Bible Teaching in Schools Meets Guidelines
By Lana Sutton, Staff Writer

Every week, more than 3,000 Hamilton County public school students voluntarily sit down for Bible history classes.

Across the border in Georgia, such classess have come under legal scrutiny. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker has said there are legal risks facing Bible history classes taught in public schools there.

Hamilton County educators and Bible class teachers believe their course offerings won't face similar scrutiny because the courses are privately funded, they are elective and focus on history, not religion. And the curriculum already weathered court battles over the constitutionality of the classes in 1979, they said.

Mark Lewis, a Bible class teacher at Brainerd High School for 17 years, said the Bible links the histories of religions. He said he presents the Bible to reflect the authors' beliefs at the time, not what the children should believe.

"I'm well aware of what I can and cannot do,' Mr. Lewis said. "I'm aware of the tightrope I walk. Some things are impermissible in this class, such as to pray and to proselytize. I'm a history teacher."

Beth Kellerhals, superintendent of Catoosa County Schools in Georgia, said she believes the Bible classes in her district are not open to legal challenges because they are taught as voluntary history classes.

"I feel confident that what we're doing is not in any violation of the federal mandates," Mrs. Kellerhals said.

One reason Hamilton County's Bible classes have not encountered the kind of lawsuits filed in Georgia is that private donors fund Hamilton County's classes.

A single group has made this possible, the Public School Bible Study Committee, which has a $750,000 annual budget and includes local community leaders and businessmen.

Bible classes in Hamilton County's public schools have been taught since 1922, funded mainly through individual donations, but their curriculum changed to Bible history classes under a 1979 ruling from the late U.S. District Court Judge Frank Wilson. Judge Wilson said the classes could continue, but they can only treat the Bible as a historical document or literature, not as doctrine.

"Hamilton County may have found the solution to the problem: offer it as an elective and fund it privately," said Georgia Rep. William Clark, R-Ringgold.

The classes, taught in 17 Hamilton County schools by 15 teachers, are elective, meaning they are voluntary. The classes are offered in middle and high schools -- but not elementary schools. Bible class teachers, who before the ruling were often volunteers, were required in 1979 to be accredited teachers. The Bible study committee provides funding for the teachers, but the county school system selects and hires the teachers.

A record number of students, 3,403, took the Bible history class last year. It looks like this year's number will exceed 3,600, said Stephen Mitchell, president of the Public School Bible Study Committee. The committee coordinates the classes with the school system.

The program's $750,000 budget is provided through donations from individuals, churches, businesses and foundations such as the Maclellan Foundation, Mr. Mitchell said.

Georgia Attorney General Baker announced Nov. 22 that Bible history classes in his state may not survive legal challenges. The Georgia State Board of Education requested Mr. Baker's opinion in August, since some school systems are requesting state funds for the classes and there have been lawsuits. The attorney general said the only way Bible classes can survive is to be "taught in a secular, objective manner."

Hedy Weinberg is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which helped Hamilton County residents bring the 1979 lawsuit against the local schools. She said it is troubling when public schools teach aspects of religion, because they often cross the line. They teach the Bible history as if the religious beliefs in the Bible were facts, she said.

"What we have seen time and time again is the Bible is being taught as a way to promote a particular belief," Ms. Weinberg said.

After all, there are many bibles to choose from, yet it is the Christian Bible that is most often chosen for the classes, she said.

But Henry Henegar, a board member on the Bible study committee, said the skepticism is unwarranted. Mr. Henegar is also president of the Chattanooga Bible Institute, a nondenominational resource center that provides graduate courses and has a counseling center.

"They think it's fundamentalists trying to preach to children. That's not the case," he said. "In the early days, that was the case."

Mr. Henegar said the classes are not much different from the Bible classes his wife teaches at GPS or the ones taught at his alma mater, McCallie School. The first chairman of the Bible study committee, the late J. Park McCallie, started McCallie School's Bible classes in 1910 and started the public school classes in 1922.

There have been only two other chairmen of the Bible study committee, the late Hugh Maclellan and current chairman, Tom McCallie III, Maclellan Foundation president.

Mr. Mitchell said there are many reasons donors choose to participate in bringing the classes to students. They include making sure students have a choice of religions, concern for violence in the schools and nostalgia for the days when the classes were available to them as part of public schooling.

There are 45 members of the Public School Bible Study Committee. Officers of the executive committee, other than Mr. Mitchell and Mr. McCallie, include Lee Anderson, associate publisher and editor of the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga Free Press, attorney Michael Pineda and developer L.B. Austin III, vice chairmen; W. Ray Webb Jr., secretary; and Mr. Henegar, treasurer. Cheryl B. Clark is assistant treasurer.

The legal threat to public school Bible classes in Georgia is unfortunate, but real, said Nor th Georgia's Rep. Clark.

"The attorney general sees the potential problems with this," he said. "And he's telling people, 'If you do it, do it right or the courts will kick it out.' "

Community demographics are changing and include more Muslims, Buddhists and other world religions, he said. It is harder for people to understand why the Bible and not other ancient historical documents aren't selected for history classes, the Georgia legislator said.

"We used to get away with it because we were all Christians," he said.

Although he wishes the Bible were still taught in schools, he said there are tangible legal risks to teaching the classes, and there may be good reasons for teaching comparative religions as well as the Bible of one religion.

Some of Mr. Lewis' students at Brainerd High School stayed after class last Tuesday to discuss whether Bible history belongs in public schools.

"This class shouldn't offend at all," said senior Chanda Thurman. "Mr. Lewis doesn't teach you to be a Christian. He teaches what's in the Bible. If he was just preaching, he wouldn't have as much effect on people."

Sophomore Kevin Hermon said the class doesn't just reach out to the Christian students, and it teaches about more than just the Christian religion.

"Anybody can take the class. It'll tell you about Jews, Christians, Muslims, many religions," he said.

"Today's lesson is Jesus on trial," Mr. Lewis told his class. The 20 students watched parts of two different documentaries on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. There were gasps as the nails were hammered into his hands. A few of the students grabbed their wrists or crossed their arms as the hammer fell.

Mr. Lewis defended knowledge of the Bible as critical to understanding past and current world events.

The Bible is a reference for historians. It documents 2,000 years of civilization's 5,000-year-history, he said. And the Bible corroborates the writings of historians through the ages.

"No other ancient manuscripts are as well attested to as the Bible," he said. "It's the central document of our imagination, of our whole culture."

Miss Thurman said reading the Bible has made her more culturally literate.

"It's easier to understand a lot of things that happened in history through the Bible. Mr. Lewis teaches it in a simple way we can understand," she said.

She said the Bible stories teach people to use their own judgment and pointed to the Russian proverb spelled in big black letters across one side of Mr. Lewis' room that says, "Don't believe what I say. Trust your own bad eye."

"He says that all the time," she said.

Harriet Bond, Bible Study Committee board member, said, "How do you understand the growth of Western civilization -- the Age of Enlightenment -- without understanding the Bible?'

Mrs. Bond taught Bible class for 28 years.

"We teach character education in the schools and I don't see any better way to teach it than by studying the characters in the Bible," she said.

Mr. Lewis said, "The Bible is the easiest work of literature to teach. It teaches itself."

This item appeared in The Times & Free Press on Sunday, November 28, 1999.

Copyright ? 1999, Chattanooga Publishing Co. All rights reserved.