I've got little objection to public schools offering
comparative religion courses to juniors and seniors as electives, except when school districts cannot adequately afford to fund the basics or to pay teachers enough or to order supplies. However, teaching a Bible class in public school--elective or not--using textbooks from unapologetic Bible advocates is merely a veiled attempt by local government to establish Christianity as the official religion of
New Braunfels, Texas.
Actually, this *isn't* an attempt to establish an "official religion," although I'm certain folks on both sides of the "debate" assume it to be so.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit I was concerned at first, since area media coverage wasn't very substantive. But I did some checking and found out this isn't Dover redux.
An informative review can be found here from the Society of Biblical Literature:
http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=465
Also, there's an interesting article by Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center, here:
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=5052
I agree that a comparative religions class would be preferable, but this isn't a bad curriculum.