It looks like a scene out of Sunday school -- students in a
southern Orange County classroom huddle over Bibles as teacher Ryan
Cox guides them in analyzing the relationship between God and Satan.
 |
|
Cox works with
student Andrew Chiang. He tells the class at the start that
some people believe the Bible is the literal word of God and
that others think it is a collection of stories, but that
that is irrelevant to the class’ purpose.(Karen
Tapia-Andersen / LAT)
|
"If God is supposedly omnipotent, if he exists and is
all-powerful, why let the serpent in the Garden" of Eden? Cox asks.
"Why let him hurt Job? Why let him tempt Jesus?"
But this lesson, at Aliso Niguel High School in Aliso Viejo, is one
of the growing number of Bible classes being taught in public
schools across the nation.
There is broad agreement across the social, political and religious
spectrum, and most important the Supreme Court, that the Bible can
be taught in public schools and that knowledge of the Bible is vital
to students' understanding of literature and art, including
"Moby-Dick," Michelangelo and "The Matrix."
But battles are raging in statehouses, schools and courtrooms over
how to teach but not to preach.
As the number of these classes increases across the nation, civil
libertarians, religious minorities and others fear that Bible
lessons cloaked in the guise of academia may provide cover for
proselytizing in public schools.
"Theoretically, it can be taught in an appropriate manner, but it
takes the wisdom of Solomon to do it," said Mark Chancey, a
professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in
Dallas. "You're balancing academic quality, constitutional concerns
and community sensibilities."
 |
|
Lizeth Tarelo
goes over a lesson in Cox's class. The students, a mix of
religions and backgrounds, say the class has been more
difficult and more meaningful than they expected. (Karen
Tapia-Andersen)
|
Although exact numbers are unavailable, experts agree that the
number of Bible classes in public schools is growing because of new
state mandates, increased attention to religion in public life and
the growing prominence of two national Bible curricula.
Texas is the epicenter of the Bible battles. Legislation the
governor signed in June set standards for such courses and could
require every school in the state to offer them. Meanwhile, a legal
battle in Odessa could invalidate the most widely used Bible
curriculum.
Elsewhere, public high schools in Georgia will start offering
state-funded Bible electives this fall. And in Riverside County,
Murrieta voted in April to offer such a course in the fall, and
school trustees in Huntington Beach and East Palo Alto are being
urged by parents or politicians to follow suit.
"A lot of people thought it was one heck of a good idea. Others
thought we were Satan's spawn," said Paul Diffley, a Murrieta school
board member.
Religion has a long, volatile history in the nation's public
schools, even leading to killings and church burnings in
Philadelphia in 1844 when Roman Catholics protested after their
children were forced to read a Protestant translation of the Bible
in school. Over the next century, religious education ebbed and
flowed, with districts and states taking varying tacks in how they
integrated the Bible into the school day.
 |
|
Front to back,
Blair Konier, Stacy Rho, Justin Ker and Kevin Christopher
work on a lesson in Cox’s class. The students’ text is “The
Layman’s Parallel Bible,” which offers four biblical
translations side by side. (Karen Tapia-Andersen / LAT)
|
In 1963, a landmark Supreme Court decision declared school-led
Bible readings and prayer unconstitutional. Justice Tom C. Clark
emphasized in the ruling that the court did not intend to discourage
academic study of religion.
"It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its
literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates
that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented
objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be
effected consistently with the 1st Amendment," he wrote.
Despite that legal opinion, many public school officials have feared
bringing the Bible into the classroom. A 2004 Gallup poll found just
8% of public school teens said their schools offered an elective
Bible course.
High school English teachers and university professors say this lack
of exposure to Bible tales has led to an education gap. A 2005
report by the Bible Literacy Project, which created a well-regarded
Bible study course, found that although virtually all the teachers
it surveyed said biblical knowledge was important to students'
education, most thought few students had a command of the subject.
 |
|
Ryan Cox
teaches a course titled “Bible as/in Literature” at Aliso
Niguel High School in Orange County. (Karen Tapia-Andersen /
LAT) |
However, when these classes are taught, they can be fraught with
problems. A 2006 study by Chancey, funded by the liberal Texas
Freedom Network, which surveyed every Texas public high school's
Bible classes, showed what can go wrong. Of the 25 districts
offering the classes during the 2005-06 academic year, the study
found, all but three had minimal academic value and were not taught
objectively, teachers were largely unqualified, and some classes
were taught by clergy.
"The vast majority of Texas Bible courses, despite their titles, do
not teach about the Bible in the context of a history or literature
class," according to the study. "Instead, the courses are explicitly
devotional in nature and reflect an almost exclusively Christian
perspective of the Bible. They assume that students are Christians,
that Christian theological claims are true and that the Bible itself
is divinely inspired -- all of which are inappropriate in a public
school classroom."
The Bible debate is most volatile in Odessa, where in late 2005 the
Ector County Independent School District adopted a controversial
course created by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public
Schools and offered it at two high schools.
The National Council program, endorsed by conservative organizations
such as Concerned Women for America and the American Family Assn.,
is used in 395 school districts in 37 states, according to the
group's website. "Your first step to get God back into your public
school," the website says.
Attempts to reach officials with the Greensboro, N.C.-based group
were unsuccessful.
After the Odessa school board's 4-2 vote, the district's director of
curriculum sent an e-mail celebrating the decision: "Take that, you
dang heathens!" according to a lawsuit filed against the district in
May by the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American
Way and eight parents.
"The folks pushing this curriculum in this form are not actually
folks who want it to be taught constitutionally," said Lisa Graybill,
legal director of the ACLU Foundation of Texas.
Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of the Liberty Legal Institute,
which is defending the district, said the lawsuit was rife with
inaccuracies and he questioned the plaintiff's motives.
"It's the most widely used [Bible] curriculum in the country, in
hundreds and hundreds of school districts," he said. "If they knock
this out [in Odessa], they knock it out in places all over the
country."
A competing curriculum, the Bible Literacy Project, took five years
and $2 million to produce and has been praised by the National Assn.
of Evangelicals, the American Jewish Congress and the First
Amendment Center.
It became available for the 2006-07 school year, when it was used by
80 school districts in 30 states, according to project spokeswoman
Sheila Weber, who declined to release names of districts. More are
expected to use the course in the fall, including 30 in Georgia.
The Murrieta Valley Unified School District will use the project's
"The Bible and Its Influence" textbook in a "Bible in Literature"
course approved in April. Students who enroll in the senior English
elective will analyze the Bible's effect on literary works such as
"Hamlet," "Jane Eyre" and "Life of Pi."
"It's going to be quite a rigorous course for students," district
spokeswoman Karen Parris said. "It really is designed to prepare
students for a postsecondary education."
Although the board unanimously approved the course, the decision was
not without controversy.
Thomas Scher, who graduated from Murrieta Valley High in June and
will attend Stanford University, said that although he approved of
the course in concept, he believed religious agendas prompted its
adoption.
"There was an effort made to bring Judeo-Christian religion into our
school under the guise of academia," he said at a school board
meeting in May. "Political or religious agendas do not belong in our
schools, and that is simply what is going on here today."
In Huntington Beach, a retired engineer proposed a Bible class after
gathering thousands of signatures at his Presbyterian church in
Westminster.
"The moral level of this country has dropped pretty strenuously,"
said Walter Schulte, 82, of Westminster.
"This country was started on a Christian basis. My feeling is if
[students] become familiar with a Bible, even as literature, the
odds are they will investigate it even further, and I'm willing to
say there will be those who believe in it."
He was able to get one school board member to agree to study the
matter, but the majority was not interested. Schulte plans to keep
attending school board meetings, urging the board to change its
mind.
In southern Orange County, Cox's "Bible as/in Literature" course
appears to be a model of an objective, nonsectarian course. The text
is "The Layman's Parallel Bible," which offers four translations
side-by-side. Cox tells the class at the start that some people
believe the Bible is the literal word of God while others think it
is a collection of stories, but that that is irrelevant to the
class' purpose.
"Religious questions may arise, and that's totally fine as long as
we're respecting that different people have different views," Cox
said.
He is enthusiastic about what students learn, whether it's reading
one of the 1,300 biblical references in Shakespeare's plays or
watching the Brad Pitt movie "Babel."
"Just bringing the biblical analogies and allusions to light adds so
much," he said.
The students, a mix of religions and backgrounds, said the class had
been more difficult than they expected and more meaningful.
"I go to church a lot, and I wanted to see how they taught it in
school and take away the religion part of it," said Christeen
Barnes, 17, a Mormon. "We've gone more in depth, and it's a
different view, more literary."
seema.mehta@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bible5aug05,1,1087611.story?coll=la-headlines-california
