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... entitled The Bible and its Influence is said by its producers to be under consideration in 300-some school districts for use in a Biblical literacy class — positive news if it lives up to the educators' ambitions and is taught objectively.
High schools across the nation are considering an elective course in Bible literacy. That's pitting advocates of church-state separation against proponents of the class who say their mission is purely scholarly.
Lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia in the past few weeks have introduced legislation clearing the way for their high schools to offer the course, which is based on the textbook The Bible and Its Influence.
The USA Today report quoted above goes on to suggest that Americans United has expressed opposition to the book and courses based upon it, but that's not quite accurate. I've covered this book project for several months, and what AU has actually said is ...
It may be unwise to focus on the Bible exclusively when there are so many other faiths in American life.
Some teachers will probably step over the line and turn lectures into a Sunday school class or Bible-bashing exercise.
My reaction then is unchanged:
Lynn’s first concern is just silly. America was founded by Christians (mostly), remains primarily Christian, and our interminable and usually inane Culture Wars are at root disputes between Christian teachings and everybody else. Of course the Bible is the pre-eminent religious text in American life, and it is entirely appropriate to devote especial attention to its influence upon who we are and how we got this way.
His second concern has some merit, but is no reason to abandon the book’s ambitions. I know I’d have a hard time discussing some of its more laughable cosmological claims without displaying at least irritation, but … so what? What I, or anybody else thinks is the truth, isn’t relevant. What is important is to cultivate an appreciation of the Bible’s importance, and it seems to me that a clever teacher would use the inevitable disputes and “spinning” as real-time examples of its importance to the shaping of individual world views and our national life.
Whatever one thinks of the Bible — and I think anybody who believes it's journalism has a very, very serious reality problem — it is doubtless the most important compilation of texts in the history of the West, and an education which doesn't treat it is an incomplete education. I say let it go forward.
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