional docum ent but l inked to th e Const i tu t ion . From there sh e moved to" judic ia l const ruction a nd h o ~ v ou sho uld go forward with that ," i .e. , how the se soon-to-be lawyers mightwork to overturn ru l ings l ike that against prayer in schools by using the found ing docum ents .Ja y Sekulow, chief counsel of the Am erican Cen ter for Law and Jus tice, a Christ ian legal center, told m e thatthe notion of connecting the Declaration of Inde pen denc e and th e Consti tut ion is "part of a stra teg y t o gi1.e a


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clear historical understanding of the role of religion in American public life" that organizations like his havebeen pursuing for the last lo or 15 years.Resides the fact tha t inco rpora tion by reference is usually used for technical pur pose s rath er tha n for suchgrandiose purposes as the re interpreta t ion of foundat ional texts , there i s an oddiQ to th is tact ic . "Thefoun ders deliberately left the word 'God' out of th e Consti tution - ut not becau se they were a bun ch ofatheists and deists," says Susan Jacoby , author of "Freethinkers:A H is to q of American Secularism." "'l'othem , mixing re l ig ion a nd government meant t roub le ." The cur ious th ing is that in t~ y i n go bring God intothe Consti tution, the activists - who say the i r goal i s to fo l l o ~ fhe or iginal in tent of the foun ders - reignoring the fact tha t the fou nders explicit ly avoided religious language in that d ocum ent.And here again the re is a l ink to Texas. David Barton specif ically ad iis ed th e writers of the Texas guidelinesthat textbooks "should s t ipulate (but cur rent ly do not) that the Declaration of Independe nce is symbioticwi th the Const itu t ion ra ther tha n a separate unrelated docum ent ."In 2008, Cynthia D unbar publ ished a book cal led "One Nation Under God," in which s he s ta ted more openlytha n m ost of her colleagues have done th e argum ent tha t the founding of America w as an overtly Christ ianunder taking and la id out w hat s he and others hope to achieve in publ ic schools . "The under lying author i tyfor ou r consti tutional form of govern men t stems directly from biblical preced ents," she writes. "Hence, theon11 accu rate meth od of ascertaining the inte nt of the Founding Fathers at the t ime of our go\w-n mc nt 'sinception c omes fro m a biblical world\ iew."'Then she push es fonvard: "We as a nat ion were in tended bj. God to be a l ight set on a h i ll to s en re as a beaconof hope and Chr i st ian chari ty to a lo s t and dy ing ~ ~ o r l d . "ut the true picture of America's Ch rist ian foundinghas been i rhi te ~vas hed y " the l iberal agenda" - n ord er for l iberals to succeed "they mu st f irst rewrite ournat ion 's h istory" a nd obscure the Chr is t ian in tent ions of th e founders . Therefore , sh e wrote , " th is batt le forour nat ion 's chi ldren an d who wil l control thei r educat ion and t ra ining is crucial to ou r success for recla imingou r nat ion."Af ter the book cam e ou t , I lunbar was de r ided in blogs a nd newspapers for a sect ion in which s he \ \ ,r ites of" the inappropr ia teness of a s ta te-created, taxpayer-supported school s jr stem" an d l ikens sending chi ldren topublic school to " throwing them into the enemy's f lames, even as the chi ldren of I srael threw th ei r chi ldren toMoloch." (He r own chi ldren \ Irere e i ther home-schooled or ed ucated in pr ivate C hr is tian schools .) Whe n Iasked, over d inner in a honky- tonk steakhouse down the road f rom the university , why sonleone who felt thatway ivould choose to become a n overseer of arguably the mo st influential public-educ ation sy stem in thecountry , she said that public schools are a bat t lef ie ld for compet ing ideologies a nd that i t 's im por tan t tocom bat the "religion" of secularism th at holds sway in public educatio n..4sk Christia n activists what thcy really wa nt - what the goal i s behind th e ef for t to br ing C hr is t ian ib in toAmerican history - nd they sa y they merely want " the t ru th ." "The main th ing I 'm looking for as a s ta teb oa rd m c n ~ b e rs to make sure we ha1.e good standards," Don McLcroy said . But the actual ambi t ion is \ a t .Amer icans te ll pol ls ters thcy sup por t sep arat ion of church and sta te , but then again 65 percent ofr esponden ts t o a 2007 sumcy by the F i rs t Amendment Cen ter ag reed wi th the s t a t emen t tha t " the na tion ' sfounders in tended the Uni ted States to be a Christian nation," and 55 percent s aid they believed t heConsti tution actually established th e country as a Christian natio n. The Christ ian activists are aw are of such


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sta t is t ics and wan t to build on them , as Dunbar m ade c lear. She to ld m e sh e looks to Joh n Jay 's s ta te me ntthat i t is the d uty of the people "of our C hris t ian nat ion t o se lect and prefer Chris t ians for thei r ru lers" andhas herself called for a prefe rence for selecting Christ ians for posit ions of leadersh ip.Dunba r ' s book lays ou t the goal : using courts an d publ ic schools to fuse Chris t iani ty in to the n at ion 'sfounding. It may be unlikely th at i t wil l be at ta ined any t im e soo n, in which case the see ding of Texas'his ton -tex tbo ok guidelines with "Christ ian nation" concepts may be mostlq synlbolic. But symbols canaccumulate weight ovcr t ime, and the Christ ian activists ar e in it tor the long haul. Som e obsenrers say thatover t ime thei r effort could have far-reaching consequences. "The more you can associa te Chris t ian ib wi ththe founding, the m ore you can sway the fu ture Suprenie Court, '' Mart in Marty says. "That is what PatKobertson was ab out years ago. Establ ish the found ers as Chris t ians , an d you have i t mad e.""BROWN BEAK, BROWN BEAR, What Do You See'?" It 's not an especially subversive-soun ding t i tle, but th eaut ho r of this 1967children's picture book, Bil l Martin J r. , lost his place in th e Texas social-studiesgu ide l ines a t la s t mon th ' s boa rd mee t ing due to wha t was though t t o be un -Amer ican a c t i~ i ty- o be precise," \ ,cry s t ron g crit iques of capi ta li sm an d the American sy ste n~ ." ar t in , the crea tor of 300 children's books,was rem oved fro m the l ist of cultural figures approved for study by third gr ader s in the blizzard ofam endm ents offered by board m embers .Over al l , th e TEKS guidelines make for impre ssive reading. 'They are thoughtful an d dee p; you can a lmo st feelthe effort a t achieving balance. Poring d own th e long columns an d knoatlng that the 199 8 vers ion of theseguidel ines sew ed a s the basis for tex tbooks in m ost U.S . s ta tes , you even begin to feel so me hop e for thefuture .W hat is wrong with t he Texa s process, according to inany obsenrers, is i l lustrated bq the fate of Bill M artin,Jr. 'The boar d has the p ower to accept, reject or rewrite th e 'I'EKS, a nd o\ .er the p ast few years, in languagearts , sc ience an d no^^ social studies, the m em bers h ave don e all of the above. Yet few of these electedoverseers are t ra ined in th e f ie lds they are reviewing. " In general , the board mem bcrs d on ' t know anything a tall abou t con tent," 'Toin Barb er, the textbook executive, says. Kathy M iller, the w atchdog. w ho h as beenmoni toring the board for 15 qears , saqs, referr ing to Don McLeroy a nd anoth er board mem ber: " I t i s the mostcrazq-making th ing to s i t there an d watch a dent is t an d an insuranc e sa lesman rewri te curr iculum stand ardsin sc ience and h is to v . L ast year , Don McLeroy believed he was sm arter tha n th e Nat ional Academy ofSciences, an d he now7believes he 's sma rter than professors of American h is tory ." In th is case , one boardme mb er s ent an e-mail messag e writ11 a reference to "Ethical Marxism," by Bill Ma rtin, to an oth er bo ardmem ber, who suggested that anyone who wrote a book wi th such a t i t le did not belong in th e TEKS. As itturn ed ou t, Rill Martin an d Bill M artin Jr . are two different people. Rut by tha t t ime , the au tho r of "RroavnBear, Brown Bear" was o ut. "That 's a perfect exa mple of these p eople's lack of know ledge," Miller says."They 're coming fonzrard wi th hu ndre ds of amen dm ents a t the las t minute . Don M cLeroy had a four- inchstack of amendm ents , an d they a ll just voted on the m, whether o r not they actual ly knew the c ontent . Whatwe ui tnessed in J a n u a q w as a textbook example of how not to develop textbook s tand ards."Before the , January board meet ing , onc of the socia l-s tudies curr iculum wri ters , Judy Rrodigan, to ld m e thatshe was very p leased wi th the guidel ines her team produced. After the mcet ing , wi th i t s 10-hour m arathon ofamend mel l t s by board mem bers , she spoke v e v d i fferentlq . "I th ink th e? took a \7ery, lT eq good documentan d weakened i t , " shc sa id . "The teachers take thei r work seriously . I do belicve the re ar e board mem bcrs on


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the u l t rar ight who have a n agenda. They want to ma ke ou r s tandar ds very conservat ive and f it thei rvieup oint . O ur job is not to take a viewpoint. It 's to present sides fairly. I though t we had d on e that ."Regarding re lig ion , the wri t ing team s had included in thei r guidel ines some of th e recom mend at ions of theexperts appointed by the C hris t ian b loc but had chosen to ignore m ost . I w a s le d t o e xp e ct t h a t t h e J a n u a vmeeting would see a torr ent of rel igion am en dm ent s, in which Don McLeroy kvould reinser t i tems that t heteam failed to include, just as he did with oth er subjects in the pas t . Last Novem ber, over dinn er at a ' l'ex-Mcx restau rant across the str eet fro m the Texas A&M c am pus, McLeroy vowed to do so, saying, "I 'l l get thedeta i ls in there ." At that t ime, he a nd o the rs were ful l of informat ion a nd bravado as they pushe d toward the"Chris t ian nat ion" goal . But a t the Ja nuar y m eet ing , whi le there w ere ma ny con sen-at i \ .epoliticalamcndm en t s , t he re were on ly a few re l igion amc ndm ents . When I ta lked to h im a fterward , he shrug ged i t offi ll an uncharac terist ically \,ague way. "W e're basically happy with things," he said.It 's possible a wave of religion a me nd me nts will come in the next meeting, in Marc h, when Am ericangov ernm ent will st i ll be am ong t he subjects und er review. Uut the chan ge of ton e could signal a shift instrategy. "It could be that the) feel they've alread y got enough code words spr inkled throu ghou t th eguidelines," Kathy Miller says. The laws of Natur e an d Na ture's God. Moses a nd th e Bible "informing" th eAm erican found ing. "The Glory of God an d advancem ent of the Christ ian Faith" as Am erica's originalpurpose . "We've seen in the past how on e word here o r there in the curr iculum stand ards gets se ized upon byth e far-right mem bers at adoptio n t ime, '' Miller says. "In the science debate, the words ' intel l igent design' didnot app ear , but they used ' s t rengths an d weaknesses ' as an excuse to p itch a bat t le . The phrase becam e awedge to try to weake n th e theory of evolution, to suggest that scientists had ser ious prob lems with i t . We'veseen the board use these t iny fragments to wage war on publ ishers ."'This square s with what 'Tom Barbe r, the textbook executive, told m e: that in t he next stage in th e Texasprocess, general guidelines ar e chiseled i l l to fact-size ch unks in crisp colum ns of print \


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ivant s tor ies wi th morals , not P .C. s tor ies ." He then showed m e a n e-mai l message f rom an execut ive a tPearson, a m ajor educational pub lisher, indicating the resu lts of his effort: "Hi Do n. 'Thanla for the imp actthat you have had o n the developm ent of Pearson 's Scott Foresma n Keading Street series. Attached is a l ist ofsom e of the Fairy Tales an d Fables that we include d in the series."If there ha s been a shif t in strategy, polit ics may have brough t i t abou t, l 'he Christ ian bloc may havedeterm ined i t would be wiser to work for this kind of transform ationa l change ou t of the public gaze. Of theseven mem bers of the Ch rist ian bloc, Ken Mercer is in a batt le to keep his sea t , Cynthia Du nbar recentlyannounce d s he won ' t run for re-elect ion a nd af ter 11 years of forceful advocacy for fund ame ntalist c ause s onthe 'I 'cxas sta te board , during which t im e he was stead fastly supp orted b y everyone from Gov. Kick Perry -who originally picked him as chairm an - o tea-p arty organizers, Don McLeroy is now facing the st iffestopposit ion of his care er. Tho lnas Katliff . a well-connected lobbyist . has sq uared off against McLeroy in theRepublican prima ry and is runnin g an aggressive campaign, posit ioning himself a s a practical , mo derateK ep ub lic an . " I'm n o t t ~ i n go out-conservative anyon e," Ratliff told me. "I think th e st ate board of educationhas lost i t s way, an d the social -s tudies th ing is a pr ime example. They keep want ing to ta lk ab out th is being aChr is t ian nat ion. My at t i tude is th is country was founded bv a g roup of men w ho were Chr is t ians but whodidn 't \?,ant the go vernm ent dictating religion, an d that 's exactly what McLerop an d his colleagues are tq-ingto do . "Katlifl 'has receilred pro mi nen t cndorsc nients a nd h as outraise d Mc1,eroy in the neighbo rhood of lo to 1. Bu thard-core co nsen .ati \cs ten d to vote in prima ries. Anyone looking for signs of where th e Kepublican Party ishead ed m ight scar] the results of th e Texas school-board Distr ict 9 Republican pr imary on th e morning ofMarch 3. If Don M c1,eroy loses, it could signal that the C hrist ian r ight 's recent po wer sur ge has begun towane. But i t probably wo n't affect the next gen eration of schoolbooks. Th e curren t bo ard re ma ins in placeuntil next J a n u a v . By then, decisions on what goes in the Tcxas curriculunl guidelines will be h istory.R~is se l l hor to i s u contributiizg wi-itc~r-or the nzugazine. If is nzost recent book is "Descai-tes 'l3ones:ASkeletul H isto ry of thcl ('onflict Between Faith u nd R easoil."

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