Religion in Textbooks

Patt Morrison rightly speaks of “Sneaking Religion Into the Three Rs” (Sept. 10) when she criticizes the use of fundamentalist Christian textbooks in public school. However, she fails to acknowledge that secularists are already guilty of imposing another belief system into our public school systems--moral relativism, a belief system that opposes Christianity and Judaism with the single principle that there is no absolute truth.

Relativism makes people of faith feel foolish and arrogant for holding to a belief system that claims to be universally true. Therefore, most public schools are already teaching as orthodox truth a philosophy that is in conflict with many families’ belief systems. And they are--to borrow Morrison’s words--”sneaking it in,” as if such a philosophy were value-neutral.

School vouchers, of course, would solve this problem by breaking up the education monopoly.

LINDA AMES NICOLOSI

Thousand Oaks

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Morrison’s column contains shocking revelations about the hidden agendas of some book publishers. It is one thing to promote a product with “free samples,” but there is something illegal about using textbooks to brainwash children in a public school. And certainly it is immoral to use the term “Christian” for products that promote intolerance and bigotry.

THOMAS J. BASSLER

Palos Verdes Peninsula

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My mother, Josie Lou Walker Blakey, was born in Tahlequah, Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in 1896. Her family moved to Kansas in 1911. She graduated Wichita High School. She got her degree in religious education at Phillips University in Enid, Okla. and was ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

In elementary school I heard the theory of evolution and I mentioned it to my mom. You know what? She said, “It’s no less a miracle if God started evolution.” So you can see, Kansas used to be normal.

My mom died last summer at age 101; I really miss her.

MARIAN SPENCER

Santa Monica