Well, not really, but this Onion News Network video clip satirizes the absurdity of many of the ongoing disputes about “balancing” public school curricula.
Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming
This clip would be very funny if it weren’t so sad. It’s sad because, like all good satire, it’s based in truth. When the Texas School Board rewrites its curriculum to include country music as an important cultural movement, demonize the U.N., emphasize the state’s rights side of the arguments leading up to the Civil War, and so on — primarily at the urging of presumably good-hearted but seriously misguided religious people — humor seems a better response than despair. It’s also sad because it captures the cultural influence of the Left Behind phenomenon. As the Left Behind website asks:
“Are you ready for the moment of truth?
- Political crisis
- Economic crisis
- Worldwide epidemics
- Environmental catastrophe
- Mass disappearances
- Military apocalypse”
And this in turn is sad because it detracts from the authentic teaching in Christianity and other religions that there is a purpose to the ordering of life and society in this world — an ordering that implies final Divine judgment of evil. Many Biblical texts, such as 2 Peter 3, warn that the reality of final judgment is not a trifle. I would argue, in fact, that the reality of justice and final judgment is one of the basic reasons why “law” and “policy” truly matter.