As is normal with Bob, he is lying. When Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, he was also elected President of the Washington, D.C. school board. Washington, D.C. only had two schools at the time and they never used the Bible as a textbook. After Jefferson’s Presidency, a school was opened that did teach the Bible as one of several reading texts, but only because it was the only book printed in mass quantities in America. Most school textbooks had to be imported from England, and the war of 1812 was making that hard to do. And even then, people were complaining that the schools weren’t teaching religion!
In 1778, when Thomas Jefferson did show his plan for education, he intentionally left out the Bible as required reading, saying:
Instead therefore, of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European, and American history.I will never understand why Bob wants the schools to do the church’s job. Is Bob's faith so weak that he feels the Bible must be taught by people who may not even believe it? Or who doesn't believe it in the same way as him? Or is Bob so naïve as to think that every Christian thinks as he does?
I don’t want the Bible being taught in school because I don’t want my tax dollars going towards teaching a version of the Bible that I may not agree with. After all, if you were Catholic, would you want someone teaching that the Pope is evil? Or if you are a Baptist, would you want someone teaching that you must pray in tongues or that baptism is necessary to be born again? If you’re a Pentecostal, do you want your children to be taught that the last of the Prophets died almost 2,000 years ago? Or what if your teacher was a Jehovah’s Witness? Do you want someone teaching that the Bible says there is no Trinity? Not to mention if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Buddhist, or anything else!
That’s why it's not the job of public school system to teach theology. It's the church's job! If Bob feels so threatened by the idea that the only way you can have more Christians is to have the government dictate matters of faith, then what does that say about the faith of Bob?
Not much.
4 comments:
Bob likes to say it’s an “acceptable double standard” for the public schools to promote the Christian religion while ignoring all others.
Tthat not being enough, a few months ago he had a guest a representative of a group that was promoting the use of tube Bible as literature in public schools. He ripped into the group since their version of Christianity did match his.
Jefferson and Madison knew guys like Bob would come down the pike.
“Whose version of Christianity should we teach?” is the unanswered question, even if it were taught.
Similarly, if Creation was taught as an “alternative” to evolution, would it be “young earth,” or “old earth” evolution? Even ID is objectionable to young earthers since its promoter, Michael Behey, contends evolution happened.
Sure, according to some, there is a squabble over teaching religion on the public dime, but more intense arguments will ensue should religion be taught or “taught about.” It was in 1844, I think, that a Philadelphia riot was caused in part over a disagreement over use of a Catholic (Douay) bible or the protestant, KJV, in the schools. Several lives were lost and churches burned.
Welcome to the blog, Cricket, and thanks for the information on the Philadelphia Bible riots. I'm sure if more people knew about things like this more Christians would understand the need to keep schools from teaching religion.
Another good post, DJ.
Bob puts a great deal of effort into revising history. He ignores all the sectarian violence and slaps a happy face on American Christianity, just to promote his agenda.
So the first step in revising history is to claim that the Founders were all evangelical Christians.
However, the biggest problem in selling this revision is Thomas Jefferson, who was, most definitely, a Deist.
So Bob MUST convert Jefferson to Christianity in order for his enterprise to succeed.
The sad part is that Bob makes himself a liar when he talks about Jefferson.
He also offered as proof that the governmet taught Indians the bible in schools.
Truth is that the indians were forced to renounce their religion and convert to christianity.
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