More public schools are embracing the Bible. Is it literature, or religion?

“What does holy mean?” asks Jamie Davis, a local youth pastor in Cochran, Georgia.

The seventh graders, their faces lit through stained-glass windows of biblical scenes at Bethany Baptist Church, go silent. The word is of course everywhere in the Bible, which they are here to study for academic credit. Though half of the students are regular church-goers, they are all stumped.

“It means set apart,” says Mr. Davis.

That notion of holy as separate is at the crux of a growing controversy around Bible literacy classes that are springing up in public schools around the country – or offered in coordination with the school system, as here in Cochran.

In 2019, 13 bills promoting Bible elective classes have been proposed in 11 states, with three states – Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia – signing bills into law. The classes are supposed to be purely academic, but they’re part of a larger conservative initiative that critics say is promoting a Christian

Part of a larger legislative campaignA majority of Americans support Bible electives, but ...Best student in Bible class: a self-proclaimed atheist