by Cheryl Gibbs Binkley
I have been hesitant to step into the fray on public K-12 schools and religion issues. There are lots of reasons for that. It quickly gets to be a religious argument rather than a policy discussion.
Religion is one of those areas so fraught with what we were taught as children and so tangled with feelings about how we were taught that it’s difficult for almost anyone to be rational or objective. It seems the nature of religious opinion to be dogmatic, for each person to cloak their personal views as inviolable, absolute truth. None of that gives us a stable place for a meeting of the minds, but because things have gotten progressively more conflicted and loud, I’m going to try and find that level place anyway.
Lately, the pressure has been growing in some quarters to make the Bible a required part of K-12 curriculum. At the same time, teaching African American history is being banned. Just recently the state superintendent of Oklahoma demanded that the Bible be in every Oklahoma classroom and Louisiana demanded the ten commandments be posted in all classrooms, while numerous states have limited teaching African American history and the state of Georgia withdrew funding for AP African American history courses.Those are only a few of examples of politicos and pundits insisting that Christianity, their form of Christianity, be taught to all the U.S.’s children, and that courses about people of color not be taught.
Years ago, I learned while co-writing Jesus and His Kingdom of Equals for the Jesus Seminar that Jesus often taught using two different methods. It might be useful to use those same kinds of teaching methods with contemporary questioners.
Jesus loved to use parables, stories that were not too long and quickly went in directions you would not expect. They often ended with a question rather than a pat answer. Most of us know some of Jesus’ parables, like the Good Samaritan which he used to explain “Who is my neighbor?” The implicit answer to that question in the story was, the mixed race man on the highway who is often regarded as less than me. He is my neighbor. So how can we demand to teach the Bible and reject the central idea behind one of Jesus' iconic stories?
The other method is aphorisms, short, pithy, wise sayings, like, “Let he who is perfect cast the first stone,” or the Beatitudes, the “Blessed ares ”.. the merciful, the poor in spirit.” Whether in parables or aphorisms Jesus universally was accepting of those others would make outcasts.
So, maybe let’s try a parable.
My parable starts with my mother and her love of teaching the Bible. When I was young, still living at home, my mother fell in love with Bible study. Some of her points of study were very focused on topics that were not very popular in mainstream Baptist churches back in the fifties and sixties, topics like when and how Jesus might come again.
Mama was a very charismatic teacher, young, with dark hair and a ready smile, quite beautiful, and well spoken. When the long serving teacher passed on, she was asked to teach the adult ladies Sunday school class in our church of about 500 people. Normally the ladies class had about 20 women in it. Within a year, Mama’s class was about 40-50 women on any given Sunday and the ladies were starting to bring their husbands with them.
Before long the deacons and the minister were getting concerned that they had an unordained woman in their church whose teaching was drawing a large enough crowd to shift power dynamics in the church. When the end of year came, the minister and head deacon asked Mama to step down from teaching. With much sorrow, she agreed.
Her Sunday school ladies were not quite so acquiescent. They threatened that if our teacher goes, we go. Mama tried to quietly leave the church to keep from splitting the congregation. It didn’t work, families left and the congregation split.
This happened over and over in multiple congregations. Mama loved teaching. It was very painful for her when she was not teaching. It was, second to her children, her life’s blood.
When I asked her,”Mama, why don’t you just form your own church? People are doing that now,” she replied, “Men are preachers, women are teachers. It would not be biblical for me to preach from the pulpit.” And so she went on, called to teach, both lauded and rejected for it.
Today, my mother’s story is playing out on a much larger scale. At the same time “leaders” are insisting that mostly women teachers across the nation teach the Bible in public schools, the Southern Baptist Convention is throwing out congregations that have women ministers.The Southern Baptist Convention is at a 47 year low in terms of member congregations and number of congregants. Individual congregations are sometimes struggling to keep the bills paid and the lights on.
There are many questions that arise from Jesus’ parables. That was the point of them, to get you questioning what you thought was true. To get you looking at a situation from a different perspective. So it is with my mother’s story. Questions come to mind and challenge what we think is true. Would Bibles in the classroom make our classes less divisive? Do ancient adult laws like the 10 commandments enable children to understand their own religious ideas any better? Would those leaders that insist on teaching the Bible feel the women teaching it are permissible or too powerful?
Ok, so let’s talk about some aphorisms that Jesus used, and ways we might use that technique. Aphorisms are not just used by Jesus. They are a mainstay of wisdom teachers across the millennia and the globe from the Buddha to Benjamin Franklin, or Tik Tok mavens.
For instance, the most famous aphorism in the world is the Golden Rule. “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” Jesus taught it, as did other famous rabbis of Roman times like Hillel.
Not so surprisingly, every one of the big 5 religions, not just Christianity, have a version of the Golden Rule as a centerpiece of their teachings, and most smaller, indigenous faiths also have a Golden Rule. So are we only allowed to attribute the Golden Rule to Jesus? He wasn’t the first to teach it. If public school teachers teach the Golden Rule are they indoctrinating their students to be “woke”?
Another idea that is gaining momentum in the U.S. now is that we are a Christian Nation founded as a Christian Nation. When I consider the question of a Christian Nation, I am often reminded of another family story.
My great grandmother Zula, more affectionately known as Ma, lived almost in the back yard of the Grace Baptist Church. She was a founding member of that church and her son-in-law laid the blocks and built the pews for it. She read her Bible every night by oil lamp. She also ran a neighborhood grocery. She had 5 children, three daughters and two sons. Her daughters belonged to Grace Baptist. One of her sons was Presbyterian and another was Church of Christ. Each son’s adult faith was selected due to their wives’ affiliations.
Those who did not grow up in small town 20th century America, may not realize the breadth of the divide that existed between Baptists, Presbyterians, and Church of Christ. These were the three largest denominations across much of small town America, particularly the south, and the differences between them that might seem small to outsiders were the stuff of deep angst and judgment among the faithful of each. Questions like: Were people saved by works or by faith, and how exactly was the right way to praise God with song were deep divides. They did not necessarily believe that the others would be “saved” or go to heaven though all three were Christian denominations.
When Ma got too old to stand on her feet and run the grocery anymore, her children came together to decide how best to make sure she was provided for. Most agreed that it was only fair that they all chip in some each month to make sure she kept a roof over her head and food on the table.
Her oldest daughter was blind and could not contribute. Everyone else agreed, except one. One daughter-in-law insisted that because Ma was not Church of Christ, she was not worthy and that son’s family would only contribute to her maintenance if she left the Baptist church and joined the Church of Christ. The daughter-in-law insisted that as a Baptist Ma was an infidel and she would not contribute her husband’s money to a heretic.
The Presbyterian son and his wife generously contributed the bulk of support. The other Baptist daughters had children to provide for but contributed what they could.
The daughter-in-law and son that stood on religious principle gave nothing and have been regarded as mean-spirited and only politely accepted for almost a hundred years.
When religious and political leaders talk about a Christian nation, I often wonder: Does that mean a Baptist nation, a Presbyterian nation, or a Church of Christ nation?
Cheryl Gibbs Binkley seldom uses the Rev. at the front of her name because when she began teaching in secular schools, it seemed inappropriate, but she does hold the seminary credential. Additionally, two of her publishing credits are in the area of curriculum about the Bible. Years ago she was the co-writer with Jane Mitchell McKeel of two landmark children’s curricula, one titled LIving the Promise on the ancient Hebrew scriptures and one named Jesus and His Kingdom of Equals (originally just Kingdom of Equals) on the historical Jesus’ life and teachings. J and his KOE was published by Polebridge Press, the publishing wing of The Jesus Seminar/Westar Institute, the preeminent think tank of scholars on the Historical Jesus. She has also written other books and handbooks.
