The Summer 2005 Wilson Quarterly discusses the article “Bible Illiteracy in America” by David Gelernter, in The Weekly Standard (May 23, 2005):
“Unless we read the Bible, American history is a closed book,” writes Gelernter... The rhetoric of the Bible runs as an unbroken thread through American history. “Wee are entered into Covenant with him for this worke,” said John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. “Wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us.” Three and a half centuries later, a sermon of Winthrop’s would be drawn upon, famously, in President Ronald Reagan’s evocation of a “shining city on a hill.” ... Woodrow Wilson “spoke in biblical terms when he took America into the First World War,” and other presidents have used biblical imagery to underscore their actions. In Gelernter’s view, however, most contemporary culture critics “are barely aware of these things, don’t see the pattern behind them, can’t tell us what the pattern means, and (for the most part) don’t care.”
It may not be easy to correct today’s biblical ignorance. Even well-meaning “Bible-as-literature” electives, crafted to circumvent the minefield separating church and state, may not be the answer. Severing the Bible from its religious roots robs the work of the power that made it such a seminal text for earlier Americans. And the churches and synagogues that might be expected to teach the Bible to new generations are not doing enough, Gelernter says.
On the one hand, defenders of a strict separation of church and state will be suspicious of attempts to focus specifically on teaching biblical literacy. General education classes about many religions is one thing, but focusing on one set of scriptures like this could give the appearance of favoritism. Nevertheless, the role of biblical stories in Western art, literature, and history is too strong not to pay close attention to it — just like closer attention needs to be paid to Greek and Roman mythology than to Norse mythology.
On the other hand, if public schools teach biblical literacy, they will have to do it like they teach literacy in ancient mythology — something which Gelernter thinks would rob the stories of their power. Perhaps he has a point, but we manage to get along without that “power” in teaching Greek mythology, so I suspect that it won’t undermine students’ ability to understand the Bible. Far more serious is the fact that people today continue to believe the Bible and, therefore, won’t appreciate an objective, dispassionate teaching of stories.
This is especially true if schools teach interpretations of these stories which don’t match the interpretations the parents think they should be presenting at home (but probably don’t — that’s why they want to foist the task onto schools in the first place). Schools can’t teach the Bible as if it were true. Schools can’t teach every possible interpretation and even just teaching a few of the most important will end up leaving someone offended.
Schools can only teach the Bible dispassionately and objectively — classes in biblical literacy cannot proceed in any other way. Will believing Christians allow that? Do they want government bureaucrats to be made responsible for teaching about their holy scriptures? Do they have the slightest idea what sort of can of worms they would be opening here?
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To begin an article with the statement that America is a Christian nation, and then never again bring up that subject, is brainless. Of course, this nation is Christian, and the colonials view of the Christian Bible would be helpful in understanding that. But no one seems to want to take that on. I would like to study and report on three areas of “Bible study” in America. First, do we still insist on taking the oaths of office with a hand on the Bible? Second, if the first question is “yes”, what was the origin of this? Third, why the flight that has taken place in our courts, when the oath to Jurors and the oaths given to witnesses no longer include: “so help me God.”??? It has been more like a panic than a carefully-made decision, but it has swept through our courts — all of them. What has happened to the place that the Bible once had in our governmental agencies? What was the origin of that “place.”? The big question is: should that “place ever be reinstated? Does anyone know whether President Obama when inaugurated, took the oath of office on the Christian Bible? Well, here I go, to try and answer all of these questions.
So, where else in the article was the issue of demographics relevant?
Demographically, in the same way that America is “white,” but so what?
Depends on what, exactly, the subject is.
Really? Please do show why you think this.
Some Christians do. Not all do, and others don’t. You should be careful in your use of “we”.
Some Christians imagine that their oaths aren’t worth very much without it.
There hasn’t been a fight.
Please do point to where there has been “panic”.
It hasn’t had an official place in any government agencies.
Yes, people do know – at least the people who cared and looked.
I just left a comment. What happened to it? GLevy