First, let me start off by saying that it is technically possible to have a course on religion, but it would be difficult. If there is a Bible course being offered in schools why not have a course on the Quran, etc? It would be a lot less of a headache if the schools stayed out of it. After all, there are churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other houses of worship that take care of this. We need to focus on giving kids a good education. Religion can be taken care of in-depth elsewhere. Not only that, you can read these texts on your own! What a concept! That is what I would highly recommend.
I visited the National Council On Bible Curriculum In Public Schools (in association with the American Family Association and the Center for Reclaiming America) Web site (www.bibleinschools.net/) that is behind this curriculum. The president of NCOBCIPS, Elizabeth Ridenour, states, “The world is watching to see if we will be motivated to impact our culture, to deal with the moral crises in our society, and reclaim our families and children. Please help us to restore our religious and civil liberties in this nation.”
Not very impartial, is she? She is referring to the Bible not being taught in schools and schools no longer being allowed to lead prayers. Let’s get something out of the way right now. That last bit about restoring religious and civil liberties. They were never taken away. Apparently, there are some Christians that are too lazy to find out about their rights or just prefer to be victims, or both. NEWSFLASH: It is legal to pray in school and read the Bible in school! That has never been taken away. If you are told that you can’t do either of those you can always make a mention of the ACLU to school officials who may have the same misunderstandings about praying and the Bible in schools. Of course, reading the Bible while the teacher is talking may not be the best idea.
Elsewhere on the site are recommended books, two of which are by David Barton who made up quotes by the founding fathers favoring Christianity in the government. Not exactly a model Christian. And these people want to teach Biblical influence on the founding fathers views and laws? Just take a look at the “links” page and you will find sites that are in no way neutral about the Bible. If you look at other parts of the site you will see outright lies like this : “The Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, educational system, and our entire history until the last 20 to 30 years.”
I will not be complacent with the conservative correctness that is commonplace in this society. The Bible was/is not a good document for founding a country. The agenda of this organization is very transparent. They want to blur the lines of separation between church and state, or better, not have it. (Yes, it does exist. Just because it doesn’t say word for word, “separation of church and state”, the “church” was separated from the Constitution by being absent). I have already talked about how ludicrous it is to say that the Bible is the foundation of our country, let alone the Constitution or even the Declaration in another article.
To summarize, both of those documents are against what the Bible says about government. The Bible says to obey the king on multiple occasions (New Testament, not Old). What we did as a country was reject the Bible as our foundation, and thanks to the Enlightenment used reason to come up with a new and better system of government. Unfortunately, the Bible never championed freedom of religion or freedom of speech. I doubt you will hear that in their Bible class. Now if only people would read the Bible, they would know this.
Keith MorrisSenior in Spanish
