Free Republic

A popular course offered by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools has come under attack from a liberal group that exists in part to "counter the religious right." While NCBCPS describes the course as an exploration of the Bible's influence on history and culture, the Texas Freedom Network's charge that the curriculum is sectarian and constitutionally inappropriate for use in public schools has sparked nationwide debate, with legal experts weighing in on both sides. NCBCPS claims its curriculum, called "The Bible in History and Literature," has been approved by 300 school districts in 37 states across America...

HOUSTON, July 31 - When the school board in Odessa, the West Texas oil town, voted unanimously in April to add an elective Bible study course to the 2006 high school curriculum, some parents dropped to their knees in prayerful thanks that God would be returned to the classroom, while others assailed it as an effort to instill religious training in the public schools. Prof. David Newman of Odessa College, whose daughter attends an Odessa school, said he found the Bible course's curriculum unacceptably sectarian. "Someone is being disingenuous; I'd like to know who," he says. Readers John Waggoner, at...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A religious watchdog group complained Monday that a Bible study course taught in hundreds of public schools in Texas and across the country promotes a fundamentalist Christian view and violates religious freedom. The Texas Freedom Network, which includes clergy of several faiths, also said the course offered by the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is full of errors and dubious research. The producers of the Bible class dismissed the Texas Freedom Network as a "far left" organization trying to suppress study of a historical text. The National Council on Bible Curriculum...

When the school board in Odessa, the West Texas oil town, voted unanimously in April to add an elective Bible study course to the 2006 high school curriculum, some parents dropped to their knees in prayerful thanks that God would be returned to the classroom, while others assailed it as an effort to instill religious training in the public schools. Hundreds of miles away, leaders of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools notched another victory. A religious advocacy group based in Greensboro, N.C., the council has been pressing a 12-year campaign to get school boards across the...

ODESSA, Texas - (KRT) - This hardscrabble town of 90,000 on the West Texas oil patch famous for its obsession with high school football is becoming the new ground zero in a culture war. The Ector County Independent School District unanimously approved an elective course in biblical literacy in April, an action underscoring the marked increase of such "Bible study" classes nationally. Constitutional scholars are concerned that these classes constitute a subtle erosion of what they see as the traditional and necessary wall of separation between church and state. More than 300 school districts in 35 states use course material...

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — The school board in this West Texas town voted unanimously to add a Bible class to its high school curriculum. Hundreds of people, most of them supporters of the proposal, packed the board meeting Tuesday night. More than 6,000 Odessa residents had signed a petition supporting the class. Some residents, however, said the school board acted too quickly. Others said they feared a national constitutional fight. Barring any hurdles, the class should be added to the curriculum in fall 2006 and taught as a history or literature course. The school board still must develop a curriculum,...

ODESSA — A West Texas school board will at least consider the possibility of the district offering a Bible-based class as an elective in the high schools.A packed audience gave a standing ovation Tuesday after the Ector County school board heard a presentation from a man representing the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools on offering such a class.Board President Randy Rives said the public deserves an answer on whether a Bible elective should be implemented, but a decision may not be made anytime soon."It would be beneath us to not ever address this again," Rives said. "But,...