Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: March 22, 2007 - # 912 – Georgia’s New Bible Class (812)

The Bible, with the passage by the state legislature of a bill allowing schools to offer Bible classes in Georgia schools, has again become a lightening rod between two opposing forces – those supporting the teaching of the Bible in public schools and those opposed to such teaching.

            The legislature even named the classes they suggested be taught – ‘Literature and History in the Old Testament Era’ and ‘ Literature and History in the New Testament Era..’ I think the word government should have been part of the title because it is a dominant theme in both Testaments.

            During my recent hospital stay I found a copy of the Gideons New Testament/Psalms Bible in my room. I began reading it in the hospital and completed reading it soon after my discharge.

While I have read the Bible many times in the past 50 years never had I read the New Testament from beginning to end with such dedication. It was an enlightening and revelatory experience reading those 27 separate and distinct books.

Their literary and historic messages are messages of hope for me living in my world today that has changed little from 2000 years ago. Ruthless tyrants are still in power (compare the rule of Herod to that of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe today); we still have the poor; we have deteriorating moral issues (compare Sodom and Gomorrah with today’s culture represented by television today), etc.

 The message in those 27 books is a message as applicable to our day as it was to their day anciently. That message is still clear and concise. That message: “there will be an eventual triumph on this earth of God over the devil; a permanent victory of good over evil; of the saints (believers) over their persecutors; and of the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of men and of Satan.” These are not words written to proselyte souls but they are words that will cause a student to ponder and to think about who they are, and the path they should follow in building their own lives. Isn’t this true education?

But they are also words modern day secularists, those who would establish an “administrate state” (socialistic/communistic) government that “presupposes the rule of a bureaucratic or intellectual elite,” want detached from America’s students and their culture of individual liberty. One group, the American Civil Liberties Union, leads the opposition to this experiment. They know, more than most, that the Bible was the Founder’s source of inspiration in establishing liberty in America who then “mutually pledge[d] to each other our [their] Lives, our [their] Fortunes and our [their] sacred trust.”

Nor can we forget that ‘religion, morality and knowledge’ were essential ingredients in early America. These words were even written into the 1787 Northwest Ordinance. Article 3 reads,: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Franklin said religion, “is a fundamental system of beliefs concerning man’s origin and relationship to the cosmic universe as well as his relationship with his fellowman;” “morality,” said Franklin, is, “a standard of behavior distinguishing right from wrong,” and knowledge, he said, is  “an intellectual awareness and understanding of established facts relating to any field of human experience or inquiry, i.e., history, geography, science, etc.” Franklin seems to have fully understood the requirements of a sound education for his day as well as for our day.

Neither must America forget that the Bible, freedom and liberty are synomonous. The first book printed on Gutenberg’s new printing press was the Bible. That book changed the world and birthed the Reformation that eventually led to the settling of America where liberty was restored to a world enslaved and ruled by tyranny. Also remember the Great Apostasy reigned for a thousand years –- in spiritual darkness and ignorance.

Hopefully the Cherokee County School Board will make these two classes available to their students.  There are hundreds of literary stories, with exciting plots, in the Bible that will parallel today’s soap operas, with good and evil as evident then as it is in our culture today. Ruth’s story is a story of love, family fidelity, and support. The historical lessons to be learned by walking with Paul throughout the region will bring the students into contact with the various forms of government and cultures practiced by the Egyptians, Israelites, Romans, Greeks and others that dominated the region.

            Georgia’s schools boards need to ponder this opportunity prayerfully. The issue is not just about the teaching of the Bible as literature and history, it is about America’s freedom, for generations to come. 

            A question – is it time today’s students begin pondering Jefferson’s, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” America’s foundational words he inserted into the Declaration of Independence? I think it is.