Bible in School Libraries

[Cecilia Baker <whatever@INTELLINET.COM>]

I would like to recommend an excellent book:  Finding Common Ground; a first
amendment guide to religion and public education edited by Charles C.
Haynes, Ph.D., and Oliver Thomas, Esq., legal editor.  It is published by
the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, c1994. It
is available from them for around $12.  They have a website I believe and
their address is 1207 18th Ave., South, Nashville, TN  37212  phone
615-321-9588.

In Chapter 6 of that book you will find questions and answers about Religion
in the Public School Curriculum.  Here is a quote from the Supreme Court
case Abingdon vs. Schempp (the school prayer case that prompted rulings
against state-sponsored school prayer and Bible reading):
        [I]t might well be said that one's education is not complete without a
        study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its
relationship to the advancement of civilization.  It certainly may be
said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic
qualities.  Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the
Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular
program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First
Amendment.

This chapter contains the historic agreement that was signed by a widely
divergent group of organizations including the NEA, the National School
Boards Association, the National Association of Evangelicals, The Baptist
Joint Committee on Public Affairs, the American Jewish Congress, The
American Association of School Administrators, the National Council of
Churches of Christ in the USA, the Christian Legal Society, and others.

We do need to have a way of finding "common ground" so that the church and
state issues that come up can be discussed with civility and respect.
Schools may neither inculcate nor prohibit religion.  We do not inculcate
religion by having a Bible in the collection.  I highly recommend this book
for its excellent treatment of this subject and it also has an extensive
bibliography on teaching about religion in both U.S. and world history.
Every school board and administrator could make use of this book for its
sample school district policies concerning religion in the curriculum.

   Cecilia Baker, LMS
   Cord-Charlotte H. S. Library
   225 School Road
   Charlotte, AR  72522
   bakerc@cchs.ncsc.k12.ar.us   (school)
   whatever@intellinet.com  (home)