Hamilton County Teaches Bible in the Schools
History courses are standard curriculum in most schools...but not necessarily Bible History Courses...
Thanks to a special grant program students in Hamilton County can elect to study Bible History in public schools.
For almost 90 years students in Hamilton County Schools have carried Bibles to class and actively discussed Bible History.
Its thanks to an organization called Bible in the Schools...and its all legal.
Walk into Bryan Osborne's History class at Hixson High School and it may take a moment to notice what is unusual...Instead of text books, the students are using Bibles.
Sophomore Ebony Jones says, "It's not really based on religion. It's history, Bible history you're learning the history, it's just like another history class."
There are 19 Bible History classrooms in Hamilton County Schools.
Last year almost 4800 students took the classes, and it was all paid for with private money.
Bible in the Schools pays for teacher salaries, benefits, classroom materials, and even the school's portion of social security taxes.
Superintendent Dr. Jim Scales says, "No one is forced to take the course. And the students who take the course, they take it because that's what they want to do, and they enjoy the class."
Dr. Scales says the Bible History curriculum works well with the district's character education program, and it has a positive impact.
Bible in the Schools president Doug Stromberg agrees, "Knowing the Koran, for example, is not vitally important to living in Western Civilization. Knowing the Bible is, because of how it has affected. It permeates our language, it permeates our code of ethics, our morals, the values that we have as a country."
The course is carefully constructed so it doesn't support or teardown any religion, and it is an elective course that students and their parents chose.
Mr. Osborne says, "I've got students of every faith, every religion, or no religion in my class and since its not religion, since it is history, they all feel comfortable to simply study the Bible as history and see what it says."
Dr. Scales says that's why it works in the classroom, "We live in a society where all religions are embraced. So if we're gonna have prayer in schools, religion in schools in terms of mandate, what religion are we going to mandate, what prayer are we gonna mandate?"
This is an interesting note....It is perfectly legal to use state money to fund Bible classes in a public school as long as those classes don't promote or degrade any religion.
Stromberg says Bible in the Schools funds Bible classes in Hamilton County so those classes will never be removed from the schools due to or affected by budget cuts.
Bible in the Schools provides roughly $1,000,000 a year to Hamilton County Schools to cover Bible History courses.
Boo jesus, yay Clinton!
Boo jesus, yay Clinton!
Differences
Thank God we can still have this much...all the people screaming for "equality" and seeing their side just are trying to shut up our faith. IF they can say I come from monkies and fish or what not, someone has to show for the oposing side. Can't have a fair fight when you're drowning out your opponent...wether you believe it's a good investment or not, it's an option our children are BLESSED to have in this unbelieving world. The truth has to win out, and some people will see that in time, or in the end, but for now, there is nothing wrong with giving such a great mind-opening option as Bible history!
Why are they wasting
Why are they wasting valuable time and resources in doing so?
I understand that this is privately funded, but this is an opportunity cost for the students too. US youth ranks #29 in science education and is dismal on math rankings as well. Kids in Asia VASTLY outrank American kids with less money per student.
Is this really the right time to be teaching them the Bible?
As for the ethics and morals, there is an IMPROVEMENT in ethics when you break AWAY from the Bible.
Slavery was justified because of the Christian Bible. The South was winning the secular battle during the Civil War. Christianity also supported slavery in Europe The same goes for womens' rights, interracial marriage, and now the fight for gay rights.
The West has made staggering progress in the last 200 years because we no longer cling to superstition and faith. If we want a better society, we'll do the same with flawed Christian morality
There are several good
There are several good points made so far, and I’d just like to throw in a bit more. If this class is truly from a historical point of view, then it might not be as damaging as I thought. If it focuses on historical evidence, such as artifacts and archaeology then it is off to a much better start than the basic presupposition the bible maintains throughout which is basically, if it is written in here, then it is true just because. I still think this opens the door to the fundamentalists who want their idiocy to replace real history and science classes though. There is so much that science can explain now that they attributed to god 2000 years ago. Think about how much more people will know about life 2000 years from now. Hopefully by that time Christianity will have run its course and they won’t be having this kind of argument. Actually, I’m glad I had to take bible classes all through school, because it gave me so much evidence to cite when I argue about how evil Christianity is. I think they should offer philosophy classes though. Pay no attention to the fact that that’s what my undergrad degree is in. Even if there was just a two semester set, a basic introduction to the Greeks, and a quick run through the highlights of the rationalists and the (far wiser) empiricists. The beauty of this is that the students are exposed to more ideas. If you agree, write a paper in defense of the argument; if you disagree, write a paper attacking it. I just like the idea of people taking classes where they have to confront their beliefs and examine them in order to either make them stronger or tear them now and replace them with something more sensible.
Quite possibly a good thing
Well it's a start. I think high school students deserve the option of having well thought out courses on religious history. I think we underestimate their capacity far too often. Give them a chance to look at religion from a historian's perspective, and I think we'll all be proud of the results. This is, of course, assuming that it is a history class and not a sermon. We certainly wouldn't want to give our teachers the right to try to convert their students to their own particular religion/denomination.
Here's to hoping we see similar sponsoring of studies on Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Pagan history. Not to mention the wide variety of different philosophical systems developed throughout humanity's history.
I'm sure the private donors
I'm sure the private donors will step up to the plate like the "evil" Christians have, and sponsor history classes on Buddhist and Islamic history, and that scores of students will flock to those elective courses as they have to the Bible history classes.
It's kind of mind boggling that most liberal folks who say they value freedom of speech and diversity, are the first to want to deny those rights to people they disagree with. Hummmm.
They don't mind using the courts and the power of government to force everyone else to adhere to their philosophies, but they're the first to cry foul when those same courts issue an opinion they don't like. How is it again that students taking an elective course on the private dime is anyone else's business?
Please site some passages from Jesus' teachings which advocate violence against another person. Kind of confused as to this "evil" Christian idea. Historically, lots of bad stuff was done in the name of religion. That's quite different than studing, understanding, and applying the lessons of the Bible to your life. I'm confused as to how the concept of loving your neighbor as yourself is evil.
There seems to be only one religion in particular in modern times which advocates violence against others as a way of advancing their agenda, and we all know which one that is, don't we? The ones who riot and kill in protest of a cartoon. Yeah, those folks. The ones who have vowed to wipe Isreal off the face of the earth, and convert or destroy all the infidels of the world. They might be the ones we ought to direct our energies toward at this point. I haven't noticed any Christian rallies calling for beheadings lately.
Holding back civilization
If schools put more money into math and other sciences as they do into teaching kids about an invisible giant that lives in the sky who sends people to suffer in Hell because he loves them, we would have had colonies on Mars by now.
I'm an atheist--what's wrong with this program?
Probably nothing. Using the Bible as the basis for a history course is a good way to get kids interested in history. There is always the chance that one of the teachers will get carried away and start evangelizing instead of teaching, but if a student asks the teacher what he believes, I'd prefer an honest answer to having to dodge the question (me teaching the history of the Bible will likely have a different focus than that of a fundamentalist Baptist), as I'd like the students to know the bias of their instructor.
I will say one thing though: The removal of the Bible and prayer from schools has far less to do with a (perceived) increase in problems than both parents working outside the home and mass media coverage of every incident that happens anywhere. When kids enter school without knowing the alphabet, they're already behind. Parental responsibility is mostly a thing of the past.
Finally, the U.S. wasn't founded on Biblical principles, although, obviously, some of the Founding Fathers were religious men. Most of the founding fathers were deists rather than Christians, and connecting Biblical principles to sections of the U.S. Constitution isn't an easy thing to do. The Bible is largely about obedience to God, while the Constitution is based on freedom--almost the exact opposite concept.
Topher
Two Comments
First and foremost I agree whole-heartedly that the VAST majority of problems in today's society fall to the shoulders of parents who simply are not there to be parents. Its easy to let an XBox and Pizzahut babysit your child, its tough to BE a parent. As we approach yet another anniversary of the Columbine Highschool shootings I'm reminded how an attentive parent could've saved not only their own child, but many other people's children as well.
I must disagree that the Bible is "largely about obedience to God" Perhaps if a person reads only the Old Testament and does not understand the New Testament they might reach that conclusion.
The Bible as a whole is about grace, love, and abundant life.
Having said that, as I stated earlier I don't believe that a Bible History class will communicate grace, love, or abundant life. I belive it will communitcate obedience, another reason I do not like this class.
I hope they're teaching all
I hope they're teaching all of the Bible. The dashing out of babies' brains on rocks, the dogs licking up the blood, the quest for the foreskins off of the murdered foes. All of the abominations, not just homosexuality, but also shellfish, milk and meat, etc. These are important to consider how the Bible plays into today's culture.
Though, I doubt they'll teach it properly. Such as how the story of Noah's Ark is a plagiarism of parts of the Epic of Gilgamesh, or how the New Testament lifts from Zoroastrianism. And if you're going to connect it to America, include how the original Pilgrims were night and day different than the framers of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and how much they tried to distance themselves from a religion.
If you're going to teach the Bible. Teach the whole thing. Not just the stuff the fundies want. The Bible isn't all cute and cuddly. Though, I guess it's easy to leave that stuff out.
Bible History
Are they teaching the history of the Bible or teaching the Bible as if it is history?
Some benefit to society might come from teaching children a reasonable account of the mixed nature of the text of the Bible. Everyone should know that the Bible as we think of it today is the product of many different authors using many different styles and serving many different cultural agendas. An awareness that the Bible contains myth, parable, fable, poetry, and prophecy as well as literal history is a good thing, both for Christianity and society.
It would also help the overall situation, I think, if people learned about the evolution of the current Bible from a plethora of scattered ancient documents to the present day collection of officially recognized scripture. The lengthy, laborious, and emotional church-council meeting process of canonization should be especially enlightening
Rebuttal
This country was not founded on Biblical principles. It was founded on the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, etc. Not one of these Enlightenment thinkers was Christian. Rousseau was anti-Christian, Voltaire was atheist, and John Locke thought religion should not be forced on anyone.
Any study of American History will show exactly what I have written in the above paragraph is true.
And you have the balls to tell me that the lack of Biblical principles is why we're in such a mess? If anything it's because we're encouraging Biblical principles that we're in such a mess. Christians feel the need to discriminate against anyone who isn't straight and/or Christian, and the Bible backs that up. Christianity discourages reason, common sense, and logic, and tells you to have faith that a Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky will help you out with your problems.
In the Middle Ages, most of Europe was ruled on Christianity and forced religion. We didn't get anywhere for 800 years, when we started rejecting traditional religious values and started becoming artists, studying Science, and just becoming more human.
Galileo did scientific research and determined the earth revolves around the sun. The Church tried suppressing his theories because they went against the Bible. They put him under house arrest until his death. We now know that Galileo was right, and the Bible was wrong.
And Science says, "I don't know, but let's find out." Religion says, "I don't know, so God/Jesus/Xenu must have done it."
Sad to see so much anger in someone.
"Christians feel the need to discriminate against anyone who isn't straight and/or Christian, and the Bible backs that up."
So Christians do, and that is sad because the Bible absolutely does NOT back this up. Jesus Himself said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself."
Matthew 27:37-39
Jesus would never have us discriminate against someone we are commanded to love. And how is "love" defined?
"" Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
I don't agree with you I love in that I would lay down my life that you may know Jesus's grace, mercy, and love.
Second rebuttal
Apparently Jesus is being ignored then. We have Christians going around saying homosexuality is immoral and that people choose to become homosexual and that sort of thing. Anything that makes Christians look bad is covered up. Here's something you might find interesting: link (editor's note: the link was modified to conserve space). We have evolution being banned from being in taught in schools because fundamentalists want to support only their views, yet we have scientific proof of the existence of evolution, such as fossils, watching single-celled organisms evolve, etc. We have anti-abortion rallies from people who say it's "anti-God." We even have Christians wanting to censor media they deem violent of sexual. In that case, we should ban the Bible. There's plenty of sex and violence in there. We have missionaries going around preaching their views and converting people to Christianity. We have Alcoholics Anonymous, which takes people who feel bad about themselves, and teaches them the only possible way that they can become well again is to accept Jesus. The First Amendment says that there should be freedom of religion. This school is being allowed to go against that by teaching Bible study, which only benefits the Christians. I figured I should add in that there is no proof that a town called Nazareth even existed in Israel in the year 1 AD, and that there are no historical records of the existence of Jesus until 300 years after his death. Also, the eclipses that are mentioned to have existed in the Bible do not match up with recorded scientific data. Remember that not everyone is Christian, and not everyone feels like being bugged to convert to a religion they don't care for. Do yourself and everyone else a favor, put down the Bible, and pick up a science textbook. It will do a world of good.
on the other hand
Then why is it that most of the period between 312, when Constantine created the Catholic Church and the 18th century and the Enlightenment, we see so many horrific examples of christians failing to live up to those verses? Much of that was not only condoned by the church, but perpetrated by it. Ever heard of the Inquisition?
The poster you answer to has good points, and your protestations don't carry much historical weight.
Same atheist
Because if you can get enough people to believe a ridiculous story, you can get them to believe anything. Someone came up with the idea of a man taking two of every animal and putting them on an ark, even there is no scientific evidence of a global flood. You believe that a being created the entire universe in six days. Christians say they accept the Bible, when most of them don't even follow its laws. Hell, as the next paragraph will show you, the Church doesn't even obey its own bible.
Christians were committing these acts in the first place. The Church commissioned the Inquisition. The Jews were expelled by the Christians, who wanted to expel any non-Christian from Spain. The Church ordered the burning of books deemed "anti-Christian", and burned anyone who wasn't Christian to the stake. Ideas were suppressed if they didn't agree with the Church's views. And the amazing thing is that before 300, Christians were the ones being persecuted for their beliefs. If it wasn't for Constantine, your beliefs wouldn't exist anymore.
It was when Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers started rejecting traditional religious views that we started progressing. During the Renaissance, science, art, and ideas flourished, and we started studying things we could in depth, such as the earth, space, the ocean, numbers, etc., as opposed to a spiritual being whose existence cannot be proven by any means.
During the Enlightenment, we had thinkers who encouraged democracy, no set class system, and a massive increase in the amount of educated people. It marked the point right before the Industrial Revolution, when people started manufacturing goods and technological advances started increasing faster than they ever had in history. In a matter of 200 years, we went from a society who had no means of distant communication except talking, to a society with cell phones, computers, televisions, radios, and much more. We made it easier for massive amounts of goods to be produced in a matter of a day using machines, as opposed to weeks when made by man.
And this is solely because people decided to think for once. Faith makes no sense. It tells people to accept things the way they are. People used to think bleeding themselves would cure their diseases. Now we know that diseases are caused by different types of bacteria, viruses, and genetics. If we kept accepting things the way they are, everyone would be cutting themselves to try and cure AIDS.
And you can check my claims. They are completely, 100% historically accurate.
Tough to explain the fish
Tough to explain the fish fossils on the tops of mountains.
Some concerns...
Christianity has been influenced many ways over the past 2000 or so years by OTHER religions. This influence has included everything from church doctrine to decisions as to which of the original texts were / were not included in the Bible. So if it were truly a history course - I personally am curious as to WHY the course utilizes ONLY the Bible ?
There is also the concern of - is it really a history course about the Bible e.g. findings / current scientific beliefs concerning when the original texts were written ( and who wrote what )... why certain texts were included and some excluded ... how the inclusion / exclusion of those texts affected the continued genesis of the Christian religion... and so forth...
OR...
Is it being taught as thought the Bible is an 'accurate' documentation of history - based on the teacher's ( or ? ) personal interpretation e.g. the world is only 6000 years old and on quiet days Jesus used to take his late model dinosaur and go cruising around town... ?
It depends
It depends on one thing. If they are teaching the "actual" history of the creation of the Bible or the dogma that is attributed to it. The actual history may not be appreciated by many devout religious types. I encourage you to look into it yourselves. You may be surprised by what you find. Here is a good place to start.
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/pre-reformation.html
I actually graduated from
I actually graduated from the Hamilton county school system last year.
The class is an elective, and not a very publicized elective at that. At least at my school the teacher was a *very* enlightened Christian. He read any and all opinions on religion. Hitchen's "God is Not Great" was next to "A Purpose Driven Life" in his classroom's bookshelf.
The class itself, at least under him, was essentially the reading of stories from the Bible, discussing them, the morals or lessons they attempted to impart, and a healthy dose of commentary, questions and discussion from the students. No prayers, no invocations, no evangelism and as the article said, it's being funded by an outside group. That being said, I'd still prefer that we don't bring religion into public schools.
I'd rather see it replaced with a class dedicated to comparative studies of world religions rather than just focus on one. Or better yet, for some Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist group to point out the hypocrisy of the groups who push for Bible-centered classes to the detriment of any other faith by pushing their own Koran/Vedas/Pali Scriptures/Tao Te Ching classes.
I'd love to see what the parents who stand by this class would think of the exact same class but devoted to the Koran.
Iam so glad!!!!
It is about time this happened ! America was built on the Word of God and We need it back in School!!! Now we need to have prayer back in schools !!!!!
bible in schools is great
The Bible is the greatest thing that has happened to the schools. Because kids can read the Bible and get closer to god or even may get saved. But the ones who don't think its a good idea. i want to know how many of you actuyally read the Bible or even pray. Because when they took out the Bible from school. then they helped mess up the kids life and how they act when thedy took out paddeling. but as for the ones that are against it you must not care what happens to this world or you. but i thank GOD that i have a church that loves the lord and we would love to have every one that would come to join us to do so. Our church is called the oasis revival center we have servic every suday at 2:00 and every tuesday at 7:00
I see several things wrong
I see several things wrong with this. Firstly, the very inclusion of a Bible history course is nothing but promotion of a religion. I don’t care how much these presenters and Jim Scales say otherwise. The fact that there is a Bible history class conveys the idea that the powers at be feel the bible to be so important that it should be taught in schools. I know this class is an elective, but because of the bible’s special association with religion, to present the class as bible history is the same as presenting Christian history. I like the quote from Mr. Stromberg in the article which says that knowing about the bible is vitally important to our society because that is where our morals come from. If they had their way we would all be carrying bibles to school, work, the supermarket. The more people they indoctrinate, the larger their numbers grow, and the larger their numbers, the easier it is to indoctrinate. That’s why Christianity and really all religions operate just like the cigarette companies. Get them hooked when they are young and stupid, and they are yours for life. If this organization took the million dollars per year they gave Hamilton County Schools for such a ridiculous project and used it to help the poor it would be money much better spent. School should be about math, science, history, literature, language, art and philosophy. I see no place in an institution charged with presenting the basic facts of life to young minds for religion.
I am a Christian but I do not agree this is wise.
While I'd love to see the Bible taught in schools, a Bible History class really isn't the same type of animal. I think it's a poor idea (in this form) for two reasons:
1. Those people who wish to have public schools be a purely secular and Godless place will see this as Christians trying to force their way in and will portray it in the media as such. The Bible is not a solely Christian book, only the New Testament is. The Old Testament is cited by Christians, Jews, and parts by Muslims. So looking at this as a "Christian" thing is narrowminded and unfair.
2. Having been in a few Bible History classes in my time I can say that they usually remove all elements of religion, personal relationships, the supernatural, and the spiritual from the Bible. That leaves you with an empty shell of a book that isn't meaningful and would be hard-pressed to lead anyone to Jesus.
I will say that studying what is easily the most famous book in human history is certainly important, but looking at it as purely "history" or "literature" does not do the book, nor the students, justice.
In closing you can clearly see my arguement is not with the Bible in school, I think that's great, my issue is with the nature of the class, and the unfair amount of flak that Christians will catch because of it.
bible in schools is great
Bibles in school is a great idea. Because i am for this cosidering i am an active member to the best church i have ever been too. But still it is not a rediculas project! thats the problem with schools today. They took the bible out of school and they took paddling out when thats whats wrong with our kids today. but most of all i want to know how many of you people who say your against this actualy read your bible or even pray!!! and if you are ever in the birchwood area we would like to have you at our church called the OASIS REVIVAL CENTER sundays at 2:00 and tuseday at 7:00
RE: jacob davis
It should be no surprise that you're both functionally illiterate and a Christian. Schools should focus more on basic skills and less on religion so they don't graduate more individuals who write as poorly as you do.
Re:personal stab at jacob davis
Dear Mr. Schmoe,
You may not be a Christian however you are a human being and you owe those around you the respect that you feel you deserve. Hopefully while you are burning in hell for eternity there will be some English Lit Professor that may teach you phrases like "don't throw stones in a glass house" or "don't say you know how someone feels until you have walked a mile in their shoes". Mr. Schome I'm not sure that as a non-christian you try to live your life in way that if someone wrote a book about you that you be proud to say that it was a biography of yourself. And this the basis of how christians are taught to live our lives from as you would put it a young and stupid age. As human beings none of us existing on this earth be it before or after this time are/were/will be perfect. For that we pray that God will forgive us for our mistakes and disgretions and help us to choose a path that we will not make the same mistakes agian. Next will pray that someone will touch your soul and you will let The Lord in and join all Christians in our daily struggles as human beings being a Christain doesn't make you perfect but it allows you to feel help and hope from God and others in making the decisions in our lives. Hopefully one day you will be making that way with us through the Golden Gates and Rejoicing in the real perfect word that have you believed for so long you have already experienced. Mr. Schmoe I'll say a little extra prayer for you when I quitely bless my food in public while not affending you if you are seated next to me. Have a beautiful day Sincerley,
A christian from the ripe young and stupid age of 9 years old and learning from each up and down that the world and my choices throw at me while strengthening my beliefs with each non believer I encounter thank you.
bible teaching in schools
Thank- God it is about time that people start getting back to the common sense of our ancestors. If you think that is was so right to take the bible and prayer out of public schools in the first place,than what is your explanation to all the increase in trouble and violence in schools since it happened.
Religion is being taught in
Religion is being taught in our public schools everyday in the form of humanism. This has been classified as a "religion." Our kids have no choice when it comes to taking this course. So why not let them have a choice. They need to make decisions and decide for themselves.
Love it - The Bible is desperately needed in our schools.
This country was founded on Biblical principles. If you can't see that, then you are ignorant. No real study of American history can exclude the prominant influence that the Bible had on our nation at it's inception. If you don't like the Bible being taught in our school, so what. Deal with it, it's legal and it is here to stay. The exclusion of Biblical principles in our society is the reason this country is in the mess that it is.
RE: "This country was founded on Biblical principles."
Please refer to the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11.
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Bible in the schools
The tone of these most of these replies are extremely hostile against Christianity - my question to you people is this: have you decided yet which democrat (Obama or Clinton) you're gonna vote for?