All politics is local

If you haven't been following the controversy over the Texas Board of Education's recent decisions regarding "history," now would be a good time to Google this situation. The short story is that this board controls, by virtue of Texas' size, such a large proportion of the textbook market that their decisions affect ALL our children. Textbook publishers don't want to produce a book Texas won't buy because it hurts their bottom line so much. The pressure leads them to make changes to textbooks based upon what Texas deems reliable "history." Because of their recent decisions, some are now referring to them not as the Texas School Board, but as the Texas Fool Board.

In the 1990's Ralph Reed, then head of the Christian Coalition, argued that the way conservative Christians could take over the US was through a strategy that asked candidates to run without divulging their religious views so that they could, once they were in office, begin to legislate their views. School boards were a particular target.

We are still seeing the effects of this strategy, particularly in a state like Texas where one board wields so much power. But the same is true all throughout the US, even outside of the outsized Texas influence; local school boards have a lot of power over what happens to your/our children.

People often focus attention only on national political happenings, and as important as that knowledge is, local politics matter to day-to-day lives. If you want to make a difference in your community, serving on local committees and boards is important - I would say critical - to the health of our larger political system. When local people work together, hearing each others' experiences and recognizing common humanity, learning takes place and good things result.

Maybe this need to know each other is why scripture focuses so much attention on our concern for our neighbors - all of our neighbors.