Teaching the Bible in Public Schools

The possibilities demand creative dedication and support.

Hardly a week goes by without some newspaper or press service reporting about pending court cases on religion in the public schools. Michigan, North Dakota, Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Colorado: all have been in the news over this issue. The list is not exhaustive.

Pollsters know that among young people, interest in religion has increased noticeably in the last five years. And that interest often begins in high school, where the legal battles—even 16 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision on prayer and Bible reading—continue to be fought.

Is it legal to teach the Bible in public schools? If so, how? Is it actually being done? What is the latest legal opinion on the subject? Should evangelicals get involved in the fray? Dare we leave it to the secularists? To answer these and other questions at the start of a new school year, CHRISTIANITY TODAY editor at large Cheryl Forbes interviewed Jon T. Barton, a former English teacher at Santa Monica High School, an evangelical, a curriculum consultant in “religion studies,” and an expert witness in the most important legal case on Bible teaching in the public schools in 16 years, the Chattanooga case. Schools on Fire, which he wrote with lawyer John Whitehead, is to be published this fall by Tyndale. To evangelicals, the study of the Bible in the classroom is one of the most important issues in public education today. (Of greater importance to many are questions of the moral influence of teachers on students in lower grades and the impact made by doctrinal theories propounded by teachers in upper grades.) In the following edited version of the interview transcript, we present both information and, we hope, a vision for what Christians can do to turn around the public school system.

Question: What is the state of religion studies in the public schools?

Answer: There is great interest by students, but hesitancy among teachers and school boards about what is legal. In 1963 the Supreme Court simultaneously handed down two decisions: the Murray and Schempp cases. Those decisions took devotional Bible reading and prayer out of our public schools. I stress the word “devotional.” But the majority opinion, written by Justice Tom Clark, said that “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 a part of a secular program of education may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.”

Justice Brennan in agreeing with Clark added that to ignore the Holy Scriptures would be to ignore one of the major elements that helped shape our history and culture.

So although the Supreme Court has not given educators any guidelines on how to do it, it has said the Bible can be taught. For 16 years now we have had a problem: people think that the Bible was eliminated from the curriculum of our public schools. That is not so.

Q: Are there state laws that govern the teaching of religion?

A: It is legal everywhere to teach the Bible. The question is not, Can we? but, How can we? Therefore, some states have given guidelines. Ten years after Schempp, in 1973, California became the first state to enact legislation allowing the academic study of religion in the public schools. Shortly after that, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Vermont enacted comparable legislation. Michigan specifically outlined the qualifications people need to teach religion. California merely listed five criteria for a course: need for factual accuracy, need for empathy, no oversimplication, sensitivity, and avoidance of ridicule and prejudice. Also, a teacher in California is encouraged to take 36 semester hours of upper-level religion courses from a nonsectarian college. That is in addition to the semester hours he needs for certification—courses in education and in his major (English, history, social studies). These requirements demand a lot. However, I can say from my experience that if a Christian teacher is committed to seeing the Bible used fruitfully in the public schools, he can find ways to do it. And the rewards are enormous.

Q: Can you explain the distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian schools?

A: No state has ever said what a nonsectarian school is. No one really knows, because the Supreme Court has not defined religion. When I wanted to take courses at Harvard Divinity School I called the state department of education to see if they would accept that work. They asked me only one question: Does the school have required chapel? You can see from this how vague the whole area is. The courses a teacher needs are almost invariably taught only at a church-related college. But such a setting might be considered.

Q: What should a person do, then?

A: He should call the appropriate agency (the state department of education, perhaps) and say, “I want to go to ________college. Will their courses be acceptable to you?”

Q: Is it true that religion studies and theological studies are different?

A: Yes. The courses teachers need must be objective—“secular” in nature, if you will. Unfortunately, too many people think that an evangelical can’t be objective. They think that because you’re committed, you can’t be open-minded.

Q: Is it possible to define the word “objective” legally? And isn’t there a problem with the school board’s underlying assumption that evangelicals are not objective while nonevangelicals are objective?

A: Yes. But I think an evangelical can teach a Bible course without violating either his beliefs or the law. When I started a Bible literature class in Santa Monica High School, I was also an assistant pastor of a local church. But the school board had certified me as academically objective by having already appointed me to teach English. So I found no real problems.

Q: Is the lack of a legal definition of “objectivity,” then, a key to three issues: where you study, what you study, and what you teach?

A: Yes, so you end up with a de facto definition, and the burden of proof is on the teacher. The person to convince of your objectivity is the principal.

Q: How would you convince him of the objectivity of a proposed elective in Bible literature?

A: In the course outline you present, you should emphasize the primary sources—the biblical books. It’s the secondary materials that label us—the books and articles that concentrate on theological interpretation.

Q: Is it possible to study a subject only from primary sources?

A: I only mean to “emphasize” the primary sources. In a Bible literature class, for instance, you should spend most of the time reading the Bible. Basically, let the text speak for itself. When interpretation is called for, simply apply the common rules of literary criticism. Leland Ryken’s The Literature of the Bible (Zondervan) is an excellent example of how to do this.

Q: Let’s get back to the question of progress since 1963. You say people haven’t realized the extent of what could be taught in the public schools. But couldn’t it also be that evangelicals have been unwilling to go along with such legal requirements as neutrality?

A: Well, that’s surely part of the problem. A recent survey found that 16 years after Schempp many schools were still not strictly adhering to constitutional guidelines in teaching Bible literature. Now, it’s true that the Bible is a religious book, but it is not only a religious book. It has its literary side, too.

Q: There are a lot of people willing to teach the Bible from a secular perspective. Why should evangelicals do it?

A: Because evangelicals should not forfeit the teaching of the Bible.

Q: But may it not be too great a compromise to teach Scripture from a perspective that is not devotional or evangelistic?

A: To abandon the field to secularists is a grave mistake. The Bible will speak for itself if we read it. Suppose we have to do this in a literary way. It’s still the Bible, and God can still speak through it. Students will be affected.

Q: Doesn’t this approach ignore the purpose of the Bible?

A: But if you don’t teach the Bible as a source book for culture you’re cutting off students from centuries of art, music, and literature. I think Christians teaching in the public school are similar to the early Christians who had to conduct themselves wisely in the face of sharp antagonism and the tendency of others to misconstrue their motives.

Q: How did your students respond?

A: Some were totally unconcerned with the things I was trying to get at. But there were others who were interested. I had students return after graduating from high school to tell me they had become Christians, partly through those classes. Who knows what makes a person ripe to accept Christ? Why not a class in Bible literature?

Q: What kind of students take the class?

A: Christians and non-Christians. Bright students and average ones. Although I never asked, most students in the course of the semester would tell me what they believed. Eventually, my course grew to three sections per semester and one or two during the summer. Our first time around we signed up 86 students; the principal had been afraid we wouldn’t get 15.

Q: What kind of course was it? How should you teach the Bible?

A: My course was called “The Bible as Literature.” There are two basic approaches: the Bible as literature, and the Bible in literature. The Bible as literature takes the Bible as its primary source—studying it for its historical content, names, places, people, and events—which presupposes that the teacher has a good background in the Bible and such related fields as archeology. Or you could study Psalms as poetry, or Esther as having the ingredients of a short story, and so forth. The Bible in literature is not used as often. I think it should be the more frequent approach. Literature becomes primary, the constant among the variables. You read certain works of literature in light of their biblical allusions. Because I could point to other schools teaching the Bible as literature, I decided to call my course by that name. It’s important to have a precedent. Really my class should have been called, “The Bible and Literature,” because both approaches were used.

Q: What textbooks are available?

A: Perhaps the most widely used is The Bible Reader. It is the result of an interfaith cooperative effort by a rabbi, a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, and a humanities professor. It selects and abridges important passages of the Bible and highlights them with historical, linguistic, and cultural information.

Then there is The Bible As/In Literature, coedited by Ackerman and Warshaw, two pioneers in the field. They give key stories, poems, or excerpts from novels. For example, the biblical account of creation precedes a reading of James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “The Creation.” The editors developed the book from courses they had taught. It successfully combines both the “as” and “in” literature approaches.

Q: What about religion studies? I thought most public schools just taught Bible literature.

A: Some schools offer electives on world religions, which are known by three names—comparative religion, history of religion, or religion in history. Bible literature comes under the broad category of religion studies. And notice I said “religion,” not “religious.” That’s an important distinction. “Religion” is a noun, a name; “religious” is an adjective that implies an attitude. “Values” courses, known variously as values, values clarification, moral and ethical values, affective values, also come under religion studies.

Q: Tell me about the Chattanooga case.

A: That is the most significant legal opinion since Schempp. The Chattanooga case is in some ways, though, unlike any other Bible literature approach.

The program began in 1922. An outside group, the Bible Study Committee, selected its own director of the program, and he screened all the teachers. Then those teachers developed a curriculum that they took to the Chattanooga city schools and the Hamilton County schools. The committee provided teachers and materials at no cost to the schools.

When Schempp passed in 1963 a knife was driven into this kind of program. Many schools discontinued it, though there were exceptions, such as the Dallas Bible plan, which has never come under legal scrutiny because it is a release time program.

But Chattanooga was different. The legal suit brought against the city for using the program raised a couple of serious questions. One was whether there had indeed been a significant curriculum change since the Schempp decision of 1963. I was hired to help rewrite the program’s curriculum before the case went into court. (The judge made it clear that if there had been no new curriculum, the city would have had no defense at all.)

Q: What was the court’s decision?

A: First, the Bible Study Committee had to forfeit any connection to the school board. The final authority of who should be hired and what the curriculum should be must rest with the school boards. Since something on the order of a quarter of a million dollars has been raised a year, mostly by evangelicals, to underwrite the program, some people now are wondering whether to continue financial support. How do we know, they ask, if the curriculum will be what I can accept?

A second question raised in court: Is the intent of the program to propagate a religious viewpoint specifically an evangelical one? Or does it rather help to create a greater appreciation of the literary and historical qualities of the Bible? To make sure the latter course was taken, the court wanted uniform, minimum standards for selecting the employing teachers. Most states have no such legislation. This decision could not set a precedent. And the judge required minor changes in the elementary curriculum.

Q: What does the Chattanooga case do for Bible literature programs throughout the country?

A: First, it reaffirms that the Bible can be taught at all grade levels in the public schools. This is a much broader base than educators have generally thought since Schempp. Moreover, the judge said that to ignore the Bible would be to “ignore a keystone in the building of an arch.” And second, the Bible may be taught independently from other sacred literatures. I had been asked in court whether a Bible literature class can be objective if no other sacred literature is taught along with it. That, say some opponents, violates the principle of pluralism. Yet, the court clearly said that the Bible can stand alone in the curriculum.

The key to the Chattanooga case rests with the response of the Christian community. They must continue to pray for and financially support the Bible study program despite relinquishing control over it. Christians need to trust that if God can raise up believers to teach the Bible academically in the public schools, he can also see to it that the right people are going to be placed in positions of authority to administer the program that is cause in itself to continue giving support. Proposition 13 overnight knocked the supports out from under the traditional approach to school funding. Within 22 days of its passage, 33 states began a comparable approach to tax revolt. Every state is now dealing with some kind of tax limitation question. Few school districts have passed a bond issue—the bread and butter of school finance—for the last five years.

Property taxes traditionally finance four people-related services: fire, police, welfare, and education. Since people are losing confidence in welfare, support for it will be restricted. But people will not settle for severe cutbacks in fire and police. That leaves education. Many school districts will no longer have the money for certain programs. For example, in my school, all guidance counselors for the coming year have been eliminated. Some states have emergency funds available, but they won’t last long. Only Texas has a reserve of any consequence.

Q: Will religion studies programs suffer?

A: It’s possible. But the interest among teachers and students for those electives is high. That’s a plus. Also, outside groups could raise the money to provide a Bible study program that a public school board would run. I don’t know that every school district would respond the way Chattanooga did, but it’s one solution: the public raises money, the schools administer programs. If the Chattanooga decision holds up, then people in communities throughout the country could purchase materials and even provide money for a teacher’s salary for a Bible literature program.

Q: Is that really practical?

A: It’s at least possible. But Christians and Christian groups should consider it. It would be the single biggest opportunity within the framework of the law to see a turnaround in our public schools.

Q: Let’s back off and look at the big picture. How hopeful are you that evangelical teachers in public schools can do something worthwhile?

A: Many of us have made the mistake of thinking we can’t do much to teach about the Bible, or moral values, or the Judeo-Christian heritage. I think we should resist the temptation to throw up our hands in despair. Instead we should explore the opportunities God gives us—and there are lots of them.

He would have spared the 10,000 of Sodom and Gomorrah if as few as 10 had been “righteous.” That’s a striking ratio—1000 to 1. What would happen if we began to see our mission in the public schools this way? Under God, a single believer might play a part in the salvation of one thousand others.

Jesus told his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” Christian teachers in public schools are the salt, the preservative. And the Bible, appropriately taught, can be part of the savor.

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.