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Members of the GOP this week debated and ultimately embraced an addition to the party's platform that encourages public high schools to teach elective courses about the Bible, one of several moves that contributed to Republicans' broad shift to the right.
Several GOP delegates said that they aren't seeking to inculcate schools with Christianity, but they are trying to make sure that young people are acquainted with a document that has played a significant role in shaping Western culture.
"This is not designed to teach religion in the schools as a means of proselytizing," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group, and a GOP delegate from Louisiana who supported the Bible-in-schools provision. "You can't really fully understand the American form of government and society without some understanding of the Bible."
Others said they want to give students a way to understand biblical allusions in Shakespeare and other literature, or want to honor U.S. history and the nation's founders.
"The first Congress of the United States in 1789 called for the distribution of Bibles for all children in the United States at that time," said Kansas delegate Kris Kobach. "This was an important principle that the Founding Fathers chose to embrace." But the role of religion in public schools -- which are legally prohibited from promoting any particular faith -- is an explosive issue. And even some members of the GOP -- the political home to many who feel that the secularization of public schools has contributed to the nation's moral decline -- said that the party is going too far.
"I am a strong Christian, but I do not want any state legislature teaching the Bible. The churches should do that," said Dave Johnson, a GOP delegate from Ohio, speaking Monday during the platform committee's debate on the measure, which was broadcast on C-SPAN.
The committee debated for about 20 minutes before approving the following language on a voice vote:
A good understanding of the Bible being indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry, we encourage State legislatures to offer the Bible as literature curriculum in America's high schools.
The full text of the draft platform has not yet been publicly released. It is expected to be introduced to and adopted by delegates at next week's Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Courts have long agreed that the Bible is worthy of study in public schools, so long as that study is academic and not devotional -- in other words, so long as students are learning about what the Bible says, not that the Bible is the truth. The Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that the "Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities," and that teaching it in public schools is constitutional if it is "presented objectively as part of a secular program of education."
But that's a big if. Experts and activists for the separation of church and state say it's easy for a class that is constitutional in theory to cross a line and become unconstitutional in practice, depending on how teachers teach it and what lessons they use.
"If the public schools can teach it appropriately that's fine, but it's dangerous territory," said Andrew Seidel, staff attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. "The problem we see is we often see teachers who don't teach it in an objective or critical standpoint. They teach it from a Sunday school standpoint."
State legislatures don't need to pass laws to give schools the ability to teach Bible courses; the Constitution gives them that right. But several states, including Texas, explicitly allow for the teaching of such courses.
Questions about how Bible courses would be taught in schools came up only briefly during Monday's GOP platform committee debate. Brandon Smart, a delegate from American Samoa, raised concerns that the language was unnecessary in order to allow for Bible-as-literature courses, and was problematic because it referred to giving students a "good understanding" of the Bible. Emphasizing his belief that the Bible is the word of G0D, and expressing skepticism that public schools could give students a "good understanding" of it, he proposed that the language be stripped from the party platform.
"Who's going to be teaching the Bible? And what are they going to be teaching about the Bible?" Smart said. "Are we going to teach that it's a historical document that is no longer relevant? Are we going to make sure that it's the actual word of G0D?"
But most delegates supported the measure. One said that stripping the language out would leave the impression that "the Republican platform has thrown out the Bible." Another, Jim Carns, of Alabama, said that it was important to encourage Bible-related classes because "Americans have been watching as we've slowly eroded the foundation of this country."
