There's a push lately to remove all religious instruction from the public schools. Not only would it be a bad idea, it would require historical revisionism of monumental proportions.

For, you see, states are rightly required by their state education laws to teach state history. And in many states you cannot do that without discussing religion. A discussion of Utah history without the mention of Mormons is absolutely impossible; they were the ones who first settled the state! Likewise, most New England states originated under RELIGIOUS CHARTERS with their European sovereign states; vestiges of this heritage can be found in their state names (Pennsylvania, for instance), and in the names oftheir cities and counties.

But, going further, how do we begin to explore the civil rights movement without dissecting the teachings of a CHRISTIAN activist in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? Or the Civil War without the contributions of the Quakers in operating the Unerground Railroad?

An entire era (the crusades) would go under the knife of political correctness, as would entire nations and empires through history (the Holy Roman Empire, anyone?). And it's not just Christianity that would feel the sting of excluding religion from history. Should we revisit the Salem Witch trials and the fact that even the legitimate practitioners of witchcraft in New England at the time should still have had rights? Or how about the Moorish influence in Spain that arguably precipitated the Crusades? The entire nation of Tibet would be gone in a flash of inoffensiveness, and many works of art would be lost to us entirely, as they were frequently inspired by, or commissioned by, the church.

If you truly feel that Christianity is an offensive evil, you won't fight it by suppressing it. You can only challenge it by allowing it on an open playing field, and dissecting its arguments, if you can.

Although I've still yet to find someone who can credibly meet THAT challenge. Which is why they focus instead on suppression.