Teaching about the Bible in public schools is legal – if it’s done in a way that promotes legitimate educational goals, not religious indoctrination.
The issue has arisen recently in Georgia, where a new law mandates the creation of two optional public school courses: History and Literature of the Old Testament and History and Literature of the New Testament.
Where will the state get the materials to teach these classes? Most likely, educators there will turn to a private group for textbooks and other instructional aids. And therein lies the problem. Unfortunately, some groups that claim to be interested in furthering legitimate education about the Bible’s role in history and culture really have an ulterior goal, namely promoting fundamentalist Christianity in public schools.
A case in point is the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. This North Carolina-based outfit has an innocuous-sounding name that masks its true intent of forcing its narrow view of the Bible in our schools.
The Council is run by a woman named Elizabeth Ridenour and backed by a number of prominent television preachers. Over the years, Ridenour has railed against public schools for teaching secular philosophies. She sees Bible study as a way to counter that.
Ridenour once told TV preacher D. James Kennedy’s radio program “Truths That Transform” that her goal is “to expose the kids to the biblical Christian worldview.” She also told the Greensboro News & Record, “We’ve taken the Bible out and put metal detectors in. That speaks for itself.”
Some schools in North Carolina have adopted the Council’s curriculum. The News & Record investigated and found the material rife with inaccurate “Christian nation” history, attacks on separation of church and state and inappropriate proselytizing. Asked what he had learned in the class, one student told the paper, “I’ve learned how [Christ] died on the cross for our sins. I also learned about the Ten Commandments.”
Equally disturbing, the Council’s advisory board contains two Christian Reconstructionists, Howard Phillips and Rus Walton. The Reconstructionist philosophy advocates extreme views, insisting that our secular democracy should be replaced with a system of laws based on a literal reading of the Old Testament’s legal code.
Sections of the Council’s material have already been struck down by one federal court, yet it continues to promote itself to public schools as a legitimate source for instructional materials about the Bible.
Last week, attorneys with Americans United wrote to education officials in Georgia, urging them to steer clear of the Council’s materials. In their letter, the AU lawyers noted that the Council “was created to spread the Christian faith, and the Bible-course curricula created by the NCBCPS is characteristic of its evangelical mission.”
The letter also noted, “In order to survive constitutional scrutiny, any curricula adopted by the Department must present the Bible in a secular and objective manner. Courts have repeatedly struck down Bible classes that present the Bible as religious truth.”
Clearly the Bible has had an important impact on Western history and culture. There are ways to teach about this that do not lapse into proselytizing. It can be difficult to stick to the path of objectivity, given how passionately many people feel about their personal faith. But any public school that fails to do so – any school that replaces teaching about religion with teaching religion – is asking for a lawsuit.
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