Debate Over Bible Course to Be Taught in Public Schools

National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools Argues that Bible Should Be Studied as Work of History and Literature

A Fort Smith School Board committee has rejected a planned high school class that would focus on the literary and historical aspects of the Bible, while a Gentry, Arkansas man is pushing for a Bible class in a handful of schools in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Logan Reed said the teaching of the Bible in school wouldn't promote Christianity. Instead, Reed said, it would allow students to become more familiar with the common references and stories mentioned in the Bible. Reed is so committed to getting the course into the schools that he would even see them taught by an atheist.

The Fort Smith School Board's curriculum committee voted down a proposal Monday that would have allowed. The full board still has to vote on the measure.

The course was developed by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. The organization states that their curriculum program is designed to serve the public through educational efforts. They hope to establish a state certified Bible course (elective) in the public high schools nationwide. Ostensibly the curriculum is to convey the Bible as a work of literature and history. The program is concerned with education rather than indoctrination of students. The Council argues that the central approach of the class is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, and that such an approach is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive program of secular education.

This approach is reminiscent of that Intelligent Design, which argued for the existence of God, based on the premise that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." All of its leading proponents are affiliated with the Discovery Institute which claims that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the evolution and origin of life.