Issue 8, May 2008
On April 26, 2008 The Houston Chronicle published an essay by Texas State Senator Craig Estes about the importance of a bill he sponsored. On May 23, 2007, the Texas Legislature passed a bill to require public schools to offer a nondevotional, academic elective course in biblical text if such a course were requested by fifteen students in grades nine through twelve. This elective course is intended to promote biblical literacy so students may understand and appreciate references to the Bible in historical writings as well as contemporary literature and art.

 

Biblical literacy is indeed critical to understanding the development of Western civilization and American history. Everywhere you look in our culture you will indeed find references to the Bible, both direct and indirect. One academic study found as many as 1,300 biblical references in the collected works of William Shakespeare.

 

Senator Estes wrote, "The debate that has arisen over this issue does not center on the value of biblical literacy to a well-rounded education; but rather, on whether such a study can be achieved without violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

 

Freedom of speech together with biblical literacy are certainly very important considerations. There is, in fact, a Biblical Literacy Project organization, founded by Chuck Stetson and Richard Scurry in 2001. They believe that failure to teach the Bible leaves students in ignorance and cultural illiteracy. The Texas law makes the teaching of the Bible an available part of the public high school curriculum, depending upon student interest. 

 

Stephen Prothero goes even further in his recent book,  Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't. Prothero, chair of the department of religion at Boston University, argues that public schools should require students to take courses on the Bible and world religions. In a 2007 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times he wrote, "In a religious literacy quiz I have administered to undergraduates for the last two years, students tell me that Moses was blinded on the road to Damascus and that Paul led the Israelites on their exodus out of Egypt. Surveys that are more scientific have found that only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the four Gospels, and one out of 10 think that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. No wonder pollster George Gallup has concluded that the United States is "a nation of biblical illiterates."

 

Prothero continues, “Biblical illiteracy is not just a religious problem. It is a civic problem with political consequences. How can citizens participate in biblically inflected debates on abortion, capital punishment, or the environment without knowing something about the Bible?”

No one can argue the importance of the issues raised by these legislators and teachers. The Bible has and continues to play a most significant part in our national and cultural life. However, there is a very real problem with the academic teaching of the Bible. The problem has to do with the teachers. Consider the Texas bill. Its language says that high school teachers must approach their topic in an "objective, academic manner that neither promotes nor disparages religion, nor is taught from a particular sectarian point of view."

 

Good luck!

 

Show me the teacher who can be completely objective in teaching the Bible. Every teacher brings a point of view. I suggest that no teacher can ever teach the Bible in an "objective, academic manner that neither promotes nor disparages religion." Consider an example.

 

Let's say you have a teacher whose main area of study is history. He teaches European and American history from the Middle Ages to the present. Suddenly his principal recruits him to teach this Bible as literature course, because 17 students have signed up for it. Our fictional history teacher normally does a very respectable job with his history lessons. Now, however, he must teach a course on the Bible and be objective about it.

 

So far, so good, but lets say our teacher has some strong personal views on women's rights and the gay liberation movement. He has also developed a strong interest in Buddhism and joined a neighborhood transcendental meditation group. Nor has our fictional teacher been inside a church since before his college years and he is in his tenth year of teaching history to high schoolers.

 

How objective do you think this man is going to be in his teaching about creation, the virgin birth of Jesus, the Lord's Supper, the Apostle Paul’s teaching about sex and marriage and the second coming of Christ--all prominent Biblical topics? Tell me that he will never disparage organized religion or in any way insert his particularly sectarian points of view.

 

If not our history teacher, then whom should the school’s principal choose? And how will he make his decision about which member of his staff to tap when the students sign up for this proposed academic study of the Bible? Will he check to see which of his teachers has a minor in religious studies from a Baptist college? Or a Lutheran? Or a Roman Catholic? Is there some kind of test a teacher must pass to prove he or she can be objective and academic?

 

We live in a day and time when academics are skeptical about anybody being able to be objective. For decades now they have been saying that all history writing is fiction. That's their way of saying that everyone brings his own viewpoint to the writing of history, selecting some documents and objects to comment upon and neglecting others. It's the same thing that goes on when people report on the events of the day in the media. Does anyone really believe that editors and reporters are objective--or even want to be?

 

I'm quite nervous about any attempts to teach the Bible objectively in public high schools. That’s probably because I personally am unable to be objective about it. I view it as God's Word and the God of the Bible demands that we have no other gods before Him. In truth, I also find that this same Bible bears witness to Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God. He is my Lord and my God, who was born of a virgin and laid in a manger, died under Pontius Pilate and rose on the third day. This same Lord is coming again and with the Apostle John at the close of this Bible, I say "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

 

I doubt very much that Shakespeare, who quoted the Bible so often,was objective in his views about it. Who was in the days of the seventeenth century?

 

I am convinced that no teacher in our day can be either. Instead, let him or her acknowledge his/her subjective bias at the beginning of this Biblical course and then proceed. If we are to teach the Bible in the public school setting, a better approach is for us all to learn to be tolerant in love rather than pretend to be objective: Here are my views. Here is what I understand the Bible to be saying. I’ll do my best to show you how it has been quoted and used across the years in government, literature and art, but know that I will not always be objective. I cannot be. Develop your own views and let us tolerate one another in the spirit of love.

 

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By Dr. Al Franzmeier