Down in Decatur, Alabama, an editor is incensed:
The headline on a news article in Wednesday’s newspaper said, “Alabama House GOP blocks vote on Bible class bill.”The headline is correct because Republican House members Tuesday prevented a Democratic bill from coming up for debate that would name “The Bible as Literature” as an acceptable text for an elective course in public high schools.
The bill and vote caught Republicans between the rock and a hard place they are so adept at placing Democrats.
Knowing their usual opposition to issues that mix religion and government, it's difficult to imagine Democrats being serious about the bill.
But Republicans knew that if they joined in supporting it, they would hand Democrats one of their bedrock issues, which they figured is the motive behind the bill.
Thus, Republicans voted to stop it from consideration, which also gives Democrats an issue Republicans laid claim to long ago.
“They are going to take this vote and mail it out and say we were against the Bible,” GOP House member Micky Hammon of Decatur lamented.
Meanwhile, in England, the Guardian muses seriously:
People’s cherished religious values are best not subjected to public scrutiny in the same way that the foibles of public officials and politicians are. This is imprudent for a newspaper known for its undaunted commitment to coverage of grassroots issues affecting minorities and the majority of people in the country.
Fifteen years ago someone wrote seriously:
Schizophrenic individuals who claim to have had a mystical experience are similar to other schizophrenic individuals in that they:1. do not feel any greater control over their experiences than other schizophrenics;
2. do not experience a greater since of coping ability than other schizophrenics;
3. do not experience any more improvement in their relationships than other schizophrenics;
4. experience terror, fear, depression, and a sense of insecurity.Schizophrenic individuals who claim to have had a mystical experience differ from other schizophrenic individuals in that they:
1. are more likely to have experienced a sense of unity, oneness, or connectedness in the world;
2. report more of a range of affective experiences, and are more likely to have experienced joyful, peaceful states of consciousness;
3. are more likely to report time-space distortions;
4. experience more of a sense of sacredness or holiness;
5. are more likely to see their experiences as valid and meaningful than other schizophrenics”.
Meanwhile, in America, if a modern day Hitler is ever to rise up, he might just come flying in on Jesus’ donkey rather than his elephant.
Yes indeed. Pigs and Elephants can fly. Maybe Donkeys can too.
Letter to the editor, The Decatur Daily, Decatur, Alabama
In your editorial "Democrats wouldn't dare use religion for politics," you say that Democrats usually oppose "issues that mix religion and government" and therefore "it's difficult to imagine Democrats being serious about" a bill that would allow a course called "The Bible as Literature" as an elective for high school students.
Well, as a Democrat, and moreover a firm believer in Jefferson's wall between church and state, and furthermore a Northern liberal, I think that course, especially if it uses the King James Bible, is a great idea. Much of the great literature in the English language--and the great speeches in politics, I might add, as well as sermons--relies on this book's concepts and quotations, parallels and cadences. These days, college students often lack KJV exposure through lack of any Bible knowledge, through study of a highly accurate modern translation that is ungainly and tin-eared (try to get some comfort from a recent rendering of Psalm 23, if you don't believe me), or, according to what I see on TV, through Bible exposure pretty much limited to the prohibitions in KJV Leviticus.
Do let me know how this turns out. I might suggest that Pennsylvania adopt a similar measure if our legislature ever gets done saving my marriage from terrorists, or whatever it is they're fussing about.
Mrs. Buck Batard
Posted by: Mrs. Batard on February 9, 2006 7:33 PMThere was a popular "Bible as Literature" class in my public high school in the 1980s. The teacher happened to be a practicing Episcopalian who had once studied for the priesthood, but he did not teach religious belief; he encouraged students to look at the influence of the Bible on the literatures and cultures of people who have granted great importance to this rather dramatic and bloody epic. There's nothing wrong with reading and discussing the Bible per se. The question is whether the discussion is used to promote religious belief or to stigmatize (note Biblical reference) those who lack such belief. The same guy taught Dante's *Inferno* as literature, and he didn't tell anyone they'd be spending eternity as a thorn tree or an ice cube either.
/M
Posted by: Martha Bridegam on February 9, 2006 9:52 PM