The Importance of the Bible for American History

Demographically speaking, America is a Christian nation because most people are Christians. Most Christians, though, don't do a very good job at raising their children to understand the Bible. Biblical literacy is woefully inadequate to the task of understanding art, literature, and even American history itself. Should public schools take over the job?

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?

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Church and State News
• Religion in Public Schools
• Secularism 101