While I am foursquare against any encroachment of the Religious Reich on the freedoms of our secular society, I also depore irrational kneejerk reaction to any mention of religion in the public sphere.
According to CNN, the school board of Odessa, TX voted unanimously to add a Bible class to its curriculum,which should according to the story, “. . . be added to the curriculum in fall 2006 and taught as a history or literature course.” SOCAS advocates fear religious entanglement in the educational system."
Now if the Bible were being used as a devotional tool in the schools, then I would be against its inclusion. However, to deny that the Bible as a work of literature has not been enormously influential in our culture is to be just plain blind. I see no problem with the Bible taught as literature, or even as history, for certainly Biblical passages have played a significant role in history. For example, both abolitionists and slavery advocates cited Scripture to support their sides in the years leading up to the Civil War.
As long as the class is an elective, is not used as a proselytizing tool, and can pass the Lemon test, which IMO it can, I say let the kids learn about the single most influential book in our civilization.
It depends on what is meant by “teaching it as history.”
If that means teaching the role of the Bible as a historical influence that’s one thing. If it means teaching the actual text of the Bible as literal history that is quite another. The Bible is historically significant but its is not, in itself, an accurate record of historical fact and teaching it as such would be teaching religious beliefs as true.
I am on record as being supportive of world religions and religious texts being taught objectively as part of history and social science curriculums as long as no particular doctrine is held out as fact and no endorsement or preference is given for one religion over another.
In general, I would not object to a treatment of the Bible as historically significant literature but I would like an assurance that it will not be taught as historical fact and I would prefer that it was part of a larger curriculum exposing students to a variety of views besides their own.
I amm deeply suspicious of the motives behind this proposed class and I think it will require supervision but I am not a priori opposed to it.
I’m a little nervous because just the Bible. We studied the Bible as literature in high school, but it was within the context of holy books from other religious traditions. One could argue that by singling the Bible out, it is being implicitly elevated above other religious texts.
However, I’m with the OP. I’ll wait for more specific information about the course before calling it a SOCAS issue.
I’d like to hear more about this. I wouldn’t mind it as much if they focused not only on the Christian bible but also on Jewish and Islamic traditions; the three are intertwined, after all. Might as well toss in some Buddhism, Hindusim, and animism while they’re at it.
Oh, hey! Why not just create a new class and call it “world religions”? No one’s done that before!
But why not have a class that focuses on the Bible exclusively? Yes, let’s respect other cultures and other religions, but even so, the Bible has had an influence on Western culture in ways that the Qu’ran, Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, or the Guru Granth Sahib have not.
Exactly. You cannot hope to understand other cultures before you understand your own, and I am including people whose religions are not Christian in the set of members of this culture. The influence of the Christian Bible on the development of this culture is enormous so I have no problem at all with kids studying the Bible as a historical, or history-influencing, document.
Agreed in principle. I don’t think it’s automatically a SOCAS issue and it could be valuable and helpful if done correctly. I would just prefer a “world religions” approach and I want to be assured that it won’t be taught as historical fact.
Assuming this isn’t a Trojan horse to get actual religious instruction into public schools, it sounds like a damn fine idea to me, for a number of reasons. One that nobody here has adressed yet is the tendency of some branches of Christian evangelism to not actually read the text around which they’ve based their entire world view. Encouraging a more scholarly approach to the Bible could, in the long run, serve as a tonic against the encroachments of the religious right.
I was in the “me too” camp until I discovered what the fears and objections are based on. Let’s just say that I don’t trust many of the people behind it, based on their past actions.
I do think that the Bible CAN be taught in a proper manner in public schools. I just doubt that these people provide the curriculum to do so.
I think the Bible is interesting enough, influential enough, and complex enough to merit a single course; conversely, a “world religions” course could easily wind up being rather shallow. (I’m sure any of the major scriptures could also sustain a course all by themselves.)
However, when I think about the odds of this course not pissing off somebody, I do rather think of snowballs in hell. I’m afraid it will either piss off Christian fundamentalists; or it will piss of people like me; or it will be utterly insipid, and probably still find ways to piss off everybody anyway. But we shall see. Offering a course in a public school studying the Bible as a text is not wrong in and of itself, it merely offers the opportunity to fuck up in a multiplicity of ways.
I’m a rabid SOCAS advocate, but I see nothing wrong with the class if it is taught well. I bet a good, neutral treatment of the Bible would enrage conservatoves. Imagine looking at the different versions of the creation story in Genesis or the 10 commandments, discussions of the different “authors” of the Bible, or the apocrypha.
The Advisory Committee (PDF file) does indeed include D. James Kennedy, David Barton, and Howard Phillips.
At the top of their links page is a link to Mel and Norma Gabler’s website. (“Please visit and support these other sites. They are supportive of our cause.”)
Their bookstore page has a couple of David Barton books on sale under the heading “Recommended Books”.
And they claim that the “Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, educational system, and our entire history until the last 20 to 30 years”.
Yep, fuck this. I fear the Christian Reconstructionists bearing curricula.
Flag on the play, attempted end run around the First Amendment. Anyone who really believes that Odessa Texas is going to institute a Bible class that focuses solely on the Bible as literature is deluding themselves. Even if that were the case and the class was purely literary, there are so many books that are so much better written than the Bible that they could be studying. As literature, the Bible is crap.
Thanks for the link, DMC - that was most informative.
Looks like the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is just one more chapter of that great nationwide organization, Christians Who Bear False Witness.
Of course, PFAW had to work to find that out, because:
More goodies:
I’m all for having the Bible taught in the public schools as a work of literature that is regarded by millions of people in America and elsewhere as religious canon. Americans should be familiar with the more common Biblical stories that are alluded to in literature, and should be familiar with the history of the political use the Bible has been put to by different groups over time.
But the courses to teach these things should be developed and taught by honest brokers, not by Christian proselytes.
I agree with this but after reviewing the information supplied byDMC and MEB, I have no confidence whatever that these people have any intention of teaching any sort of critical approach. This is a scam.
Well, studying the Bible as literature and its impact in history is still a good idea in principle, but I notice that on the bookstore page the NCBCPS refers to itself as a “ministry” and they list Kent “I’m a tax-dodging, fake diploma totin,’ scientifically illiterate fraud” Hovind as a supporter, so I fear that their objectivity might be a tad askew. Maybe. A bit.
That’s true, but IMO the only way this kind of class could work at the high school level is if it were taught as a comparitive survey of religious texts instead of just focusing on one. Even if that one is inarguably the most influential to the students, whether they accept it as the basis of their faith or not. It would dispel any notion that the class is favoring one religion over another, and it would dispel the notion that this is a class for religious indoctrination.
It sucks, because this is another of those ideas that’s perfectly sound and difficult to argue against in principle, but is all wrong in practice because people are clearly corrupting it for their own purposes.
My first thought in reaction to the lead in the CNN article was: how the hell did they get unanimous support from the school board on this? It’s obvious that the ACLU is going to object, but why aren’t the funamentalist groups up in arms about it?
If it were truly as objective a course as you describe in the OP, examining the Bible as a historical, literary, and sociological document apart from its religious significance – in other words, if the promoters of the curriculum were sincere in their claims – then you’d be hearing no end of opposition. The knee-jerk contingent will object to what they perceive as any attempt to treat the Bible as “just a book.” So why aren’t we hearing from them? Because most likely, they’re the ones promoting the curriculum in the first place.
Which I see on preview, is the same conclusion that everyone else has already come to.
