Banning books has a dangerous consequence — children who cannot reason for themselves
I have sat on many committees during my years of community service. Clergy like myself have listened to community leaders who speak passionately about their viewpoints on all sorts of issues. But when it comes to parent-led school committees that focus on and have the authority to recommend banning books, I remain a bit confused at how one arrives at a consensus of values before actually recommending the banning of books in the school library.
Are they banning the book or is the real purpose to ban the ideas and prevent our youth from being able to interpret and analyze literature for themselves?
Such stories that have appeared in media reports of school districts banning the “Diary of Anne Frank” or, for example, parents of Keller, Texas schools who voted to ban Anne Frank’s Diary but also, believe it or not, the Hebrew Bible. Most recently a local school committee in Virginia voted to ban a graphic novel of the famous “Diary of Anne Frank” because of the fear that sexual thoughts in the privacy of a 13-year-old teen girl could be dangerous like a plague to the rest of the student body.
Ban Anne Frank’s Diary and next it will be a ban on the teaching of the Holocaust because some parents will argue that pictures of the dead at concentration camps will traumatize the children. When does this stop? Is this kind of school politics reflective of the shaping of a mind or putting the mind of our youth in solitary confinement?
When it comes to the Hebrew Bible, we who have studied it and who deem it to be sacred have learned how to interpret Scriptures in ways that take that trauma or drama syndrome out of the analysis of the texts of Biblical books. Think about the various stories that reveal moral turpitude such as the rape of Dina, patriarchs who marry two women along with female concubines as well. Murder of one brother by another. Adultery by King David with Bathsheba. And let’s not forget all the biblical laws that deal with sexual abuse of a woman and same gender sex as well as admonitions against bestiality.
What are parents supposed to do? Skip over these large portions of the Bible because it makes parents hyperventilate because their children will do these acts? Do parents see it as their mission to reform the schools and reform the morals of the student body to fit their moral code of conduct or their religious convictions? Has this book-banning crusade gone too far? And do parents who sit back or stand by these deliberations in silence unintentionally reinforce the flames of parents looking to reverse the course of modern civilization?
To teach a child to read and understand the narrative and legal texts of the Bible, which include explicit material of a sexual nature, requires a degree of maturity and understanding. To teach a child the Bible means understanding many topics that relate to violence. Cain murders Abel. Abraham is about to sacrifice his son Isaac. Look at all the plagues God brought against Pharaoh in Egypt. Some might even argue that those plagues should not be studied because they will bring nightmares to children.
I believe that our young should be learning how to cope with and understand the challenges of living in the present and sacred literature and that confronting difficult ideas in great world literature challenges them but in the end only builds character.
By closing off the mind of a child to quality literature and by refusing to teach them how to understand or at least grapple with material that challenges their thinking, are we protecting them from an evil world or are we disabling their moral code?
I find it interesting that some parents will howl about a graphic portrayal of Anne Frank’s story because of her exploring her own sexuality, yet, are such parents not equally concerned when their children spend endless hours on video games that are only focused violence and war? Why is it that these images of a girl who wrote a brilliant diary in hiding from the Nazis for two years and who ultimately met her fate in the gas chambers of Auschwitz should be removed from generations to come?
Why do these literary images scare parents but state governments who will pass legislation that will allow residents at the age of 18 years old to carry weapons without a permit does not? Why doesn’t that arouse the uproar of a parent community?
What clergy do when they teach their Bible studies and preach in services is help their congregants understand these unsettling texts or stories in a way that goes beyond the literal interpretation. Clergy and religious school teachers as well as public school teachers give us skills to interpret sacred texts in light of contemporary values for today. Can we have faith in our clergy or in our public school teachers who are trying to strengthen our children’s ability to think for themselves?
There are a few lessons here for us to consider: Banning books for an entire school district because of someone’s personal agenda usually adds fuel to the culture wars in this nation. Rather give children the skills to determine for themselves what is literature worthy of their reading. I have stood in the public square in Berlin where the Nazis once burned books and destroyed what they called “degenerate” visual art as well. They banned literature, visual art and music, which they declared to be a threat to the purity of the Aryan race.
One step leads to the other and we should be careful how one step leads to creating a generation of children without not only knowledge of sacred and secular literature but who never received the skills on how to read and interpret because of the fear of parents who claim to know what is best and who intimidate school teachers and officials. That cannot be a healthy way to conduct public education in America.
We speak so much about freedoms bequeathed to us by our Constitution. Why aren’t we more proactive toward teaching our youth how to use their freedom of thought and speech responsibly,not only with written material they like but with material that challenges them?
Didn’t God give them and us all the ability to reason and think for ourselves?
