Teach the Bible in public schools

Biblical illiteracy is a civic problem with political consequences.

from the March 23, 2007 edition

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The most common objection to such courses is that they are unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly given a constitutional stamp of approval to academic courses about religion. In 1963, Justice William Brennan wrote in Abington v. Schempp that "the holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures." And in 1948, Justice Robert Jackson wrote in McCollum v. Board of Education that "a course in English literature that omitted the Bible ... would be pretty barren."

But barren of the Bible is just what our public school curricula are. According to a study by the Bible Literacy Project, which publishes a Bible textbook for secondary schools, only 8 percent of US high school students have access to an elective Bible course. As a result, an entire generation of Americans is growing up almost entirely unable to understand the 1,300 biblical allusions in Shakespeare or the scriptural oratory of President Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Some have argued against Bible courses in public schools on the theory that they would unconstitutionally "establish" Judeo-Christianity. For Scripture courses to be lawful, this argument goes, teachers must give equal time to all the world's scriptures. But the Bible is of sufficient importance in Western civilization to merit its own course. Treating it no differently from, say, Scientology's "Dianetics" makes no educational sense.

What makes sense is one Bible course for every public high school student in the US. This is not a Christian proposal. It does not serve the political left or the political right. It serves our young people and our public life.

• Stephen Prothero is chairman of the religion department at Boston University and the author of "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn't." ©2007 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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