So tonight the Cape Henlopen School Board will vote on a proposal to offer a secular and elective high school class examining the Bible’s role in society and history. And if the class is elective, and it is taught from a historical and secular perspective rather than religious or spiritual, I have no problem personally or constitutionally with that, and the Board should go ahead and vote for the class. Indeed, as suggested in the News Journal article on this issue today, they should also offer a comparitive religions class that looks at more religions than just Christianity.
And I must say, I am impressed by the quotes and the considerations of the board members quoted in the News Journal article. Looks like a part of Sussex County has grown up when it comes to church and state and schools.
Board member Sandi Minard introduced the idea on behalf of a group of parents who think their children would benefit from an academic study of the influential text.
“I’ve heard from people whose kids are not growing up in a religious environment. They’re lacking the understanding of what the Bible is and how it’s influenced our country,” Minard said. […]
Minard, a Christian, said she does not want to see spirituality taught in school classrooms either.
“I want my children taught religion at church and at home. That’s where that needs to be taught, not in school,” she said. […]After debates at past board meetings, the curriculum committee reported that the district could legally implement such a class, though its members said they could not support it because of concerns.
“Their main concern was, what teacher would we get to teach such a course? Would it be a teacher who was a religious-leaning person, or a teacher who is not a religious-leaning person?” Board President Spencer Brittingham said.
He said no teacher has been selected yet. The district will wait to see if the course is approved, and then choose a teacher. “We’re going to have a little more discussion, then I’ll call for a vote and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Brittingham, who said he’s not sure how he’ll vote, said the outcome is far from certain. “Just from what’s been said in meetings, it could be up or down. It could go either way,” he said. “We have gotten emails vehemently against this and emails from people who are strongly in support of it.” [..]
“We are very clear on this. We’re not trying to tell students what to believe,” said Sarah Jenislawski, executive director of the Bible Literacy Project, which created the curriculum.
The BLP is a consortium of educators and religious leaders created in the 1990s to find a consensus on how to teach a Bible class in a way that doesn’t upset the balance between religion and the state.
The group has been endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, the National School Boards Association, the National Bible Association and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, and even the American Jewish Committee and the Council on Islamic Education.
Your thoughts?