AUSTIN, Texas (ABP) — The vast majority of Texas school districts offering courses on the Bible are doing so in an inadequate and unconstitutional manner, and districts in other states are probably no better, according to a study from a progressive watchdog group.
“Reading, Writing and Religion: Teaching the Bible in Texas Public Schools,” released Sept. 13 by the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network, was the first study of its kind. Researchers requested information, citing the Texas Public Information Act, on any Bible courses taught over the past few years from each of 1,031 Texas school districts. Its findings focused on the 25 districts that offered elective classes on the Bible in the 2005-2006 academic year.
The 92-page report detailed significant problems with the academic value and legality of the way the courses were taught in all but three of those districts.
“[M]ost public-school Bible classes inappropriately and unconstitutionally present sectarian views as fact and adopt an overall approach that explicitly or implicitly encourages adoption of religious beliefs, typically those held within certain branches of Protestant Christianity,” wrote Mark Chancey, who is the report's chief author and a religion professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
“Further, by explicitly or implicitly encouraging commitment to those particular beliefs, these classes can be construed as disparaging other religious views,” Chancey continued.
The report found three main problems with the state's public-school Bible courses:
— Many of the courses “fail to meet even minimal standards for teacher qualifications and academic rigor” and many “have teachers with no academic training in biblical, religious or theological studies.”
Chancey noted that many of the courses use the Bible as their only textbook or use supplementary materials such as cartoons, videotapes and workbooks of questionable academic value.
— The report also found that many of the courses “are taught as religious and devotional classes that promote one faith perspective over all others” and that they “reflect an almost exclusively Christian perspective of the Bible” and “assume that students are Christians, that Christian theological claims are true, and that the Bible itself is divinely inspired.”
Chancey noted that many of the school districts use a curriculum produced by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools that “betray[s] an obvious bias toward a view of the Bible held by fundamentalist Protestants.” Last year, Chancey wrote a report detailing several academic and legal problems with the conservative Christian group's curriculum when taught in a public-school setting.
Chancey also said that other Texas Bible courses he surveyed offered support for a “young earth” model of literal, six-day creation favored by fundamentalist Protestants; promoted the belief that current events offer support for the imminent return of Christ; and asserted that Christianity supersedes or “completes” Judaism.
— The report found that most of the courses “advocate an ideological agenda that is hostile to religious freedom, science and public education itself.” Chancey said the courses “often foster notions of American identity as distinctively Christian, sometimes introducing themes from the so-called 'culture wars'” and that they often use supplemental materials from groups like the Texas-based WallBuilders, which teaches that the separation of church and state is a myth.
Chancey noted that a similar 2000 study of Florida public-school Bible classes conducted by People For the American Way found very similar difficulties in that state. “It is quite possible that the situations in other states are similar, with relatively few courses offered but with a relatively high percentage of them inappropriately and unconstitutionally endorsing particular religious views,” he said. “Should such courses become more common, it is likely that these problems will also become more widespread.”
The report also commended three school districts — one in San Antonio, one near Austin and another in rural western Texas — for the quality of their Bible classes and showing “that it is possible to teach Bible courses in an objective and nonsectarian manner appropriate to public-school classrooms.”
The Supreme Court's 1963 Abington v. Schempp decision said devotional Bible reading in public schools violates the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion. However, the court never outlawed teaching about the Bible in a literary and historical context as an important part of Western civilization.
Chancey recommended that Texas school districts wishing to offer elective Bible courses offer better training in the academic study of religion and legal issues surrounding religion and public schools to the courses' teachers. He also suggested that school districts be more transparent and allow significant community input when studying whether to offer elective Bible classes and when developing curriculum for such classes.
He also recommended that school districts adhere to a set of consensus guidelines endorsed by a wide variety of religious and civil-liberties groups — including the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the National Association of Evangelicals. Titled The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide, it was released in 1999 by the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center and the Bible Literacy Project.
A spokesperson for the Texas Education Agency told the Associated Press that the agency doesn't keep records on, or monitor the content of, public-school Bible courses.
Last year the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools released a statement calling the Texas Freedom Network “a radical humanist organization” that is “desperate to ban one book — the Bible — from public schools.”
The statement also said Chancey's report “clearly misrepresents the curriculum's contents and objectives.” However, the council later altered its curriculum to reflect many of Chancey's changes.
-30-
Read more:
The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide from The Freedom Forum