Bible Study?

Alabama Democrats will soon call for Bible Literacy to be offered as an elective high school class. The idea is that knowing about the Bible will make understanding much literature easier.

Well, you can't argue about that. Several pieces of literature directly reference the Bible and allude to it. On the other hand, in all my literature classes, the few times I didn't recognize a reference the teacher pointed it out. A separate class wasn't called for.

I do have my suspicions about the motives of the Democrats. I would be willing to lay money that should some teacher start, I dunno, preaching instead of teaching, that would be okay to many of the people calling for this. On the other hand, if it was JUST teaching, that wouldn't be wrong. At least one religious right group doesn't like the textbook, which seems to imply it's not a religious tool disguised as education, a la IDiocy. Of course, it could always just be that the book doesn't go far enough for these people.

It's an interesting idea though, with me having leeriness about how it's to be implemented. From some of the sample pages given in the above site, the book does seem to encourage questions about the Bible, which if it's being taught as a source (and not THE Source) it should. I am open to see where it goes, while nervous about the central idea of this course being hijacked by true believers.