The Christian Right & Poverty

The Christian Right is frightening. Next, they will demand that the schools teach that the Earth is the center of the Solar System and the Earth is flat. If Jesus Christ were alive today, he would cry out in righteous anger against today's exploitation of the working poor. He would call the Religious Right what they are: hypocrites. Soon the Christian Right will be calling for the Nuremburg Laws. There is a growing White Power movement in the U.S. There is a growing tide of intolerance. And we have a president who wears a military uniform and tells the Big Lie. I am afraid.

[CHE]
Friday, August 11, 2003
Book Choice for Summer Reading Program Again Stirs Controversy in North Carolina
By ELIZABETH CRAWFORD

Upset by what they called "pure liberal propaganda" that is both "sacrilegious" and "Christian bigotry," several Republican state legislators and incoming students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill held a news conference on Wednesday at which they criticized the book chosen for the university's summer reading program.

The book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich, was selected this spring with the idea that it "would be a relatively tame selection," said Dean L. Bresciani, the university's interim vice chancellor. Freshmen and transfer students are expected to read the book over the summer and be prepared to discuss it when they arrive on the campus.

In Nickel and Dimed, a nonfiction, national best seller, Ms. Ehrenreich, a columnist for The Progressive magazine, chronicles her experiences as a minimum-wage worker in three American cities. She finds that even holding two jobs simultaneously is not enough to support herself, and in one city, she is unable to find any affordable housing, spending weeks in a motel.


Critics said last year's choice, Approaching the Qur'án: The Early Revelations, by Michael A. Sells, was so sympathetic to Islam that impressionable young students might be persuaded to convert (The Chronicle, September 6, 2002).

"I don't think we were looking for controversial topics," said Mr. Bresciani, who was surprised by the reaction Ms. Ehrenreich's book provoked. "We were looking for a topic that would provide a basis for discussion."

But for the state lawmakers, the book is not an appropriate means to start a conversation with students. Rather, the book choices this year and last are part of a larger "pattern there about being anti-Christian," said State Sen. Austin M. Allran, a Republican.

"I am offended because I am a Christian and she [Ms. Ehrenreich] is an atheist," said Mr. Allran, who has not read the entire book but disagrees with what he has read. "I don't like the disparaging remarks made about Jesus. If I was there, I would sue the school for religious discrimination, and, in fact, I think someone needs to."

That happened last year, when three freshmen sued the university over its choice of the book by Mr. Sells. The federal lawsuit was filed on the students' behalf by the Family Policy Network, a Christian group based in Virginia. Courts later rejected the argument that the reading requirement violated the U.S. Constitution.

While Mr. Allran and the other legislators are not threatening to cut the university's state funds over the book selections, they do want changes. For example, Mr. Allran said the university should be less arrogant and should stop teaching "mass culture." Instead, he said, the summer-reading selections should come from the classics.

Mr. Bresciani, however, explained that the university doesn't assign classics for the summer reading program because students are expected to read those on their own. The program is not meant to teach the content of the books, he said, but to give students a forum for talking about contemporary issues.

"I think there is a misconception that the goal of the program is the book," Mr. Bresciani said. "But it's the critical evaluation that comes out of the discussion sessions that is the goal of the program."

Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education