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A traveling exhibit of Russian icons came to Chicago's Art Institute a few years ago. Soft lighting accented the icons, which were hung on walls and room dividers placed to create a labyrinthine path through which viewers wound their way. Neatly printed plaques beside each icon told the date of the icon's creation, the name of its creator, and any artistic techniques of interest.

As I walked through the exhibit, I realized that though I saw icons up close and learned a bit about their origin and design, I hardly understood them at all. To grasp their real significance, I would have to attend an Orthodox service and observe how Orthodox Christians use them. I would have to meditate on one in the context of worship. And though my Protestant sensibilities would prevent me from doing so, I knew that if I really wanted to grasp their meaning, I would have to pray through them, as do the Orthodox.

In short, I could not become icon literate by studying icons in a museum. You cannot rip icons out of their natural setting and expect to understand them.

Some call the Bible the icon of Protestants. It is the physical object more than any other that opens to us a window into heaven. I think about this, and my experience at the icon exhibit, every time I hear about another effort to teach the Bible as literature in the public schools.

You would think that as a card-carrying evangelical, I would be thrilled wherever and however the Bible is studied. As the Lord says through Isaiah, "My word shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isa. 55:11). Even when the Bible is taught as mere literature, the truth of Scripture has a way of penetrating the human heart.

But I sometimes wonder if the more relevant text in this discussion is, "Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot and turn and maul you" (Matt. 7:6).

I believe recent history justifies my concerns. Some early Bible-curriculum attempts—those around the 1970s, when I was in college—were written by scholars who seemed intent on demolishing conservative claims for the Bible. So some Bible-as-literature classes repudiated Moses' authorship of the Pentateuch; Genesis 1-11, Jonah, and Job were treated as mere myths; Jesus' resurrection was presented as a Hebrew version of the dying and rising god of Greek fertility cults—and so on. The point seemed to be that "educated" people understood the Bible as a flawed and disjointed piece of work, with occasional flashes of literary merit, namely in the Joseph myth, the Psalms, and 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. A hearty nod was also given to Job and Ecclesiastes, as ancient expressions of modern angst.

I may be exaggerating these early attempts, but as a devout young Christian, this is the distinct impression such efforts made on me.

Other efforts seem to have the opposite problem. Take the curriculum offered by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS). This curriculum, which has been used in 312 school districts in 37 states, has come under scrutiny lately. Professor Mark Chancey of Southern Methodist University, for instance, has written a balanced and thorough evaluation of this curriculum, which unfortunately shows a sectarian bias. For example, in the curriculum, the Bible is referred to as the "Word of God" in a few places, and archaeology is said to prove the authenticity of the Bible. In addition, a nationalistic sub-agenda comes through. As one highlighted sentence on the website says, "The Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, our educational system, and our entire history until the last 20 to 30 years." When one sees two leading proponents of America-as-a-Christian-nation—D. James Kennedy and David Barton—on the advisory board, you know something is up. In other words, the NCBCPS is assuming a particular religious viewpoint in its curriculum.

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October 2005, Vol. 49, No. 10