Critics fear elective Bible classes in public schools erode line between church and state

Montery County Herald (California) ^ | Sun, May. 08, 2005 | DAVID MCLEMORE

[rface]

there shouldn't be any problems with a scholarly study of ancient Christian and Jewish writings. This is a study of Christian/Jewish cultures .....

[joylyn]

When I was in public school in the 1950's we had voluntary religious education. The class visited local churches, temples and religious schools where one of their personnel gave a lecture on some aspect of that denomination's beliefs, rituals, etc. It was presented strictly as information -- no discussion, role playing or asking us how we "felt" about our and other people's religions. This was without a doubt one of the most useful and informative classes I ever took in secondary school. I learned a lot and have often been able to amaze my friends by knowing more about their religions than they do.

[Felis_irritable]

It's the public skoolz, I would be afraid they would screw it up.

Example: the scholarship coming out at the university level on the origins of the New Testament where "scholars" try to divine (no pun intended) the exact words of Jesus based on what little real evidence we have. How can they say definitively? And this is at the university level, not high school.

[Brilliant]

Vouchers: the only solution.

[rface]

.......based on what little real evidence we have.

sounds like all the chemestry courses I have taken....sounds like the bilogy courses I have taken.....sounds like the archaeology courses I have taken .....sounds like the ancient history courses i have taken.

take a little fact and build a theory around it. That's the way it works

[xJones]

It's an elective course, for crying out loud.

"They'll ask her why 'your people' killed Jesus. Or if she knows that Jesus is her savior," Newman said.

I don't believe him, because in all my Southern life I have never heard anyone use the 'Christ-killer' term except Jewish Americans claiming to be persecuted. Never in any private church group or non-Jewish conservations have I ever heard that term.

It's possible that some misguided soul asked her about Jesus, but it's no problem to say, "I'm Jewish, why don't we talk about Moses or David instead? Wanna go to synagogue with me?" She might be amazed just how interested her classmates would be to attend as guests a Jewish service. I like visiting synagogues, the rabbis sound so much like Protestant pastors when they get into fund-raising and all that.:)

[mlc9852]

I was going to say the same thing.

"Schaeffer said another potential problem for school districts is finding instructors that are "academically competent" to teach what is often a lightning-rod topic.

"You really shouldn't be teaching the Bible in public schools," she said, "unless you have teachers who are qualified to do so."

Yet we have history teachers teaching history when it wasn't their major, chemistry, biology, English. Why should the Bible class be any different?

[rface]

I have never heard anyone use the 'Christ-killer' term except Jewish Americans claiming to be persecuted.

I think "Christ-Killer" has been used, but like so many other issues that the left brings up - this issue has been LARGELY (not totally) tossed into the burn barrel as more stupid garbage. This type of scapegoating passed through American society more than 50 years ago. It partners with the idea that slavery has Biblical support

[phil1750]

Are they going to use the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Bible?

[Felis_irritable]

"take a little fact and build a theory around it. That's the way it works"

Yes, but... Virtually no research is done at the secondary school level. And chemistry, biology, et. al., are hard sciences subject to repeatability in experiment.

What you are going to end up with here, much of the time, is brain-dead lefty teachers like my high school economics teacher who taught the class as an op-ed piece for the Democratic Party before he went downstate to work as a staffer for a lefty pol. IMHO.

[Old_Mil]

I don't believe him, because in all my Southern life I have never heard anyone use the 'Christ-killer' term except Jewish Americans claiming to be persecuted. Never in any private church group or non-Jewish conservations have I ever heard that term. It's possible that some misguided soul asked her about Jesus, but it's no problem to say, "I'm Jewish, why don't we talk about Moses or David instead? Wanna go to synagogue with me?" She might be amazed just how interested her classmates would be to attend as guests a Jewish service. I like visiting synagogues, the rabbis sound so much like Protestant pastors when they get into fund-raising and all that.:)

I agree. And in the event that someone did accuse this fellow's daughter of having her people kill Christ, it's likely that this person was a anti-semitic skinhead, not a Christian. It's also interesting to consider just what sort of Jew wants to see a religious text that is probably 60%-70% a book of his religion banned from public schools.

Unfortunately there are some Jews who are merely secular humanists under another name.

[Alouette]

Newman said his 12-year-old daughter has been subjected to some anti-Jewish statements from classmates.

Why do I suspect that this guy does not belong to any synagogue, unless it's one of those do-nothing and believe-in-nothing reform temples.

[Lancey Howard]

"There's an awful lot of people in this town convinced that they're going to get Jesus taught in the classroom, a tool for evangelism. And that concerns people like me," said David Newman, an English professor at Odessa College

Yeah, sure, Newman (/Seinfeld).
Let's hear from you first about all the MANDATORY "multi-cultural" (ie., anti-American culture) and "tolerance" (ie., Kevin has two daddies) and condom-on-the-banana classes that are infecting the government schools and THEN somebody might give a rat's behind that you don't like ELECTIVE classes that might discuss decency, morality, and faith.

[Gritty]

"There's an awful lot of people in this town convinced that they're going to get Jesus taught in the classroom, a tool for evangelism. And that concerns people like me," said David Newman, an English professor at Odessa College...

I'll bet it does, Mr. College English Perfesser.

Lemme see if I've got this straight...

Publik skolz can teach mandatory sex education (with empasis on "alternative" sexual lifestyles) to second graders and this is not proselytizing, but shouldn't offer an elective Bible study (light on theology, heavy on culture and art) to high schoolers because it is proselytizing?

On which side do I get off of this sinking ship, the far left or the even farther left?

[StonyBurk]

George Will wrote recently that if all the atheists got together in one state it would be second only to California.
I can understand why California doesn't want the bible read
in public schools would disrupt the doings in Sodom(oops
Freudian slip- I meant San Francisco ) and LA ( opps there's
another one es verdad LA is now Mexico del Norte.)And as reminded by an earlier post -it would be cultural education-not unlike teaching the little buggers Islam as
they did Johnny Walker Lindh.

[rface]

let's say, for your sake of argument, that they compare and contrast both Bibles and discuss why there are differences...

[mlc9852]

I don't know - how are they different?

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The Monterey Herald is a Communist newspaper...

It is no coincidence Islamist pagans hate Israel, Jews, Christians and Western Civilization. The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law; something both the Neo-Pagan Left and the pagan Islamist thugs cannot abide and wish to destroy.

[Mygirlsmom]

The Old Testament in Catholic Bibles contains seven more books than are found in Protestant Bibles (46 and 39, respectively). Protestants call these seven books the Apocrypha and Catholics know them as the deuterocanonical books. These seven books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach), and Baruch. Also, Catholic Bibles contain an additional six chapters (107 verses) in the book of Esther and another three in the book of Daniel (174 verses).

[New Orleans Slim]

"Are they going to use the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Bible?"

More importantly what are they going to do when some other religion wants to set up their own elective class - like Bhagavad Gita study, or Talmud study, or get-naked-and-worship-the-trees study. (Actually, that last might be very popular - leading to an explosion of Wicca).

It's one thing to survive a court challenge to voluntary Bible study. It's another to survive an establishment clause challenge when the issue is other religions coming in. In fact, I wonder if this is they very reason why the ACLU is standing outside the fray right now.

If I were the legal director for the ACLU (perish the thought, I'd have to take a pay cut for that job), that's about what I would do. Rent some students to request a Hindu study course. You could even include yoga and sell it as a PE credit. Then if the district refuses, bring an establishment clause suit. That way, you don't argue separation of church and state, you argue that a preference is being given to Christianity.