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Our Godly American Heritage Update -
The Bible in Public Schools.
For more information, call Dr. Chuck Seldon in Boise at (208) 830-6165.
The Bible in Public Schools Update
By Katherine Frazier, Boise
December07/January08 Edition of TVCNews
The organizations, Our Godly American Heritage and Idaho Values Alliance, are asking for help in the project of offering Bible courses in the public schools.
A powerful thing, your signature, would show your support for the course when your signature is put to the accompanying petition.
Parents and students in junior and senior high school may sign the petition shown in today’s Treasure Valley Christian News. This petition will be brought to the Idaho Legislature next session for their approval. Click on the following link to download the petition – please have as many people as possible to sign and return to Dr. Chuck Seldon:
http://www.tvcnews.org/downloads/Misc/BibleintheSchoolsVoteForm.pdf
Project director, Dr. Chuck Seldon, invites questions at his telephone, 830-6165.
Check out the following web sites about the importance of “The Bible and It’s Influence” and our Godly American Heritage: www.bibleliteracy.org or www.wallbuilders.com
Watch for continuing reports on GETTING THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Bible in Public Schools Update
By Katherine Frazier, Boise
Question: What is the most widely printed and distributed book in the world? The Gutenberg press was the first printer. Question: What was the first book printed on this machine? Answer: for both questions, the Bible, of course.
This collection of books compiled for some 35 centuries is the subject of "The Bible and Its Influence," copyrighted in 2006 and edited by Cullen Schippe and Chuck Stetson. Published by The Bible Literacy Project, it is a 373 page students’ elective course. It offers a tour of the whole Bible.
As the authors tell their readers, "...Knowledge of the Bible can be a key to unlocking other subjects...especially literature, art, music, and social sciences.....Every well-educated person needs to have a basic knowledge of the Bible."
Schippe and Stetson have given students a fine, scholarly and highly readable work that will further their literacy and prepare them for their years after school. They have joined with others in promoting the study of the Bible after years of neglect. To some who would say that parents should teach the Bible, this reviewer would ask if the parents should also be the only teachers of mathematics, science and foreign language? Parents are grateful for teachers who are prepared to lead young learners in the many disciplines necessary for life.
"The Bible and Its Influence" is available at public libraries.
Another major work aimed at getting the Bible into schools as an elective is being carried out by Dr. Chuck Seldon, Boise educator, in the organization "Our Godly Heritage." Dr. Seldon travels throughout the Northwest visiting legislators, principals, churches and others. In September he will be in Texas, at New Braunfels High School, working with Jennifer Kendrick who teaches Bible literacy there.
Her story was featured in the April 2, 2007, issue of TIME Magazine in an article entitled, The Case for Teaching the Bible. This issue can be read at the Boise Library. It also quoted pollster George Gallup who dubbed Americans as "a nation of biblical illiterates" yet in a survey of English teachers, there were no requirements of Bible texts. Shakespeare alludes to Scripture some 1300 times, but who of us could identify them?
Recently Dr. Seldon was invited by Calvary Church to present materials concerning the project. Over 2000 signatures have been collected in several churches and he encourages all churches to consider joining the project. He can be reached by phone at (208) 830-6165 (Boise).
Check out the following web sites about the importance of “The Bible and It’s Influence” and our Godly American Heritage: www.bibleliteracy.org or www.wallbuilders.com
Watch for continuing reports on GETTING THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
Wednesday, March 29, 2007
Time For Bible To Be Returned To Public Education
By Bryan Fischer, Executive Director - Idaho Values Alliance, Boise
www.idahovaluesalliance.com
The cover story on the April 2, 2007 edition of Time magazine is about the demonstrable need to return the study of the Bible to America's public schools. When a magazine that tilts as far to the left as Time recognizes the problems caused by biblical illiteracy, perhaps it's time everyone in America, including educators in Idaho, did something about it.
Idaho's 114 school districts already can offer the literary study of the Bible as an elective, but to my knowledge, none do so. Georgia last year became the first state in the union to offer funding for high school electives on the Old and New Testaments using the Bible as the core text. There is no reason Idaho can't become the second.
There are currently two curricula available for use in public schools, one developed by a graduate of Chuck Colson's Wilberforce mentoring program. Currently 460 school districts in 37 states are using one curriculum or the other. Polling data indicates that over 60% of Americans favor teaching about the Bible in public education settings.
The chair of Boston University's religion department has written a new book, "Religious Literacy," that makes the case for Bible-literacy courses. Beginning in the 1970s, he points out, "religion rushed into the public square. What purpose could it possibly serve for citizens to be ignorant of all that?"
It's a simple fact that a working knowledge of the Bible is necessary for anyone to be a full-fledged, well-rounded, thoroughly-educated American. The writer points out that there are some 1,300 allusions to Scripture in the Shakespearean canon, and numerous references even in Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" to the passion of Christ.
Biblical ignorance makes many key elements of American history impossible to understand. For instance, the phrase "the shining city on the hill," first uttered by a Puritan leader and re-popularized by Ronald Reagan is actually drawn from the teaching of Jesus as found in the gospel of Matthew.
Martin Luther King, Jr. deliberately emulated the Old Testament prophet Amos when he spoke of "Justice rolling down like waters" in his "I Have a Dream" speech.
As Time's religion editor points out, "The Bible is the most influential book ever written. Not only is the Bible the best-selling book of all time, it is the best-selling book of the year every year."
Even the American Jewish Congress supports Bible classes in public schools. "Take creationism," says a representative. "Unless you are literate in the first two chapters of Genesis, you have no idea what people are fighting about."
Yet even though nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the Bible holds the answers to "all or most of life's basic questions," pollster George Gallup has labeled the U.S. a "nation of biblical illiterates." Only half of American adults know the name of even one of the four gospels, and most cannot name the first book in the Bible.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no constitutional impediment to the literary and historical study of the Bible in the public system of education. In a pivotal 1948 Supreme Court Case, Justice Robert Jackson said, in a concurring opinion, "One can hardly respect the system of education that would leave the student wholly ignorant of the currents of religious thought that move the world." To put all references to God off limits in the classroom, he went on, would leave public education "in shreds."
In 1963, the majority opinion of the Court in another case explicitly declared, "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."
Even the general counsel for the American Jewish Congress agrees: "It is beyond question that it is possible to teach a course about the Bible that is constitutional."
The author of the Time story concludes, "In the end, what is required in teaching about the Bible in our public schools is patriotism: a belief that we live in a nation that understands the wisdom of its Constitution clearly enough to allow the most important book in its history to remain vibrantly accessible for everyone."
Reference: The Case for Teaching The Bible | TIME
http://www.time.com:80/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601845,00.html
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Returning The Study Of The Bible To Public Schools
By Bryan Fischer, Executive Director - Idaho Values Alliance, Boise
www.idahovaluesalliance.com
In a one-woman argument for returning the study of the Bible to public schools - as a necessary part of any thorough education - Barbara Walters admitted on the TV talk show, "The View," the she herself lives in virtually total ignorance of the Bible. The portion of one show was dedicated to a recently published article in which a professor at Boston University contends that we must, in the name of cultural, historical, and literary literacy, return the study of the Bible to public school classrooms. This professor points out, for instance, that there are over 1,300 allusions to the Bible in Shakespeare alone, all of which are incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the dominant themes of the Scripture. Said Walters tellingly, "I know nothing about the Bible, and I think most people don't." (The Bible: Rosie O'Donnell Studies It, Barbara Knows Nothing, Joy Says Teach It As Fiction | NewsBusters.org – reference: http://newsbusters.org/node/11659)
March, 2007
By Dr. Chuck Seldon, Boise
I have Good news for Bible believing Americans! God is still on the throne and we win in the end.
I listen to many great leaders in our country, who, first of all, know our American history, second, they learn from it, then they study world history and compare it to Bible History, Literature and Art. They are all basically saying the same thing. America must wake up to its spiritual heritage, and many of these same spiritual leaders are also saying that they are beginning to see the sparks of a third or fourth Great Awakening in our country. That is Good news!
Rev. Craft spoke here in Boise back in April on Morality and Freedom “America’s dynamic duo,” and he asked the question “Does morality really matter?” Media and special interest groups often tell us two lies they want us to believe.
Lie #1: “We must preserve separation of Church and State.”
Lie #2: “Morality and performance in office are separate matters.”
Our Founding Fathers had a great deal to say on these issues.
Independence Hall (Philadephia, Pennsylvania), where the Declaration of Independence was authored.
In Independence Hall where our Founding Fathers first declared an ndependent nation and later created a Republic, John Adams said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
It was interesting to watch and listen to C-Span about a month ago. Our Ex-President Clinton was speaking to a large group of reporters and Democrats in Washington, D.C. He pointed his finger at them and said, “If you don’t think morals are important to the American people, you better think again!” Possibly, just maybe, he learned something in office. There is hope for him and for our country.
I just returned from Texas where I visited my grandchildren and family. While I was there, I checked into the progress of “Putting the Bible back into the Public Schools” project and they are making great progress! They are up from fifty school districts to fifty five that are teaching the Bible in public schools as History, Literature or Art. Praise the Lord.
For more information, call me at (208) 830-6165 or E-mail Tammy Seydel at heritagehouse@qwest.net
Reference web sites for history of our Godly American Heritage:
WallBuilders
National Council On Biblical Curriculum in Public Schools
Bible Literacy Project
Other Links
New TV Special Connects Darwin to Hitler
Our Godly American Heritage Update - The Bible in Public Schools.
For more information, call Dr. Chuck Seldon in Boise at (208) 830-6165.
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