I read the first of your ³DaVinci Code uproar² articles in your March issue. I would like to recommend, if I may please, a book that addresses this ³fiction² that Dan Brown wrote.

Carl Olson co-authored the The DaVinci Hoax, a book that virtually takes Brown to task for his sloppy research and history and his dubious timelines. I¹ve read this book and though parts of it were/are rather technical, I found Olson and his co-author did an admirable job in their research. Had I written The DaVinci Code as Brown did, I doubt I would have even gotten to No. 10 on the The New York Times¹ Bestseller List.

I commend you for your start on keeping an eye on such things.

         John F. Tashjian

         San Marcos

California schools are proselytizing the Muslim faith. Have you read, or at least skimmed through, your children¹s textbooks? Well, I read my son¹s 7th grade social studies book, Across the Centuries, by Houghton Mifflin, and found many examples of favoritism towards Islam and an anti-Christianity bias.

If students desire an unbiased understanding of Christianity and Islam, forget it! The biographical dictionary in the book omits Jesus, but includes Muhammed. In the glossary, students won¹t find Christian or Christianity, but Islam and Muslim. In the index, the Qur¹an is noted in nine pages. The Bible is listed once, and found within Muslim rhetoric. Also, in the index, you¹ll find Jesus listed once, where you¹re directed to a page that doesn¹t describe who Jesus is. But, ample listings will direct you to pages that exalt Muhammad.

This is interesting, in light that one of the consultants for the book is Shabbir Mansuri, the founding director of the Council on Islamic Education. According to Jihad watch, a web site that exposes Jihad theology, ³Houghton Mifflin textbooks became saturated with Muslim beliefs as the Council of Islamic Education (CIE) helped write the textbook. CIE Director, Shabbir Mansuri, boasted that he is waging a Œbloodless¹ revolution, promoting world cultures and faiths in America¹s classrooms. CIE has warned scholars and public officials who do not sympathize with its requests that they will be perceived as racists, reactionaries, and enemies of Islam.² Well, how wonderful.

Considering our liberal milquetoast American educators, it¹s no surprise wrathful Muslims have chatted and smiled their way into school textbooks. Incidentally, the American Textbook Council, an independent New York-based research organization, which reviews history textbooks and other educational materials, compared the content of lessons and textual passages in seven widely adopted world history textbooks (including the VC book). The comparison revealed ³content distortions and inaccuracies that have not occurred by accident. The process by which the lessons are put into America¹s classrooms raise serious concerns about the integrity of world history as a subject.²

Case in point: the VC textbook portrays Christians as vicious crusaders who persecuted Muslims. Not true. According to Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University, ³ the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression -- an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands. Christians in the eleventh century were not fanatics. Muslims were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.... Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered.² 

Perhaps, it¹s time for California school boards to step up and analyze the grade 7-12 curriculum.

         Kim Oakley

         Valley Center

In his letter in the March issue (Help the Homeless!) my good friend Francis Love implies that the money of the mega-churches and the salaries of their pastors could/should be spent on a ³comprehensive plan for the homeless.² Based on my experience with homeless individuals, relatively few of them would be really helped by even the most comprehensive plan one could imagine.

Comprehensive plans are what governments - not churches -- are good at devising. The history of such comprehensive plans is both instructive and sad. Such plans tend to be full of good intentions, but sorely lacking in good results. The beneficiaries of comprehensive plans tend to be the planners themselves--and all the managers and staff it takes to make the program function. Dollar for dollar, relatively few of the people wind up receiving the intended benefit of such grandiose programs. It was a comprehensive HUD plan for the poor that built many thousands of units of ³affordable housing² in the 1970s--only to demolish them in the 80s and 90s after they became dangerous crime-ridden hell-holes infested with drug dealers, addicts and predators. The War on Poverty squandered trillions of dollars on literally thousands of comprehensive plans to cure this or that social ill - and wound up leaving the poverty level just about where it had been.

What would a truly comprehensive plan to eliminate homelessness in San Diego cost? Suppose all the mega churches in San Diego cut their pastors¹ salaries by 2/3 and also gave 2/3 of their offerings for a Comprehensive Plan to Eliminate Homelessness in San Diego. Let¹s try to pencil it out together. OK, here we go. To supply housing for the nearly 10,000 homeless in the county, well — now that part of a ³comprehensive plan² would come out to, let¹s see — 100 modest apartment units per building, times 100 buildings, at, say 25 million per building, equals, ah, about two-and-one-half billion dollars. I know some churches have big budgets and some pastors are well paid, but I don¹t think that well! And we haven¹t even gotten to the energy bills for all those units -- not to mention maintenance, insurance, security, trash collection, water, property tax, etc. Are the churches to pay for these on-going costs as well? I¹m just trying to pencil out what ³comprehensive² looks like when one starts to outline a real budget for it. It is an informative mental exercise!

Yes, many churches could do a better job at relating to and really helping the homeless. I am an advocate for churches showing compassion to the homeless and helping to ease their daily pain with a meal, a blanket, or a pair of clean socks. But a comprehensive plan is not what a homeless alcoholic or mentally unstable person needs. He needs what many alcoholics and drug addicts have for over 100 years found in the rescue missions of every major city in the country: A Savior who will forgive, heal, encourage and empower him to lead a changed and sober life. The homeless man needs a band of Christian brothers who will befriend him, coach him and disciple him in sobriety and Christian living. Most of these ministries have job training and placement programs as well. This kind of individual assistance with living is already available to any homeless person who wishes to avail himself of it. Every day some do-but most don¹t. Most don¹t because they are not yet ready to change. No ³comprehensive program² can change that. Food for thought -- and prayer.

         Allen Randall

         Director, Ladle Fellowship

         First Presbyterian Church

         San Diego

Martin L. Jackson¹s letter in your March edition concerning Mohammed and Islam personified what is wrong with contemporary Christianity.  Rather than presenting a reasonable case for Christ, he resorts to name-calling and vilifying.

Jesus tells us we should be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.  Jackson is neither wise nor harmless.

Jackson, if someone were to walk up to you and say, ³Jesus was a liar and an adulterer,² would you be interested in hearing anything more that person had to say?  Of course not.  I doubt that any Muslim would have any interest at all in investigating Christianity after reading your letter.

Defending the faith is fine, and I am passionate about it.  But we should be wise as we pursue this worthy goal.  Rather than engaging in attacks, I would suggest you raise substantive issues.

         Jeffrey Needle

         Chula Vista

It¹s an election year, time to elect someone to take over for Duke Cunningham and determining the future of Arnold Schwarzenegger. There are two other big issues — the airport location and gay marriages -— that need to be studied very closely.

Call families and let them know about the bad reality surrounding gay marriage.

         Clinton Wolford

         Poway