Why Not Allow Schools to Teach Biblical Literacy?

We are a nation of extremes at times. We went, quickly, from a country where children prayed in school to one where any religious instruction in school was taboo, treated like a poison that must be kept out at all cost. But this policy has left a very real deficit in the education of our young.

American history, the history of the West, and indeed the history of the world cannot be accurately told without the crucial role religion has played in the lives of people and nations. Indeed, it becomes a whitewashed history, a story not accurately told. Americans are a religious people, but when it comes to biblical literacy, and the history of various churches and their development, they are woefully ignorant. The Bible is full of literature and history and stories that educated people should simply know something about, whether they count themselves as religious or not.

It is absurd, this notion that the Founders wanted religion purged from public life without exception. What they sought to prevent was the establishment of any state sponsored church, which as European history had shown, usually had a corrupting influence on both the church and the government. The courts should settle this issue once and for all, and allow a subject that has had such a huge impact on human history back in the classrooms where it belongs.