Teaching the Bible in Public Schools May Not Go Like You Want It To

Be careful what you wish for

I hold the Bible in the highest regard and consider it the inerrant word of God, spiritually inspired and entirely true. So it may seem counter-intuitive for me to say that I don’t think it is a good idea to teach it in public schools. But why not? After all, getting more people exposed to the Word would seem like a good thing, wouldn’t it? And getting to them at a young age would seem even more beneficial. So what would be the problem with teaching it in public schools?

Well, to start with, who will be teaching the Bible to these fresh young minds? A lot of the time it will be someone who is A) not a believer in Christ, and perhaps not even a believer in God and B) very likely to be opposed to the idea of teaching the Bible on the grounds that it looks a lot like the state endorsing a religion over others, in violation of the Constitution. Now, I’m not a Constitutional scholar and I’m not qualified to say if this violates it or not, but there’s no arguing that there are going to be a lot of people who will be convinced that this does, and the fact is that a lot of them are going to be the ones teaching our children in public schools.

So what we have is a situation where public school teachers, who may or may not hold to the idea of the Bible as the Word of God, who may or may not agree with the idea of teaching it in the first place, who we’re going to assign the task of teaching this critical book that contains the very words of eternal life to our children. Does that make sense? That the person we entrust with this role in our children’s lives is someone who is likely to view the Bible as merely a book of stories from time past, or perhaps as a problematic book that teaches ideas they are opposed to? Why are we tasking them with this? Do we really think that exposing our children to the Bible in this manner is supposed to bring them into a better understanding of scripture as something that is God-breathed and holy?

I’m not saying this in any way to disparage these teachers. I just think it is important to understand the position they have been put in by this policy. They have to teach the Bible, a book that invokes strong reactions from just about everyone across the spectrum of politics, social issues and ideologies, and somehow navigate their own feelings about it in teaching it in a manner that is only vaguely spelled out by the powers that be. Are we supposed to expect they will do so in a way that conveys reverence for the Word, or should we be more realistic and realize they will likely teach it in a manner that reflects their own views on it? Can any teacher really teach anything with perfect neutrality? And should the Bible be taught in a neutral manner in any case?

You can perhaps start to see the can of worms that this policy is likely to open up. Look, I want children to be exposed to the Word, but I can’t help thinking it would be better for them to be exposed to it by their parents. After all, isn’t this one of the main roles of godly parenting? Doesn’t the Bible itself speak about fathers passing wisdom to their children, and parents teaching their children in the ways of the Lord?

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (ESV)

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4 (ESV)

Why are we going to abdicate this responsibility to our public school teachers, who are there to teach our children about how the world operates? Who is more qualified to teach the Bible to children, their believing parents or whomever they were assigned to for third period?

If we do want schools to be involved in teaching the Bible to our kids, we have Christian schools for teaching Christian doctrine and the Word. We can always send our kids there if we don’t feel that public schools are meeting their needs. We have Sunday Schools in our churches and bible studies and youth groups. Why do we want to shoehorn the Bible into public schools, a secular institution that is inevitably going to dilute down it’s meaning and message? Why force people who don’t want to teach the Bible to do so against their will, and why would we think that’s going to result in a positive outcome, for them or our children?

I’m sure that there is an argument to be made that just exposure to the Word will convince some to dig deeper into the Bible to see what it is all about and be changed by it, up to and including being convinced to give their lives to Christ. I’m all for that, certainly. But for every person who is led to dig deeper, there are likely to be ten who will consider this just another way that Christians are trying to force their beliefs onto everyone else, and will be driven farther from God, rather than closer to Him. How tragic that would be, surely.

I wonder if anyone has considered the broader ramifications of forcing the teaching of the Bible in public schools. How long before there is a challenge to this policy, not on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state (an expression that is not present in the Constitution to start with) but rather on the grounds that it endorses Christianity over all other belief systems (which the Constitution does prohibit)? Are we going to be able to offer a constitutionally plausible argument for why we cannot also teach the Koran, the Hindu Vedas, and the teachings of Buddhism when interested parties start filing their own challenges? I’m sure the superintendent in this story is not going to allow any such thing, but it may be taken out of his hands if he pushes this too far. After all, it’s not hard to see that the whole point of this policy is to challenge the very idea the Christian teachings should be kept out of public school curriculums. This is intended to be a test case for the Supreme Court to rule on. The problem with relying on the Court is that, well, you never quite know what direction they will end up taking us in.

Instead of trying to shoehorn the Bible into our public schools, perhaps we should be encouraging and supporting efforts to share the gospel and the Word through extracurricular programs that can still take place on school grounds. Starting a Bible study group in your school would be one way to do this. Then people would be coming who want to be there and get into the Word instead of having it forced on them through classroom instruction. Maybe a course on the Bible after school. There are lots of ways to bring the Bible to our public schools kids that don’t have to involve it being added to the student curriculum.

I do want revival for our nation. I understand at least some of the motivation behind this push to teach the Bible to students. I wish it were that simple, but for a lot of reasons, including the ones spelled out above, I have little faith it will work. It feels too much like us trying to do things our way instead of letting God do things His way.

Maybe this superintendent is convinced he is following the Holy Spirit’s leading. If so, nothing I say here should dissuade him. I’m speaking from my own revelation and it doesn’t lead me to the same place. We should not be ashamed of the Gospel, but that doesn’t mean we should force it on others. Ministering to people takes patience and commitment. Really benefiting from Scripture requires more than just having it taught to you in a public school setting when you may or may not be interested in learning it at all by someone possibly just as ambivalent as you are. May our children hear the Word, and be changed by it.