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RenewingMinds
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Supremacy of the Lowest Common Denominator
The term supremacy of the lowest common denominator was coined by Rousas J. Rushdoony in Chapter 28 of his 1968 educational classic, The Messianic Character of American Education.
Rushdoony described the successful drive and influence of 19th century New England Unitarianism to institutionalize a common faith (a pseudo-Christianity) in and through a common "statist" school system.
Resistance came from various groups, but the most insightful opposition was from Princeton theologian and orthodox Calvinist A. A. Hodge. Rushdoony writes:
"He saw the statist claim, that "self-preservation" of the State required statist education, as a denial of the competence of other agencies as well as of their right to self-preservation. Moreover, 'The tendency of the entire system...is to centralization.' It enthroned also the radically fallacious idea that secular and atheist opinions and approaches to education were neutral while religious approaches were partial and prejudiced. Hodge insisted that the statist approach was as fully committed and sectarian as any other, that it was indeed an establishment of an immediate minimum theism but in actual fact an ultimate atheism.
I am as sure as I am of Christ's reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed (circa 1830s), will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.1
"But, more than that, Hodge saw as basic to the whole concept of statist education and its hostility to religion a dangerous principle in operation, that of the supremacy of the lowest common denominator:
The tendency [of those who promote public education] is to hold that this system must be altogether secular. The atheistic doctrine is gaining currency, even among professed Christians and even among some bewildered Christian ministers, that an education provided by the common government should be entirely emptied of all religious character. The Protestants object to the government schools being used for the purpose of inculcating the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and the Romanists object to the use of the Protestant version of the Bible and to the inculcation of the peculiar doctrines of the Protestant churches. The Jews protest against the schools being used to inculcate Christianity in any form, and the atheists and agnostics protest against any teaching that implies the existence and moral government of God. It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or the agnostics may be. It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of Atheism which the world has ever seen.2
Rushdoony continues: "This statement, widely reprinted in recent years, was of course prophetic. The principle of the lowest common denominator steadily excluded not only religious teaching, and, of late, even Christmas carols in some schools, but also subjects regarded as anti-democratic or too scholastic. It has led to a steady lowering of reading requirements and the debasing of the curriculum in the name of democracy."
1 A. A. Hodge: Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, p. 283f. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1887.
2 Ibid., p. 280f.
Today, the principle of the supremacy of the lowest common denominator has left the school house and seeks to infuse itself into all realms of public life. This principle works hand-in-hand with so-called "political correctness."
- SEATED
- ASCENDED
- RAISED
- BURIED
- CRUCIFIED
