EDUCATION AND THE BIBLE
Gary D. Erickson
“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.”1 The Bible
has a prominent place in education. The overwhelming majority of our founding fathers
were openly God-fearing Bible believers. Out of the first 109 colleges in America, 106
were started by the church.2 The first textbook in American public schools was the Bible.
This is why the U.S. Constitution, even though it is a secular document, was founded
upon Judeo-Christian principles and the Word of God. The Pilgrims came to America to
find freedom of religion. In contrast, some in today‟s society want freedom from religion!
In 1962, in a watershed decision, prayer was taken out of public schools. This
decision began a process of eliminating not only prayer, but anything religious from the
classroom. In 1963, the Supreme Court banned Bible teaching from the public schools. In
1980, it ordered public schools to remove the Ten Commandments from the view of
student. According to the Traditional Values Coalition, the result of this godlessness was
that test scores plummeted, child abuse increased, criminal arrests of teens proliferated,
teen suicides rose by 450 percent, illegal drug use multiplied, divorce began an upward
surge, and births to unwed mothers increased. Abandoning the Bible and anything
religious placed our nation in the midst of a moral meltdown.
According to a Gallup Poll, the following results reveal what Americans know
about the Bible:3
Q: What is the first book of the Bible?
A: Forty-nine percent answered correctly.
Q: What country ruled Jerusalem during the time of Jesus?
A: Thirty-five percent answered correctly.
Q: Who delivered the Sermon on the Mount?
A: Thirty-four percent answered correctly.
Q: Where was Jesus born?
A: Sixty-four percent answered correctly.
Q: Who was the mother of Jesus?
A: Ninety-five percent answered correctly.
George Barna offers the following trends and asks us to conclude with him that
these trends have not changed.4
Nine out of ten American adults cannot define the meaning of “great
commission.”
Seven out of ten have no clue what the reference “John 3:16” means.
Only one-third understand the meaning of the term “gospel.”
Yet, the nation is very religious—nine out of ten identify themselves as Christian.
If we ever needed the Bible back in education, we need it today!
1
David Van Biema, “The Case for Teaching The Bible,” Time (March 22, 2007).
2
Clarence H. Benson, The Sunday School in Action (Bible Institute Colportage Assn., 1935), 31.
3
George Gallop and Michael Lindsey, Surveying the Religious Landscape, (New York:
Morehouse Group, 2000), 49.
4
George Barna, Evangelism That Works, (Grand Rapids: Regal Books, 1995), 35.
Where are our children going to get a biblical education? David Van Biema, in a
resent article in Time magazine, suggested that we need to put the Bible back into the
public school classroom. He says this about the Bible and education:
“According to Religious Literacy, polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans
believe the Bible holds the answers to „all or most of life‟s basic questions,‟ but
pollster George Gallup has dubbed us „a nation of biblical illiterates.‟ Only half of
U.S. adults know the title of even one Gospel. Most can‟t name the Bible‟s first
book. The trend extends even to Evangelicals, only 44% of whose teens could
identify a particular quote as coming from the Sermon on the Mount.”5
Robert Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1941-1954, said, “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 society. . . [in] which he is being
prepared [to live]”6 quotes Justice Tom C. Clark: “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.”7
I hope these suggestions are taken seriously by our federal and state governments
and that they allow the Bible to be taught once again in the public school system. Of
course, we would all agree it would need to be taught objectively. Nevertheless, presently
the church and the home are the only places most of our students are getting an education
that includes the Bible. This puts a heavy responsibility upon parents, pastors, Sunday
school teachers, and other teaching ministries. Our students need to learn the books of the
Bible and memorize key verses. Sunday school cannot be replaced with a children‟s
church that is all “song and dance.” There has never been a time when biblical education
in the church is so desperately needed.
5
Robert Jackson quoted in Biema, “The Case for Teaching”
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.