At least this approach is direct and straightforward, as opposed to attempts to sneak the bible into school via Intelligent Design:
Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as “pharisees,” a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion.
Democrats in both states have introduced bills authorizing school districts to teach courses modeled after a new textbook, “The Bible and Its Influence.” It was produced by the nonpartisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project and provides an assessment of the Bible’s impact on history, literature and art that is academic and detached, if largely laudatory.
The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. “Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way,” said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of the bill. “We are not going to give away the South anymore because we are unwilling to talk about our faith.”
Georgia and Alabama. Why is it always Georgia or Alabama? And why aren’t they introducing this stuff in Texas and Mississippi?
The Disenfranchised Voter
I think this class they speak of was actually checked out by Americans United for Seperation of Church and State and they said it was a-okay because the book in question focuses on the historical influence of the Bible and not the religious views of the Bible.
I could be wrong here, but if this class is the one approved by AU then it has my approval. I trust AU on these matters.
Steve
Nothing makes the political process seem more tawdry than a bunch of politicians arguing about which party is “really” God’s Party.
Sounds like the Democrats have basically admitted this was a political maneuver, but when you have Republicans sending out fliers claiming Democrats want to ban the Bible, what choice do Democrats really have except to fight back?
Whenever our politicians show up at that televised National Prayer Breakfast, I always think of that verse.
neil
I think it’s a good idea. If you want to have a class about the Bible, make it formally about the Bible. Compromise is always a good thing.
I see it along the same lines as putting warning labels on video games to push back against efforts to ban them altogether or censor them.
neil
Oh, and by the way, I do hope that Republicans keep the heat on all these Bible teachers to make sure they stick to the curriculum and do not use the subject matter as an excuse to hold forth on their own personal views. I am sure they will stress this point since they are so dedicated to keeping bias out of the classroom.
John Cole
Neil- I agree to an extent, although the problem is that Christianity is not the only religion in this country. Will we need to then introduce a series of other religious study courses? Will this be part of a series of comparative religion courses?
And oh, btw- how will this detract from the other things students are supposed to be learning. Like, say, reading and math and science?
demimondian
Err…John? You asked in the article summary why it was always Georgia and Alabama? In those states, the students aren’t supposed to learn any of them Yankee things. This “Importance of the Bible” course fits into the goals of those states curricula a lot more neatly.
canuckistani
What do kids need math or science for? They’re all going to be sucked up in the Rapture in a few weeks anyway.
neil
Spanish and French aren’t the only languages in the world, but they were the only ones taught in my high school, because of lack of resources and demand. I suspect the same will apply to prospective classes like “The Koran and Its Influence” or “Dianetics and Its Influence.”
More advantages: The presence of this class might encourage ultra-religious parents to keep their kids in public school where they would otherwise have homeschooled them or put them in a private school. Hence, they get more math and science as well. This helps the public school system, too, which is in need of all the help it can get.
Nobody is going to take this class and then be surprised that God is in it, like they might with Intro to Biology.
The best part is that Democrats are finally offering a sensible counterargument. This defuses the Republicans’ potent argument, ‘we are teaching a part of American history,’ blah blah blah. It will be obvious when they push for more inclusion of Christianity in schools that their intent is not pedagogical but ecumenical.
Lines
I can see where a Religious Studies class “might” be acceptable to incorporate into the High School curriculum as an optional class. But I wouldn’t just teach the Bible and its influences/origins, I would want Islam, Buddist and other religions to be described and taught as a historical background.
After all, wouldn’t it be good for our students to understand that the majority of the founding fathers wern’t Christians, but Deists, and what that really means in a broad sense?
Emma Zahn
There are so many Biblical allusions, especially KJV, in literature and historical documents and Christianity was such a defining characteristic of the Middle Ages in Europe that this course could only help children understand what in hell some of the other things they are required to learn actually mean.
I thought it was funny when I read bloggers accuse Bush of speaking in code when he quoted from hymns or the Bible. But he is not the first politician to do so and he probably won’t be the last — although with all the new versions of the Bible out now, it will probably continue to wane.
As to why Georgia and Alabama — well, there are still some Democrats left here.
—
The Other Steve
When I was in High School, as a junior… I saw these seniors walking around one with with bibles. I found out they were taking a British Lit class, and I thought it odd they had bibles. At first I thought they were teaching religion in the school and I was rather angry about that.
The next year I was taking the same class and I understood what was being taught. The teacher was showing the impact of the King James bible of british literature… along with Chaucer and the usual suspects.
Basically something very similar to this. It was really quite interesting.
I don’t have a problem with this.
The Other Steve
I think that’s a false equivalency.
There’s a reality that the Bible has had a signifigant impact on Western culture. The first book printed on the printing press was the bible. Luther’s translation of the bible had a tremendous impact on the German language, as did King James translation have on English.
nyrev
I’m guessing that this will be an elective class. I don’t know about you, but the high school that I graduated from didn’t require that you take reading, math and science for all four years. (They should. I worked in the University Writing Center, and Ohio public schools churn out illiterates like nobody’s business.)
Lines
The Other Steve:
Why not teach it as a historical class? How much of the bible can an average student stand in a year? Mix in the other major religions, describe how their influences changed their society, their politics and other things.
Why just the Bible? That I don’t get.
my cat
Out here in the People’s Republic of Washington the Bible was taught in literature classes in secular humanist Seattle up until about ten years ago ( it might still be taught–I dunno). My fundamentalist wingnut ex-brother-in-law taught a class. They discussed the ideas of the Bible and how those ideas influenced Western culture. They did not discuss the ideas as revealed religious truth. My brother-in-law didn’t like teaching the class because, in his view, the Bible is not lierature and the ideas contained in it are true and are to be believed, not examined.
Still I think this is a very smart move and one I support with one quibble: I think the schools should offer classes in comparative religion or perhaps religious literature of the world.
stickler
Good grief, there’s enough difference between different branches of Christianity you could spend a whole year on just that. What does the Catholic Church teach about the Gospels? Why did Luther think James was the least of the disciples? Why did he nearly not include Revelations in his translation? Why do Baptists think infant baptism isn’t justified by the Gospels?
Don’t bother the Buddhists. There’s plenty of ways to open student minds just probing the idiosyncracies of Christianity and its Book.
Sojourner
Besides, we really don’t want to educate the students too much. Don’t want them thinking for themselves. Gotta keep the Repub numbers up.
jack
Any ‘bible’ class is a bad idea–I don’t care if the proper left-side-ofthe-aisle religionists vouch for it or not.
The only acceptable religious course is a ‘Comparative religions’ one–and even putting something like that into schools is fraught with all kinds of headaches.
Sam Hutcheson
“The Bible as Literature” isn’t a radically new concept, and it’s not a bad idea on its face. I don’t know that public schools have the time or wherewithall to deploy such a course effectively, but it’s not something I would oppose out of hand. Giving juniors and seniors the choice of an in depth literary and historical study of a major work, be it the Bible or “War and Peace”, as opposed to year three of French or Home Ec or Wood Shop doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
As one of those rare-bird southern social liberals (I’m from Georgia, ya know) I’d bet that the opposition to this course is exactly of the sort my cat references: the thumpers won’t want the Bible taught as literature or history. They want the Bible taught as the revealed word of God. This would be another evolution debate waiting to happen, only worse.
I would support, fully, the idea of getting some historical and literary perspective out to the rubes, though. But I’m elitist like that.
John
Huh?
Why is it a bad idea? Because you assert it loudly and strongly?
It is literally impossible to learn about the history of Western civilization without some study of the Bible. Unless, that is, you believe ‘learn’ means ‘memorize these facts with no context’. History is replete with people who acted for nominally religious reasons — should we pretend they didn’t exist? Should we pretend that the Crusades never happened? The Reformation? The Holy Roman Empire?
Studying the Bible as a book and how it has influenced history is a great idea. Since, you know, it DID. And if a teacher chooses to make this into a ‘this book is TRVTH, believe or suffer the fires of eternal damnation’ class, then fire the damn teacher.
I’m about as areligious as you can get, but ignoring the effects of the most-published book in existence strikes me as stupid in the extreme.
Orogeny
To those who don’t have a problem with the class; you have to take into consideration where the course is being taught. I don’t know about Georgia, but speaking from experience, here in ‘Bama there are a heck of a lot of teachers who are looking for any way possible to introduce religious instruction into the public schools. Over the years that my son was in the Alabama public school system, he was subjected to a non-stop campaign to turn him into a fundamentalist. Three different times, he brought home bibles that were given to him by the Gideons, who were allowed by the principal to come into the school to proselytize. One day his high school earth science teacher (who was also the assistant principal, baseball coach and part-time Pentecostal preacher) explained to the class that the coal beds in Alabama were formed during Noah’s flood when all the floating logs rubbed together and turned into charcoal.
If this law passes and these classes are introduced, 90%+ will become nothing but taxpayer funded Sunday-school classes.
ET
I grew up in NO and the only religion on TV was the Sunday morning Protestant ickfest that was Swaggart and the like. Went to Bama for college and within a week was seeing advertisements for churches on TV. Danny Lovett (who is apparantly from Georgia) and the Open Door Baptist Church. I was floored and more than a little creeped out (Danny was scarry to me). I was a stranger in a strange land.
I may be Protestant but my version is the every proper, usually blodless Episcopalian variety and not the palms in the air, eyes close, “Oh Sweet Jesus” chanting variety.
Mr.Ortiz
Orogeny, that’s a shame about your kid’s school, but when you’re designing a curriculum, you have to start with the assumption that the teachers are competent. It’s up to the parents to get the bad teachers kicked out (easier said than done, I know, especially if the rest of the PTA sees no problem with religion in the classroom). Otherwise, we might as well have the kids sit in silence for six hours a day, as there’s no telling what a bad teacher will do when he goes off script.
Orogeny
Mr. Ortiz…
The problem here in Alabama is not a few “bad teachers”. It is an organized effort to put fundamentalist Christianity into the public schools. In the incidents I described, I was unable to find anyone – parent or teacher – who would join in protesting the teacher’s actions. Hell, I couldn’t even find anyone who had a problem with them. Bible classes like these will simply provide an easy venue for bible “instruction and discussion” which will quicky evolve into indoctrination while those parents who object will have two options…keep their mouths shut and get along or protest and become community pariahs.
Another note: I used to work for the AL Dem Party and I can tell you that this bill is nothing but an effort on the part of conservative Dems to show that they won’t be “out-Jesused” by the Repubs.
jack
John,
It is the slipperiest of slopes. Even a ‘bible as literature'(a place where it fails most spectacularly) is a few short steps short of indoctrination.
Your examples, the Crusades, the Reformation, and the Holy Roman Empire do not appear in the Bible. They are historical events that were influenced by it.
There are a great many influences on Western culure that we do not delve into the religious nature of. Democracy and Republicanism are the creations of societies that worshipped a paboply of gods–in one of them, Christianity was a bizarre cannibalistic cult that helped bring about the society’s downfall.
We spend very little time talking about the faith of Pythagoras, Aristole, Hippocrates–all great thinkers and shapers of our culture. In fact, when their faith is mentioned at all, many choose to think of them as unbelievers in the pre-christian religions of the time.
Christianity helped give us the Dark Ages, The Inquisition, and the Divine Right of Kings. The followers of Zeus, Hera et al, gave us the concepts of Democracy, Mathematics, and Science. And yet we never ascribe any great import to their faith. Why does Christianity get such a pedestal?
I did not, by the way, suggest ignoring Christianity or its effects–for good or ill. I stated that a ‘bible class’ is a bad idea. Learning about the effects of mens thoughts and beliefs on the societies they build is of the utmost importance. Treating the Bible as if it has some special place among those thoughts and beliefs is not.
And, why is it a bad idea? Because we’ve already seen the effects of state-sponsored religious instruction. They are not uniformly good.
KevmanOH
As long as it is an academic venture, I think this is a fine idea. While ID’ers seek indoctrination, those on the other side need not fear a DISCUSSION of religion, a major element of our culture, as long as we have neutrality.
John
As I stated in my post, those were examples of events/things that were done for nominally religious reasons. Specifically, Christian reasons. The Bible was used as justification for all of those and more. Whether you would like to admit it or not, Western Civilization was heavily influenced by Christianity. Should we pretend that there was no linkage between these? Should we explain all of these as a mass delusion? Context is critical for understanding history, otherwise, it is just rote memorization of Stuff That Happened.
Why did the Roman civilization do it’s best to eliminate the worship of the Greek pantheon, eventually capitulating and settling for renaming it? Because they could, they wanted to, and they did. Just like every other civilization in history. Christianity gets “put on a pedestal” in this case, since it’s been around two millennia, wielded massive temporal power for long periods in there, and shaped the culture around it. I’m by no means saying it is better, but dammit, its effects are impossible to overstate.
The faith of Pythagoras, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Plato, Socrates and others does not get talked about much because we frankly have no hard evidence of it. The merest fragments of information about them survive. Admittedly, we could engage in the time-honored tradition on the Internet of just Making Shit Up(TM), but I prefer accuracy.
Also, I’m curious as to why you would take my very specific claim of “Studying the Bible as a book and how it has influenced history is a great idea” and twist it into “state-sponsored religious instruction”. Reread the last sentence in the penultimate paragraph of my post. You’ve had your free strawman. Don’t do it again.
Beej
If this idea is, indeed, an attempt to still the cries of “liberals want to do away with religion altogether”, (and it’s hard to believe that isn’t at least one of the motives)then it’s doomed to failure. The aforementioned phrasing will just be replaced by something like “liberals want to make the Bible just another history book as part of their plot to destroy Christianity”. It’s hard to discourage a real wingnut.
There might, however, be a cure for the teacher or school district which tries to make such a course an excuse to proselytize. Being forced to defend a lawsuit or two might take the wind out of the sails of such a district, if you could find a parent brave enough to do it. That could be a problem in some communities.
john
Strawman?
I am making the point that a ‘bible class’ of any stripe–and ‘bible class’ is the very operative point here is a bad idea. Putting the bible on its own, as the sole subject of study in a class is a hair’s breath away from a ‘bible study class’–that time honored Christian tradition that I still have to chase people away from my door to make clear to them that I’m not interested in.
A class on comparative religion, studying the various faiths of the world would be better–but it would eventually hit a similar nest of snakes–either Christianity will be denied it’s pedestal and Christians will complain, or it will be given it’s pedestal and those against state ‘sponsorship’ of religion will complain.
I point out our lack of interest in the faiths of the pre-Christian great thinkers to highlight my question about assigning so much importance to Christianity as a motivation in the faiths of post-Christian thinkers.
Many of the ideas in the bible are anti-free speech, anti-democratic, anti-scientific, and anti-individualistic.
I feel no doubts about putting forth the notion that the West became great oftentimes IN SPITE of Christianity’s influence.
I would have no objection to the bible being included as literature in an English class, just not on it’s own. I would have many problems with the bible being included as an ‘historical’ text in a history class unless the ‘historical’ appellation referred to its having been written in antiquity. As a source of accurate historical information the bible is terribly overrated.
And, I am sorry that you cannot see that a state sponsored bible class is not linked to the state promoting one faith over all others–which leads, inexorably to state-sponsored religion.