Monday, January 16, 2012
271 - Education without the Bible
Spirituality Column #271
January 17, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)
Education without the Bible
By Bob Walters
The 11th-grade public high school English class was struggling to understand The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the autobiography of the brilliant 19th century orator, abolitionist, and former slave.
Eleventh-grade English in Indiana focuses on American Literature while 11th -grade social studies, synergistically, explores U.S. history. Douglass (1818-1895) is a key figure in our nation’s literary as well as civil rights history.
Douglass, born a slave, learned to read – illegally – first as a young boy by learning the alphabet from his owner’s wife, and then by reading the New Testament. Douglass later taught other slaves – illegally - to read the New Testament. While American public high schools basically did not exist until after the Civil War, most early education involved reading the Bible. Often it was the only book available.
The famous part of this particular Douglass story is slave-owner Hugh Auld’s rebuke to his wife. Auld said, basically, that “if you teach slaves to read they’ll become dissatisfied with their condition and insist on freedom … and we can’t have that.”
Now let’s return to the high school English class that was flummoxed by Douglass’s erudite and theologically-infused writing. I wasn’t surprised the students didn’t immediately appreciate the book’s reference to the semi-obscure “curse of Ham.” But I was flabbergasted some students thought it was a reference to food, specifically, to not eating pork. And I was floored that an adjacent phrase containing the word “scriptural” was impenetrable because the students didn’t know what “scriptural” meant.
This is how far removed many modern high school students are from the intelligence of Jesus Christ, of the Bible, and of centuries of theological thought and discourse. This isn’t about prayer in school. This is about students not being able to understand major parts of our nation’s history and, really, the majority of classical Western literature. Our culture is intellectually crippled by anti-Bible, no-Bible, non-God, Jesus-is-a-myth, “don’t judge me” obeisance to modernity and political correctness.
“Ham,” of course, was the youngest son of Noah. Read Genesis 9:18-27 to understand why Douglass would talk about Ham in relation to slavery. “Scriptural” means “from the Bible” (or other holy book if one practices another faith). I thought the students were going to faint when I pulled out a Bible to explain the curse of Ham.
“You can’t have a Bible in school!” one exclaimed. That’s how far we’ve slid.
Thankfully many public schools do study the Bible, if only in a literary or historical context. But to read the Bible – in public – for what it really and truly means?
Why, that’s illegal. Just ask Frederick Douglass.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) substitute teaches and understands – deeply – why so many public school teachers pray.
January 17, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)
Education without the Bible
By Bob Walters
The 11th-grade public high school English class was struggling to understand The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the autobiography of the brilliant 19th century orator, abolitionist, and former slave.
Eleventh-grade English in Indiana focuses on American Literature while 11th -grade social studies, synergistically, explores U.S. history. Douglass (1818-1895) is a key figure in our nation’s literary as well as civil rights history.
Douglass, born a slave, learned to read – illegally – first as a young boy by learning the alphabet from his owner’s wife, and then by reading the New Testament. Douglass later taught other slaves – illegally - to read the New Testament. While American public high schools basically did not exist until after the Civil War, most early education involved reading the Bible. Often it was the only book available.
The famous part of this particular Douglass story is slave-owner Hugh Auld’s rebuke to his wife. Auld said, basically, that “if you teach slaves to read they’ll become dissatisfied with their condition and insist on freedom … and we can’t have that.”
Now let’s return to the high school English class that was flummoxed by Douglass’s erudite and theologically-infused writing. I wasn’t surprised the students didn’t immediately appreciate the book’s reference to the semi-obscure “curse of Ham.” But I was flabbergasted some students thought it was a reference to food, specifically, to not eating pork. And I was floored that an adjacent phrase containing the word “scriptural” was impenetrable because the students didn’t know what “scriptural” meant.
This is how far removed many modern high school students are from the intelligence of Jesus Christ, of the Bible, and of centuries of theological thought and discourse. This isn’t about prayer in school. This is about students not being able to understand major parts of our nation’s history and, really, the majority of classical Western literature. Our culture is intellectually crippled by anti-Bible, no-Bible, non-God, Jesus-is-a-myth, “don’t judge me” obeisance to modernity and political correctness.
“Ham,” of course, was the youngest son of Noah. Read Genesis 9:18-27 to understand why Douglass would talk about Ham in relation to slavery. “Scriptural” means “from the Bible” (or other holy book if one practices another faith). I thought the students were going to faint when I pulled out a Bible to explain the curse of Ham.
“You can’t have a Bible in school!” one exclaimed. That’s how far we’ve slid.
Thankfully many public schools do study the Bible, if only in a literary or historical context. But to read the Bible – in public – for what it really and truly means?
Why, that’s illegal. Just ask Frederick Douglass.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com, www.commonchristianity.blogspot.com) substitute teaches and understands – deeply – why so many public school teachers pray.
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