The proposal by a syndicate of religious denominations to have a member of the faculties of state colleges devote his time to teaching the Bible, the syndicate to pay the expenses of that teacher, is attacked by the Biblical Recorder, the organ of the North Carolina Baptist convention. The Recorder points to serious obstacles in the plan. In the first place, the inauguration of a department devoted to teaching the Bible would be for the benefit of Protestantism, and as the state recognizes no religious creed, a request for a teacher for Catholics and Jews could not be denied. In the second place, the Protestant churches are themselves so divided upon the teachings of the Bible that it would be well nigh impossible to give unbiased instruction. If all controversial matters were eliminated, the remainer would be practically worthless.
The position of the Biblical Recorder is endorsed by the Greensboro News, which contends that if the bars are let down, there is nothing to prevent a requirement that a rabbi and a priest be added to the teaching corps. As the News well says, Jews and Catholics pay taxes and are citizens of the state and are entitled to as much consideration by the state as are Protestant Christians.
Concluding its remarks the News says: “It seems to us that this whole movement is an endeavor to capture part of the machinery of the state and make it do the work that the churches themselves ought to do for themselves. The state did not erect its educational systems to teach religion, for the state has no religion. Now for the churches to try to take over that system and use it for religious instruction seems to us a highly dangerous and doubtful policy.”
We agree with both of the above mentioned publications. To adopt a policy of teaching Bible in state schools would be an invitation for trouble to come and sit down among the religious organizations. As stated by the Recorder, the Protestant churches themselves do not agree upon the interpretation of the Bible. For instance, infant baptism, closed communion, predestination, emersion and sprinkling, modernism and fundamentalism, and many other points of difference would constantly be rising up to complicate the situation and arouse excited controversy. Then, too, if the Jewish rabbi and the Jesuit priest are admitted as teachers, as they would be, then the Protestants would not be satisfied. The Bible is a great broo, the greatest there is, and should be read and studied by every person. But, to adopt it as a state text-book would defeat many of the advantages to be gained from its teachings, and would be the cause of constant strife among the several denominations and creeds.
Of course there is argument that the Bible being the greatest book ever written, it should be added to the curriculum of the state institutions, as its teachings tend to better citizenship, therefore the state should do all in its power to improve the standard of its citizens. But, each of the religious creeds has its own school to give the Bible interpretation suitable to its own peculiar belief. It would be folly, as we see it, to try ot teach the Bible and explain it so as to be satisfactory to Baptist and Catholics, Methodists and Jews, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, A.R.P., German Reformed, seventh Day Adventists, and the dozen or more other divisions not which religiou8s belief is divided.
Lead editorial from the editorial page of the Durham Morning Herald, Feb. 17, 1924, E.T. Rollins, President and Manager, and W.N. Keener, Editor.
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