Schools to use secular text in controversial Bible course

WASHINGTON, March 3 (JTA) — A Florida school district has agreed to use a secular, university-level textbook to teach a Bible class as part of a settlement reached in a church-state dispute. Seven parents, clergy and other community members — including the president of the local Jewish federation — had filed suit to block the high school Bible course in the Lee County school district, claiming that it teaches the Bible as historical fact and indoctrinates students to Christianity. The original two-part course would have covered what Christians call both the Old and New Testaments, but in January, a U.S. district judge issued an injunction stopping the school from implementing the New Testament phase and also ordered the school board to try to settle the lawsuit. Church-state watchdogs, who had been looking at Lee County as a critical front in the battle over religion in public schools, said the settlement marks a clear victory for the plaintiffs and First Amendment rights regarding the separation of church and state. Ken Weiner, president of the Jewish Federation of Lee and Charlotte Counties and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, was more guarded, saying he had “mixed emotions” about the settlement. “My first choice would be no Bible in the public schools at all, but I recognize that it’s legal to teach about religion,” Weiner said in a telephone interview. The settlement, which the school board agreed to unanimously, requires the schools to base the Bible history course on a textbook called “Introduction to the Bible.” It also calls for the course to be taped on audio cassette until June 1999 so the plaintiffs can monitor how it is taught.