Watchdogging Tennessee's Religious Right: Wilson County Tries to Roll in the Hay with Religious Indoctrination

Nashville Scene has the goods on the sectarian curriculum that Wilson County is trying to sneak into its schools under the argument that the Bible will be presented as a historical artifact. The curriculum is offered by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, which claims through its founder that 16 school districts are already using it. Though the founder refuses to name the districts, I would be interested to know which ones are using it and why they feel the need to hide rather than promote that fact. Anyone out there know of a school district teaching bible classes already?

Let's monitor Wilson County: their school board votes in December whether to establish religion in their public schools in 2007.

But I've also got a bone to pick with Scene reporter P.J. Tobia's characterization of NCBCPS's mission, which he says is "to spread the Protestant Christian reading of the Bible." There is no one Protestant Christian reading of the Bible. The sheer number of denominations and un-affiliated Protestant bodies shows clearly that Protestants do not cluster around a single reading of the Bible. In fact, the Bible tends to divide and fracture Protestants from one another. The mainstream media needs to be a little more theologically savvy.