Board asked to okay elective Bible course

This form the McCreary County Record:

Though no formal action was taken at Thursday night’s meeting, the McCreary County Board of Education is considering a Bible class for high school students.Board members heard a presentation from Roger Dillon, Kentucky State Director for Christian Educators Association International, who discussed the development of an elective course high school students could take to learn more about the Bible.

Dillon explained that the 1963 Supreme Court decision (Abington Township School District v. Schempp) which prohibits public school officials from leading prayers and/or devotional Bible reading does not prohibit such a class.

“The Bible can be taught from a historical or literary perspective so long as it is not taught devotionally,” Dillon said.

Such electives are even encouraged in legal guidelines issued by the Clinton administration in 1998.While the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools and the Bible Literacy Project each have courses which have been taught around the country, Dillon also noted that a bill is currently under consideration for Kentucky to develop its own curriculum as Tennessee recently opted to do.

Senate Bill 142 passed the Senate on February 25 by a vote of 37-1 but has languished in the House’s Education Committee since March 2...

Hat Tip to KSBA.

Senate panel approves Bible literacy bill

"I'm concerned we can't even get out of committee

before we start preaching"

about the values of the Bible.

---Tim Shaughnessy

The motivation is not to establish religion, but...

This from Bluegrass Politics:

One state senator cast a vote of “Amen” Thursday when the Senate Education Committee unanimously approved a bill to give public schools guidelines for teaching the Bible as an elective social studies course.

Another senator, Republican Elizabeth Tori of Elizabethtown, praised the Democratic sponsors of the bill, saying she believed “angels have sat down on your shoulders.”

But another warned that the state must proceed carefully with the bill and said teachers in public schools must be sure to teach, not preach, the Bible to students if the measure becomes law.

A large crowd made up mostly of school students from various Kentucky counties attended the committee meeting in which Democratic Sens. David Boswell of Owensboro and Julian Carroll of Frankfort presented Senate Bill 142.

Boswell, primary sponsor of the measure, said it would let the state Department of Education come up with regulations to guide public schools as they “teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture.” ...

Carroll said the bill is not creating “a faith-based course,” but he contended that public schools have experienced problems such as shootings since the Bible was taken out of the classroom.

“We took the Bible out of the school but we put nothing back,” he said.

Carroll contended that the Bible can teach “life skills and values.”...

In voting for the bill, Sen. Vernie McGaha, R-Russell Springs, told Carroll that “preaching” might help public schools....

Thanks to Toni Konz for the quote.

Teaching the Bible

This from the Herald-Leader:

Bill either unconstitutional or unneccessary

In a 1963 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a required reading of Bible verses in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. But the ruling in Abington vs. Schempp went on to say objective academic study of the Bible was permissible in public schools....

But Kentucky has its own constitutional language regarding the separation of church and state, and Senate Bill 142 may well trip over it.

Section 5 of the state constitution says in part: "No preference shall ever be given by law ... to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity." And one definition of "creed" in the Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is: "an accepted system of religious or other belief."

One could argue then that any public school system in Kentucky offering an elective course "on the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible" must also offer elective courses on other accepted systems of religious belief, such as Islam's Quran.

But even if the state constitution doesn't preclude teaching the Bible in public schools, we see no valid reason for enacting this bill...

A really bad idea

This from the Herald-Leader:

Bill would let schools teach Bible literacy

Three Democratic state senators are pushing a proposal to give public schools the option of teaching the Bible as an elective social studies course.

The class would "teach students knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry and narratives that are pre requisites to understanding contemporary society and culture," said Sen. David Boswell, D- Owensboro, the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 142.

Boswell, a Catholic, said the bill is intended to teach Bible literacy as an academic course, "not as the only religion," but opponents labeled the proposal an unconstitutional "back-door approach to teaching religion." ...

I don't think it matters which side of the issue you are on. SB 142 seems to me to be a stunningly bad idea. I'm not even sure what the intent is - althought, I must assume it is some form of heart-felt populist political pandering. Democrats love Jesus too.

If one is opposed to the bill on establishment grounds, fine. I suspect that reasoning will ultimately prevail.

On the other hand, it's not too hard to accept the argument that, in western society, "an educated person is familiar with the Bible." Coloquial speech in America is laced with Biblical references. In fact, Matthew 22 is central to understanding the secular/religious struggles that led to bloody European wars - and eventually, a new nation built on the principles of freedom of religion, freedom from religion (freedom of thought) and freedom of the press. But turning teachers loose to teach the Bible as literature?

Get this: In high school, books do not teach themselves so much as teachers teach them.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it is NOT the intent of Boswell, Worley or Carroll to have the Bible besmirched. Let's assume they merely wish Kentucky students to become more familiar with the Bible's literature. Let's assume they have no interest in "establishing religion" so there will be no effort to direct how the book must be taught, or what lessons should be taken from the text. Let's assume there will be no special requirements of English teachers teaching the Bible than there are for teaching Hamlet.

Just exactly how might that work in the classroom of a teacher who held no particular reverence for the good book?

To illustrate my doubts, I have borrowed from one of three books I got for Christmas: not the Visual History of the English Bible, and not the used New Testament college textbook my daughter handed down to me, but Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible by David Plotz. Plotz is the editor of Slate Magazine, who blogged the Bible.

I wonder, what might some random instructor's first lesson be?

Instructor: OK boys and girls, before our time is up, let's quickly review Genesis Chapter 34. As you will recall, it begins with the rape of Jacob's daughter Dinah by Shechem, the son of a local chief named Hamor. Shechem and Hamor visit Jacob and his brothers to resolve the mess. Hamor begs on Shechem's behalf: Shechem loves Dinah, he says, and yearns to marry her. Hamor and Shechem offer to share their land with Jacob's family and pay any bride price if only Dinah would be Shechem's wife.

Jacob's sons pretend to agree to this proposal, but they insist that Shechem and all the other men of his town get circumcised before the marriage. Shechem and his father accept the demand. They and their fellow townsmen get circumcised. Three days after the circumcision, "when they were in pain," Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi (who are Dinah's full brothers) enter the town, murder all the men, and take Dinah away. After this slaughter, Jacob's other sons plunder the town, seize the livestock
and property, and take the women and children as slaves. Jacob, who hasn't said a word in the chapter till now, complains to Simeon and Levi that other neighboring tribes won't trust him anymore. "But they answered, 'Should our sister be treated like a whore?' "

Wow. What a story! Now, let's discuss. Billy, can you summarize the actions and motivations of the characters in this story?

Billy: Uhhh. Well, ummm. The founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel lie, breach a contract, encourage pagans to convert to Judaism only in order to incapacitate them for slaughter, murder some innocents and enslave others, pillage and profiteer, and then justify it all with an appeal to their sister's defiled honor.

Instructor: Great summary, Billy. Now, who can tell us the ethical lessons taught in this story that help us understand contemporary society and culture?

Riiiiiing.

Instructor: Oh, sorry, but we're out of time. Before you go, remember your homework is Leviticus Chapter 20 where the Lord specifies punishments for sex crimes. Remember to make note of the most popular sentence: "They shall be put to death."

Remember, execution is the price for sex between: adulterer and adulteress; man and stepmother; man and daughter-in-law; man and man; man and beast; woman
and beast.

Notice that a threesome of man, woman, and her mother is singled out as especially heinous: The punishment is not just death but getting burned to death.

Also make sure you can identify the punishment for marrying a sister and for sex with a menstruating woman.

This bill makes me wonder if the sponsors remember what all is in the Bible - beyond the most popular and frequently selected passages.

Do Boswell, Worley and Carroll hope to generate critical thinking in public school students on whether the Bible condones incest and slavery? In any case, Senate Bill 142 ought to be withdrawn.