Eighth-grade public school science teacher refuses to remove Bible from his desk ... faces termination

“We are Christians,” she said, “who practice our faith where it belongs, at church and in our home and, most importantly, outside the public classroom, where the law requires a separation of church and state.”

I suggest there’s a major problem with this mom’s definition of Christianity, concept of discipleship, and what it means to be a witness.

It’ll be important where this one goes. To my knowledge, sep. of ch. and state has not been understood before to mean you have to hide your Christian identity at a state facility.

Hide it, no, but I believe traditionally it’s been interpreted as saying that one cannot use a state platform to advance one’s personal religion. Having a Bible on a desk at a public school is one thing - I’d fight for a Muslim’s right to keep a Koran on his desk simply because if you deny him that right you essentially deny me that right, too. (How’s that saying go? “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”) But I think the courts have drawn the line when people start “abusing” their position with a captive audience to espouse religious views outside of a religious classroom context. Going by just that and the testimony given, it sounds like this teacher has crossed that line, and if you look at it strictly from legal precedent, I would be surprised if he’s not let go.

“Church and State” IMO is a widely abused umbrella these days, tho. It’s original intent in the Constitution was to prevent another “national church inserts itself into national politics and makes an absolute mess of things” (cf. “Church of England”). How that ended up meaning that no publicly-funded organization could have any whiff of religion about it is beyond me, and it’s unfortunate that it ended up that way. But I applaud the efforts of folks who work around those restrictions and offer off-site Bible clubs, or who simply let their lights shine and who are good Christian models (like this teacher - staying after school, helping students, and taking a genuine interest in their lives).

I can see how the prosecution might argue that the teacher’s position, and influence is such that displaying a Bible on his desk violates the modern legal understanding of “separation of church and state.” I hope they fail, though, because the concept has already been expanded beyond anything originally intended. I’d love to see it shrink a bit. But yes, we’d jave to allow the Muslim to display his Koran on his desk, too.

(The whole business of state-operated education is such a can of worms!)

I was watching news coverage last night of the election, and one of the people who got up to the podium to speak was talking about praying for somebody (you can tell I wasn’t really paying attention)- but it occurs to me that references to God (or a god) and praying are part of life, and politicians use the phrase “God bless America” like it’s a Kleenex. So why melt into hysterics if a teacher talks about their faith or has a Bible on their desk- as long as they don’t cross the line into proselytizing? You can’t scrub ideological bias from the classroom, and pretending that education can somehow be reduced to the sterile transmission of facts in a vacuum is at best naive and at worst just plain stupid. All you can realistically expect is that teachers refrain from overt promotion of any particular philosophy or religion- including atheism. ;)

[Susan R] just plain stupid.

That about sums it up.