When I first met my wife, she owned a toy poodle that was unexpectedly smart. It was impossible to give this dog a pill the same way twice, because she'd figure out we were giving her a pill. We'd put it in cream cheese -- she'd eat the cheese and spit out the pill. Ditto any number of processed meats, cat food, butter. We were forced to keep finding new ways to shove a pill down her throat.
Well, judging from the latest bit of drivel from David Gelerntner in today's Los Angeles Times, the radical religious right considers the rest of us their poodles. After decades of trying to pass their religion off as science, they've come up with this:
Teaching the Bible in public school raises ticklish problems. Because our public schools must not be used for preaching religion, they must teach the Bible purely as literature.
They're trying to sneak their religion down our throats again....
But without knowing the Bible, you can't begin to understand English literature or American history. And a recently published survey finds that American teenagers don't know the Bible well enough. (The study was commissioned by a group called the Bible Literacy Project, conducted by Gallup and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.)
How to respond? Do we dare teach the Bible in our own public schools, built and staffed with our own money? Or do we surrender to Creeping Litigation Anxiety? To the fear that any course that includes the Bible is bound to provoke lawsuits -- although there is nothing unconstitutional about teaching stories and language fundamental to American culture?
How to respond, indeed? The first response would be, "Sez who??" Just who decided that the bible is fundamental to American culture? Gelertner? Falwell? Britney Spears? The bible is certainly omnipresent in our culture -- but that doesn't make it fundamental.
Can you understand American culture without knowing the biblical context of "covenant," "promised land," "shining city on a hill"?
Uh, yes.
Further, the Bible and Bible-centered Protestantism are central to U.S. history -- to your history if you are American, whether you are Protestant or not. The founders had varied beliefs, writes the philosopher-historian Michael Novak in "On Two Wings," but they found common ground "by appealing to the God of the Hebrews and the religious heritage of the Torah, a 'Biblical metaphysics.' "
With regard to history, the fact of Protestantism is significant. The "metaphysics" of Protestantism is not. And, sadly, the fact of Protestantism in our history is that it was used all too frequently to exclude those who were not Protestant from civic life.
As for the Founders, "biblical metaphysics" was almost as far from their minds as DVD players. The "common ground" they found with regard to religion is enshrined in the First Amendment. The true common ground for them was a conviction that matters of religion were between the citizen and his or her god -- with no need for government to intrude on the relationship. In fact, their common ground was a keen awareness that when government did intrude on that relationship, the results were disastrous for church, state, and citizen alike.
And the Bible remained central throughout American history. Abraham Lincoln (for example) called Americans the "almost chosen people" -- one of the most pregnant phrases in our history. His important speeches are steeped in the Bible.
There is no question that Lincoln appreciated the bible as literature. Undeniably, he lifted its phrasing and its cadences to ennoble his own language. However, it's much more useful to consider the uses to which he put such language. Lincoln used the bible inclusively, to communicate with all Americans -- and to communicate with them as Americans, not as Christians or Protestants or any other subgroup.
The nobility of his aims and his language are a reflection on Lincoln, not on the bible. The language of the bible has also been employed by any number of hate mongers -- fella by the name of Bush comes to mind.
(Lincoln was also extremely fond of the humorist Artemus Ward. I don't see Gelerntner claiming we should teach Artemus Ward in order to gain a better appreciation of Lincoln.)
After the obligatory bashing of the ACLU, Gelerntner offers this:
Favoring Bible-as-literature courses doesn't imply that you favor religion in public schools, but you might fear litigation anyway. In Odessa, Texas, more than 6,000 people signed a petition demanding an elective in Bible literacy. Opponents argued that it would invite lawsuits. Finally, the course was approved. In Frankenmuth, Mich., people argued for a year about such a course; the board finally turned it down.
Americans should demand that their children be taught what their cultural heritage (their literature, their history) is all about.
The great thundering secularist tide that swept the Bible out of public school education is about to turn. Tides always do. Odessa is a portent.
This is a portent, all right, but not of a turning tide. This is a fallback position. They've tried to get their religion taught as science. Now they want to get it taught as literature. What's next -- the bible as geometry? The bible as Home Ec? Why not Phys Ed -- all that smiting is very aerobic. Not to mention all that begetting...
I wonder, are they also willing to have the bible criticized as literature? It's unfocused, cluttered, meandering. Its characters are one-dimensional, its plot developments unconvincing, its dialogue stilted. And it's preachy.
No, favoring bible-as-literature courses very much implies that you favor religion in schools. One need only look at the fervor with which its proponents make their demands. This is a religious fervor, folks. Does anyone get this worked up about Algebra? Or gerunds? Or Great Expectations?
Try some word association. If anyone says "bible" no one is going to say the first word that pops into their head is "literature." Unless they're lying. Which the bible says you shouldn't do. The bible can legitimately be looked on as literature, but that is not its primary purpose, or its fundamental role. It is first and foremost a work of religion. You cannot separate it from that.
One final thought: If these people have such faith in God, why are they so convinced He needs the help of the government -- an entity they otherwise deride as bloated and ineffectual?