A Florida House of Representatives’ education panel recently approved House Bill 195, a bill that would require all public high schools to establish elective courses on the study of the Bible. How can this be anything but the establishment of religion? Oversimplifying: The study of the Bible is a study of Christianity.
If the idea is to introduce a high school course so students can learn about the history of religion and the differences in religious practices and beliefs, then the course should be titled “Comparative Religions.” This is the study of religion, as practiced by the great religions of the world that are compared and contrasted. In this case, reference books might be the Bible (Christianity), the Torah (Judaism), the Koran (Islam), the Vedas (Hinduism), Tripitaka (Buddhism) as well as philosophical treatises of Aristotle, Mohammed, Martin Luther, etc.
