Teaching the Bible without Teaching Religion

This has been a difficult area for me. I went to a Christian school for most of my formative years ,which left me with a skewed view of religious training, if not an outright phobia.

While the Christian education was not exactly faith-affirming for me (I think the turning point for me was praying in biology class: “Bless this frog which we are about to dissect. May its body edify our minds.”), I do appreciate the high level of biblical literacy I gained from that education.

In fact, I believe that it’s impossible to completely understand the culture and history of the Western world without knowing the stories of the Bible.

But, for me, all those stories are so wrapped up in my “Christian” education, I find it much harder to teach them than to teach the stories of the Greek or Norse pantheons, for example. While David has been getting steady diet of stories about Zeus and Odin, he’s had very little exposure to the stories of the Bible.

A short-cut, I thought, would be to take him to a local church Sunday School, but apparently Sunday School isn’t what it used to be, and the bible stories weren’t taught at all. Not in the main sanctuary either, now that I think about it.

And searching through Amazon, the only secular books of Bible stories I could find were graphic, sarcastic, and definitely meant for adults.

So, I’m left to my own resources, I guess. So this weekend I spent some time re-writing some stories from the Bible. Some are definitely easier than others. Noah’s ark, for example, is easy to write with no mention of a deity at all. Others, like Moses and Pharoah, are a little more difficult. I’ve found, though, that referring to the Christian God as “Yaweh” rather than “God” gives him a name rather than a title, and makes it easier to see where I’m going with this project.

I’ve also purchased a book called, “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know–And Doesn’t” by Stephen Prothro that I found mentioned on this blog ( I bought from his affiliate link. I hope he’s not too mortified) in hopes that it might point me to some places to prioritize.

Incidentally, I ran myself through the test on this page on religious literacy from USA Today, and only missed two: I only got two of Buddhism’s four noble truths, and I missed out on holy orders as a Catholic sacrament. I did, however, remember all ten of the Commandments. Eleven, actually, if you can get points for listing the Catholic and Protestant versions. Yay for me!

Tags: bible, religious education, religious literacy

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