According to this report from FOX News, a new bill would allow school districts in North Carolina to offer elective courses in biblical studies. The courses would not be a requirement but would count as credit toward graduation.
Here is Sarah Preston, with the American Civil Liberties Union:
Classes that teach the Bible have to be conducted in a way that does not promote or disparage religion, or alienate students with different beliefs. But because religious belief is such a personal issue, we believe it’s a topic best left to the student’s parents, and not government bureaucrats or school officials.
While I agree with her and think that nonbiased instruction in biblical studies is more of a possibility in state-funded colleges than in high schools, where in the latter case, there is potentially more religious sentiment among school administrators, especially in the South, I say go for it. The more kids know about what is actually in the Bible, the better.
The problem with teaching kids and teenagers about the Bible in churches is that Sunday school leaders and pastors tend to focus on the more “press-friendly” stories in the Bible like Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den and Jesus walking on water, etc., while either barely mentioning the mass murder and slavery or altogether ignoring all the incest, bloodletting, fornication, the stoning of innocent people, flagrant pillaging of villages, witches and the like. Or, if these things are mentioned, they are framed thusly: The Jews lived in a different time period with a different set of moral parameters; the Bible is a story about man’s fall from grace, his many mistakes along the way and his ultimate redemption. That argument fails because many of man’s “mistakes” were either overseen or mandated by an all-watching God. Yahweh escapes this charge with the frail piece of logic that since, as believers claim, God is the progenitor of all morality, he can essentially command whatever he wishes, and we are in no place to judge God’s decrees. Carried to its logical end, this argument is dangerous because a person, even today, can justify any action however depraved because he has God on his side. For instance, Pastor Dave, citing Exodus 22:18, could go on a selective killing spree, offing any woman he believes is practicing witchcraft.
So yes, perhaps an unbiased study of the Bible is in order in our public schools, but this should be framed as religious studies and be accompanied by an equal treatment of the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Gnostic writings that didn’t make it into the biblical canon and other ancient mythological texts.
[Photo credit: Time, “The Case for Teaching the Bible.”]