There are fundamentalists at one end of the spectrum who believe it to be wholly authoritative and literally true. At the other end of the spectrum are people of non-Western faiths and atheists who see it as a piece of human literature, lacking any special authority. In the middle are main-line Christians and Jews who see the Bible as authoritative, but only in the moral sphere. These various groups argue, often passionately, sometimes violently, about the role and purpose of the Bible. These passions, and the fear and litigation they generate, are the driving force behind educators' reluctance to integrate the Bible into our classrooms.
Educators typically hide their fears under a false shroud of church-state separation.
What movie buff has not reveled in the magic of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark Again, these words and images all come from the Bible. It makes absolutely no sense, then, to treat its use as a church-state issue. Purely on secular grounds, the Bible belongs in the classroom. Before the Bible can enter the classroom, however, educators must stop treating it like our parents treated the controversial Lady Chatterly's Lover . If fear of controversy were the determining factor in curriculum design, our children would know nothing of their government.