Y'all Queda will never get it: SOCAS violation--again--in Tennessee

The BBQ Pit
1

Or, as the actual headline puts it:

‘How to torture a Jew’

Jesus Christ! Look, the Bible is, in fact, literature. It may not be your favorite genre and that’s okay. It may be your favorite genre, and that’s okay, too. It’s perfectly fine to teach the tome as literature, even important literature. But it is not okay to teach schoolchildren

If you want to know how to torture a Jew, make them say this out loud.

“This” refers to the Tetragrammaton. And the teacher’s comment is certainly not okay.

Nor is this bit acceptable:

The Book of Genesis was taught as the factual story of how the universe was formed, Russo wrote, and the correct answer to a test question, “It is important to read the Bible even if you are not Christian or Jewish” was true.

Nor this:

“The teacher told them a story about an atheist student who took the class to ‘prove it wrong’ and later ended up ‘realizing it was true,’ which is certainly not in line with teaching the text as literature,” Russo wrote.

And for a little more context:

The allegations about the local program come as Tennessee is receiving national attention after the McMinn County Board of Education voted unanimously in January to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel on the Holocaust, “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” by Art Spiegelman, from its curriculum.

Court case after court case after court case continue to show that preaching in public schools is a violation of the constitution. And why must we have so many court cases on the very same issue? It’s because the Y’all Queda yokels just refuse to accept it. What will it take to convince them? Ah, that’s the dilemma!

All quotes in this post are from the article linked.

2

It’s things like this that make me want to move from agnostic to atheist, and riled up the extremist in me that wants to make this sort of witnessing/proselytizing an actual crime, even the Christian denominations (because we know they’d love to outlaw Islam and other religions that they despise), and not just an unconstitutional slap on the wrist (if that).

3

And yet they’re the ones claiming to be defending the Constitution.

4

If a teacher wanted to hold an entire semester or two focusing on holy books from around the globe, I would have little trouble with that. But this “freedom of religion as long as it’s Christianity” is blatantly unconstitutional. The lesson this teacher is teaching is wrong, and borders on abuse.

5

My high school offered a Bible as Literature elective course, and that’s what it was taught as.

6

Important? No. Useful? Sure. Entertaining? Probably. (I know you’re quoting the article, @Monty)

7

Did your school happen to have any other classes involving other religious tomes as literature?

8

No.

This was not a terribly popular class - maybe 30 students a semester. English Lit and American Lit (also electives) had 3 or 4 classes each a semester.

9

Mine too, it was an elective for one semester in the Honors program.

10

Strangely enough, my 7th grade social studies/science teacher taught a world religions segment at a dumpy public school in the rural south in the mid 90s. I don’t remember any outcry or protesting. We never had any religious text as literature courses though; I guess that’s a new thing?

11

I think the fashionable notion of trying to rescue the bible on the basis that “it may not be literally true, but it’s a great work of literature” really needs to be retired. It is as worthless a piece of literature as it is a source of truth or moral insight. If it did’t have such immense religious significance there is absolutely no chance it would be taught as literature. It’s worthy of study only for its cultural significance, not for its literary merit.

12

The usual literature courses I know of in high school would primarily focus on excerpts, to try and get a good overview of literature. There were occasional bouts of sticking with a single book (especially in the AP classes), but they were never longer than a semester, and were always books everyone would agree were fictional, so that actual literary discussion could be had.

I didn’t encounter the Bible as one of those excerpts until college, where the book of Job was covered. And then we spent a couple weeks max on it.

We did discuss some biblical allusions in class even in high school. But those allusions were in the works in question because they were well-known. That said, it did take some extra teaching for an Indian immigrant student who was in my sister’s graduating class.

But that helped the class and the teacher figure out what stuff we take for granted.

13

Never mind, of course, that Christians aren’t supposed to be taking the Lord’s name in vain, either. Because this stuff is never about the religion of Jesus. I don’t know what religion these yahoos follow, but it’s not Christianity.

14

The problem is that many of the people teaching these courses are going to be religious, and consequently believe their religion. Asking them to teach the course as if that religion is merely something some people believe, rather than the truth, is a fool’s game. It’s never going to happen.

Nor is it a true Scotsman.

15

The Bible as literature? It sure has the Unreliable Narrator convention going for it.

16

I’ve taken courses on the Bible as literature, taught by Christians, Jews, and atheists, and none had a problem keeping their personal biases out of the coursework. This was in the northeast, and things might well be different in the deep south, but it’s certainly possible to do.

17

I shouldn’t have said “never”. My point is more that it’s a fool’s game to think problems like that described by the OP aren’t commonly going to a arise.

18

That puts it right in the same bucket as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

19

At least the New Testament, anyway.

20

It has one thing going for it, it will help you on Jeopardy.