Why do we need to teach the Bible in schools?

I made a comment on Goodreads about a book by Ann Coulter and here is a question someone asked. I don't really think he wanted an answer, but he got an earful anyway!

(He said, I think we don't teach christianity in schools for the same reason we don't teach algebra in churches.
There are comparative religion courses as well as history classes that touch on religion out there in schools, but if you want your children to learn about your faith, that's what sunday school is all about.

I don't mean to sound mean or snide, as your review wasn't mean spirited, but I'm generally puzzled by this idea I keep hearing that we have to teach christianity in schools. Why? What's not being covered in churches?)

(My answer turned out to be a long essay!!)Travis, that is a really good question. Why do we need to teach Christianity in schools? I strongly believe that our very freedom and the survival of the constitution depend on the morality of the people in our nation. It would be nice if the churches were sufficient, but very few people now attend church. John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled with morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Even over 120 years later, Woodrow Wilson, still felt teaching the Bible was important to our nation's survival, “I have a very simple thing to ask you. I ask every man and woman in this audience that from this day on they will realize that part of the
destiny of America lies in their daily perusal of the Great Book.”

I know that sounds extreme in this day and age when being a Christian is very unpopular and politically incorrect. But think about recent events. Are we the same Republic established by the founding fathers? No! President Obama has taken over many of our main industries. We are just as socialistic (or more) than many countries.

Why? The power of our constitution depends on the morality of the people. As we have become more immoral as a nation, we have lost many of our freedoms. They have slipped away so gradually, we haven't taken notice.

Since 1963, when the teaching of the Bible was taken out of our schools, sexually transmitted diseases went up 226%. Violent crimes went up 995%. Unwed birth rates went up 325%. Divorce went up 111%. Unmarried couples living together went up 536%. Child abuse went up 2300%, and illegal drug use went up 6000%. Teaching morality without religion has failed miserably. With no standard to dictate right and wrong, students will ask, “Why? Why shouldn’t I… murder people…divorce him…live with my girlfriend…use illegal drugs?” All the answer they could get was, “Because I say so…”

George Washington said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible. He is worse than an infidel who does not acknowledge his obligation to God.” Washington studied the rise and fall of many nations before he took part in constructing the constitution and knew what would happen to our nation without God and morality. There is a very delicate balance between Tyranny and Anarchy. Washington and the founding fathers established the Constitution that preserved that balance. As we deviate from the Constitution, we swing to one side or the other. The pendulum is swinging strongly toward tyranny. Why? We thought we could have freedom without morality which our founding fathers said was impossible. I am sure that sounds old fashioned, but look at our history and see that it is true.

As early as the 1700’s, there was talk of taking the Bible out of school. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his paper “A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book” that it was currently a fashionable practice to reject the Bible from schools. He wrote, “We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, stated, “And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion… reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

We have chosen to take the bible out of school. Our nation has suffered and will continue to suffer until we can return to being good. Alexis DeToqueville said, America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good America will cease to be great. "