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In 1997 People for the American Way and the American Civil Liberties Union successfully blocked a Florida school district from using NCB curriculum. But Tom Gallagher, Florida's commissioner of education, asked educators at Florida State University to draft Bible-course guidelines and training that matched the National Bible Association's recommendations. Gallagher says the main shift is from teaching the Bible as history to the Bible as influential literature.

This approach has riled evangelicals who say that teaching the Bible as literature undermines its historical voice. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is scathing in his review of Florida's new guidelines. "I don't think the government can do it right. Teaching it as literature is not neutral. There is a difference between teaching about the resurrection, a supernatural event, and the role of religion in the Puritans coming to America."

Land points out that The Bible and Public Schools follows Supreme Court rulings that "supernatural occurrences and divine action described in the Bible may not be taught as historical fact in a public school."

Stetson argues that students can become familiar with the Bible through school classes, and then learn about its supernatural significance in release-time programs that ministries can provide. "It is a two-pronged approach," Stetson says.

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September 4 2000, Vol. 44, No. 10