Democrats in Georgia and Alabama. . .have introduced bills authorizing school districts to teach courses modeled after a new textbook, "The Bible and Its Influence." It was produced by the nonpartisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project and provides an assessment of the Bible's impact on history, literature and art that is academic and detached, if largely laudatory.
The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. "Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way," said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of the bill. "We are not going to give away the South anymore because we are unwilling to talk about our faith."
"Thoughful" apparently has come to mean "blindly imitating." Naturally, shrewd Republicans see this move for what it is:
"Their proposal makes them modern-day pharisees," State Senator Eric Johnson of Georgia, the Republican leader from Savannah, said in a statement. "This is election-year pandering using voters' deepest beliefs as a tool."
...
Betty Peters, a Republican on the Alabama school board who opposed the initiative in that state, also dismissed the initiative as "pandering." Democrats, she argued, had adopted a new strategy: "Let's just wrap ourselves in Jesus."
They ought to know, having perfected the technique. A more detailed critique of the Dems' plan may emerge once Johnson, Peters, and their allies undergo plank removal.
Why is it that those who profess the most concern for declining role of faith in public life do the most to justify that trend?
Personally, I'd like to see more religion in public schools. Many people hold caricatured views of what religious adherents believe and value (not least because of politicians like those in the article). This would be inconsequential if religion were not a vital way of making sense of the world and relating to others for an enormous part of humanity. I'd love to see an upper level elective class in comparative religion in high schools--and I'd wager interest in the class would be high. This is a remote possibility, of course, at least until federally-ordered standardized tests include questions on the Five Pillars, the Eightfold Path, and the Great Commandment.
Tags: Religion; Politics
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