Hypocrisy in the Bible Belt by @ScholarMrsV

One of the things that has been most evident to me while working in the Bible Belt has been the hypocrisy.

Something that happened to me recently has been really bothering me on this issue.  Working in Central Louisiana, I am in the belly of the Bible Belt.  I have five different Christian churches within a block of my house.  Lucky me.  I play “dodge the churchgoer” when I drive down the streets on Sunday mornings.

As a world history teacher, you can imagine the toe stepping that I have to do when teaching events such as the Crusades, Reformation, or the Inquisition, but I do my best to be as unbiased as possible.  I am a professional, after all.

I have a large group of Catholic students in my senior-level class and the girls in that class enjoy talking about their religion quite a bit; they enjoy talking about EVERYTHING actually.  I don't usually discuss religion with them; I just listen in to what they say.  I don't typically get involved in their conversations because I know the Establishment Clause quite well, for my own protection, so I don't agree or disagree with their feelings on religion; I just listen and give any feedback based on laws, history, or science.  One day the girls were sitting in my room and discussing their feelings on the Catholic religion, actually they’ve done this on many occasions.  They were talking about how they have all been on birth control for many years and that they disagree with the sex before marriage restrictions, how they think that priests should get married, and one of the girls was even so bold as to say that she thinks that the story of the Immaculate Conception is silly.  So these girls claim to be Catholic, even devout Catholics, yet they can sit in my room, among other students, and voluntarily bash the core beliefs of their religion, yet they don't see that this as hypocritical.  If I had done that, I would be in court.

To my surprise, I found out pretty recently that one of the girls in this group, the one that even went as far as to not believe the story of Immaculate Conception, was talking about me at a school event.  She was telling another teacher and some other people that I try to make them not believe in Jesus and that they are blown away by the stories that I tell them and the things that I teach them in history class.  For example, they just learned about the Inquisition, which was quite upsetting to them.  When this got back to me I was absolutely furious because I've done nothing but teach them history and never tried to sway them to disbelieve in Jesus.  However, if learning the history made them doubt their beliefs in Jesus, then that was them using their own reasoning skills, and not my persuasion.

When I confronted the girl about her rumor spreading, when we were alone, and told her what I had heard, and that I was a very upset because she knows that I've never told her to stop believing in Jesus and that I only taught her history, she denied saying it.  Then she proceeded to tell me that they were “blown away” by some of the things that they learn in my class because they are devout Catholics.  I told her that medical school would be difficult for her if she was going to be that offended by history, because she would come into contact with many more facts, both scientific and historical, in college, that may go against her religion, or make her offended, or get her to question things.  That pissed her off, no doubt, but she is growing into adulthood, and needs to hear it.

How can she claim to be a devout Catholic, when she sat in front of me talking adversely about every core belief that Catholics hold?

Although the hypocrisy in the Bible Belt goes much further than this one story, this story really bothers me as a teacher when I feel as though the senior class gets so much of me.  I give so much to help them to be ready for college and even give them extra time when they have to study for another class.  I also try my best to be sensitive to their beliefs and heritage, while still preparing them for the future and getting them to understand facts, even if those facts contradict what it is that they may have already believed.  Because no matter what they believe, I am only there to teach them world history, nothing else, and therefore if the history contradicts what they believe, then facts are facts, and facts don't discriminate. 

 

Written by: @ScholarMrsV on Twitter