Bible Stories in School

I heard Bible stories at Sunday school. Especially at the early grades, with Mrs. Goldstein and Mrs. Berkowitz, both of whom were great storytellers. Nothing is more important than telling stories.

Real school, public school, began each day with the reading of a Psalm and a prayer that contained no references to any clearly anti-Jewish doctrine, though it came from Christian sources. Then we recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

But there was no Bible study. That wasn’t the same sort of thing as science, math, English, and social studies. That was the message I got. The stories were now from American and English literature, first the special stuff written for schoolkids, then from real books. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Welcome to Venezuela, America)

That changed at ninth grade when I went to a private Quaker school not too far from where I lived in southeastern Pennsylvania. Aside from the science, math, English, and history (no social studies there), religion was on the agenda: there were regular Quaker meetings for worship and a regular weekly religion class.

The Friends had a history of religious tolerance, so I was not treated in any lesser way for not being a professing Friend. Some of the religion teachers were mediocre; one had some real problems that manifested outside of class; and one was really smart, funny, and interesting, an ex-Episcopal priest. That last was one of the better classes in a high school that gave me many high-quality classes.

I am in touch with some of my Class of 1969 classmates on Facebook. I have fond memories of them, and our exchanges are almost exclusively friendly. Many have headed in a different political direction than I have, but mostly, differences have not led to resentment or cancelation. Friendship, blessedly, seems to trump politics at least here.

But remembering the important religious component of our education, I was just a little surprised to read what felt like boilerplate talking-point response to recent developments in public education.

For just recently, Louisiana passed a bill requiring a poster of the Ten Commandments to be posted in all state classrooms, and Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, mandated Bible study in Sooner public schools from grades 5 though 12.

My friends’ posted objections to this are not nuanced. These posts take it for granted that Bible study must necessarily be a religious act that, as such, cannot be endorsed by the government under the First Amendment. In this age of exaggeration and catastrophizing, this is portrayed as part of the overthrow of democracy that has been a major left theme this go-around.

These arguments and their like work by premising a Manichean duality that is endemic to woke thinking. It is a stark battle against an evil so complete that even to listen to the other side’s argument makes one as suspect as wearing a Trotsky for Premier button at the Moscow Show Trials. Anything other than wholehearted affirmation of the woke position is evidence of fundamental evil. And for today’s wokeists and those who unreflectively support them, religion is fundamentally evil, with the exception of the solipsisms of the Lawn Sign Catechism and, apparently, the Teheran mullahs’ brand of Islam.

I remember when public school Bible readings and school prayer were stopped. We had great discussions in my public school’s social studies classes about the landmark Supreme Court decision that declared that mandated Bible reading and prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

My teacher was good — we went into deep discussion about what made it a debate, to understand the very real ideas that motivated law-abiding citizens on both sides of the question. So, in the spirit of those good discussions from my youth, I went back to look at the Abington v. Schempp opinion banning Bible reading as well as the earlier landmark Zorach v. Clauson case that upheld New York’s released time program for religious instruction.

As I had remembered from decades ago, the Abington decision left plenty of room for study of religious texts. It forbade directly the devotional act of a daily Bible reading which was not treated as academic material — no questions, no discussions, no papers, no marks. But as for study, Justice William Brennan, concurring with the majority, wrote:

The holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the Bible is involved, it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention of religion.

To what extent, and at what points in the curriculum, religious materials should be cited are matters which the courts ought to entrust very largely to the experienced officials who superintend our nation’s public schools.

The last sentence sounds somewhat naïve today, when the trust our institutions enjoyed 80 years ago has been largely squandered. Here, my friends dismiss the bona fides of the officials in Louisiana and Oklahoma without considering the prominent place that the very liberal Justice Brennan carved out for study of religion and religious texts. I would admit straight up that the Bible could be taught in a way that indicates governmental support of one particular religion. But I differ — and Justice Brennan differs — with the the argument that it is impossible to teach Bible in a way that one teaches great literature.

Reading great books in English class was what I liked the best in high school. The teachers were exhilarating, the texts were powerful, and the discussions required careful reading and consideration, not ideological profession.

All the texts had something to say and we weren’t required to agree with any of them. But we had to understand the author and the power of his or her art and argument and we had to listen to each other with respect and make our criticism constructive. (READ MORE: All Are Bound by the Law)

That was exactly what had made Mr. Hammer’s religion class fantastic, and what works in any discussion of serious matters. These are skills we need to have in a constitutional democracy; our tendency to want only affirmation on the one hand and to critique destructively on the other are germs in the plague of civilizational decay.

The issue of real Bible study ought not to be an issue that divides left and right. The very, very progressive Justice William O. Douglas wrote in the majority opinion in Zorach:

[We do not] find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. Government may not finance religious groups nor undertake religious instruction nor blend secular and sectarian education nor use secular institutions to force one or some religion on any person.

But we find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence. The government must be neutral when it comes to competition between sects.

What is stunningly right here is that Douglas clearly implies that opposition to religion is itself sectarian and is not entitled to preferential support from the government. The government cannot take a stance hostile to religion, as that itself is a sectarian claim to ultimate meaning.

In today’s discussion, the stance of Douglas and Brennan, both supporters of banning devotional Bible reading in school put to shame the wokeists’ sectarian thoroughgoing rejection of traditional American religion. The very opinions by which they establish their disestablishmentarian views judiciously defends a proper place for religion. They tell us that we dare not reduce the debate over the highest of things, the superordinate principles of life, to the level of a squabble between two-year-olds.

Don’t Ban the Bible

The solution is not to ban the study of the most influential book in human history, or at least the book on anyone’s short list of the most important. It should be, rather, to know it and understand it in the same way that schools are capable of teaching any important and influential book, fully respecting all well-considered opinions.

It’s a terrible sign in any age when we lose the words to share our insights. It’s all the worse when those words are about the most important of things, which this surely is to all involved. Let’s bring ourselves together by teaching how American democracy can still bring us all together in pursuit of the truth, in our schools and in our homes and houses of worship, in blessed freedom.

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