Ethics

Tennessee Approves Bible Course Curriculum

By Ed Brayton

The Tennessee State Board of Education has approved guidelines for an elective Bible course that, at least on the surface, appear to make for an academic, non-religious course in the Bible as history and literature. Unlike Texas, they had serious people involved in the process:

Kent Richards, Old Testament professor at Emory University and executive director of the Society for Biblical Literature, has spent the past five years developing guides for teaching the Bible in public schools. He worked with Tennessee on this course.

Richards and other state officials agree that the focus must shift to properly training educators who will teach the course.

"One of the important things is that teachers are teaching about the Bible and not professing some religion or professing that the Bible is the only road to take," Richards said. "That's what every school and every school attorney is concerned about, not crossing that line."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on February 03, 2010 (boomark / email).