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Religious Literacy
Stephen
Prothero
Stephen
Prothero suggests that our politicians learn about comparative
religions.
The Case for Teaching The
Bible
Excerpt from Time Magazine
Thursday, Mar. 22, 2007
SIMPLY PUT,
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. In a 1992 survey of
English teachers to determine the top-10 required "book-length
works" in high school English classes, plays by Shakespeare
occupied three spots and the Bible none. And yet, let's compare
the two: Beauty of language: Shakespeare, by a nose. Depth of
subject matter: toss-up. Breadth of subject matter: the Bible.
Numbers published, translated etc: Bible. Number of people
martyred for: Bible. Number of wars attributed to: Bible. Solace
and hope provided to billions: you guessed it. And Shakespeare
would almost surely have agreed. According to one estimate, he
alludes to Scripture some 1,300 times. As for the rest of
literature, when your seventh-grader reads The Old Man and the
Sea, a teacher could tick off the references to Christ's
Passion--the bleeding of the old man's palms, his stumbles while
carrying his mast over his shoulder, his hat cutting his
head--but wouldn't the thrill of recognition have been more
satisfying on their/own?
If literature
doesn't interest you, you also need the Bible to make sense of
the ideas and rhetoric that have helped drive U.S. history. "The
shining city on the hill"? That's Puritan leader John Winthrop
quoting Matthew to describe his settlement's convenantal
standing with God. In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham
Lincoln noted sadly that both sides in the Civil War "read the
same Bible" to bolster their opposing claims. When Martin Luther
King Jr. talked of "Justice rolling down like waters" in his "I
Have a Dream" speech, he was consciously enlisting the Old
Testament prophet Amos, who first spoke those words. The Bible
provided the argot--and theological underpinnings--of women's
suffrage and prison-reform movements.
And then there
is today's political rhetoric. For a while, secular liberals
complained that when George W. Bush went all biblical, he was
speaking in code. Recently, the Democratic Party seems to have
come around to the realization that a lot of grass-roots
Democrats welcome such use. Without the Bible and a few imposing
secular sources, we face a numbing horizontality in our
culture--blogs, political announcements, ads. The world is flat,
sure. But Scripture is among our few means to make it deep.
Doesn't secular
teaching about the Bible play into the hands of the religious
right and the secular left?
If you want to
take my Religious Literacy Quiz, here's a reprint of it from the
Deseret News of Salt Lake City. Good luck!
"The Case
for Teaching the Bible": April 2, 2007 "Time Magazine" cover
story by religion writer David Van Biema explaining "Why We
Should Teach the Bible in Public Schools (But Very, Very
Carefully)." Van Biema is a great reporter, and this piece
is well researched, well written, and timely. "Religious
Literacy," writes Van Biema, "presents a compelling argument
for Bible-literacy courses." He then devotes the rest of the
article to exploring that argument.
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General Baptists
Baptists were first identified by the
name General Baptists in
17th century
England.
They were called General Baptists because they
believed in a general atonement — holding that the
death of Christ made salvation possible for any persons who
voluntarily exercise faith in Christ. |
In America
In America, the General Baptists also
declined and were often overtaken by the churches of the
Regular Baptists. Remnants were
probably responsible for the rise of the
Free Will Baptists in North
Carolina. Other groups have risen that have an Armenian
general atonement emphasis, including the
General Six-Principle Baptists and
the
General Association of General Baptists.
In (2005), the majority of English and American Baptist
churches hold a moderately Calvinistic outlook, combining
the general atonement whosoever will views of the
General Baptists. |
The Healing
Place
1020 West Market Street
Louisville,
KY
40202
(502) 585.4848
Our Mission:
To
reach the homeless,
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and help Restore productive lives.
Our
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Our
History: For 15 years The Healing Place has provided men
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has partnered with The Healing Place as friends spreading
the environment of community to our city and witnessing the good news of
Jesus Christ. |
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