A teacher reads the Ten Commandments to a classroom of teenagers. It’s not Sunday school, but a Tuesday at Bearden High — a public school — in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Steven Prince has taught an elective course on Bible History for the past 13 years.
“We’re not forcing doctrine. We’re not forcing anything on anybody,” said Prince. “I don’t have any extra speakers come in. I don’t have them read extra books. I just have them stick with the Bible.”
Prince’s “just the facts” approach has helped lay the foundation for new guidelines adopted by the Tennessee Board of Education to help public schools provide Bible classes, but without violating the separation of church and state. State school officials consulted several other experts, including Emory University Old Testament Professor Kent Richards, who serves as executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature.
“You have to be very careful not to be professing Christianity or any other religion,” Richards said. “You also can not be wanting to suggest as a teacher that you should not follow the Bible. So, there has to be a level of neutrality.”
For decades, the “Bible in the classroom” issue has been an all or nothing battle between church/state separationists and advocates of religion in education. What is unfolding in Tennessee and other parts of the country is a common ground approach, where public schools can teach about the Bible’s influence on history, law and literature, while leaving the spiritual aspects to Sunday school. (Click here to see my related blog and video).