The Bible and Its Influence is a textbook first published in 2005 to facilitate teaching about the Bible in American public high schools. Its publishers, the Bible Literacy Project, say the textbook allows schools to study the Bible academically while fully respecting the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is designed for teaching either a semester course or a full-year course on the literary and historical influence of the Bible.
The development took over five years, at a cost of $2 million, [1] with contributions from 40 Eastern Orthodox, evangelical, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and secular experts and scholars.
As of September 2010, the Bible Literacy Project reports that the textbook has been adopted by 470 schools in 43 states, with more than 100 schools in Texas teaching Bible literacy courses. [2] On October 11, 2007, The Bible and Its Influence was designated by the Alabama State Board of Education as an approved textbook statewide. [3] This designation allows schools throughout the state to purchase the curriculum with state funds.
The Bible and Its Influence has received extensive press coverage. The cover story of TIME on April 2, 2007, described the rising trend in Bible courses in public schools nationwide. TIME senior religion editor David Van Biema stated, "Public school Bible electives should have a strong accompanying textbook on the model of The Bible and Its Influence, but one that is willing to deal a bit more bluntly with the historical warts." [4]
In May 2007, The Bible and Its Influence was also featured in Education Week and on NBC's Today show. The New York State School Boards Association's On Board magazine also had favorable coverage of The Bible and Its Influence, calling it "a remarkable textbook" in a July 31, 2006, review. [5]
Co-author Chuck P. Stetson, Jr. is a Christian Evangelical educational political activist. Stetson serves as chairman of the "Bible Literacy Project", an organization which strives to introduce Christian beliefs into the American public school system. Stetson was also one of the founding members of the National Organization for Marriage, a group dedicated to blocking the legalization of same-sex marriage in the US. Stetson was also long affiliated with Charles Colson. [6]
The Scopes trial, formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case from July 10 to July 21, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was unsure whether he had ever actually taught evolution, but he incriminated himself deliberately so the case could have a defendant.
The Christian right, or the religious right, are Christian political factions characterized by their strong support of socially conservative and traditionalist policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbooks and other books used in schools. Today, many textbooks are published in both print and digital formats.
Charles Wendell Colson, generally referred to as Chuck Colson, was an American attorney and political advisor who served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970. Once known as President Nixon's "hatchet man", Colson gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal, for being named as one of the Watergate Seven, and also for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg. In 1974 he served seven months in the federal Maxwell Prison in Alabama, as the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges.
The Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) is a denomination in the Evangelical Protestant tradition. The EFCA was formed in 1950 from the merger of the Swedish Evangelical Free Church and the Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Free Church Association.
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually Christian in character. Other religions like Buddhism also organised Sunday schools in their temples, particularly in the West.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA is an inter-denominational, evangelical Christian campus ministry founded in 1941, working with students and faculty on U.S. college and university campuses. InterVarsity is a charter member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, a network of similar campus ministries around the world.
Dallas Theological Seminary(DTS) is an evangelical theological seminary in Dallas, Texas. It is known for popularizing Free grace theology and the theological system dispensationalism. DTS has campuses in Dallas, Houston, and Washington, D.C., as well as extension campuses in Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, Nashville, Northwest Arkansas, Europe, Guatemala, and Australasia and a multi-lingual online education program.
"Teach the Controversy" is a campaign, conducted by the Discovery Institute, to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses. Scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, note the institute to have manufactured a controversy, where there exists none.
Tyndale University is a Canadian private interdenominational evangelical Christian university in Toronto, Ontario, which offers undergraduate and graduate programs. Tyndale students come from over 40 different Christian denominations.
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) is an evangelical Christian organization promoting a complementarian view of gender issues. According to its website, the "mission of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood is to set forth the teachings of the Bible about the complementary differences between men and women, created equally in the image of God, because these teachings are essential for obedience to Scripture and for the health of the family and the church." CBMW's current president is Dr. Denny Burk, a professor of biblical studies at Boyce College and director for The Center for Gospel and Culture at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Its 2017 "Nashville Statement" was criticized by egalitarian Christians and LGBT campaigners, as well as by several conservative religious figures.
The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), founded in 1978, is an association of evangelical Christian schools. Its headquarters are in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Complementarianism is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. The word "complementary" and its cognates are currently used to denote this view. Some Christians interpret the Bible as prescribing complementarianism, and therefore adhere to gender-specific roles that preclude women from specific functions of ministry within the community. Though women may be precluded from certain roles and ministries, they are held to be equal in moral value and of equal status. The phrase used to describe this is 'Ontologically equal, Functionally different'.
The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) is a conservative nonprofit organization that promotes the use of its 300-page Bible curriculum, The Bible in History and Literature, in public schools throughout the United States.
Christian feminism is a school of Christian theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. Christian feminists argue that contributions by women, and an acknowledgment of women's value, are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. Christian feminists believe that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex and race, but created all humans to exist in harmony and equality, regardless of race or gender. Christian feminists generally advocate for anti-essentialism as a part of their belief system, acknowledging that gender identities do not mandate a certain set of personality traits. Their major issues include the ordination of women, biblical equality in marriage, recognition of equal spiritual and moral abilities, abortion rights, integration of gender neutral pronouns within readings of the Bible, and the search for a feminine or gender-transcendent divine. Christian feminists often draw on the teachings of other religions and ideologies in addition to biblical evidence, and other Christian based texts throughout history that advocate for women's rights.
Donald Paul Hustad was a recognized leader in evangelical church music for six decades. Although he was an esteemed musician, composer, and teacher, Hustad's richest legacy resides in his informed criticism of evangelical church music and his well-developed philosophy of worship communicated through lectures, articles, and books.
Christian universalism is a school of Christian theology focused around the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. 'Christian universalism' and 'the belief or hope in the universal reconciliation through Christ' are concepts that can even be understood as synonyms. Opponents of this school, who hold that eternal damnation is the ultimate fate of some or most people, are sometimes called "infernalists."
Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism is a controversial biology textbook written by a group of intelligent design supporters and published in 2007. Its promoters describe it as aimed at helping educators and students to discuss "the controversial aspects of evolutionary theory that are discussed openly in scientific books and journals but which are not widely reported in textbooks." As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to "teach the controversy" its evident purpose is to provide a "lawsuit-proof" way of attacking evolution and promoting pseudoscientific creationism without being explicit.
Christina Castillo Comer is the former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Comer spent nine years as the Director of Science until she resigned on November 7, 2007. Comer's resignation has sparked controversy about agency politics and the debate to teach evolution in public schools versus creationism or intelligent design.
Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831.