The Bible: Still a Classic Worldwide Bestseller

Abstract

On the other hand, when we consider another equally strong intellectual and political strand running through eighteenth and nineteenth-century America, we can see why the Bible is rarely read in today's schools. Deists such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, as well as other philosophers and political leaders, focused their attention on the need to ensure personal liberties and the protection of our citizens' rights to conceive of and worship God in whatever way they chose. Many religiousbased groups and several organizations founded for the purpose of protecting personal liberties, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, have spoken forcefully at various times in our history for the separation of church and state. Not surprisingly, some churches have a checkered record of sometimes insisting on the separation of church and state and at other times promoting faith-based governmental programs. Given our history of almost constant debate about what the relationship between organized religion and government should be, it is not surprising that teachers avoid incorporating the Bible into their literature curricula. That is probably why I get the reaction I do when I assign readings in Genesis and Matthew in my senior Advanced Placement English class. A few days ago, as I began to explain to my AP students that after completing our discussion of Oedipus Rex and Antigone we would read and discuss two books in the King James Bible, one of my students, who is a member of a devout Mormon family, said, Yes, I've heard we're reading part of the Bible in this class. How did you get them to let you teach that? I explained that I'd presented my case to the principal, who, in turn, had taken my request to our central office administrators. I'm not sure whether