Lone Star Lapse: Texas Bible Classes Flunk The Test
Many advocates of church-state separation have no problem with “teaching about” religion in public schools. Objective courses focusing on religion’s role in history, for example, should present no problem. The goals of these classes must be to educate, not indoctrinate.
But such courses must never become a cover for sectarian instruction. Unfortunately, it looks like that’s exactly what is happening in Texas.
A new report by the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network (TFN) examines Bible courses in the state and finds them lacking. The organization surveyed the more than 1,000 public school districts in Texas and found that 33 had offered some type of course about the Bible since the 2000-01 school year. Twenty-five say they are still offering the courses, and of those, only three districts are offering courses that TFN says meet the requirements of the Constitution.
Mark Chancey, the author of “Reading, Writing and Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools,” asserts that many courses fail to meet minimal academic standards. Many of the teachers, Chancey said, are not properly trained in how to offer these courses. Some districts even use local clergy.
“Many schools portray their Bible classes as social studies or literature courses,” Chancey said in a TFN press statement. “Yet, intentionally or not, most are really courses about the religious beliefs of the teacher or minister leading the class or of those who created the course materials.”
Chancey, a biblical scholar at Southern Methodist University, found that many districts present the Protestant version of the Bible as true and make other sectarian assumptions. The Bible, he said, is often presented as literal truth and the stories in it as factual. Judaism is portrayed with a Christian bias, sometimes as a faith that was “completed” by Christianity. Other courses have been used to prop up creationism and bogus “Christian nation” historical views.
Part of the problem may stem from the fact that 11 Texas school districts are relying fully or in part on a Bible curriculum devised by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. This North Carolina-based group is backed by several television preachers and produces material that promotes a fundamentalist understanding of Christianity.
But not all the news is bad. The TFN report notes that three Texas districts are offering courses based on the Bible that do not mix religion with education. The report also concludes with a series of five recommendations that, if implemented, would go a long way toward solving the problems.
Americans United has never opposed legitimate teaching about religion in an objective and even-handed manner. At the same time, we have approached some proposals claiming to do that with a healthy degree of skepticism. The Texas experience shows why. Some groups are determined to use these classes as a cover for slipping one version of Christianity into our public schools.
The issue is becoming more relevant these days, as several states are considering laws that would promote “teaching about religion” or “teaching about the Bible” courses. These classes may turn out to be just fine – but if we’re not careful, we could see our public schools saturated with a series of lessons that by all rights belong in Sunday Schools.